Abuse of a revolutionary by the bourgeois press (1979)

From the Fall 1979 issue of The Western Socialist

If one thing is certain it is this: that no writer in history has been more misrepresented by his friends or vilified and abused by his foes than Karl Marx. For example, his “friends” the Russians misrepresent him to help them continue the massive fraud that Russia has something to do with socialism or communism. On the other hand, his avowed enemies don’t consider at what he said, merely at what his supposed friends said he said. And as that is usually so awful, the press find it useful to present Marx to the working class as a sort of bogey man, in a way mothers used to frighten children. What concerns socialists is not some defence of Marx as though his works were holy writ. But we are interested here for two main reasons: first, because we think truth is important; second, because although the case of the WSP is our own unique point of view, we are the first to acknowledge our debt to Marx. It was his towering achievements that enabled the founders of this party to place socialism on a sound basis.

So let me take two prime examples of abuse of Marx from the British bourgeois press to illustrate the point. The first from The Times in an article by Philip Howard called “Keeping cool in these muddy Marxist waters” (12/29/76). This article explains that the word “Marxism” has been used indiscriminately and suggests that the term ought to be used to describe followers of the political and economic theory of Marx. Howard then gives the reader the “three principles” of Marx. It is fair to say that the first principle is approximately correct but trite, and that the second and third principle given by Howard are wrong. The first principle says Howard is that Marx held that “labour is basic to wealth,” Now this is not a doctrine of Marx, but a truism that was obvious long before Marx was born. What Marx did, however, was to point out that capitalism functions on the basis of the work of the working class being paid for (in wages) by the capitalist class, at less than the worth of the things (commodities) the workers produced for the capitalists. This difference between what the worker produces for the capitalist and what the capitalist pays the worker is what Marx called “surplus value,” (I come back to that below) and is the source of profit.

The second principle of Marx according to Howard is “that economic determinism governs human activities in every sphere.” Rubbish! Marx said no such thing! Economic determinism means that every human action, in particular the human actions involved in the development of human society, i.e., history, are purely the result of the economic relations in society. Put simply the doctrine means men have no say in their destiny. This is not what Marx said at all. On the contrary, Marx said that men make history, though they do not necessarily do so as “free agents.” They can only make history out of the circumstances at hand. To take a simple example: it is impossible to build a machine that will fly, until scientific development has reached a certain level. Economic determinism is a doctrine designed to demonstrate that human action is irrelevant to social change. The horrors that have been practiced in its name by the Soviet block owe nothing to Marx.

The third principle of Marx according to Howard is “that historical development . . . must lead to the violent overthrow of the capitalist class and the taking over of the means of production by the proletariat. the real problem here is the word “violent.” Marx (and Engels) made it clear that in those countries where political democracy prevails (for example in the USA today) the revolution to establish socialism must be democratic and peaceful. Indeed, the socialist revolution cannot occur in any other way. The “violence” notion is an invention of others, usually used to justify the purported establishment of socialism in the face of the opposition of the majority. But socialism can only be established by the majority of the world’s working class, in the full knowledge of all that the establishment of socialism entails. This means that the socialist revolution must be a peaceful one. Violence is only necessary where understanding is absent. This is the WSP’s point of view, and there is nothing in Marx’s mature works that dissents from it.

So Howard, having started out to present the alleged principles of Marxism, ends by spreading as much confusion as possible. But then slandering Marx is no new thing for the bourgeois press. The right-wing Daily Telegraph naturally is not above such things. They published an article on Marx by Robert Conquest called ‘“A Little Bit of Poison”. (4/30/77) If for that title you read “A Huge Host of Invention” you will have an idea of the article’s purpose.

Conquest’s article says that Marx was wrong from the word go (though in the same article Conquest says Marx is refuted by 1900!). The article begins with a classic piece of villainy — identifying people who CLAIM that what they stand for has something to do with Marx, as representative of Marx’s ideas. Conquest starts with Wedgwood Benn (the British Labour Party politician) and ends, predictably, with Lenin and the Russian monstrosity. Conquest first says that Wedgwood Benn and the faction of the Labour Party that he represents has something to do with Marxism. How incredible it is that this myth still persists. The Labour Party (Wedgwood Benn and the others) is a party committed to one system of society only, capitalism. It was formed to obtain political power for the purpose of trying to do the impossible — improve capitalism in the interests of the working class. Seventy-three years after its inception, here is the Labour Party today still feebly trying to do the undoable, make capitalism work for all. Mr. Conquest has nothing to do with Marx’s main aim; i.e., the analysing of capitalism in monumental detail for the purpose of showing the working class that capitalism is not in their interests.

To get to the end of Conquest’s article, he deals with Russia and the Leninist distortion. The World Socialist Party has pointed out time after time the ludicrous nature of the suggestion that what took place in Russia in 1917 and has been taking place since has anything to do with socialism or by implication with Marx. There is no need to set out at length again the reasons the WSP and its companion parties has given for pointing out that the Russian revolution was not socialist. Anyone who wants further information on this subject is welcome to write to the party, and references to extensive party literature dealing with the subject can be supplied. Suffice it to say here that the Russian working class in 1917 was in no way ready to establish a world of common ownership.

Between these two extremes of ignorance and prejudice Conquest turns his mighty attention to Marx’s analysis of the class struggle and the importance of surplus value. Conquest claims that Marx analysed society in terms of class struggle, and then in his later research discovered that in modern times the class struggle “is rooted in the fact that all profit is extracted — as ‘surplus value’ — from the workers”. This argument says Conquest “is purest metaphysics. No evidence was presented”! This last libel borders on the fantastic. To claim that Marx’s economic analysis is wrong is one thing. If such an argument were supported by reasoned discussion it could be examined on its merits. But lack of evidence! Has Conquest ever tried to lift the 3 volumes of “Capital” and the 3 volumes of “Theories of Surplus Value,” let alone read them? The painstaking way Marx evidences his arguments is so formidable that it has a lot to do with Marx’s work being so lengthy. (Incidentally, Marx himself was not above a joke at his own expense on this score. While working on “Capital” he wrote to Engels. “I am stretching out this volume since those German dogs estimate the value of books by their cubic contents”!) He “stretched out” all 3 volumes of “Capital” by including a large amount of data, mostly from government sources, all justifying his theoretical contentions. To claim that Marx had no evidence for his arguments on surplus value is the despair of the ignorant abuser.

Marx’s writings still merit close study and critical attention. They explain to the working class why it is that capitalism cannot and does not work in their interests. The WSP argues that the only conclusion to be drawn from Marx’s work is that as capitalism can’t solve the problems it raises, a different sort of society must be established. To that end, Marx’s writings are as relevant as when first written. The writings of the Conquests and the Howards on the other hand have no relevance today, and are forgotten tomorrow.

R. A. Warrington

SPGB 2025 Summer School: What is Marxism? (2025)

Party News from the April 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engels) gave us a method for explaining how society functions, based on materialist principles and analysis of the economic framework within which goods and services are produced. This body of work has been summed up as ‘Marxist’. Since the 19th Century, these theories have been interpreted by countless historians, economists, sociologists, philosophers and political theorists and activists. Their work too has been called ‘Marxist’. Where does an interpretation become a misinterpretation, and how can we judge what’s accurate?

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion considers how Marxism has developed and its influence today, and the extent to which it is an essential part of the case we put for a marketless, stateless society of free access and production for use that we call socialism.

The Socialist Party’s Summer School 22nd-24th August 2025

Our venue is the University of Worcester, St John's Campus, Henwick Grove, St John's, Worcester,WR26AJ.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £150; the concessionary rate is £80.

Book online at worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2025/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. Email enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

SPGB 2025 Summer School: What is Marxism? (2025)

Party News from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Karl Marx (and Friedrich Engels) gave us a method for explaining how society functions, based on materialist principles and analysis of the economic framework within which goods and services are produced. This body of work has been summed up as ‘Marxist’. Since the 19th Century, these theories have been interpreted by countless historians, economists, sociologists, philosophers and political theorists and activists. Their work too has been called ‘Marxist’. Where does an interpretation become a misinterpretation, and how can we judge what’s accurate?

The Socialist Party’s weekend of talks and discussion considers how Marxism has developed and its influence today, and the extent to which it is an essential part of the case we put for a marketless, stateless society of free access and production for use that we call socialism.

The Socialist Party’s Summer School 22nd-24th August 2025

Our venue is the University of Worcester, St John's Campus, Henwick Grove, St John's, Worcester,WR26AJ.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £150; the concessionary rate is £80.

Book online at worldsocialism.org/spgb/summer-school-2025/ or send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) with your contact details to Summer School, The Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4 7UN. Day visitors are welcome, but please e-mail for details in advance. Email enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk.

The Critics Criticised – Professor Popper Looks at History pt.2 (1956)

Book Review from the July 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from the June Issue)

Mr. Popper’s own evaluation of history can hardly claim any scientific pretentions. In the main he largely garbles the anti-Christian Nietzsche’s “power drive theory of history.” With Mr. Popper this power drive reveals itself in the history of political power which, he says, “has been elevated into world history.” This political power drive theory is explained by Mr. Popper as the impulse to worship or be worshipped. He repeats Schopenhauer that man’s besetting sin is making power synonymous with success. This worship of power it seems is due to fear (p. 272) although (same page) he appears to have changed his mind and made the power drive one of instinct which in that case makes him a Bertrand Russell adherent. This, then, is Mr. Popper’s theoretical contribution to the understanding of our times. One might add in passing that to grasp the significance of political power or any aspect of social power lies not in assumptions about some neurotic impulse or instinct but in an analysis of the historical conditions and social formations which explain not only the nature of political power but why different societies have thrown up different forms of political organisations. When this is done the power drive theory of history becomes supernumerary.

Mr. Popper has quite mistaken notions as to what constitutes history. For him, technocracy, political power, historical records, etc., are history. In fact they are not history, but the outcome of history. History itself is the story of man—not this man or that man but socially organised man in pursuit of his ends under given and determinate conditions. Since the passing of primitive society the pursuit of these ends has taken place via the agency of social groups whose aims and interests have been conflicting ones. It is by an examination of these social productive relations—the economic factor—that we reveal the rise and fall of institutions, traditions, politics, ideologies and other cultural phenomena and thus allow a theory of historical causation to become possible.

Marxism is an attempt then to show the prime causal factors in the evolution of human society. In spite of Mr Popper’s efforts to show that Marxism believes there are mysterious impersonal forces in history which shape man’s destiny, it is no more mysterious than other evolutionary concepts which seek to account for development in other fields.

Men make history Marxists contend and what some men have made, other men can understand. In this way history becomes an intelligible process and the past capable of being reconstructed by the same pattern of enquiry which marks other fields of scientific investigation. In the light of this, Mr. Popper’s remarks that men have only faked history seems more than a little foolish.

Mr. Popper is unoriginal enough to seek to be original and daring and too often succeeds in being merely dull and pretentious. He plays to the gallery by announcing that all the history which exists, i.e., our history of the great and powerful, is a shallow comedy. He brings in the usual gods whose function it is apparently to mock at human affairs and they indulge in the conventional guffaws at our expense. At other times he converts the comedy into crude melodrama by assuring us that the history which is advertised as the history of mankind is but the history of international crime and mass murder (p. 270).

Mr. Popper’s views on history seem to waver between a cloak and dagger conspiracy and another version of the fall of man. Neither of them can validly explain the actual evolution of human society: Why it has pointed in a determinate direction, viz., primitive society, slavery, feudalism, capitalism. And why in that order.

In spite of the nonsense talked about by Mr. Popper, Isaiah Berlin and others, that “historic inevitability” is another name for an automatic impersonal force which supposedly operates in history, Marx’s views on history were sharp and clear. Human effort and struggle he held were the means which brought about the historically determined. He never sought to make history a mystery. Indeed he claimed that history had no greater reality than that which could be discovered by the analysis of actual historical events. While unlike Hegel he never believed that history was the outcome of logic and reason, he nevertheless believed that it could be rationally explained.

Marx had then a view point on history. He did not believe it could be explained by abstractions like power drives or impulses. Nor it might be added by spirit, nature or some economic first cause. For Marx history had no purpose which was not the purpose of man. No goals which are not human goals. It is men who will to do things. But what men will is always contramenious with elements in the social situation which are unwilled. Because society is a continuous process, men always find themselves in a set of conditions which is given. It is these conditions which give the scope and set the stamp on particular social aims and goals. When and whether they will be effectively realised will depend upon the objective possibilities within the social situation. It is true for instance that Socialism must be willed by men but it is not until a particular set of social relations namely capitalism, appear, can there arise the objective means for Socialism to be realised. Marx’s theory of historic causation explains then why men in different historic phases seek to achieve certain ends and what have been the nature of the circumstances which have allowed them to succeed —or fail. Critics of Marx have seized upon the term “objective” conditions, isolated it from its context and then accused Marx of propounding a prime mover on economic first cause which propel men along some predetermined path. Mr. Popper is an incorrigible exponent of this type of distortion.

It has already been noted that Mr. Popper’s conception of history, i.e., the story of power politics, technocracy, historical records, etc., is not history, even though each of them has a history, and even when he presents them as history he converts them into a masquerade of power drives and neurotic impulses. Because Mr. Popper denies there is any valid continuity, any causal connection in social development, he asserts it is only we who live in the present, who can change things not something called history. Almost a century before Marx had said: “Things cannot remain that way, they must become different and we human beings must make them different.” Indeed the whole purpose of Marx’s teaching was that only by understanding capitalism and acting upon that understanding would we be effective in changing it to something better.

Mr. Popper wants something better. He refers vaguely to the need of justice, democracy, equality, without any real reference to the social context. His own assertion that something called historicism alias Marxism sees men as pawns in some inevitable cosmic evolution which ignores their personal aims and attitudes, renders politics null and void, and allows “the social scientists to say what shall or shall not be done,” is a sheer invention on his part. He refers innocuously to the brotherhood of man but he has no serious quarrel with the present set up. He fails to recognise that the removal of class privilege based on productive ownership must be the indispensable and elementary step for achieving that “brotherhood.”

Ted Wilmott

(To be continued)

More on Populism (2021)

Book Review from the October 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Psychology of Populism. The Tribal Challenge to Liberal Democracy. Edited by Joseph P. Forgas, Willian D. Crano and Klaus Fiedler. (Routledge, 2021. 386pp.)

The stated aim of the 19 essays making up this book is, according to its editors, ‘to contribute to a better understanding of the nature and psychological characteristics of populist movements’. They further state that they ‘hope to highlight the fundamental threat that collectivist popular beliefs and strategies, both on the left and right of the political spectrum, present for the core values and the very survival of liberal democratic systems’. The shared understanding, implicit where not explicit, of all the authors is that the combination of the market with capitalist democracy constitutes ‘the most successful civilisation in human history’, and that modern populism, arising from both left and right, has certain common features such as rejection of liberal democracy, ethnocentrism, tribalism, xenophobia, emotional and/or identity-based politics, and feelings of personal impotence.

Current examples of governments considered populist whose features are analysed here are those of Poland, Hungary, Turkey and Russia, while strong populist movements in countries like France, Germany, Austria and the US are also subjects of study and discussion. Support for populism in these countries is seen as arising from such sources as simplistic beliefs, feelings of frustrated self-importance, ‘self-uncertainty’, a ‘need for personal significance, and the ‘human search for a meaningful world view’. And the detailed supporting analysis is often interesting and well evidenced.

But even though much of the analysis in these essays is acute and telling, many of the authors are too quick to identify what they term as left-wing populism with ‘Marxism’. In their introductory chapter, for example, the editors refer to Marxism as one of the ‘clear and well-articulated populist ideologies’ and the sworn enemy of any kind of individualism or tolerance. Referencing writers from the past with particularly strong pro-capitalist and anti-Marxist agendas such as Arthur Koestler and Karl Popper, they describe Marxism as featuring ‘the same degree of authoritarianism, dogmatism and intolerance also found in right-wing totalitarian movements’. The problem here, as with the ‘authorities’ they quote, is that by Marxism is meant dictatorial states which bear no relation to the thinking of Marx, regimes such as the Soviet Union or Mao’s China (well described as ‘a famine-wracked disaster’) and, in more recent times, countries often referred to as ‘Marxist’ such as Cuba and Venezuela, but again representing a travesty of any lesson to be drawn from Marx’s writings. And, again, on the ideological front, they refer not to Marx’s own writings or prescriptions but to Lenin’s distorted version or implementation of these and to modern-day theorists, often self-styled ‘Marxists’, who ‘share a strongly critical attitude to Western liberal values, a romantic attachment to anti-enlightenment communalism, and a cold-eyed focus on power as the major social issue of interest’.

The trouble is that what the authors are describing here has nothing to do with the analysis and theory which is at the root of Marx’s writings, seeking as it does to transcend so-called ‘liberal values’ and pointing to the need for a world society of common ownership and democratic control and of free access to all goods and services, where human beings, far from their individualism being denied or oppressed, are in ultimate control of their own choices and their own individual existence.

While this volume contains much that is instructive and thought-provoking for an understanding of how populism arises and is practised, it fails on the whole to see that it is the political and other divisions produced by capitalism’s so-called ‘liberal democracy’ that are the real lightning rod for the very populism it is dedicated to exploring and critiquing. And the notion with which it is shot through that individual freedom is incompatible with collective organisation is fundamentally wrong-headed. The ‘collectivism’ it continually refers to and deplores is that of dictatorial or semi-dictatorial regimes or ideologies, not that of a world society organised democratically to satisfy everyone’s needs.

Howard Moss

Bourgeois Political Economy in Shambles (2010)

Pamphlet Review from the April 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bourgeois Political Economy in Shambles. By Stefan Engel. Verlag Neuer Weg, 2009

This is an English translation of a pamphlet originally published in Germany, with the subtitle “Some additions to the Marxist-Leninist crisis theory.” ‘Marxism-Leninism’ was the official political theory of the former Soviet Union and was enforced throughout most of the former Eastern European satellite governments of the twentieth century. ‘Marxism-Leninism’ is often synonymous with Stalinism.

Engel gives a reasonable account of the current global crisis of capitalism, which began in September 2008.  Crises are inevitable under capitalism because, as Karl Marx pointed out, “a rift must continually ensue between the limited dimensions of consumption under capitalism and a production which forever tends to exceed this immanent barrier” (Capital, Vol. III). German chancellor Merkel, like politicians everywhere, blamed the “financial excesses with no sense of social responsibility, the abandonment of moderation and the middle course by a number of bankers and executives” which “steered the world into this crisis”. As Engel rightly says, this way of arguing “turns attention to the – undeniable – subjective failings of bankers and executives, and distracts attention from the essentials, from the laws of the capitalist mode of production. These laws compel every capitalist, whether factory owner or manager of a stock corporation, whether privately owned or state-owned company, to act, under penalty of ruin”.

But it is the ‘Marxism-Leninist’ understanding of the state, among other things, where it falls down. Engel quotes Engels on the state:

“The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit. The workers remain wage-workers – proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head” (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm).

This should have made Engels (and Marx’s) position abundantly clear, but Lenin stood this argument on its head and claimed that capitalism and the state could be made democratic and that this is what socialism means. Engel cites a passage from a pamphlet written by Lenin in 1917:

“… socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased be capitalist monopoly” (original emphasis, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/ichtci/11.htm).

However, the whole thrust of Marx and Engels’s critique is that capitalism and the state, whatever form they take, can never be made to serve the interests of the whole people. For the same reason, the idea of a “socialist state” is a nonsensical contradiction in terms. Lenin was never clear about the need for a “socialist state” as he knew it flouted the basics of Marxism, though it is implicit in some of his writings. Leninists have no such qualms and here we read of the need for a “socialist state of genuine democracy”. But  Leninist states have an abysmal record on democracy, preferring instead a dictatorship over the proletariat as they grapple with the contradictions of managing capitalism. In theory and in practice, ‘Marxism-Leninism’ is a shambles.

Lew Higgins

The coming of socialism. (1925)

From the August 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

A critic exposed.

After the Socialist has demolished in argument the case for capitalism his opponent falls back on one stock defence. He asks for a description of Socialistic society, and when he is informed that all that can be said about it with certainty is that it will be a society in which the means of production and distribution will be communally owned, and democratically controlled, in which production will be for use and not for profit, he cries, “There you are. You’ve got nothing constructive to offer. Your policy is wholly destructive, and your remedies vague and nebulous.” And that allegation comforts him and provides him with a justification for supporting capitalism which in argument he has had to admit cannot itself be justified. It is an old cry, but because it is being raised continuously it is worth while dealing with it.

The latest person to give prominence to it is Mr. Ramsay Muir. As Editor of the “Weekly Westminster” he has published a supplement entitled “The Socialist Case Examined,” in which he finishes up by flattening out the Socialist with ten questions, of which the first is, “How will the Socialist State be organised?” The other nine questions are equally terrifying, and show Mr. Muir’s journalistic skill in dodging the point at issue. Really Mr. Muir is not our pigeon; he does not attack responsible Socialism but the pink Liberalism of the MacDonalds, the Guild Socialism of G. D. H. Cole and the I.L.P. We will, however, remove those ten feathers from his tail (ten feathers of which he must be very proud, for he flourishes them twice, although that may be merely a trick of the journalist) because we can thereby deal with two birds with one stone. In passing it might be mentioned that Mr. Muir shows a greater knowledge of Socialism than the I.L.P’ers, etc., whom he attacks, and than he cares to admit. He points out, as we have never ceased to point out, that Socialism “does not mean a belief in using the power of the community for the purpose of protecting the weak, improving the condition of the poor and laying public burdens upon those who can best bear them,” and that it is foolish to think that legislation such as the Insurance Acts are Socialistic. He lays his finger on another weak point in the I.L.P. creed, when he points out that equal distribution of wealth, which the I.L.P., etc., seeks to bring about by inheritance taxes and capital levies, etc., would be useless at the present time, and is of only secondary importance. The main charge made by Socialists against Capitalism is that it fails to deliver the goods. The contradictions inherent in the system which is based on individual ownership and social productions prevent goods being produced in the quantities they might be. The system acts as a “fetter on production,” and it is because of that that we condemn it.

The question of distribution is only of secondary importance as compared with that of removing those fetters on production. Capitalism maintains an army of unemployed at both ends of society, under it many workers are employed unproductively, it presents the spectacle of equipment standing idle while those who could use it starve, it reveals man putting checks on the bounty of nature and restricting the production of rubber, tea, etc. It should be apparent then, even to a Radical Liberal, that anything that removes these evils will increase the wealth of the community. As they are inherent in capitalism they can only be ended by abolishing the system. To tinker about with the spanner of Manchester will do nothing, some of the “knocking” may be silenced but the car will still refuse to go. It is a new car that is wanted, and it won’t be found in the green Liberalism of the Wee Frees, or the delicate shell pink “Socialism” of the I.L.P. It can only be the product of the class conscious desire of the workers themselves.

It is not worth while dealing with the few weak defences Mr. Muir puts up for Capitalism, they are old and outworn, and should have been pensioned off long ago. But before proceeding to spoil his lovely tail we would like to pause to tender him our sympathy. He obviously found it very difficult to discover what the I.L.P. really stood for, to find some meaning in the contradictory statements of their various spokesmen. We appreciate his difficulty. We also have sought to discover what the I.L.P. stands for and have failed to do so. Of course we have always known what it did not stand for—Socialism. And now to reveal the Parson’s Nose.

The first and most important question is the first, “How will the Socialist State (!) be organised?” Strange as it may appear at first sight, no fuller answer can be given to this question than that indicated at the beginning of this article. Incidentally no fuller answer is necessary. If a defender of Capitalism were asked to say how the Capitalist system is organised all he could say if he were honest would be that the means of production and distribution are privately owned and that production is carried on by a propertyless class in exchange for wages under permission from the owning class who control production and draw profits from industry. That is the base on which the present superstructure is raised, but the buildings are many and various. Municipal tramways, monopolies like Coats, private family concerns like Hugo Stinnes & Co., vertical combinations like Harland and Wolff, horizontal combinations as in the German and French potash industries, public undertakings like the Post Office all differ from one another in detail, and yet are all capitalistic in that they are based on one thing—the existence of a propertyless wage earning class. If, therefore, it is impossible to say how industry is organised under Capitalism without writing a book, it is not surprising that more details cannot be given of industrial and social organisation under Socialism. Any attempt at prophesying is foolish, for the co-operative commonwealth would obviously be a very different thing if it came in 1925 from what it would be if it came in 2025. Its form will depend upon the stage reached in industrial development and technique whea the revolution takes place. Moreover Socialism is not a matter of crystal gazing, Socialists are not prophets of the future but interpreters of past history. Socialism is a theory which claims to explain past history as a series of class struggles, and more than that it does not seek to do. And as Socialism will be brought about by the united efforts of the workers, it is impossible for any one Socialist, or any body of Socialists now existing, to interpret what exactly all the workers of the future will want, and it is not only the Socialist who admits his inability to foretell the details of the future. Mr. Stanley Baldwin recently dealt in the House of Commons with the evolution of industry within the present system, and even in those much narrower limits he confessed that he could not prophesy.

“I have just tried to put . . . my conviction that we are moving forward rapidly from an old state of industry into a newer, and the question is : What is that newer going to be ? No man, of course, can say what form evolution is taking.” (“Hansard,” 6th March.)

Socialism will be prepared by the development of Capitalism and the form of its society will therefore be evolved in the womb of Capitalism. It is only “middle class” thinkers like the Webbs who are so impressed with their own intellects that they think that they can super-impose some organisation from without, and that the child of their imagination will be cheerfully adopted by the whole working class.

The third question raised is, “Can Socialism increase our national income?” and to that an answer has already been given. Then comes the gem of the collection. Mr. Muir wants to know if Socialism would cure unemployment. If he had considered what unemployment is, and if he had not found it advisable to change his ground in the course of the argument (so that although he starts off by accepting expropriation as an essential of Socialism, he finishes up by assuming that compensation would be paid to property owners) he would have refrained from this foolishness. Unemployment is inability to sell one’s labour power, and therefore only exists as a concomitant of wage slavery. Socialism, by ending wage slavery, will therefore cure unemployment, and what is more important it is only Socialism that will cure it. In this is also contained a reply to the seventh question, “How would Socialism deal with Labour disputes?”

The question “How would Socialism affect our Foreign Trade?” is a queer one in the mouth of a Liberal. Mr. Muir fears for our safety if we have a revolution, as we depend for our foodstuffs on importation from abroad. Tariff Reformers have been pointing out this danger which exists under Capitalism, and clamouring for Imperial Preferences, etc , for two decades, and Mr. Muir has scoffed at them and waxed eloquent in and out of Parliament about “sinister self interest.” Has Manchester’s armoury so few weapons in it that it has to borrow Birmingham’s blunderbuss?

The last four questions can be left, they do not touch the case for Socialism, but are directed against the policies of the Labour Party and the I.L.P. The second question is equally beside the point. “How would Socialism raise the necessary capital?” asks Mr. Muir. If cards like these are the trumps in the Liberal hand then one is almost sorry for those who have to play the hand out. Capital—an instrument of exploitation, will cease with Capitalism. Under Socialism provision will only have to be made for the supplying of the necessary equipment to carry on production, the providing of that equipment will be a charge on industry.

But all these are old cries, and it is amusing to find them in the mouth of a leader of “rejuvenated Liberalism.” The surprising thing is that they continue to deceive the workers.

W. J. R.

The Critics Criticised – Professor Popper Looks at History pt.1 (1956)

Book Review from the June 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many critics see Marxism as a theory of iron determinism which regards men as puppets pulled by the strings of historical necessity. Mr. K. R. Popper in The Open Society and its Enemies, believes that too. One could say why bother about such palpable errors? The pity of it is not that Mr. Popper has written it but many who read him might come to believe it.

Mr. Popper holds that Marxist historicism is fatalism. He also holds that it helps to generate beliefs that men are mere instruments of impersonal forces. Such views, he thinks, tend towards men coming to accept a collective tyranny called by him, “the closed society” as against the “open society” where democracy and toleration prevail.

Mr. Popper is a christian toreador who seizes the Marxist bull by the historic horns by declaring there can be no concrete history of mankind. “Such a concrete history would have to be the history of all men; of all human hope, struggle and suffering” (p. 270). We are also told “it would have to be the life of the unknown individual man . . . this is the real content of human experience down the ages” (p. 272). Thus does Mr. Popper consign history to the unknown and unknowable. There are, he tells us, separate histories, viz., the histories of politics, technocracy, art, economics, poetry, etc. Such histories, he thinks, should be studied and interpreted from our own standpoint. We can, for example, interpret the history of political power in the light of “our struggle for the open society.” While history vide Mr. Popper “has no meaning, in this way we can give meaning to it.”

Just as one did not know where to have Dame Quickley, one does not know where to have Mr. Popper. Thus we are told (page 268) “The merits of interpretation must rest on its ability to elucidate historical facts.” Yet he informs us (p. 265), that “the facts of history have been collected in accordance with a preconceived point of view.” In that case they are not historical facts but highly dubious material incapable of providing any valid knowledge of historic causation. Indeed, Mr. Popper contends historical reasoning is circular, because, starting as it does from preconceived theories it can only in turn reduce preconceived theories.

But if, according to Mr. Popper, concrete history does not exist, then only what he terms the various histories can provide historical sources. But these sources he assures us are tainted sources. Any interpretation based on them must be suspect—including the interpretations of Mr. Popper.

Yet we are told (p. 266) that some interpretations have more merit than others. That is some are at any rate more in accordance with the accepted records. But if these records do not constitute genuine knowledge one wonders what real significance can be attached to the word “merit.” Curiously enough in the same paragraph we are told “that if only one authority which gives information on certain events that fit in with his own specific interpretation, can be radically interpreted in a different way, then this deviation may take on something of the semblance of a scientific hypothesis.” On the one hand we are told that the merit of an historical interpretation lies in its accord with the records and on the other hand an interpretation can only achieve some semblance to a scientific hypothesis by radically departing from it. But Mr. Popper’s statement that an historical interpretation can achieve some semblance to a scientific hypothesis is inconsistent with his contention that there can be no factual evidence and hence no valid historical knowledge. For it is obvious that unless such knowledge is available an hypothesis having any semblance of being scientific, becomes impossible.

Mr. Popper also tells us that although there is no such thing as universal history there are, nevertheless, universal laws of the separate histories. They are, he says, trivial and provide no selective and unifying principle. He gives as an example of what he means by a universal law of history by telling us that if two equally well armed and well led forces meet, then the one with a tremendous superiority in man power will win. This merely tells us that a good big ‘un will always beat a good little ‘un. While this may have some relevance in pugilistic circles what relevance it has to the character and content of history and the nature of historical investigation only Mr. Popper knows, but alas he refuses to tell us.

Mr. Popper repeats the stock objection to history by making invidious comparisons between it and what he calls the generalising sciences (such as physics, biology, sociology, etc.) This objection, however, tells most heavily against Mr. Popper, because if physics is taken as a model, invidious comparisons can be drawn between it and large parts of biology. While if we compare physics with the ad hoc assumptions and vast amount of unrelated detail which goes to make up the alleged science of sociology, then the comparison between physics and sociology becomes positively odious. While an evaluation of psychology on such terms would forever exclude it from any pretensions to be called scientific. Indeed, on the logic of Mr. Popper’s “comparison,” many subjects regarded as scientific would have to yield their claims in this respect.

It is true that historical investigation in common with many other fields of scientific knowledge cannot employ “the controlled experiment” of physics. It is not true to say that it cannot acquire valid knowledge. To paraphrase Marx, “In physics and chemistry the microscope and the reagent are used, in historical investigation the force of abstraction must replace both.” The force of abstraction is itself an integral part of scientific procedure. So far then as the possibility of obtaining valid knowledge is concerned it holds good for all fields of systematic inquiry. Thus history differs from physics in the same way that biology or geology differ from physics that is in subject matter and not because physics has a logic and procedure of a different order.

That there is no intrinsic barrier in the nature of things to prevent their scientific investigation is hardly questionable. If, of course, history was able to apply the same procedures and tests as physics then it would not be history. Mr. Popper apparently is not prepared because history is not physics to grant it any scientific validity.

Marxism does not hold that there is some impersonal prime mover called historic inevitability. It simply asserts that the complex phenomena we term history are capable of being coherently organised in a manner which gives knowledge and understanding to the affairs of men and the ability to predict within limits the broad trend of human development.

Ted Wilmott

(To be continued.)

Between the Lines: From Russia With Confusion (1991)

The Between the Lines column from the October 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

From Russia With Confusion

The mind-numbing simplicities of cold war propaganda dominated the British media's coverage of the Russian coup. News programmes offered a cartoon image of events. Gorbachev the Rather Good had been overthrown by The Big Bad Reds who could only be defeated by Boris the Great. As ever in the capitalist picture of history, the workers were depicted as mere spectators — extras in the scene: the BBC News called them "Yeltsin's people". Is that what all the bravery of the crowd was for — the standing in front of tanks and the demand that democratic rights be retained? All that to become Yeltsin's people?

For the media there was no question that the coup was successful. Great Man Gorbachev had been replaced by Judas Yenayev. And that was that. The media never once considered the possibility that people could alter their history — that the power struggle would be more than the in-fighting of a ruling elite. On the first night of the coup both BBC and ITN News broadcast effective obituaries for Gorbachev. When the crowd began to assemble, the media was shocked. But they did not explain this as the action of thousands of workers fighting against a dictatorship. The defence of the Russian parliament was explained entirely in terms of the will of leaders, notably Yeltsin. When the coup was overthrown the BBC and ITN continued to explain the whole affair in terms of a power battle at the top. But this was not so: the collapse of the Communist Party dictatorship after the coup's defeat was not decided by Yeltsin and his political allies (whose political careers had been carved out within that dictatorship), but by the will of the people, the working class majority. From BBC l's children's news programme Newsround to BBC2’s fairly sophisticated Newsnight the analysis of the collapse of state capitalism and the Russian Empire has been over-simplified to the point of utter distortion. Good has prevailed over Evil. Good equals the market which is portrayed as a redeemer. Yeltsin, a political opportunist, nationalist and populist demagogue, compared by those who know him well as a modem Mussolini, is given an uncritical press. Two days after the coup the ITV News at Ten included a ludicrous report about the failure of "Marxist economics" in Russia. This report claimed that Russia had been run according to policies stated by Marx in The Communist Manifesto written in 1848. This unsubstantiated rubbish was put out without a thought given to the long-standing Marxist analysis of Russia as a state capitalist country — which is exactly what Lenin himself called it at the outset. (Speaking of crazy historical claims, the school's supplement to The Guardian in the week after the coup claimed that Marx supported the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 — thirty-three years after he died!) On the day that Yeltsin's elite banned the Communist Party in Russia (an unpromising start to a liberal democratic government) the ever-mistaken CNN opened its midday news with the proclamation that the Russian people were at last free. Indeed, CNN's American hysteria was reflected on the British news broadcasts by reporters making wild comments about the euphoria of the Russian people. In fact with continued empty shelves in the shops, rent food and fare increases on the way and 30 million plus to become unemployed soon, the delight of feeling free was about as great as in the British cities where workers have spent the nights celebrating with street riots.

On 7 September BBC2 had Charles Wheeler introduce a programme showing excerpts from Leningrad's archives of propaganda films. The Orwellian character of what was shown was chilling. Never again, we suspect will such crude propaganda con the wage slaves. But what of the less crude methods of keeping the proles in their place? We expect that Yeltsin's new TV controllers are studying the methods of the BBC and the US networks for newer, more subtle tricks of deceit; less conspicuous forms of ideological doping.

In the modern battle of ideas the media is crucial. The media bosses are accountable to no-one, least of all the workers. They continue to lie, to twist, to omit, to push workers into believing half-truths, non-truths and cartoon views of the world in which we live. It was no coincidence that the first action of the coup organisers in Moscow was to close the TV stations which they could not rely on. If the parish priest was the ideological mouthpiece of feudal rule, the newscaster is the high priest of capitalist ideology.

This writer cheered at the overthrow of the Leninist dictators. Their downfall and the tremendous political fire within the bellies of the workers who took to the streets, who tragically do not know what they do want but only what they don't, was a great moment to live through. As the cheering of the media hirelings started, with all their phoney talk of the downfall of Communism and triumph of Freedom through Market Forces, this writer's cheering slopped abruptly. Solidarity with our fellow workers, yes; but with the cynical pimps whose champagne corks were popping at the thought of new profits to be made — Never!

Steve Coleman

A Correction (1970)

From the June 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the article “Inside the Bolshevik Cul dc Sac’’ (April Socialist Standard) we incorrectly implied that The ABC of Communism written by the Bolsheviks Bukharin and Proebrazhensky made no distinction between Socialism and Communism. In the first part of the book Bukharin describes the society the Russian Communist Party aims at as one based on common ownership without money, wages or profits. This he calls “communism” in line with the then policy of the Bolsheviks of using this word to describe what the Social Democrats had always meant by Socialism. Later, however, the book follows Lenin’s distortion in his April Theses and talks of a society called "socialism" as “inevitable as an intermediate stage between capitalism and communism”.

Editorial Committee

A Duke Distorts Marx (1986)

Book Review from the May 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

“This, it seems to me, is Marx’s legacy to the world. For love, tolerance and compassion he has substituted hatred, envy and oppression. For honesty and justice he has substituted the interest of the party. Although it is a sad commentary on human nature that so many people are eager to adopt such doctrines of violence and conflict, there is one thing we must all learn from Marx. It is now more important than ever that we learn and understand the guiding principles of our own system, if we are to make it fulfil our ambitions to live in freedom, in harmony, in prosperity and in justice.” (HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, A Question of Balance, p.30).

So ends the Duke of Edinburgh’s published attack on the ideas of Marxism. Before we turn to deal with the distortion, be it intended or ignorant, contained in that attack, it is worth congratulating this titled spokesman for legalised robbery for taking the bother to commit his ideas to print. Too often the nonsensical dogmas of anti-Marxism are offered as casual asides or vague references, so making them harder to answer. Here we have a clear account of why one member of the capitalist class thinks that Marxism is wrong. Let us examine his criticisms.

The Duke—or whoever might have assisted him in composing his attack—has taken the trouble to find out a little about who Marx was and what he wrote. On page 6 we are presented with a concise biographical sketch, deficient more in its omissions than in relation to any false information. The reader is told that Marx “appears to have had an enormous capacity for painstaking work, a vivid and forceful literary style, considerable imagination, and a single-minded devotion to a particular philosophy”. It is stated that Marx held that “the bourgeoisie had . . .  to be destroyed by the abolition of all private property”. This is half right. In fact, both state and private property must be abolished and Marx was advocating the abolition of class relationships, particularly that of wage labour and capital, therefore the bourgeoisie (or capitalist class) will be destroyed as a class personifying capital, but not as individual people. The Duke contends that “capitalism has proved to be a great deal more flexible than (Marx) ever imagined”. There is probably some validity in this.

Having stated those points where the Duke was correct or nearly, so let us list his numerous errors and distortions.

 . . . it becomes apparent that at the heart f the terrorist campaign, or of the liberation army… or of civil unrest, there is a hard core of Marxists. Furthermore it cannot be entirely coincidence that wherever such a state of conflict exists the terrorists, liberators or revolutionaries are almost invariably supported by money, arms or men and women from countries under Marxist regimes. (p.5)

Are we to assume from this that any army or government or individual psychopath who chooses to adopt the label Marxist will be regarded by those attacking Marxism as representatives of Marxist ideas? The Russian dictators and sections of the IRA and various anti-social organisers of civil disorder adopt the Marxist label, but that makes such people no more “Marxists” than is the German Democratic Republic democratic. The linking of a label with an idea is only valid if those being labelled hold the ideas and act on the ideas to which the label refers. The Duke gives no evidence to show that terrorists are carrying out principles to be found in the writings of Marx; not a scrap of evidence is offered to show that “Marxist regimes” are Marxist societies. This is a classical distortion tactic, used by those who find it easier to smear than to prove.

In fact, on page 26 the Duke states that “Marxism has given ambitious politicians an absolutely ideal method of acquiring and keeping absolute power”. Indeed, many capitalist leaders have usurped the rhetoric of Marxism in order to run the system of oppression which genuine Marxists seek to destroy. If the Duke of Edinburgh cares to read the history of British Royalty he will discover that by manipulating the ideas of religion the British monarchy was able to attain absolute power, justified by the doctrine of divine right. If the Duke was informed he would realise that it is necessary to check the credentials of those who pose as Marxist governments and activists, if he is informed, then he is dishonest, for he will know that their credentials are bogus.

“His weakness, if that is the appropriate word for it, seems to have been a hopelessly unrealistic understanding of human nature.”

We must assume from this that the Duke does understand “human nature”. Odd, then, that he at no point attempts to define it. The reason could be that it is a totally nonsensical concept, used too often by people who speak before they think. Marx argued that human behaviour is socially determined and that our ideas and actions are not inherently produced. Rather than asserting that this is “hopelessly unrealistic”, where is the evidence against it? The Duke states that Marx’s “obsession with science and scientific socialism . . . seems to have blinded him to the power, variety and irrational nature of human emotions and talents and to the fact that such qualities of human nature are equally distributed among all people regardless of class or intellect”. (p.7) Does this mean that there are as many slum-dwellers obtaining Oxford degrees as millionaires’ children? Are there as many princes suffering the frustration of the dole queue as sons and daughters of miners? And what is this “irrational nature” which the Duke finds in human emotions? Human thought and feeling is linked to the rational pursuit of survival and comfort, if he has discovered some irrational content beyond this material interpretation, let the Duke spell it out for us rather than making vague and pointless references. Human nature has always been the concept most loved by the defender of the status quo. The slave-owner of old would say that it was human nature for negroes to be owned by white masters. The Duke of Edinburgh invokes the same undefined theory in defence of the modem form of slavery, the wages system.

“Marx, like many before and since his time, went to considerable lengths to make his selection of facts fit his particular theories.”

These aristocratic liars obviously believe that they have only to assert a view and it will be accepted. If Marx distorted the facts to fit his interpretation of capitalism why has there been no satisfactory effort made to offer other facts which will show Marx’s ideas to be false? Where are the “facts”, to show that poverty is not caused by the system under which the few own and control the means of wealth production and distribution? What “facts” exist to demonstrate that workers are not exploited at the point of production by being paid a wage which is less than the value of what we produce? Where are the “facts” denying that the history of property society is a history of class struggle? Wise men have had over a century since Marx’s death to provide us with “facts” that will not fit in with “his particular theories”. Wise men have yet to disprove Marx’s facts, and the Duke, who is not “wise”, hasn’t done this either.

“Marx believed very strongly that it was impossible to have a satisfactory society where there was such a crude division between those who owned property and capital and those who owned nothing but their wages. Naturally in a purely static situation this would be intolerable, but no human system is static and the freer the system the more quickly the self-correcting mechanism works and the greater the movement between classes is likely to be.”

So the Duke agrees with Marx that the crude division between those who own property and those who are wage slaves is “intolerable”. But the argument he puts is that, given a free society, the poor will be able to correct this situation and be come capitalists. A century after Marx’s death the crude class division still exists. in Britain the richest one per cent of the population own more of the accumulated wealth than the poorest eighty per cent added together. How long do as the Duke think it will take for this “self-correcting mechanism” to move those who are dependent on selling their abilities for wages or salaries to gain entry into the capitalist class? Of course, this will never happen because the capitalist minority can only survive by living parasitically off of the labour of the wealth-creating majority. It is “intolerable” that this division exists but, unlike the Duke, Marxists are not expecting the system to correct the problem.

“There was a utopian belief that every human problem could be solved by scientific analysis and the operation of altruistic human will. All that was necessary was to identify and eradicate the cause of the problem and everything would immediately become all sweetness and light. Marx was convinced that be had achieved all this in his theory of historical materialism.”

Nowhere did Marx ever state such a point of view. it has been invented by the dishonest Duke. It would be “utopian” to assert that “every human problem” can be solved by science but Marx was talking about problems caused by the social system, not those of natural causation. A system which makes wars inevitable can be removed and there will be no more wars. It is a basic principle of science that effects are eradicated by first removing their cause –Marx did not invent such an idea and the Duke cannot disprove it. Marx made no reference to “the operation of altruistic human will”. this is yet another of the Duke’s absurd phrases. In fact, the establishment of socialism depends on material self-interest, not abstract altruism. Socialism will not be “all sweetness and light” and Marx never used such a silly phrase. We can say that it will be an efficient, co-operative, peaceful social system, free from the bitterness and darkness of world capitalism. If the Duke cares to argue with that he will have a debate on his hands; any old fool can knock down a utopian dream which Marx was not indulging in, but not any old fool will be allowed to get away with it.

“One of the features of Marxist analysis is the constant use of group denominations and particularly the references to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, as if there was no such thing as individual will. What sort of an argument is it to say that because all my colleagues and contemporaries are behaving in a certain way, that is the way that historical materialism has ordained I must believe?”

Needless to say, the Duke does not define this mysterious “individual will”—this man is a master of the undefined concept. My individual will is to live in Buckingham Palace: but which is more influential—my “will” or my class position? All people are either workers or they are capitalists and if they are in the former class they are robbed and they are relatively poor and they have a world to win, if they are in the latter class they are exploiters and they are relatively rich and the world is theirs. There are those who possess but do not produce and those who produce but do not possess. As for “individual will”, the Duke can buy mine from me for the price of one of his Rolls Royces. A person’s class position generally determines their ideas: that is why it is not surprising to find the husband of the richest woman in the world opposing Marxism. When members of the boss class start flocking into the Socialist Party we shall take more seriously the claim that historical materialism does not ordain how humans think and behave.

“As Marx’s ideas entailed the confiscation from private capitalists of all means of production, distribution, transport and communication, all these things would have to be centralised in the hands of the State, by which he meant the hands of the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

Here the Duke asserts that Marx stood for centralised state capitalism. Untrue. The abolition of class monopoly necessitates the removal of the state, which Marx pointed out is merely the executive committee of the exploiting class. Marx argued that with the emancipation of the working class there will be no class left to be exploited and the logical implication of that is that there will be no socialist state. So, when the proletariat (or workers) are organised as the ruling class, which will happen when the state is democratically conquered, that will at the same time be the end of classes, including a ruling class, and the end of the state. The centralised state has nothing to do with socialism, but is a feature of coercive capitalism. A great deal of the Duke’s attack on Marxism rests on the assumption that a centralised state will create an elitist bureaucracy which will become a new ruling class. This is correct. The Duke opposes such a new ruling class, of the type which took over from the Tsars in Russia, because he is a defender of the old ruling class; Marxists oppose state and private capitalism: they are opposed to all ruling classes.

“Of all Marx’s ideas the most explosive was his choice of one particular class or group of citizens within a society—distinguished only by their relative wealth and occupations—to be held responsible for everything that is unsatisfactory in that society.”

Once again the Duke demonstrates his failure to grasp –or his ability to distort –Marxism. It is not a Marxist contention that the capitalists as individuals are the cause of the problems of the working class. It is not a question of individual will. The whole point of Marx’s writings is that the capitalist system demands that capitalists must act in certain ways if they are not to descend into the working class –a miserable fate, as we are sure the Duke will agree. The point of Marxism is not to blame this group or that class, but to expose the system and to show that it can never be run in the interest of the wealth producers, even if all the bosses were jolly decent chaps.

“…(Marxists) whole ideology is based on the idea that any degree of force, subversion, terrorism, persecution and dishonesty is justified in achieving and maintaining the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

This is rich, coming from a defender of British capitalism. The very tactics listed have all been used by the Duke’s own class in order to preserve the dictatorship of King Capital. In no way did Marx ever advocate or defend these methods. It was Karl Marx who stated that “The emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves”, the same principle has been advocated by The Socialist Party, the only Marxist party in Britain, since 1904. We seek to establish a free and democratic society and we are the first to point out that this will never be brought about by any of the tactics used by our class enemies, such as those listed above. We seek to establish a society of mutual co-operation, not a dictatorship—a society which will be classless. We have congratulated our class enemy on having the openness to commit his ideas to paper, it is a pity that we are not able to offer similar congratulations on his honesty, intelligence and clarity, all of which are far too undignified to enter the mind of this pompous Royal distorter.

Steve Coleman

Socialism, Communism, Association—A rose by another name (2020)

SPGB pamphlet from 1948.

From the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since Marx is famously known as the author of The Communist Manifesto, it is generally assumed that ‘communism’ must have been his preferred term to refer to a post-capitalist society. But in the scattered sketches that can be found in his writings, it is more common to see his image of a future society described as an ‘association’.

For example, in The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels describe how the ‘classes and class antagonisms’ of bourgeois society would be replaced by ‘an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’. And this is a manner of expression he stuck to in his later works. In Capital, for example, he imagines ‘an association of free individuals (sic), working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force’; and describes a ‘higher form of society . . . in which the free development of every individual forms the ruling principle’.

The image here is not of citizens ‘sacrificing’ themselves for the ‘good of society’ but of individuals thoroughly at home in their social world, which is governed by the principle, ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’.

The social connection between these ‘associated individuals’ is clear from the outset, unlike the situation under capitalism, where the starting point is private capitalist firms pursuing their own profit in competition against each other. And the means of production are held in common, rather than confronting workers as the private property of other people. The connection between the individuals, and their relation to the means of production, is much like the situation among members of a family engaged in some project together through the use of their collective labour and commonly held resources. The relations between persons in such a case is not mediated by the exchange of things (money and commodities), and the interests of each individual are not in conflict.

Of course, we can also see such ‘associated’ behaviour to some extent under capitalism, as in the case of the various relationships and organisations people enter to pursue their interests and hobbies. But the scope of these associations is limited, since the vast majority of productive activities are done to receive the wages needed to survive—making them coercive rather than free. Every worker knows quite well the stark difference between freely entering into an association with others to pursue some interest and being compelled to work for wages.

The word ‘free’ shows up often when Marx describes a future society, using expressions like ‘free and equal producers’ and ‘free individuals’. Moreover, there is no contradiction or conflict between the different pursuits of individuals, who are no longer divided by the competition imposed by capitalism, thus resulting in a ‘large and harmonious system of free and co-operative labour’.

Such passages on a future association emphasise how human beings would freely and consciously interact with each other in pursuit of common goals that also benefit each other. The emphasis on the central role of individuals within a future society runs quite counter to the stereotypes that many people have of Marx’s ideas and of the concepts of ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’.

A great misfortune of the 20th century is that those terms became distorted by their association with state-capitalist countries that labelled themselves as socialist or communist to conceal their class-divided reality. A conceit that the foes of those countries were only too happy to oblige in as a convenient way to discredit all revolutionary ideas. Even today, when the term ‘democratic socialism’ has become trendy among younger generations, many still mistake the essence of socialism as economic intervention and regulation by the state.

From the passages quoted from Marx above, however, it should be clear that there is little need for a government and the actions of its politicians and bureaucrats when the subjects of society are free individuals consciously carrying out productive activities to meet common and individual goals. Quite unlike the state-capitalist model of a monolithic state that mobilises the ‘masses’ for its own aims, this would be an organic society made up of countless associations engaging in their respective activities and coordinating with each other to meet democratically determined needs. A ‘state’ would be completely superfluous to such free, associated individuals.

Some Marxian scholars like Paresh Chattopadhyay and Teinosuke Otani have used the term ‘Association’ or the ‘associated mode of production’ rather than ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ to refer to a future society. The debate over what term to use is not that important, since one is still left with the task of explaining its fundamental content. But the image of Association (or a global collective of associations) may help counter views that have emphasised the collective at the expense of the individual—or viewed the gains on one side as a loss on the other. The perspective of Association also reveals how capitalism, for all its championing of individualism, in fact stifles the possibility of each worker to freely pursue personal interests and fulfil individual potential.

Mike Schauerte

How the Few Govern the Many (2019)

From the December 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The time of street revolutions is over. Socialism’s future lies in class-conscious workers expressing themselves through collective action and the ballot. How, then, has the ruling class been able to prevent the working class up to now from achieving this goal? There are two obvious possible answers. The first is to skew the vote against the workers, privileging the elite. The second is to entice the workers into voting against their class interests.

The first was suggested by the radical liberal John Stuart Mill, who suggested in his Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform (1859) that ‘every person should have one vote, but that every well-educated person in the community should have more than one, on a scale corresponding as far as practicable to their amount of education’ . The second was put succinctly by David Hume :

  ‘Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers. When we enquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find, that, as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.’ (First Principles of Government)

Both stalwart classical liberals had , then, a deep scepticism when it came to democracy, and sought ways to restrict it.

More recently Jan Fleischhauer wrote in the Guardian (9 April) that: ‘Democracy is overrated anyway. The truth is, it only works reasonably well if the number of voters who have no idea (or perhaps worse: are convinced they do) are not too big on the day.’ We ask ourselves: how might people have an idea? Surely, the answer is the media, reporting on the facts and showing how to criticise the government, along the lines of Jeremy Browne, the then Foreign Office Minister, set out during a speech in April 2011 in Hanoi : ‘In democracies, the media is fundamental to political life. It provides facts to allow us to be better informed about the issues that matter to us. It provides criticism and debate to ensure that that information is tested and examined from all points of view. And it provides investigation and examination to ensure that power is checked and decision-makers are held accountable’ (www.gov.uk/government/news/role-of-media-in-society). Let us, perhaps without justification, take this as true. Why does the situation outlined by Fleischhauer arise then? The answer is clear – the media does not do what it claims to.

Least trusted

In fact, the British press is the least trusted in Europe, according to a 2017 survey conducted by the Pew Research Centre. The British Social Attitudes Survey found in 2014 that a majority did not think the media provided them with adequate tools to criticise the government. This majority has most likely increased in the last five years.

In 2017, BSA found that two-thirds of the population think there is ‘quite a lot of poverty’ in Britain, and 78 percent said that the gap between high earners and low earners is too large. This is strikingly different to what the previous chancellor, Philip Hammond, said on BBC’s Newsnight on 3 June when he rejected ‘the idea that there are vast numbers of people living in poverty in this country.’ He claimed that the suggestion was ‘a nonsense’, and his reasoning for such a bold claim was ‘Look around you, that is not what we see in this country.’ This was in response to Philip Alston, a UN Rapporteur, whose statement in November 2018 following a visit to the UK was damning. He wrote in his conclusion that ‘Thomas Hobbes, […] memorably claimed that without a social contract, life outside society would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’ The risk is that if current policies do not change, this is the direction in which low-income earners and the poor are headed.’ An even more biting conclusion he drew was that ‘Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so. Resources were available to the Treasury at the last budget that could have transformed the situation of millions of people living in poverty, but the political choice was made to fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.’

What do these simple facts show? Firstly, that Hume and Mill were both right, simply on the wrong side. Their conclusions were absolutely correct. The rich being more privileged and public opinion being restricted are the most effective mechanisms for restricting democracy. The media, now that it is election season, are diverting their efforts to whichever horse they have in the race. The Guardian remains on the centre-left, and is the closest thing to representation of the left-wing in the mainstream – but that is a far cry from any considerable change to capitalism. The Times has devoted columns and columns to spelling out the disastrous consequences of Labour in power, etc, etc. Public opinion is confined to such narrow boundaries that renationalising the railways seems like something out of Marx’s Capital.

There are a number of reasons for this, the foremost being that the media are profit-seeking corporations and are subject to business interests. It is not in their interest to suggest that there is an alternative to the profit system. The public are not so easily duped, as shown by their dissatisfaction with capitalism above, as well as their scepticism with respect to the media. Melanie Phillips in an article in the Times (12 November) wrote: ‘Few British or American students are told about the evils of communism in the same way as they are told about the evils of Nazism. […] Few are taught that capitalism is the precondition for freedom and prosperity.’ It is hard to see a more ironic statement than an organ of propaganda claiming that freedom cannot exist without capitalism, and socialists are wrong because they do not allow freedom. George Orwell wrote in his essay The Freedom of the Press (1944), ‘the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’

Matthew Goodwin, in another recent article in the Times (3 November), wrote of ‘angry, divisive populism that is eroding everything once considered essential to our culture of consensus.’ By this populism, he meant the ‘belief in a corrupt, self-serving and neglectful elite that undermines the interests of the ‘pure’ people.’ It doesn’t take much to work out why such a view is so quickly disparaged by the capitalist press. Indeed this ‘civic culture’ he extolled might be seen as a society in which the elite do as they will and those below are docile and humble enough to submit to this rule. Though, he isn’t stupid, and he knows that the public is not either. He knows that this view will ‘resonate with voters’, even though ‘Britain will drift further from the civic culture that was considered to be one of its most valuable features.’ But ‘valuable to whom?’ Clearly not valuable to the majority, who are beginning to shake off the neoliberal denial of class altogether.

A genuine alternative is obviously needed. Discontent with the status quo is growing. Of course, the alternative is not, as the capitalist press have it, Jeremy ‘class war’ Corbyn, but socialism. Obviously, this is totally against the interests of the ruling class and therefore not something they want the public to hear. What are the majority then to do? Now seems an appropriate time to make the case for socialism and show that the poverty of many and greed of some is not the only way. The extension of democracy to all aspects of life, including work, is the foundation of socialism, and it is hard to think of something more apt to our times. The challenge is to overcome an anti-democratic media that seeks to restrict opinion and to keep the majority obedient.

M. P. Shah