Doping horses (1960)

From the November 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Monday, August 8th, five men were accused at Newbury of conspiring to administer drugs to racehorses so as to affect their performance and thereby cheat, defraud and give the run-around to owners, bookmakers and punters. Caffeine, it was alleged, was the drug used. Given between thirty and sixty minutes before a race, it was said to have jacked up the horses’ nerves, muscles and heart, made it more alert and stimulated it to a win. The timing was vital; given six or more hours before the race the drug slowed down the horse, because by then its depressing reaction had had time to work. The chemist who was said to have supplied the caffeine stated that doping of racehorses had been going on for years; he supplied the stuff in return for racing tips.

Of course, this carve up caused quite a fuss and many remedies were suggested. Some people thought that a Tote monopoly of betting would bring a clean up. Others wanted a list of drugs, as distinct from tonics, which it would be prohibited to administer to horses, the trainers to be held responsible for their animals’ conditions. One newspaper showed how deep its love of our dumb friends goes by hoping that, after the clean up has put racing and betting on a sound financial basis, the horses will no more be silent and helpless tools manipulated for sordid and undesirable ends.

Now all this is very touching, as anyone who has lost his lot on the horses will agree. But doping and racketeering are only two of the illegal wavs of making money, if the law can be successfully evaded. There are also legal ways. One is to work for it—not very fruitful. Another is to persuade other people to work for you and to exploit them during the course of production. This is respectable. It also produces some very large fortunes.

The set up here is that we workers work for the capitalists. The capitalists pay us our wages and sell what we produce; they also have to buy materials and machinery. When they have done all this, they have a surplus left over. They have profit. This process continually repeated makes for a fine accumulated sum and it is all fair and square. Not racketeering. Just good, plain exploitation.

When the goods arc produced we do not always find ourselves able to obtain them. They are whisked off to warehouses, stores, shops, and so on, and we can only get them out of these places if we have enough money to meet the price which is asked for them. There they lie in plenty, but alas! for sale only. When people try, by hook or by crook, by fiddle or diddle, to amass a lot of money, what they are really doing is trying to get the power to purchase a lot of these articles which make for a happier and more comfortable life.

Where does dope come into this? Why. for generations, the working class have been doped by capitalism's propaganda. Schools, churches, radio, television, newspapers, political parties—they are all in the act. The Labour Party dished out a large dose of nationalisation, which left the workers' situation unchanged. The Communist Party peddle the dope about the so-called Socialist class emancipation in Russia, which is in fact a ruthless capitalist dictatorship. The Tories tell us that we have never had dope so good.

Amongst gamblers, doping is known as ”fixing ”; if you want to fix a racehorse, give it caffeine. In this sense, capitalists are not fixing workers under the wages system—the whole transaction is fair and above board. Nevertheless, the workers find themselves in a fix by their acceptance of the system. They are perpetually chasing the dream that, if only they can lay hands on a large enough amount of money, they will be able to get all that they need to make life pleasant. It is this bodily occupation and mental illusion that keeps the working class in political ignorance and. consequently, in economic enslavement.

But horses can run without dope and people can live without the artificial incentives of capitalist society. We only need the understanding that all social wealth would be better produced solely for use—made and used how we like. That is the key to the better world which we call Socialism.

However much horse-racing depends upon betting, capitalism is more dependent on the support of the world’s working class. When they have stopped allowing themselves to be exploited, stopped chasing after ephemeral remedies for the many, many unnecessary social problems of capitalism, they will have exposed capitalism's dopers. Socialism will be the surest walk over that ever was.

Joe McGuinness

Proper Gander: Temu’s temerity (2024)

The Proper Gander column from the July 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the market of online marketplaces, Amazon and eBay’s dominance has recently been challenged by young upstart Temu. Like its competitors, Temu offers a dizzyingly wide range of commodities such as clothing, household items and jewellery which can be delivered to your door in just a few clicks. Since its launch in September 2022, Temu has rapidly expanded to having half a billion users worldwide. A quarter of the British population has downloaded its app, encouraged by social media advertising and influencer recommendations.

Temu’s business model is to be a platform for thousands of other companies to sell their products direct from China to customers worldwide. It doesn’t have enormous depots like Amazon does, and therefore avoids associated costs, allowing it to charge less for its wares. Of course, this cheapness has come at a price. Complaints about the quality and safety of Temu’s products attracted the attention of Channel 4’s Dispatches, whose documentary aimed to tell The Truth About Temu. Predictably, the programme was too brief to give more than an outline of each problem, nor explain the wider context of how such companies fit with capitalism.

Reporter Ellie Flynn buys some items through Temu to check how they compare with the way they’re advertised. Some products come with false claims that they have been certified as safe by recognised organisations, and a baby walker harness purchased for £2.68 snaps within seconds when tested with a bag of sand. Flynn looks at news reports of people who have lived through tragedies after ordering items from Temu: a woman whose house burnt down due to a faulty Tablet and a girl who suffered burns from glue when applying fake fingernails. Flynn arranges for toxicology tests on some items she has bought, including a ‘gold’ necklace priced at £2.97 which is revealed to have twice the legal amount of lead and 27 times more cadmium than permitted. She also orders saw blades and BB guns without the website checking her age. Temu replies to these concerns with corporate-speak statements that it has withdrawn some products pending checks and that it maintains ‘rigorous quality controls’, although insufficient safeguards appear to be in place.

Hoping that low prices are enough of a distraction from risks isn’t the only approach used by Temu to manipulate us into buying. Its app is designed to entice us into spending more time, and therefore more money on the site. Flash sales, mini games, prizes and deals are jazzed up with colourful, cartoonish graphics. Emerging technology consultant Nina Jane Patel says that the app is ‘gamifying the shopping experience, but on steroids’. The aim is to make buying entertaining in a way closer to playing games and gambling than just swiping through a catalogue. Flynn arranges for her brain activity to be measured while using Temu’s app, and compares these results with what’s recorded while shopping from Amazon and playing a casino app. When using Temu, there were spikes of pleasure-related stimulation recorded, presumably when a particularly alluring bargain was found, a pattern with similarities to when the gambling app was being played.

This experiment shows how the capitalist system conditions our attitude to our possessions. In a society of scarcity and rationing through money, we’re likely to react with a buzz of satisfaction, even if it’s near-subliminal, when we acquire something, whether by shopping or gambling. Temu has exploited this learned response with lucrative results, but in a way which pushes at the boundaries of what’s considered acceptable practice, at least in the UK. Iain Duncan Smith, in his role as Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Gambling Related Harm has been investigating the implications of Temu being based on a gambling-like system, such as how this can lead to addictive behaviour.

In the documentary, Smith says that the personal data gathered when people buy through Temu has to be shared with the Chinese government under its National Security Law. This data would then be passed on to the state’s intelligence service to sift through for anything nefariously useful. Temu denies sending information to the Chinese government and says that its data policy is on its website, which Flynn can’t find.

How much notice will the Chinese state take of the UK’s regulations about the use of data? Similarly, the UK’s health and safety laws are difficult to enforce when products are coming in from overseas. While this demonstrates how national barriers add a layer of complications to how goods are distributed in capitalism, the issue isn’t only in China’s awkward relationship with Western countries. Although all the vendors selling through Temu are based in China, Temu itself isn’t wholly a Chinese business. Its parent company, PDD Holdings has its headquarters in South Korea and its ‘legal domicile’ is in Ireland. Despite any links to the Chinese state, Temu is not rooted in only one country, reminding us that its owners in the capitalist class sit above national borders.

And it’s the profit-hungry motives of the capitalist class which really drive Temu’s approach. Its products are sold as cheaply as possible to maximise the potential number of customers, lured in by marketing and held onto using gambling’s techniques. A profit margin can be maintained if costs are kept low by cutting corners during manufacturing and distribution. The quality or suitability of the end product isn’t an important consideration, nor is the waste of resources in shipping goods across continents, nor is the wellbeing of the staff involved. Temu represents some of the worst aspects of capitalist society, but this is what has made it a success, in capitalist terms: PDD Holdings is worth an estimated £170 billion to its owners and shareholders. To the rest of us, it’s an example of how capitalism turns what we need and want into shoddy commodities made to enrich the elite.

Mike Foster

Action Replay: Odds against (2024)

The Action Replay column from the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are over four hundred gambling-related suicides each year in the UK, and far more people suffer from addiction to gambling. In an attempt to deal with such problems, the Gambling Commission is proposing affordability checks for customers of online sites. This has naturally led to a lot of complaints from bookmakers, but also from others involved in the horse-racing industry. If gamblers are discouraged or even barred from placing a bet, bookmakers’ profits will go down, and so will the amount they pay into racing (the Horserace Betting Levy Board collects 10% of an operator’s profits above £500,000). So owners and trainers may well find themselves losing income too.

Various kinds of triggers are envisaged, such as having a net loss of £125 within a thirty-day period, which could lead to inquiry into, say, whether the punter has a history of unpaid debts. The gambling industry has objected that this would imply perhaps ten times the number involved in problem gambling having their bank statements and so on checked, even though what they are doing is entirely legal.

One view (The Sports Economist, 21 November) is that sports betting is an increasingly important part of gambling in general and it needs to be regulated ‘to ensure a fair game, keep bettors safe, and stop illegal acts’. AI and machine learning could be used to, for instance, evaluate a person’s betting history and recognise suspicious activities. So clearly a great deal of information would be acquired about both individuals and general trends.

There is also a concern that the checks will be extended from online to betting shops and perhaps even racecourses. The Gambling Commission has said that this is not the case, but bookmakers are not convinced. They also point out that amounts spent in high-street bookies are far smaller than what may be spent online, and that checks may be sufficiently intrusive to send punters to bet on the black market, where there will be no checks and no guards against scams and frauds.

Some companies are of course in favour of the checks, as it means business for them, such as the GB Group, which helps companies verify the identity of customers. ‘Keeping players safe online is right for players and gambling operators’, their website states, as it is part of the companies’ ‘corporate social responsibility’. Bet they’ll be happy if the proposals are implemented.

Paul Bennett

Scraps from the Press (1932)

From the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard 

The railway workers are promised a wage cut on the usual fantastic ground that the Companies were not working on a profitable basis. It is, therefore, interesting to read the notice in the Evening News (20th October) which states that owing to heavy over-subscription, the lists for Southern Railway £4,750,000 Debenture Stock issue have been closed. Evidently the capitalists consider the railways a profitable investment, which means that the railway workers are producing plenty of surplus value already. It is also an illustration that there is plenty of money available for investment—perhaps the credit cranks will make a note of it.

* * * *

The News Chronicle for October 3rd records the fact that Mr. Samuel Insull, a former United States electricity magnate, was at one time a director of 85 companies, chairman of 65, and president of 11. One wonders how much time per year (allowing for the periodical cruise, etc.) he was able to devote to each company, and also whether his absence was noticed when he was away. Perhaps if workers ponder a little over cases like this they will realize what little part the capitalists play in the actual running of industry.

The champions of “self-help” and the boosters of the “Great Man” theory appear to be having a thin time of late years. Hatry, Kreuger, Insull, and the rest have given their theories some nasty shocks. It is becoming almost a commonplace to learn, after one of the frequent financial crashes. that the “great man” at the centre was responsible. In fact, however the “great man” is made the scapegoat for their cowardly and fat-headed ideas.

* * * *

The following shows how sectional interests clash over Free Trade in Germany. Herr Krupp, head of Krupp’s works and president of the Federation of German Industries, along with Dr. Luther, president of the Reichsbank, have protested against the carrying out of the quota system by the Von Papen Cabinet. On the other hand, the agricultural interests are becoming alarmed lest the quota system should be suspended. Herr Hugo Stinnes has aligned himself with the agricultural interests in support of the restriction of imports.

The internecine warfare between capitalists over Protection and Free Trade may push into the background the movement of the German Fascists in the near future. And while German and English workers are suffering from the miseries arising out of their bondage to Capitalism, their self-appointed spokesman in the two countries will be shouting themselves hoarse over imports and exports—matters that are of real interest only to the capitalist.

* * * *

The Church struggles hard to keep up with the times—and keep its congregations and its magic. In these days of trials and troubles, with growing unemployment and restive workers, one of the Church’s principal spokesmen, Dr. Barnes, the Bishop of Birmingham, has made a portentous pronouncement. Speaking at Westminster Abbey on the 11th October, he said:

“Again, the social evil which has increased most disastrously in our times is gambling. In Ireland the Roman Church is all powerful and the Dublin hospital sweepstakes flourish.”

Perhaps if the noble Bishop were in the ranks of the unemployed he would hold other views of the nature of the social evil. Anyhow, his working-class parishioners could give him some information on the subject. But the Church has always been a prop of oppression, and its professional advocates can always be depended upon to find any cause but the real cause of the social evils suffered by the majority of the population.

* * * *

As the Armistice will shortly be celebrated, it is fitting to recall to mind “poor little Belgium” and all that was said about her sufferings during the Great War. Workers in England who fought in Belgium in the effort to end all wars may be interested to learn that war in Belgium did not end with the Armistice.

“BRUSSELS, Saturday. 

Troops were to-day sent to the coalfields, where an ugly situation arising out of the strike over wages led to battles with the police, who had been given orders to disperse gatherings.

At Charleroi, early this afternoon, three police and several strikers were injured in a collision. Two of the police were seriously hurt. At Peronnes, near Binche, fifteen strikers were slightly hurt when the police charged a crowd that had refused to disperse. The dispatch of troops followed a meeting between the Minister of the Interior and the Minister of Defence. A regiment from the Malines garrison has been sent to Mons, and one from the Arlon garrison to Charleroi.”—Reuter. Observer, July 9th.

Is comment on the above needed ?

* * * *

Under the Washington Treaty the tonnage of warships was restricted, and on this account the Treaty was boomed as a great step forward in disarmament and an indication of the pacific intentions of the participators. Ever since, however, each nation has been endeavouring to produce more effective and murderous implements with a reduced tonnage, and in this, America, the leading advocative of this “pacifism,” has had the most success, as witness their new and efficient battle cruisers.

The Evening News of the 17th July reports a further step forward in America. At the end of the War it was decided that an aeroplane carrier, to be effective, must be of at least 20,000 tons. Under the Washington Treaty, America was only allowed a total tonnage of 135,000 tons for aircraft carriers; in other words, they were allowed about seven of these vessels, the idea presumably being to reduce the number of these ships that might be built. The result, however, has merely been to set American designers the problem of obtaining all the assistance they needed from such ships within the stipulated 135,000 tons. As the Evening News puts it: —

“But America wants plane carriers on the Atlantic as well as the Pacific and also in the Far East, so that her strategy would be badly cramped by the small number of large ships allowed. It is this point, in addition to the financial side, that has American designers on their mettle.”

And the designers have risen to the occasion and produced a ship of 13,800 tons that “will be the last word in construction, carrying no fewer than 75 planes.” Another step towards the peace of the world !

Gilmac.

Losers, this way (1996)

The A Word in Your Ear column from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nothing is amusing about amusement arcades. Rename them Depression Arcades. Distraction Arcades. Escape Retreats for the desperate. Losers’ loitering places.

Only this mad system can assume that there is amusement in pushing coins into a slot and hoping that more will come out than you put in. There is nothing amusing about money. Only when we don’t need to pay to become happy will there be true amusement.

There is a smelly tackiness about these arcades where flashing neon lights illuminating pound signs and ceaseless bleeps and pings contaminate already dingy streets. Boys who might just be men push and pull on the lever of the machines with the ferocity of warriors fighting not for gold but brass. They fight for their coins with the deranged rage of people who have a repressed awareness that they are competing for the loser's medal. Anyone who needs to bet with small change has lost before they start. Menacing-looking louts who look like they failed the audition for a home in Albert Square patrol the aisles of amusement and stare at the losers with the look of prison guards attending serial killers. Rent boys mingle with dribbling old drunks and prematurely old women who drag on fags, not sure whether their purses will be empty before their stomachs are. Nobody looks remotely amused. They look so unamused that they could be in church.

And in a sense they are. They are in the Temple of Mammon, pursuing the ultimate amusement of the jingle-jangle money system. Rules of the game: no money and you’re out—down and out.

Sitting in one of these stinking places—the smell is either urine or sweat, but not a sniff of happiness—it is tempting to defy the rules and insist on amusing yourself. Take out a good novel and read it; pull out a whistle and play a tune; tell a joke. “You trying to take the piss?”, the menacing oafs would ask. “I thought this was an amusement arcade,” you say, “and I’m amusing myself. Yes, I must say I feel decidedly amused.” The amusement guard turns out to be a black belt in random street violence.

Of course, in the good old days workers used to sit round the old piano and sing songs. What a load of old tripe people come out with; the foolish illusions of nostalgia. Most wage-slaves never had pianos—and those who did tormented themselves with hymns about Jesus and damnation and silly ditties about being happy. “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile!” Hardly a prophetic overture for being sent down a trench to kill other poor stuck-in-the-mud mugs singing German songs of distraction. The past was much like the present, only they were less sophisticated at building the amusement machines.

Not that many years ago fruit machines were straightforward. You put in your sixpence, pulled the handle, waited for three plums to appear, they didn’t and you either put in another sixpence or went away feeling miserable. Two cherries meant you got your sixpence back— only to lose it with the next pull of the handle. At least you knew where you stood.

These days losing money is an elaborate business. The game screens are like modern battlefields and the would-be loser is faced with an array of buttons requiring at least three hands to operate with any skill. My father used to lose ha’pennies pushing marbles into one another. I was a child of the one-pull fruit machine. Kids today watch their coins orbit the galaxies and commune with other life forms before they finally see them disappear into the magical sphere of the arcade owner’s bank account. The thieving coin-collector-state-licensed gaming operator, no less—is well amused. As ever, our loss is their gain. The poor man in his amusement arcade, the rich man (or his errand boy) in the Stock Exchange. We’re urged to gamble for pound coins. They’re gambling on the wealth which we produce. Their jackpot is announced in small print on the share pages of the newspapers every day. The compensation prizes are in the £3-an-hour Jobs-Vacant column. Which might just leave a few quid over at the weekend for a trip to feed the amusement meter. 

Steve Coleman

Capitalism — the gambling society ! (1973)

From the October 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under Roman Law, a loser at the ancient and popular gambling game of “knucklebones”, could sue and was entitled to have his losses returned. Certainly a case of “the good old days” so far as modern punters are concerned; but even the thought of such a law today is enough to make the bet-shop tycoons turn deathly pale.

However, the costermongers of London’s 1850’s could put to shame our modern bookmakers when it came to showing some humanity in the betting jungle. The Victorian journalist Mayhew told of an established custom among them of making a “present of four or five shillings to those whose losses were heavy”. He also reported that the street Piemen of that period, finding competition severe from the increasing number of pie shops, used to cry . . . “Toss or buy! Up and win ’em”, handing over a pie if their customer won, and receiving one penny without parting with a pie, if their customer lost the toss.

But the business of gambling today, far from being alien to the gambling of business, actually complements it and proof of this is to be found in the Stock Exchange quotes of various bookmaking firms “on ’change” who blossomed forth from the squalor and the illegality of the old back-street betting dens of Britain. So that, since the “hungry thirties”, gambling has developed into a large-scale social habit with crowded bet-shops, bingo halls, dog tracks, casinos and last but not least, horse racing, boosted by T.V., with half the female population joining in. All this human activity, animated by the sordid incentive of money-grubbing, merely mirrors that of the stock exchanges and marketplaces of capitalism and is quite natural to the prevailing mode of production, despite hypocritical and illogical protests from the hired Men of God who bolster King Capital’s Establishment.

Those who, like the pre-Victorian writer and reformer, Sydney Smith, wish to suppress what they term “vice” in the form of gambling, should take a long hard look at the real vice — capitalism itself, instead of wasting their time tinkering with society. But even Smith, in his long essay on “The Society for the Suppression of Vice” in the Edinburgh Review jibbed at the prevailing social hypocrisy:

The gambling houses of St. James remain untouched. The peer ruins himself and his family with impunity . . . It is not true, as urged by the Society, that the vices of the poor are carried on in houses of public resort, and those of the rich in their own houses. The Society cannot be ignorant of the innumerable gambling houses resorted to by men of fashion. Is there one they have suppressed, or even attempted to suppress ? Can anything be more despicable than distinctions such as these? 

Nor, may we add, was it logical of Smith to make a distinction between gambling and business as though one was alien to the other! And whether the rich gambled in St. James, their own private apartments, Monte Carlo, or anywhere else makes no iota of difference to the working class. While the “opium of the people” — which Sydney Smith helped to perpetuate, did them far more damage than any game of Pitch & Toss! Failing to “see the wood for the trees” he believed that the ugly face of capitalism could be improved, that “God was in his heaven and the world was all right”.

An early attempt to introduce government sponsored gambling in the form of Premium Bonds was made in 1917. In that year Sir Ellis Hume-Williams formed a Premium Bond Committee in the House of Commons, which was debated and defeated a few years later. As he remarked in his autobiography.

Of course my chief opponent was Sir Robert Kindersley who quite honestly — and I think rightly — feared that Premium Bonds would injure the flow of money to his War Savings Certificates. It so happened that we had never met, but in the winter after it was all over we found ourselves seated opposite each other at the very mild Chemin-de-fer tables at the Cannes Casino and a battle royal between us ensued.

(The World, the House and the Bar) 

Note that there is no mention here of any police harassment of these two members of the élite for their gambling activities, such as the Black Maria raids on the back-street gambling dens of Britain where members of the working class dared to indulge in the Sport of Kings, until the siege was finally lifted and betting for the wage-enslaved majority became “respectable”.

With football pools’ dividends reaching ever-new highs, gambling continues to boom like the quack remedies described by Marx and Engels:

Just as medical miracle workers and miraculous cures are made possible by ignorance of the laws of the natural world, social miracle workers and miraculous social cures thrive upon ignorance of the laws of the social world. 

Speculation in stocks and shares is a characteristic of a gambling society like capitalism, and bankruptcies are another ! Even men like Pascal, who formulated a theory of probability (and who was known as . . . “the gamblers friend”), or Carl Frederick Gauss, nineteenth century German mathematician who “loved to calculate as a Soprano loves to hold high C” would be helpless to remove the gambling element from the anarchy of production for profit.

So, let us take a tip from Marx, and ignoring those miraculous social cures get wise to the laws of the social world within the ranks of the World Socialist Movement.

G. R. Russell

Fifty Years Ago (1987)

From the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fifty years ago, in 1937, I had managed to survive three years of life on the dole and, more importantly, had discovered the Socialist Party of Great Britain, offering the only practical alternative to such a life.

The 1929 Wall Street Crash had signalled that capitalism was in for one of its periodic slumps, but despite that in 1931 I landed a so-called permanent job as an LM&S Railway staff joiner. However as Marx said "the only permanence is change" and in 1934 the LM&S reduced its staff, pitching our gang of joiners, plumbers, painters and labourers on to the scrap heap of the unemployed. I found myself signing on at the Albion Street labour exchange in Salford (where Walter Greenwood. author of Love On The Dole had also signed on). My weekly allowance for myself, wife and two children was thirty four shillings out of which I had to pay ten shillings rent. (£1.70 and 50p respectively). The rent was for a bug infested attic flat in Higher Broughton. Many houses in the Broughton area were infested with bugs. Indeed on one occasion I had obtained the keys of another flat from a Mr Lever who then lived in Northumberland Street, Higher Broughton. I had decided to take the flat and had deposited two suitcases there when I noticed something moving on one of the cupboard shelves and to my horror found colonies of bed bugs all over the flat and behind the wallpaper. I quickly removed my suitcases and returned the keys to Mr Lever, declining his offer to have his property fumigated for me.

In an attempt to escape those bed bugs. I fled from Higher Broughton into a house in Lower Broughton as no bugs were to be seen there. I had only been there one night when larger colonies of bugs than ever attacked us. They had been hiding behind the skirting boards. An old man with the longest beard I ever saw sat next door on his doorstep and politely enquired of me . . . "Vell, how you like your house, eh?" . . . I told him how much I disliked it and he waved a hand airily, remarking complacently "Vell, a few bugs".

The gambling "solution"?

Trying to beat the depression with various money making schemes. I finally got hooked on horse racing, although 1 had never gambled in my life before. In those days, the only legal way to gamble off course was to send one's bets by post to Scottish bookmakers and I chose to deal with McLauchlan's of Glasgow and Edinburgh who accepted bets so long as they were time postmarked prior to time of races concerned. To my delight my very first two commissions won me £40 and I decided to study the game from all angles, even sending over to Dublin for a copy of The Irish Horse (an excellent book on breeding) and burned the midnight oil studying systems by the dozen, many of them my own invention. Some of those were successful for a season, but the next season something would inevitably go haywire.

Incidentally, the racing programmes in the daily press in public libraries in the mid-thirties were erased by black ink so that the unemployed, who could ill afford the price of the Sporting Life were denied something so readily available to those frequenting Ascot's Lawns. Also the Black Maria police vans used to prowl around Britain's back street betting dens before 1962 when betting became, for working class punters, a respectable activity. After a period of successful bets with McLauchlans. they placed a restriction on my bets by writing to tell me. that. . . "In future your bets must be in our office before racing" . . . I was torpedoed because that meant posting my bets the day before actual racing which was really restricting me to ante post betting, which was useless to me. So I joined the back street "tapes on the wall" dens from then on, moving from one area to another to evade the Black Marias.

Non-union exploitation

The official union rate for joiners when I joined the ASW (Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers) in 1929 was 1/7½d an hour (about 8p) but the railway rate, when I joined the NUR was l/4d. But there were other benefits such as a guaranteed week with no loss of time for being rained off or foggy weather plus quarter fare travelling facilities anywhere on the railway. After a year of the dole queues I decided to try a non-union firm of cabinet makers situated in the old Ford Auto works in First Avenue, Trafford Park. I was offered 10d an hour which of course I refused and after haggling with them I agreed to start at one shilling an hour. In that factory, many men were doing the same job for different rates. My mate on the other side of the bench was getting 10d; I was getting a shilling - considered a top rate there. We worked from 8am until 8pm with two half hour breaks for tea snacks and they charged us ½d for hot water to brew up. On my first day there a foreman came over to me and shouted in my ear above the din of the machinery: "Any more talking and you're outside". So we became silent automatons, trying to meet the target rate of twenty minutes to fit five drawers in a cabinet by planing off a quarter inch of American oak from each drawer, an impossible task set by management and none of us did better than a half hour minimum. It was of course planing by hand with one's own tools, not machine planing. I got home at 9pm and sank into a chair too tired to wash until later. After six months of that the firm laid us off for a temporary period which I decided to make permanent, so I said goodbye to Trafford Park and its hateful environment of wage slavery which I've no desire to re-visit.

But we've come a long way since those days haven't we? Today there is Social Security. acid rain, nuclear bombs and three million on the dole. Berlin Walls, Belfast ghettos and apartheid . . .

G R Russell

Voice From The Back: Unnatural causes (1999)

The Voice From The Back Column from the August 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unnatural causes

In Ethiopia, people suffer from the natural disaster of drought. But Oxfam also works with poor people to help them combat a disaster more destructive than any natural calamity: poverty. Take Bangladesh: the world was shocked by the catastrophic cyclone and floods in 1991, in which 140,000 died. Yet the same number of children are killed by poverty in Bangladesh every 2 months. The main killers are common diseases, often spread by dirty water, like diarrhoea. Worldwide, a mother watches her child die of diarrhoea every 8 seconds. Oxfam begging letter, June.

At the class divide

There is, for example, a house price boom going on—at least for those living in the advantaged parts of the country. The half a million pound house is becoming a commonplace and a million pounds is no longer rare; more extraordinarily still, prices are rising by 20 or 30 percent a year. To buy such a house demands a mortgage of a quarter a million or more, and that in turn, even with today’s interest rates, implies monthly repayments of around £2,000 a month. But for a growing number of households, where both partners work, such repayments can be paid relatively easily. It may mean both are working for 50 or 60 hours a week and the parenting of their children, even the caring of their pets, is being subcontracted; but the mortgage can be paid. Observer, 6 June.

They own them all

Eighty-two percent of corporate stock in America is held by the wealthiest 10 percent of families. But over half those shares, the controlling stake, is owned by the richest one percent alone. The membership of this One Per Cent Club has expertly diversified portfolios and trusts. They own GM and Ford, Monsanto and its “competitor” Dow Chemical. Ergo, they don’t care which horse wins the race because they own the whole race track. So what does the Wealthy One Per Cent want? Answer: more wealth. Where will they get it? As with a tube of toothpaste, they are squeezing from the bottom. Observer, 6 June.

Trust 

The Prime Minister yesterday urged employers and unions to end the “often meaningless ritual” of the annual pay round when he launched a £5 million fund to promote partnership at work. He made the call as part of the Government’s plan to reduce the causes of regular conflict between employers and the unions in a speech at a Trades Union Congress conference in London aimed at promoting partnership. Mr Blair said the unions must resist reverting to the “bad old days” of the “them and us” climate of the 1970s and work at being more committed to business. The £5 million will be used to train managers and trade union officials to work together more effectively and to build trust between unions and businesses. Metro, 25 May.

Exploitation must increase 

Businesses in many European countries are outraged at a rising tide of social legislation and working directives, which they claim stifle enterprise and competitiveness, threaten jobs and cost billions. They support the view held by many UK businesses that without more flexibility, enterprises will go bust. At the head of their hate list are the Social Chapter, which includes trade union rights, the Working Time Directive limiting employees’ working hours, and a mass of environmental regulations. Financial Mail on Sunday, 6 June.

Better than opium? 

Our national lottery’s licence is up for grabs and the only question is: will Camelot win it again? The lottery’s sole problem is that we in Britain are currently spending only £100m a week on it, so they are launching a new game next week to tempt us to blow a little more . . . Last year one independent, British, world-class academic revealed that more than 100,000 children in their early teens were seriously hooked on gambling. Those findings, based on publicly-funded research, were so worrying that the government tried to suppress them. Guardian, 3 June.

What starvation?

Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler is expected to propose doubling the proportion of arable land to be left uncultivated by farmers next year. Experts predict that he will propose a set-aside rate of at least 10 percent in the 1999 season. Commission officials say the current level of 5 percent has failed to prevent soaring cereal production, causing a sharp drop in EU market prices and forcing the institution to buy in large amounts of surplus wheat and barley at the guaranteed price of 119 ecu per tonne. “Surplus stocks stand at about 15 million tonnes at present. We estimate that if this rate of 5 percent is carried over into next year, they will rise to 25 million tonne,” said one official. European Voice, 4/10 June.

Notes by the Way: Heroes and Geniuses (1947)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Heroes and Geniuses

Back in 1918 Mr. Lloyd George told the soldiers that he aimed to build a country “fit for heroes to live in.” The disgusted sufferers in Lloyd George’s post-war Britain were soon telling him bitterly that only heroes could stand it. Mr. Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, has now been telling the National Institute of Houseworkers that housekeeping to-day (that means under Labour Government), has to be an art, “ and even sometimes a work of genius ” (Sunday Express, 13/4/17). Of course we are all heroes now, or so we were told during the ‘‘blitzes” by "We can take it ” Mr. Morrison, but how do we stand as geniuses? According to Dr. J. R. Rees, formerly chief psychiatrist adviser, to the army., we don’t shape very well—“nearly 30 per cent. of people in Britain are mentally backward, chronically neurotic or emotionally handicapped” (Sunday Express, 13/4/47).

The truth is that this capitalist bedlam is becoming unendurable even to heroes and geniuses and unless we break out of it soon the human race not only won’t live (as distinct from partly living), it won’t even survive.

America Seeks Democracy (and Oil) in the Middle East

”Mr. Chester Morrow (Republican) told the House of Representatives to-day that any failure to approve President Truman’s programme 'will imperil American oil interests in the Middle East.’

"Mr. Morrow, who is a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said : ‘In the event of future trouble the almost illimitable supply of oil in Arabia will be of paramount importance to our national defence. To protect our national interests, and help to guarantee our security, we must not allow the Middle East to he overrun by the Power whose actions clearly indicate an unfaltering determination to dominate all the world.’ ” —(Manchester Guardian, 27/3/47.)

Flowers for the Funeral of Full Employment

Under the heading "Luxury Labour Exchange has flowers, settees,” the Evening Standard (January 29th. 1947). published a picture of a new exchange at Westminster. "There are no long counters, no queues, no benches at the new Labour Exchange for women . . . Instead, women wait on soft chairs and cushioned settees, are interviewed individually in small cubicles . . . and there are even flowers on occasional tables.” 

Dalton Promised an Age of Plenty

Speaking at Deptford on December 11th, Mr. Hugh Dalton. Chancellor of the Exchequer, said

“ It is true we had to put up with great shortages, but gradually we shall work our wav through the age of scarcity into the age of plenty and abundance is within our reach provided we organise our economic life in the interests of the collective effort, and in the national interest ” (Daily Mail. December 12th. 1946).

Mr. Dalton follows an ancient tradition. It is an old-English custom for Chancellors to promise "plenty.” In the meantime one industry seems to he doing well under Labour Government, the "Millionaire” industry. Since Labour came into power there have been some ten people who have died worth a million or more. The same issue of the Mail reported that Mr. W. J. Yapp, director of Carreras, the tobacco company, "has left a fortune estimated at about £4,000,000.” of which there will still be upwards of £1,500,000 left after payment of death duties.

Workers' Control?

"Lord Dukes—formerly Mr. Charles Dukes, the trade union pioneer—has been appointed a director of the Bank of England for four years.”

"The Hon. Hugh Kenyon Molesworth Kindersley, who has also been appointed a director for four years, is managing director of Lazard Brothers and Company Limited.”—(Daily Mail, 1/3/47.)

The Labour Government and the Idle Rich

Everybody knows that under Labour Government there are many people living in idleness at the expense of the wealth producers, though Government spokesmen profess not to know how many there are.

Back in 1937 when the Labour Party was in the political wilderness and its present leader had time to write books explaining what they would do when they got power, Mr. Attlee wrote:—"It is true that in the Socialist State people will be deprived of the right of living in idleness at the expense of the community . . .”  "The Labour Party in Perspective,” Mr. Attlee, page 143.)

Only a non-Socialist would refer to Socialism as the "Socialist State,” and all Socialists knew that the Labour Party had no intention of depriving the capitalists of the right to live on the proceeds of the exploitation of the working class. There were, however, Labour supporters who believed that a Labour Government would take that step: Had they not heard Labour speakers declaim against the war-time injustice of workers being conscripted while capitalists were left in possession of their property? Remembering this and remembering too how often the Labour Party pledged itself against conscription in peace-time it must be a bitter experience for many Labour supporters to reflect on the fact that it is their party that legislates for conscription in peace-time, and gets it passed with the votes of Churchill and the Tories..

The Usefulness of Henry Ford

The death of Henry Ford, the American motor magnate, whose fortune has been variously estimated nf from £150 million to £200 million. induced Mr. G. L. Schwartz in the Sunday Times (13/4/47) to discuss the usefulness or otherwise of millionares to the community. This is his case for the millionaires: —

"Here is a simple test. Suppose the price of a 20 per cent, all-round rise in the standard of living in this country over the next decade was the emergence of 50 new millionaires, bloated millionaires. if you like . . . Would you advocate foregoing the improvement for the sake of greater equalitarianism? We can quarrel about this, but let us quarrel intelligently.”

At first glance this may look to be a reasonable presentation of the conflict between Socialism and Capitalism, as Mr. Schwartz intends it to be: but only at first glance. It is actually a statement of the division of opinion between those who advocate unrestricted Capitalism and those, like the Labour Party, who advocate legislation to impose high taxation on large incomes, and high duties on fortunes passing at death. Socialists are not in either camp. Our proposition is that Socialism is quite different from and vastly superior to either wav of trying to run Capitalism, the American way or the British Labour Government’s way. In both countries the mass of the population live in constant poverty, in fear of losing their employment, and in fear of losing their lives in capitalism's wars—for wars and crises are just as much part of Capitalism as are millionaires.

So also is unemployment. In the much-quoted article "The Carrot and the Stick” the “Economist” (29/6/46) showed how necessary unemployment is to Capitalism in order to goad the workers into the degree of effort required by the employers. “Provided that no one is unemployed for more than a short time, an unemployment ratio of 5 per cent, is not only supportable but absolutely necessary to provide mobility and elasticity in the economy. Full employment, in fact, will not work without a million unemployed.” Now look at Mr. Schwartz’s assumption in the light of the facts. Note that he places his assumption in the future, why not in the past? If it is a sound assumption it should be true of the past decades as well as the coming ones.

So it now can be restated as ”Suppose there was an all-round 20 per cent. rise in the standard of living in the past decade . . .” Need we say any more than to challenge our economist to prove that British workers are 20 per cent. better off than in 1937, 40 per cent. better off than in 1927, and 60 per cent. better off than they were 30 years ago! We have had lots of millionaires: we have also had two world wars, two major crises, hundreds of strikes and lock-outs, bad housing, under-feeding and all the miseries of unemployment and insecurity.

We think these things are a high price to pay for Capitalism, and we are willing to quarrel intelligently with Mr. Schwartz about it.

Why Daddy Goes Down the Mine 

For a while the Labour Government feared that too many workers were listening to the old refrain: “Don’t go down in the mine daddy.” Then a campaign to popularise the miner’s life was launched, and now recruits are coming in: ”2,000 men join the pits every week ” (Daily Express, 21/3/47). But it isn’t all due to propaganda; that never failing Capitalist persuader, unemployment, is playing its part. “In January, fewer than 800 men a week were volunteering. Now all men under 35 who are out of work for four weeks are being advised to go to the pits ” (Daily Express, 21/3/47).

No More Sneers at Capitalism

Captain Raymond Blackburn, Labour M.P. for King’s Norton, Birmingham, has been in hot water with some of his constituents for a speech he made recently Declaring that an entirely new approach is needed he went on :—

“We in the Labour movement must realise that the export trade is in the hands of private enterprise. We must proudly acclaim its achievements instead of sneering at those who are successful. It is an odd paradox that the success of Socialism in Britain depends in large degree upon the efficiency of private enterprise

“I believe that despite the clear statement of our position in the White Paper and by the Prime Minister in his broadcast we are still heading for disaster. This is not pessimism, but realism.

“It seems impossible that we can survive as a great exporting nation in the years of competition that lie ahead, if there is any substantial reduction in the hours of work in our main industries.—(Daily Telegraph, 24/3/47).

What Captain Blackburn calls an odd paradox is more than that, it is utter nonsense. The success of Socialism has nothing to do with the Labour Party’s ability to run Capitalism. The truth is that the Labour Government is in a jam, as everyone who looked squarely at the facts knew it would be. They promised to give the workers the benefits of Socialism without abolishing Capitalism; to make the wage-earners comfortable, prosperous and contented without getting rid of wage-slavery. Two particular promises were higher wages (without higher prices.), and shorter hours. Now they are damping down on claims for higher wages and shorter hours because they have to make it possible for the Capitalists to get their profits. The Labour supporters who are surprised and horrified at Captain Blackburn’s statement have no real ground for complaint. If they had studied Labour Party literature with care they would have known what was bound to be the outcome of keeping the Capitalist leopard alive and in good health while trying to change its spots.

The Royal Trip to South Africa

Some Labour M.P.s criticised the Royal trip to S. Africa on ground of its cost—altering H.M. “Vanguard” cost £170,000 (News Chronicle, 19/3/47), and others on the ground of its obvious object, that of helping to prop up Smut’s government against his Nationalist rivals.

Mr. Hannen Swaffer, Labour Party supporter, admitted the purpose and that Smuts is “anti-native and an enemy of the trade unions,” but defended the trip.

“The King’s visit to a Dominion where there is a very strong anti-British republicanism may do infinite good to our relations.

“General Smuts is admittedly anti-native and an enemy of the trade unions. But he is a Prime Minister whose friendship for Britain was one of the deciding factors in the war. His loyalty to the Commonwealth will be greatly helped by a tour which, extravagant though may be its circumstance, is a normal part of constitutional procedure.—(People, 9/2/47).

Indian Nationalists and the Trade Unions

Indian workers who supported the Nationalist movement in the belief that the Indian propertied class would behave differently from British rulers in India are soon learning their mistake. The following statement, taken from the journal of the All-India Trade Union Congress relates to a Trade Union Bill introduced by the Interim Government:—

“ Mr. Jagjivan Ram, Labour Member of the Interim Government of India introduced in the Legislative Assembly (Central) on November 1st, 1946, a Bill which claims 'to make provision for the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes ’ but which, in reality attacks the worker’s right to direct action and strike. The Bill not only embodies all the objectionable features of the Trade Disputes Act, 1929, but seeks to incorporate the hated provisions of Rule 81A of the D. I. R banning strikes and thus perpetuate the wartime restrictions on the right of workers to strike so as to practically annul it. He seemed to be in such a great hurry to put this measure on the Statute Book that he moved that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee with instructions to report within a week.—(Trade Union Record,” Bombay, November, 1946).

What Is Prosperity?

Future historians who look back and read to-day’s descriptions of our own age will be puzzled by the restricted meaning applied to the word prosperity. It is usual in the Capitalist Press to apply the term to the propertied class only, and to ignore vast masses of the population. We are told that U.S.A. is prosperous, “the only nation to-day in which a glut of goods threatens disaster"—(Sunday Times, 13/4/47). Farmers and business men are jittery lest overproduction should lead to drastic price cuts and loss of profits, hut this doesn't mean that there aren't millions of poverty-stricken workers who need the products but cannot afford them. The "Economist" (5/4/47) thinks that the situation may be relieved by Government grants “to help local groups provide well-balanced midday meals at cost to all children in school, and free to those whose parents cannot afford payment"

Britain, on the other hand, is said to be a very poor country and Sir Stafford Cripps says: "We can't win through by chiselling and scrounging, by black marketeering or evading our fair share, or by trying to live on the industry of others"—(Daily Herald, 20/3/47.)

Yet the propertied class are living on the industry of others as usual, and doing quite well. The News Chronicle (12/3/47) reported a visit to a small grocery shop in South Audley Street where he saw caviare at £10 10s. a lb., and Truffles at 26s. 6d. a pint as well as other expensive delicacies. The owner of the shop told the reporter “that most of his customers are wealthy and spend lavishly to get what they want." This shopkeeper, by the way "considers the price of his caviare very reasonable. Another West End shop charges £12 12s. a lb."

Spain is another prosperous country, according to Sir. Mont Follick, Labour M.P. for Loughborough. He went to Spain and wrote about it in the Sunday Express (6/4/47). Here are some statements taken from Mr. Follick’s article:—

“Franco has introduced a large variety of reforms that benefit the working classes, though he has quashed their liberty to strike.

"There is no doubt that at this present moment there is extraordinary prosperity in Spain.

“But the working classes are very badly off.

"Everybody feels that something should be done for the working classes, but not a single subsidised house has been built for them, because it it not a business proposition to do so."

If we are to take Mr. Follick literally Spain is indeed a remarkable place. It is very prosperous but the workers are very badly off—this in spite of the variety of reforms Franco has kindly introduced for them—and everybody feels that something should be done for them but nobody does anything.

One at least of Mr. Follick's observations has a familiar ring, it is so true of all countries—"A man who has money in Spain has a life of luxury."

The Churches and the Dogs

The Churches are worrying about the spread of gambling and religion appears to be fading out. On March 11th the Manchester Guardian published a report of a Churches Committee on gambling which estimates that out of a working population of 20,000,000 16,000,000 bet regularly on football pools, horses or dog-racing. In the same issue of the Guardian the Lord Mayor was quoted as saying that "as few as 5 per cent. of the population of London attended places of worship."

If the figures are placed side by side it appears somewhat odd that the Churches (5 per cent. of the population) should be telling the Government to curtail the waste of man-power on betting, which interests 80 per cent. Mere weight of numbers suggests that the 80 per cent. should call for inquiry into the waste of man-power on religion, in which relatively few are interested. Point is given to this by the recent inquiry about religious knowledge made by the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. He examined young recruits in the Navy and found that only one in five could repeat the Lord's Prayer word perfect and only 45 per cent knew what Easter commemorates.—(Daily Mail, 12/4/47.)

Some Labour Party Pronouncements on Wages and Prices

"Maintenance of a high and constant purchasing power through good wages."—(From " Let Us Face the Future," Labour Election Programme, 1945.)

"A Labour Government will co-operate with the Trade Unions to improve wage standards ..." (“Labour's Immediate Programme," 1937.)

Now the unions are being asked to co-operate with the Government in avoiding claims for higher wages.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2009)

From the March 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Passing Show: The last days of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the June 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

The last days of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen

The village of Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen lies in a valley among the peaceful hills of South Wales. It runs no risks from volcanoes or other forces of nature. And yet, if the National Coal Board carries out its declared intention, Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen will be destroyed as surely as Mount Vesuvius destroyed Pompeii.

The National Coal Board, like any other Capitalist board of directors, thirsts after profit. But it took over coalmines which private Capitalism had bled white; much investment must be made before the mines can become profitable again. In the meantime, some pits, because of such geological conditions as faulting in the seams, lose more money than others. And because of such geological conditions, there are more disputes between masters and men at such pits over proper rates of pay. Strikes occur, men are dismissed because the management say they are employing “go-slow” tactics, bitterness increases; and this in its turn leads to more disputes.

Among such pits are the East and Steer pits at Gwaun-Cae-Gurwenn. Over a thousand men from the village work there. There is no alternative employment nearer than Margam steelworks, 20 miles away. Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen lives because it works at the two collieries.

And on May 11th last the National Coal Board gave 14 days' notice to all the miners at the two pits. It intends to close both of them because "continued restrictions of effort, lack of co-operation by the workmen, and low productivity” have resulted in serious financial losses. (The Times, 12/5/56).

Those who extol the merits of the British ruling class say that in Britain no one is punished without a fair trial and conviction. But here is. punishment—and what punishment is more severe than deprivation of livelihood? —without trial, without even individual accusation; it is group punishment, for which the British ruling class condemned the German rulers in the last war—making all suffer for the supposed faults of some.

Wasted Effort

But apart from that, how clearly the action of the N.C.B. demonstrates the position of the workers under Capitalism, Private or State. The worker is employed by the kind consent of the Capitalist; when the Capitalist no longer wants him, he casts him out; and the worker must crawl away until he finds some other property-owner who will make a profit out of employing him. In such a case as Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, the worker must cut his family ties, and perhaps leave the village where he was born, before he can find other work.

What a tragedy is here! Troy was taken and wiped out by enemy soldiers, hiding in a wooden horse which the enemies of Troy had built. But Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen is to be destroyed by the National Coal Board, for the creation of which no one worked harder, or sacrificed himself more eagerly, than the South Wales miner. Capitalism, whatever it is called, does not change its nature; the National Coal Board is preparing to offer up Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen as a tribute to the great god Profit with as little compunction as private Capitalists could have shown.

Gambling—selective criticism

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church of England, the Congregational Assembly—all join in condemning Mr. MacMillan's new premium bond scheme. The scheme, they say roundly, constitutes government encouragement of the practice of gambling. But not a word from the reverend archbishop, or from the august assemblies, about the great gamble which is the Stock Exchange. Which is not surprising. The Church of England is doing very well from its speculations upon the Stock Exchange; and all churches realize, consciously or sub-consciously, that their function in present-day society is to allay any discontent among the masses by promising a rosy future in the sky; and to draw attention to the activities of the ruling class, upon the Stock Exchange and elsewhere, is not the best way to perform that task. So while the churches criticise some forms of gambling, they keep quiet about other and more serious, kinds.

Mass deportation

At the conferences among the victorious war-chiefs at the end of the second world war it was agreed that eastern Germany, beyond the Oder and the Neisse, should be given to Poland to compensate her for territories she had to give up to Russia? As was foreseen, Poland deported the millions of Germans living in this part of Germany, and repopulated the territory with displaced Poles. As the knowledge of this atrocity—surely one of the most gigantic "War-crimes” committed by either side—spread, the western allies tried, by undignified squirming, to put all the blame on Russia. Russia, of course, must bear her share of the blame, but not all of it.

But not all of our "leaders” have abandoned mass deportation as an answer to the problems of Capitalism. Step forward, Mr. R. T. Paget, Q.C., M.P. Mr. Paget believes that mass deportation of the Cypriots to Greece would solve the Cyprus problem. He wrote to The Times on April 27th:

   "Whenever an act of terrorism takes place and no information is forthcoming from the locality, then compulsory purchase orders should be served on all Greek property owners in that locality and the inhabitants should be deported to Greece. . . . The ships that deported the Greeks would return with Turks who would purchase and settle in the property we had acquired from the Greeks."

“This process,” Mr. Paget writes blandly, “would continue until there was a Turkish majority or until terrorism stopped.” Mr. Paget, as becomes a leading supporter of Capitalism, leaves out of the reckoning any question of the human suffering this would entail, the merits of punishing all for the faults of some, and the justice—even by Capitalist standards—of deporting people from an island where they and their forbears have lived for hundreds of years. It only remains to add that Mr. Paget is a prominent member of the Labour Party, which claims to be devoted to increasing the sum of human happiness.

Queensbury Rules

Another Labourite, and former M.P., Tom Driberg, also has some comments to offer upon the Cyprus situation. Unlike Mr. Paget, Mr. Driberg believes that “when government degenerates into tyranny... violent resistance is legitimate ” (Reynolds News, 13-5-56). He goes on:

  "Violent resistance, however, should have its code of decency. Attacks should be directed primarily against enemy installations—camps, airfields, stores of weapons, radio-stations. It is wrong to throw bombs into married quarters, to shoot soldiers off duty, shopping with their families."

The code which Mr. Driberg offers for the guidance of the EOKA resistance in Cyprus is not the code which the British forces pursued in the last war, with no protest from Mr. Driberg. Bombs were not only thrown but dropped in large quantities into every kind of quarters; British soldiers and airmen did not stop to enquire whether the Germans they killed were soldiers off duty, or indeed whether they were soldiers at all. If Mr. Driberg thinks so much of his code, he should have offered it to the public earlier, during the last war, when he was in Parliament.

As for Socialists, they have nothing to do either with bomb-throwing Cypriots or schoolboy-flogging Britons. The issue being fought out in Cyprus is this: are the Cypriot workers, Greek and Turkish, to be exploited by a British ruling class or a Greek ruling class? The Socialist attitude to Cyprus is the same as the Socialist attitude to every other part of the world; abolish Capitalism, which subsists on exploitation and leads to bloodshed and establish Socialism

Alwyn Edgar

Las Vegas: Everyone’s a Loser (2020)

From the January 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

Las Vegas is Spanish for The Meadows. A settlement was established there in 1905. Before that it was just an oasis in the Mojave Desert.

Nothing strange about an oasis in the desert. A well with water for the weary traveller and his camels. Trees to shade them from the hot sun while they rest. I see it in my mind’s eye.

‘Hold on there, mate Camels?’

Joe Zentner tells us that ‘Bactrian camels were imported from Manchuria to San Francisco in 1860 and put to work as pack animals in Nevada’ (‘The Desert Camel Experiment: Camels in America’s Southwest’ Link).

True, the experiment was not a great success. Camels are suited to soft sandy terrain. Much of the Mojave consists of ‘desert pavement’ with sharp-edged rocks that cut the poor creatures’ feet. Camels are not long-suffering beasts of burden. When in pain they kick you and spit at you. The camel drivers didn’t like that.

Anyway, those days are long gone. By 2018 the Las Vegas Metropolitan Area was home to 2,227,000 people. It also had over 42 million visitors. In the middle of the desert.

Local aquifers provide a mere tenth of the metropolitan area’s drinking water. The rest is taken from Lake Mead, which even though fed by the Colorado River is shrinking fast. The city government wants to build a pipeline to pump in water from three valleys in Utah. Opponents of the scheme say that the pipeline would turn the valleys into dustbowls.

As for the sun, it is hotter than ever. Las Vegas has a few trees, but the cooling effect of their shade is outweighed by the ‘heat island’ effect of its concrete and asphalt. Daytime temperatures remain above 100°Fahrenheit (38C) throughout the summer. On some days the thermometer goes over 110° (43C), the official record being 117° (47C) reached on June 20, 2017.

All temperatures higher than that of human blood (98.4°F/36.8C) endanger human life and health. Most people are able to live in Las Vegas only thanks to air conditioning, which gives further impetus to global warming.

But what about building workers and others who have to work outdoors? Starting shifts at the crack of dawn and ending by noon provides only partial protection. How do the homeless cope? Residents of homeless shelters, pushed out into the heat for most of the day? Where do they get the large amount of fluid they need to drink every hour so that they can perspire, cool their bodies, and survive? The hotels and restaurants don’t want them hanging around.

The fastest-warming city

And it gets hotter every year. Las Vegas is the fastest-warming city in the United States. Its average temperature has risen by 5.8°F since 1970. The corresponding figure for the country as a whole is 2.5°F.

What are the sources of the livelihood of these 2.2 million people in the middle of the desert? How do they pay for all the goods that have to be shipped in for their consumption?

Agriculture? In the middle of the desert? What would they farm? Cacti?

Fishing? Forestry? In the middle of the desert?

Mining? Are there valuable minerals in the desert?

Gold and silver used to be mined in the area, but that came to an end long ago. The Techatticup mine in Eldorado Canyon closed in 1942.

Manufacturing? Do they make anything?

No.

Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice said on her journey through Wonderland.

Their livelihood comes from gambling, tourism, and entertainment. That explains why they get so many visitors.

But the tourists come mainly for the gambling. Without the gambling there would be few tourists to pack into hotels, restaurants, museums, bars, and brothels or entertain with shows and concerts.

The pivot of Las Vegas’ economy is gambling. The city has over 100 of the largest casinos in the United States.

What is gambling? Without delving into technical details, we can say that gambling is a set of deceptive games of chance used to transfer money from a large number of ‘losers’ to a much smaller number of ‘winners’ – the main winner by far always being the owner of the gambling establishment. In 2013, according to a study conducted at the University of Las Vegas, the 23 largest casinos (the study ignored the others) pocketed over $5 billion of their visitors’ money.

Sinister ways

Why do people gamble so much?

Julian Crowley has detailed ‘ten sinister ways casinos keep you gambling’. They include:

• additional oxygen pumped in to keep you awake;
• ‘psychedelic’ carpets with garish patterns and clashing colors, also to stop you dozing off;
• ‘mild, looping’ background music for its hypnotic effect;
• food and drink served to you (often without charge) right at the gambling table;
• no clocks to remind you of the passage of time;
• no windows to remind you of the world outside;
• slot machines that convey subliminal messages.
• Last but not least, it is deliberately made difficult and time-consuming to exchange your remaining chips for cash and find the way out of the maze-like floor layout.

But the main reason why people gamble is that the casinos encourage them to focus on the tiny chance of winning rather than on the much higher probability of losing. They are misled by frequent ‘near wins’ and paltry wins. Flashing lights ‘give you the impression that winning is constant and all around you.’ When someone is allowed to have a big win a huge fuss is made and there is lots of publicity, but security staff intervene if anyone tries to film people who are losing.

It is true that gamblers may enjoy the experience of gambling even when they are losing, even though there is photographic evidence of individuals in front of slot machines or at the gaming table who are clearly in great distress. It’s also doubtful whether pleasure taken in the process of gambling, where it exists, often outweighs the distress felt later, when the gambler realises just how much money he or she has lost – money that could and should have been spent on other things. Gamblers risk loss of their homes, breakup of their families, bankruptcy, even suicide.

A social ‘bad’

Gambling then makes no net contribution to human welfare. On balance, it is a social ‘bad’ rather than a social ‘good.’ As gambling is the raison d’être of Las Vegas – the only reason why this big city exists in the middle of the desert – it would be better for human well-being if Las Vegas were to become once more what it was before 1905 – an unsettled green oasis.

In a socialist society the city of Las Vegas will in all likelihood be abandoned. Because it is in a place where it makes no sense for people to live. The local flora and fauna are adapted to the desert environment. People are not. In past ages no one would have dreamt of living here. It was a place to take refreshment, rest a while, and travel on.

The city of Las Vegas will be abandoned in a socialist society also because in such a society gambling will not exist. Gambling will not exist because people will feel no urge to gamble, for they will have free access to whatever they need. Money itself will not exist.

That does not, of course, mean that no one ever does anything worthwhile in Las Vegas. There is surely fantastic music being made there. Great tacos too. The music and the tacos will continue to be made in a socialist society. But not in the middle of the desert.

Stefan

50 Years Ago: Betting Becomes Respectable (2012)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the new legalised betting shops are off to a good start and working class punters adorned with the dubious honour of a mantle of bourgeois respectability wherever they can lose their fair day’s pay in a more dignified way; it may be timely to compare the old back street hole-in-the-corner betting dens of Manchester with some of the present chromium plated outfits blossoming forth under the new regulations.

No longer is there any need to slip surreptitiously down a back alley or dodge P.C. 49 and the Black Maria in a frantic effort to play up one’s pension or the rent on the elusive 2.30 winner; one awaits the result, jammed tight in a sweating mass of the unfortunate class of society, who never seem to tire of trying to gamble their way out of poverty, merely because they do not yet realise the cause of it.

Those repulsive conditions of working class punters, in grim contrast to the environment and atmosphere of Ascot lawns, etc., have given way, despite the hypocritical opposition of the men of God, to armchair betting in the main street betting shops, with loudspeaker commentaries, official receipts for all commissions, and rapid payment after results and the weigh in.

(…) [W]e point to the cause of all this gambling activity—the crazy profit system of production which divorces the producers from their products, leads them up the garden to chase shadows in State-organised lotteries, Football Pools and Bingo rackets, and the rest. This is typical of capitalism in 1962: but in a cooperative world of production for use, a money-less, class-less, trade-less community, gambling will cease simply because profits and losses, poverty, privilege and luxury will give way to the social equilibrium of production for use.

(from article by G. R. Russell, Socialist Standard, October 1962)

That £75,000 "Pie in the Sky" (1958)

From the January 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

"And that inverted bowl we call the sky,  

Whereunder, crawling, coopt—we live and die, 

Lift not your hands to it for help, 

For it rolls impontently on, as thou or I.”

Of all the "carrots” that have been dangled before the credulous eyes of the working class (as a loophole for the individual escapologist from wage-slavery) the £75,000 Treble Chance Pools craze certainly takes the proverbial "biscuit.”

Look in any G.P.O. any Friday during the football season and the sight of the queues of budding entrepreneurs for emancipation, feverishly filling in coupons and buying endless postal drafts, is enough to gladden the heart of any government bondholder, let alone the Pools firm’s shareholders.

The giddy idea is to forecast eight draws in one column from about 54 matches—despite the odds against same being in the region of several millions to one.

Capitalism is certainly the gambling system par excellence—from the glittering casinos of Monte Carlo and the Riviera (to say nothing of the fashionable English, Continental and American race meetings) where patrons— drawn from the parasitical "elite” of the international capitalist class—"relieve” their ennui frittering away some of the "filthy lucre” filched from the international working class via the medium of the wages robbery system.

On the other hand, the small-town back-alley dog tracks or the slot-machine craze of Las Vegas, where the lure of the "Almighty Dollar” is too much for working class flesh and blood—writhing under a frustrating poverty-ridden system of society—to withstand.

Certainly a few may hit the "Jack Pot” and deliver themselves from bondage, but, for the vast majority, defeat is inevitable and the slough of despair under capitalism is a "bottomless pit.”

"Let Not Ambition Mock Their Useful Toil”
By and large, trying to emulate a Lipton or a Nuffield or to "Win the Pools” is merely a form of procrastination on the part of those who produce the wealth of the world and in whose hands lies the future welfare of society as a whole.

Instead of being "led up the garden path” by the "success” propagandists of capitalism or by the social bait of a chimerical £75,000 and allowing their life span to "slip through their fingers” struggling in comer shops, offices, mills, mines and factories, trying to get a foot on the proverbial "bottom rung’’—the workers of the world should "support” their own "horse,” which is entered in the "race” for their emancipation—the Socialist Party— which has a "ton” in hand of the “opposition” and with their class conscious support can achieve the Socialist Revolution.

As it is, the years roll on and capitalism is still our unwelcome companion, spreading the diseases of Nationalism, Commerce and Religion, together with the eternal "success” phantasy ad nauseum to ourselves and our children. Confusion enough when it comes to educating them for their real social responsibility—the organsation and achievement of Socialism. Be that as it may, the world organisation for Socialism, with 53 years' "spade” work behind it and equal to the task which lies ahead, will not be found wanting when the mighty organism of the world-wide working class shakes off its political confusion and sallies forth to claim its social heritage— a place in the Socialist “sun.”

Finally, and using Thoreau’s words—"As in the long run man only hits what he aims at, he better aim high" — let us make our “target” nothing short of revolutionary scientific Socialism, from which we can all reap a richer and socially more satisfying “harvest” than any improbable parasitical "successful entrepreneur” existence within the profit system.

G. R. Russell