Letter: Individual liberty (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Individual liberty

Replying to W. J. Street (September Socialist Standard), you reject Kropotkin’s vision of a society where “the liberty of the individual will not be limited by laws or bonds”. Does this then imply that there will be such laws or bonds with Socialism?

Does the "democratic social organisation" necessitate compulsory majority decisions? If so, as the State "has withered away”, how will such decisions be enforced?

Are we referring to Socialism or to a controversial intermediate society?

Finally, with the material needs no longer at risk, will the individual and society continue to be in conflict?

After all, people do not shoot one another because of divergent views on art or would not do so in a civilised society.

F. Ball

Wokingham

Reply:

We reject Kropotkin’s view of society because in common with all anarchists he places the liberty of the individual above the needs of society. This is a utopian conception; society is not just a collection of individuals. The wants and needs of the individual are inseparable from the organization of socialist society.

The duties and the relationships of those living in Socialism will be established by social custom, as it was in the period of man’s early history before the advent of private property. Society, which will be democratically controlled, will have a responsibility towards all its members and vice versa. The keynote is social co-operation at every level.

It would be wrong to claim that there will always be total agreement, but there would not nor could not be any coercion against any individual or minority who did not agree with majority decisions. Matters in dispute would have to be thrashed out, and any decision taken would put the interest of the community first, and a dissenting minority would be expected to go along with it. The fact that all available information and facilities will be at the disposal of minorities or individuals, and discussion unrestricted, will help them to see the reasons for the majority decision, even though they may not accept it. Few people will not bow to reason if they have had a fair hearing. As you do not give a specific example we cannot develop this point further.

Socialism is not an intermediate society. There is no half-way stage or transition between socialism and capitalism—we move from one into the other.

We generally agree with your last point. However, we do not divorce the individual’s needs, including his cultural and intellectual needs, from those of society. The individual is a social product and his thinking powers are born out of social conditions. He is not above society but of it. His ideas arise from and must relate to the material circumstances of his social existence.

Cops protect robbers (1981)

From the September 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism will be a world society without a police force. In fact, it will be a society without a legal system. And because there will be no laws there will be no courts to argue about them in, no prisons in which to lock up offenders, and no people who will be called criminals because they have broken the law.

The idea of socialism as a lawless, crimeless society is likely to evoke the strangest of responses from those who stand for what is euphemistically referred to as ‘law and order’. Judges will tell us that prisons and punishment must always be, for we are all sinners. The person in the street will say that without the law there would be anarchy and under anarchy nothing would be safe. Criminologists will tell us that anti-social behaviour is a necessary feature of modern urban industrial living (which is only a trendy way of saying what the judge has already said). Indeed, even most criminals will insist that a certain degree of law and order is necessary and that the best place for those who have committed worse crimes than them is in a prison cell.

As for the politicians, Leftie Frank Field (Labour, Birkenhead, no convictions) writes that ‘Like most people, I cannot conceive of a society without a police force’. (Guardian, 5/8/81). Tory Home Secretary Whitelaw warned on television recently that ‘without the police, that which we treasure as a nation would be jeopardised’. (Could he have been referring to the Stock Exchange?) Even the very silly Workers’ Revolutionary Party, in their recent GLC election manifesto, called for the replacement of the Metropolitan police force by an armed workers’ militia.

The public’s view of the police is currently undergoing a profound change. The image of the Dixon of Dock Green—type copper with a patronising concern to protect ‘villains’ from themselves and a claim to serve ‘the community’ is fast dying. The role of the police as the brutal defenders of property and privilege is increasingly being recognised. The use of the police as strikebreakers, as contributors to the harassment of racial minorities, as corrupt bullies who will often turn a blind eye to law-breaking if the price is high enough, and, in the cases of Liddle Towers, Blair Peach and unrecorded others, as the unprosecuted murderers of members of the working class.

This writer’s first experience of police methods came during the Grunwick strike in 1977 when he saw uniformed officers kicking pickets when they lay on the ground and beating people up in the back of open police vans. Many trade unionists will testify as to how the police have been used in strikes in order to make life hard for the strikers. Accounts of police persecution of legally innocent workers are increasingly common, especially in areas where there are many black immigrants. Many people convicted of crimes—and many not convicted, but charged-have told how police have illegally beaten them, forced confessions from them and even intimidated their friends and relatives.

The words of police chiefs do not help to comfort those who live in fear of ‘the boys in blue’: Metropolitan Police Chief Commissioner, David McNee, recently stated that ‘if people stay off the streets at night they will have nothing to fear from the police’, while Merseyside’s Chief Constable. Kenneth Oxford, wrote in his report to the Liverpool police committee, six weeks before the Toxteth riot, that

My policy on relationships with the community has been endorsed and strengthened throughout the year, with all members of the force being mindful in this direction. I am confident that these relationships with all sections of the community are in a very healthy position and I do not foresee any serious difficulties developing in the future. (Quoted in the Guardian, 6/8/81. Our emphasis.)

Oxford, whose force has been seen as a major contributory factor in the outburst on Toxteth streets, is clearly not a man of prescience.

Much as some people would like to turn a blind eye to it, it is a fact that the police force often exceeds its legal powers, frequently serves to increase social tensions and ignore criminality when it is committed by the rich. But this is not the root of the problem; socialists are not simply opposed to the police-or to “bad” police—but to a system of social relationships which necessitates coercive forces.

The purpose of the police is to defend property. Yes, it is true that they help old ladies cross the road (whether they want to or not) and they run youth clubs for skinheads who want to be the next Henry Cooper. This, however, is not their main job and the idea of the police as uniformed social workers is a myth. Indeed, police officers can often be disciplined by their superiors for spending too much time helping people when there is real police work to be done elsewhere. One such case is quoted by E. Bittner:

An officer was walking a beat in a quiet residential area when he encountered a middle-aged matron who had been locked out of her home. She had a load of groceries and obviously could not climb into the window she designated as open . . . He set aside hat and truncheon, climbed in through the window, and came downstairs to let her in. As she was grateful and was going to write a letter informing his superior of his meritorious service, he had to carefully explain to her that what he did was against police regulations and quite possibly against the law (since he had no evidence that she actually lived in the house). Any mentions of his actions would probably become a black mark in his personnel file. (“A Theory of the Police” in Potential for Reform of Criminal Justice, ed. H. Jacob, Sage Publications.)

Before the establishment of an official police force in 1829, policing was the direct responsibility of property-owners. Private security gangs were employed to defend the wealth of the rich against the illegal requirements of the poor. Before the rise of industrial capitalism, the administration of the law was primarily in the hands of local land magnates. They would appoint their own magistrates, pay for their own guards and be looked upon as the final arbiters in local disputes. With the increasing role of the state as a means of social control in the mid-Nineteenth century, the unity between the right of ownership and the right of coercion became blurred, but not eradicated.

The role of the early police force, as now, was to ensure the maintenance of the order of property. In an age when slums and mansions, expensive restaurants and hungry children, night clubs and homeless vagrants exist in such close proximity to one another it is vital for the owning class to have a permanent force to protect them and their property from the intrusion of the impoverished. With capitalism, the concept of criminality became synonymous with the disruption of property relationships. In earlier centuries laws tended to be justified in moral terms, but modern jurisprudence has increasingly discarded anachronistic moral and religious formulae and has described its role in explicitly material terms. The police, as a body which is directly governed by laws passed in parliament, now have a clearly political role. What the state says, the police must do.

Dirty work

The state is not an institution which has always existed. In ancient societies, when the means of producing wealth were commonly held, there was no need for an institution to defend private property. The state was a direct consequence of the earliest appropriation of wealth in the form of tools, land and slaves—by private owners. The evolution of the state, as an institution to protect and expand private property, has developed as humankind has increased its domination over the natural environment. With the emergence of nation states with their own particular economic interests, in Western Europe in the late fifteenth century, it became necessary for states to recruit standing armies to fight the battles of the various national ruling classes. At this stage of the evolution of the state machine emerged a division of its functions between military responsibilities to the ruling class—the protection and expansion of markets—and domestic responsibilities- the retention of internal order on the part of the nation’s rulers. That is the role of the police: they are the uniformed guards of the property-owning class. For every worker’s car which they retrieve and for every mugger they catch (and the police are notoriously bad at solving crimes which affect the working class), there are a hundred cases in which the police are quite directly defending property against poverty.

Of course, the capitalists do not do their own dirty work. They are the last people to be found treading the beat or risking their lives in fights against criminals. Why should they bother when they can pay suckers from the working class to act as human guard-dogs on their behalf? Just like other members of the working class, members of the police force have problems. They are dependent upon wages and, like most workers, these are never enough to satisfy their complete needs. They are frequently pushed around by authoritarian superiors who expect them to obey senseless orders. Many of them would like to be liked, but because of the real nature of their job (which is disguised during their training) they are forced to come into frequent conflict with their fellow workers. Of course, many workers join the police force because they are authoritarian, sadistic or politically motivated, but for the vast majority it is just a job, just a wage and just employment. Often the police respond to their problems by demanding more weapons or tougher laws, but in the end these will not eradicate their problems. So long as there is a system which needs repression, intolerance and thuggery in order to defend its norms, and as long as there are wage slaves who are willing to get their hands dirty defending their exploiters’ position, the police’s problem will continue.

Reformists are occasionally heard to demand the reform of the police. Indeed, the new Labour GLC leader, Ken Livingstone, has recently pledged himself in favour of a people’s police force, accountable to a ‘socialist GLC’! We have all experienced what is meant by a people’s police force. In state capitalist Poland, the armed bullies who smashed the skulls of striking workers in Bydgoszcz were called a ‘people’s’ militia. Did that stop them from viciously defending the right of capital against the needs of wage labour? To conceive of a legal system which will operate in terms of friendship and consensus within a system where ownership and control are firmly in the hands of a minority who own the productive and distributive machinery is naive in the extreme.

In a socialist society the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community without distinction of race or sex. In such a society, where no factory, farm, mine, newspaper, aeroplane or house will have an owner, be it an individual or the state, there will be no need for property laws. There will be no function for police or courts or prisons. The vast libraries containing thick statutes on who is entitled to possess what (and, by implication, who isn’t) will be placed in museums. The truncheons and uniforms and judge’s wigs will be regarded as items of perverse historical curiosity. For once the wealth of the world belongs to all humanity and there for our free access, what will there be to steal and what reason would there be to steal it?

Of course, the Human Nature Brigade will not be slow to answer our question. They will correct us for indulging in such utopian dreams. They will remind us that it is not the viciously competitive, warlike system of capitalism which leads people to commit acts of violence, but Human Nature. They will inform us that it is not the system which turns sex into a commodity and makes films glorifying the conquest of women which leads men to rape women, but Human Nature. They, who are the selected élite who have special knowledge of mankind’s inherent characteristics, will be able to tell us that it is not the overcrowded, boring, stressful conditions of most workers’ lives which leads some to act anti-socially, but Human Nature. And our Nature being what it is, we shall always need police to push us around and prison warders to lock us up and judges to judge us. Socialists argue that the social environment makes men and women what they are and that a competitive, jungle society will create anti-social beasts. Change the way in which the society is organised and human behaviour will change also.

But just as capitalism creates wage slaves who want to be pushed around and want to be slaves and fear freedom, at the same time, paradoxically, it creates its own gravediggers. By subjecting the working class more and more to the reality of its exploited and oppressed condition, capitalism creates dissent. If such dissent currently takes the form of engaging in futile street battles with the police and looting the third-rate commodities from the windows of the cheapest shops, experience will eventually transform such dissent into conscious political action. After all, however many policeman’s hats are knocked from their head, the police and the class which they exist to protect will still be there. However many reforms are passed to soften policemen’s truncheons, the arm of the law will always be stronger than the power of a politically atomised working class.

Steve Coleman

Letter: Drugs, cash and crime (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Drugs, cash and crime

In a socialist society would cannabis and other soft drugs be legal or illegal, or would it be free access as with other goods? If the latter, how would you deal with those who misuse them?

If a racist party of about ten years can field 300 candidates in the next election as stated in a recent News of the World article, why can’t the SPGB of 72 years field fifty candidates and get five minutes’ air time? The SPGB would succeed with its policies if they were known more and it is the ideal party policy-wise to combat racism.

I understand that under Socialism there would be no prisons. I realize that due to free access there would be no need to steal. As one who has been in jail and met some real bad people, how would Socialism stop these people committing murders and arson? When I have stolen it has been through necessity. I like most things I read in the Standard I have seen, but the above is one point that bothers me.

I would like to learn more of the SPGB. Would the fact that I have stolen in the past stop me becoming a member in the future?

D. R. Broadbent,

Wakefield

Reply:

We have put your three letters together, and numbered the answers to your questions.

1. The words “legal” and “illegal” will have no application in Socialism, since they represent the rule of one class over another. “Misuse” is itself a controversial term, since practically all of the substances taken as drugs have medical or everyday uses. In some people’s view “misuse”, of many things besides drugs, means letting the working class at large have them. Aldous Huxley, who wrote about his aesthetic experiences with drugs, was of that opinion: “I think the matter should be discussed, and the investigations described, in the relative privacy of learned journals, the decent obscurity of moderately high-brow books and articles.” (Letters, 1969, p.803).

On the other hand, the medical possibilities pointed out by Huxley have overtones of keeping obstreperous workers quiet: “A group of psychologists and social workers in Vancouver and Seattle have developed techniques for using mescaline therapeutically . . . Delinquent boys have been totally transformed in a single sitting.” (Ibid., p.720).

In this capitalist society it is impossible to evaluate sensibly and say what are beneficial uses and what are misuses. A large amount of drug-taking — including aspirin, alcohol, etc. — is to relieve or escape from the worries and harassments of life today, and will not be sought by people in Socialism. If it can be shown that a drug has no application other than giving harmless pleasure, we may still have to consider whether resources can be given over to producing it; but that will be for society as a whole to decide.

2. The number of SPGB candidates in parliamentary elections reflects our resources in funds and membership, and to have fifty would require far more money than we have or could raise at the present stage. Our income is made up of members’ subscriptions and donations; the Socialist Standard is sold at a loss, and consumes funds all the year round. Other political parties do not make their finances and all their transactions open as we do, so we cannot say how a particular one manages to put up a large number of candidates.

Most organizations depend on wealthy supporters. In the case of the Labour Party the supporter is the trade-union movement. In other cases, the supporters may be capitalists who think particular interests of theirs will be furthered if the organization gets political power or is successful in its reform demands. That in itself should explain why we do not get offers of such support. However, it is also true that the Socialist Party does not accept donations “with strings” which would give the donor special influence on our policies.

What will enable us to have more candidates is, therefore, a larger membership and bigger sales of the Socialist Standard.

3. Murderers are a microscopic proportion of the population. Many commit their crimes in the course of robberies or otherwise for money. Some murders are the results of a belief in causes, or antagonism to a particular section of people. Arson is an offence against property. On the other hand, you may join the armed forces and kill people and set fire to buildings; this is held to be not criminal but heroic. Look at what society makes of people and clear your head of nonsense about “bad individuals”.

4. The condition of membership of the Socialist Party is understanding and acceptance of its Object and Principles.

C. Brinton (Harwich): We are pleased to learn you propose to examine the Socialist case seriously, and look forward to hearing from you in due course.

Several letters have had to be held over because of pressure on space. We assure correspondents they will all be dealt with as soon as possible.

Editorial Committee.

Law and society (1974)

From the September 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism will be a system of society where the mass of formal rules and regulations which now govern human conduct will disappear. There will also be none of the trappings which inevitably accompany any advanced legal system.

The crushing environment of capitalist society helps to instil in people the idea that the law is some sort of external norm governing human behaviour and that those individuals administering it are a breed of superior beings. The foolish notion that judges and lawyers are somehow of a better moral or intellectual fibre than the rest of us, should not need debunking in the 1970s. Shakespeare did it over 350 years ago. King Lear says, “. . see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief . . . change places and handy dandy which is the justice which is the thief.”

More recently Belfort Bax in The Religion of Socialism said:

. . . it is an undoubted truth that no judge can be an honest man . . . and why? Because the aspiring member of the bar when he accepts a judgeship knows that in doing so he deliberately pledges himself to functions which at any moment compel him to act against his conscience and wrong another man . . . He lays himself under the obligation of administering a law which he may know to be bad on any occasion when called upon merely because it is the law. He makes this surrender of humanity and honour for what? For filthy lucre and tawdry notoriety. Now I ask can we conceive a more abjectly contemptible character than that which acts thus?

But the Socialist’s attitude to the role of law in society is not based on exposing the fallacy that those who administer the law are a nobler breed of men. It is reasoned on the basis of the law’s function in present day society. Although academic lawyers divide the realm of law into hundreds of different branches, when looked at from the point of view of society as a whole, there are really four main areas of law. These are state, criminal, contract and what is sometimes known as welfare law but is usually more accurately described as poverty law. An examination of these four branches of law shows their bases in capitalist society and how they will be totally irrelevant and unnecessary in Socialist society.

State law is the area of the legal machinery which deals with the individual’s right in society as against the machinery of government and its armed forces. States only exist in capitalist society as arbitrary boundaries, defining areas of competing capitalist interests. Internal state law is the legal machinery used as the front to back up the armed control of the capitalist over wealth produced by the workers. A world community where everything is owned in common will have neither place nor need for laws to keep one section of society in subjection.

Now let’s take criminal law. The vast bulk of this area is concerned with offences against recognised property relationships. All wealth in capitalist society is owned by definite individuals or bodies (e.g. companies or governments). The law takes no notice of how it came about that X owns vast estates and Y owns nothing. Criminal law is there to preserve those relationships that currently exist. The shareholder’s title to his shares is protected by the law (backed up by the armed force of the state); the landlord’s title to his land is likewise defended by the law. The criminal law takes no notice of the social robbery that is a fact of everyday life, i.e. that the land, factories, mines etc. are owned by a small minority. Clearly in a society where all wealth is owned by the whole of mankind, i.e. Socialism, there will be no part to be played by a system or rules to enable robbers to hold on to their booty.

The rest of the criminal law, which is not directly related to the defence of private property is largely concerned with state control of production and distribution. Factory legislation and road traffic legislation set a standard (usually the absolute minimum) for controls in the interest of the whole of the capitalist class. Lorries going at 80 m.p.h. are a danger to other products on the road; men working more than a certain number of hours at a stretch driving these lorries are also a danger to other commodities on the roads. They also risk damaging the goods of their own employer.

It is fairly well known that legislation protecting workers from dangerous machinery and processes is ineffective. Firstly the number of factory inspectors is totally inadequate. Secondly the penalties that are imposed for the breaches that are discovered and brought before the courts are derisive. Many employers find it cheaper to pay the penalty fines that are imposed for hazarding workers’ lives by, for example, unfenced machinery, than foot the bill for complying with safety regulations. In a Socialist society the needs of those involved in the productive processes will not be swept aside by the insane drive for profit.

The final part of the criminal law deals with ‘‘offences against the person’’. In terms of the legal machinery of capitalism it occupies a small part in the whole process. The majority of crimes in this category (often inter family disputes) are traceable to frustrations and problems caused by private property in society. When father comes home having worked a ten-hour day, doing a simple, boring, degrading, mind destroying process, to a wife cooped up in two rooms with three children, it is hardly surprising that domestic violence sometimes results. Other crimes of violence are generally linked with theft in some way or other though a recent ugly development has been political violence. The hooliganism of the football match and the thuggery of the tubes and street corners are only a reaction to the horrific conditions the majority of people face in private property society. In a society where material deprivations have been left behind the need for legal restraint will be found to be obsolete.

The third main area, contract law, covers an enormous field, from buying a joint at the local supermarket to property “developers” buying slag heaps. Quite obviously the majority of workers have little contact with this area of the law or the courts that administer it. Disputes over the amount to pay for a loaf of bread seldom reach the somber pomposity of High Court Judges. On the other hand a dispute over the correct price of a shipment of copper from South America could involve millions of pounds. The capitalist class needs the Civil Courts to sort out their property disputes. The only times the average worker has any real contact with this area of the law is when he is buying a house) of course on mortgage so it is really the building society or the local authority that is buying it); or if he fails to meet his instalments on the h.p. or the fridge. But it is a brief look, and many workers do not even have this glimpse into the mysteries of the workings of the law. Need it be added that when all wealth is owned in common, laws of contract will be as relevant as a horse and cart at the motor show.

Which leaves poverty law. The area embraces the law dealing with state benefits of whatever sort, local authority benefits (e.g. subsidized housing) and certain areas which are known as social law. It is an area where most lawyers know little and care less. After all there is no money to be made for the lawyer in explaining to the pensioner how he can obtain an allowance of 2p off the cost of his butter. It is, however, the area of the law with which most workers make some contact. In 1972 over 10 million received some sort of regular state “benefits", out of a total population of 56 million. (Social Trends 1973 published by the Central Statistical Office). That is a high proportion of the adult population. The distribution of the pittances that are given to the members of the working class, unable to keep even their abysmal standard of living afloat (£16 per week for a married couple not a pittance?) is surely evidence of the appalling failure of capitalist society to produce an answer to poverty. This despite the Lloyd Georges, the Beveridges and the mile upon mile of statutes dealing with poverty.

The vast complicated structure for measuring the subsistence allowances that are doled out to workers only has a place in a world that allows a small minority to live in luxury and forces the vast majority to live in poverty.

Finally, under this general heading of poverty law might be included “family law". The Law Society is responsible for administering the civil Legal Aid system in this country. That is the fund to enable people who cannot afford legal advice or assistance to have it paid by the state in certain circumstances. (This fund is different from the one relating to Legal Aid in criminal cases.) The Law Society calculates that the majority of its funds are used in proceedings relating to divorce, maintenance or custody of children. With the greater pressures that capitalist society bring on personal relationships the divorce courts (which have the task of rearranging the poverty of the working class when family situations get out of hand) are the courts that workers increasingly enter.

In Socialist society where there will be no buying and selling and therefore no money, there will be no financial pressures on human beings, adults or children. The relationships between the sexes will not be complicated by the irrelevant considerations which are of such importance to-day. If people who were formerly living together wish to separate there will be no financial or “moral” pressures to prevent them doing so, and no humiliating proceedings to be endured as a result.

When Socialism is introduced amongst many of the vast changes in human existence will be the following:

1. Wealth will be produced in the abundance necessary to satisfy man’s physical wants. This is technically possible now, but production is limited to what can be sold at a profit on the market.
2. There will be free access for all in society to the goods produced. In these circumstances laws defining people’s property relationships will be as unnecessary as they are useless. When poverty is abolished, who needs poverty laws? When private property is abolished, who will want contract and criminal laws defending it?

Ronnie Warrington

Socialism and Law

The following piece, written by the late Pieter Lawrence, is the sixth chapter of his 2006 work, 'Practical Socialism - Its Principles and Methods'.

Link to Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Socialism and Law

We may anticipate that the function of law would be different in a socialist society.   This change would reflect the change in social relationships. Throughout history a main function of law has been to uphold and regulate property relationships.  In protecting and enforcing property rights it follows that in all eras of propertied society the various systems of law have favoured the dominant economic class.  In socialism this historic function of law will end.   In a society based on common ownership   and voluntary cooperation the sole object of law would be to serve the needs of individuals and interests of the whole community.  Such law would provide a framework of freedom, enabling individuals to live out their chosen lives. Law in socialism would express the values of equality and democracy.

Even in the age of Pericles, Athenian democracy was practised exclusively by male citizens on a foundation of slavery that was sanctified by law. Similarly throughout Europe, under feudal law, the serf and his family were bound for life to the Lord of the Manor. Runaway serfs were flogged, branded or worse.  In Capitalism, wage slaves are free to change their employers but still remain locked into a life of making company profits. This is the modern form of economic bondage, the routine of dept and wage working to get the money to pay the mortgage, the rates, gas, electricity and the many other bills,   all regulated by law.

The relationship of worker to employer is based on great differences in property ownership which again are upheld and enforced by law.   This is not just in the corporate ownership of the means of life, that is, natural resources, mining, industry, manufacture and transport, it is also in the ownership of land.   For example, if we look up the web site on “Who Owns Britain” we find that in “England and Wales” almost 26 million acres of land is owned by just over 150,000 families or individuals.   This is 0.28%  (a quarter of one per cent) of the population, who own 64% of the land.   If we take land owned by the Dukes of Buccleuch, Westminster and Northumberland we have just three individuals who jointly own 531,500 acres valued at just over £14 ½ bn.

At the bottom end of the scale, according to the Economist (23/02/03) for the years 1999/2000, the number of children in Britain living in poverty 4.1 million. (As stated above, poverty is defined here as children living in families receiving less than 60% of the average wage.   What this means is sub-standard housing, poor conditions of life, poor diets and cultural deprivation).  A study published by the Rowntree Foundation has said that 8.3 million of our population live in these circumstances and this is not improving with time. This 8.3 million living in poverty was 100,000 more than in 1996/97.    If we needed reminding, these figures tell us that we continue to live in a deeply divided class society, which is regulated and kept in place by law.

In viewing these vastly unequal property relationships and the part played by law in their development throughout history, some schools of political thought assert that a society based on equality and cooperation would abolish all law.  In particular this is an argument of put forward by anarchists. It is also true that such 19th Century socialist visionaries as William Morris and even Engels took this view.   However, the idea that all law would be abolished should now be relegated to the irrelevant spheres of anarchist utopianism (as outlined in chapter 3 above).  The reason for this is that the abolition of all law is problematical to the point of being not just wholly impractical, but would be in direct opposition to the principles of socialist organisation.   For example, the abolition of law against paedophilia or rape would ignore the safety and well being of children and others; this would be unacceptable in any circumstances.  To come to a very different example, it would be impossible to run a modern democratic society without constitutional law.

This brings us to the question that the subject of socialism and law is part of the wider question of social democracy.   A basic working tool of democratic practice is the making of majority decisions. However, the very mention of a majority assumes a minority of people who did not agree and probably voted against.  Democracy means that minorities also have their rights, not just the right to vote against but the freedom to persuade and bring a majority over to its view.  In a society based on voluntary cooperation any who disagreed with a decision would be free to abstain from any action that might flow from a decision.

However, it is well to remember that minorities are not a particular human type who are always in the minority.  On other issues they may well be part of the majority and in these circumstances they would not take kindly to dissenters taking action to prevent the wishes of the majority from being carried out.  So, it would be a condition of democratic practice that no individual or group may take action against a majority decision, except within the bounds of democratic conduct.  In socialism, this basic principle of democratic organisation would be applied in practical ways within a framework of democratic law. 

Beyond the article of faith, that in a socialist society, absolute social accord will be absolutely guaranteed, without law and solely as a result of self-regulation, what we would have in practice is the absolute right of the individual to do what he or she wants. This would not only be the opposite of democracy, it would be the negation of freedom itself. This is not to dismiss self regulation. Even now, and certainly in socialism, it will remain a most important way of achieving decent human relations. But we should not take this up as a dogma, saying that self-regulation will be the only way to achieve a safe, stable and democratic society.

It can of course be argued that such cases as crimes against the person, which may be more difficult to relate directly to property relationships, are in fact, at the end of a sequence of causes and affects which begin with the psychologically destructive pressures of life under the capitalist system. There can be little doubt that the emotions of stress, anxiety, insecurity and frustration, which are inherent in the system and which blight the lives of many people, can distort patterns of reasonable social conduct.

However, in proposing to take society forward on a socialist basis we cannot assume an immediate perfect world; we begin with the real world as we find it. To quote just one case from a long list of crimes that have destroyed the lives of many families, it took eight years to catch the serial child killer, Robert Black. Thirty-eight police officers and 24 typists worked on 50 computer terminals linked to the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. 60,000 statements were taken and 185,000 people were interviewed. Robert Black was a lorry driver and was convicted in 1994 of three child murders.  It is likely that he raped and strangled more.

Abhorrence is a natural response to such crimes but it is regrettable that it is often accompanied by superficial judgements of the kind that blame the crime solely on the evil nature of the perpetrator.  In such cases it is often possible to find a background story that suggests a wider, social responsibility.  In reporting the trial of Robert Black the “Independent” (20/05/94) also gave some details of his life.

“Although Robert Black enters the record books as the worst child killer Britain has seen, little is known about his motives or mental make up.   What is clear is that he had a disturbed, loveless upbringing, seemed unable to make proper friends and appeared unattractive to those who knew him. Black was born in Falkirk Royal Infirmary in April 1947, the illegitimate child of a Grangemouth woman.   After being abandoned he was placed with foster parents in the small highlands town of Kinlochleven.   His foster mother died when he was 13 and Black went to a hostel for the homeless in Musselburgh near Edinburgh, where he is said to have been sexually abused.   He was neglected. Had virtually no friends and often inspired intense dislike.”   “At work he was “Smelly Bob”; at home he kept a vast library of paedophile material.”

It is true that pre-occupation with personal struggles reduces our time and thought for the problems of others, even so, it should be asked, where was care of the community when this lonely and abused child needed the love and affection of a secure upbringing?   Given that, when young, we learn from example, what moral lessons was he able to take from a childhood of rejection, violence and sexual abuse?  We should expect that it taught Robert Black little more than deep feelings of bitterness, resentment and a psychopathic inability to appreciate the feelings of others; attitudes well expressed in Shakespeare where MacBeth interviews two murderers on their credentials for the evil task he had in mind.   One reassures him, “I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.”

Our knowledge of the causes of crime points overwhelmingly to adverse social conditions. For example, according to results of research by the Home Office published in “The Independent” in 1990,  “The study, which will add to the Government’s embarrassment over the economy and the crime rate concludes that ‘economic factors have a major influence on trends in both property and personal crime.   During recessions or periods of economic stagnation, the number of thefts and burglaries tends to grow’”  The paper also reported (9/4/94) “The Association of Chief Officers of Probation released an internal survey of 30 probation areas showing that almost 70% of a sample of 28,000 offenders … were unemployed.”   “Bill Watson, general secretary of the association, said it was ‘absolutely unmistakable’ that unemployment featured in offending patterns.”   On the previous day it reported, “… A recent review of 397 research studies on young offenders, both in Britain and abroad, showed that the single most effective intervention (in the crime rate) was the provision of employment to offenders.”

The well proven link between crime and economics adds great force to the argument that the conditions of life in socialist communities would greatly reduce crime. The welfare of all citizens would be the first objective of social organisation and this would be achieved through cooperation, and would provide a secure standard of living for every person. Its relationships would reduce psychological damage and would be more conducive to a healthier pattern of personal conduct. In place of economic individualism, exploitation, competition and social exclusion, all of which contribute to the conditions in which crime thrives, there would be social integration and equal standing amongst all members of the community.  Seen in this light we may assume that not only would crime be greatly reduced but with it, the machinery and administration of law. 

This is not to wander too far on to the ground of economic determinism.  People will always have choices but under the pressure of psychological compulsion the proper choices ones are not always easy to make. Also, there seems to be no direct evidence for saying that capitalist productive relationships cause people to commit the crimes of child abuse, rape, child murder or domestic violence. There is no evidence for asserting that all people in socialism will at all times be models of democratic virtue. On the contrary, the evidence from this life is that socialists can behave badly and even engage in child abuse.  It is also apparent that some socialists are just as likely to behave in an undemocratic manner as anyone else. So, from crimes of the utmost seriousness, that threaten life and limb, to lesser kinds of anti-social behaviour, the unfair treatment of individuals, democratic accountability or the abuse of positions of civic responsibility, all these matters could only be administered in an orderly, predictable and democratic manner in a socialist society through legal procedures endorsed by the whole community.

The method of practical socialism to be applied to this question is in principle the same as the method for selecting any useful feature of present society that would be continued in socialism.  The criteria we apply to useful production, useful decision making bodies and useful means of administration, apply equally to law.  In the case of law it is a question of identifying the existing features of law that could continue to play a useful part in civic organisation together with the useful institutions that administer such law.   Socially useful law should be distinguished from law that is concerned solely to uphold, regulate and enforce the economic relationships of the capitalist system. 

It follows from the retention of useful law that institutions for administering it would also need to be retained.  The administration of law in socialism would continue to respect the right of any person accused of an offence to defend him/herself. This means being able to call witnesses, to question evidence and to put a defence before a body, independent of those bringing the charges. Such a person should also be entitled to a right of appeal. This means that subject to perhaps modification along more democratic lines, the present court system would also be retained. 

It is impossible to run a capitalist system without an accompanying prison system. The problems of crime cannot be solved. In a few cases the administration of law does make some attempts to treat some offenders with sensitivity aimed at helping with personal problems. Mostly the imposition of law is authoritarian, brutal and concerned with punishment and deterrence. The numbers held in prisons continue to increase.  Over the past twenty five years the prison population in the UK has doubled.  In 1994 the number was 52,830.   In 2003 the number was 76,146.

Similarly, in Germany, the prison population increased from 49,658 in 1994 to 62,594 in 2003.  Russia imprisons around 900,000 of its people. The United States has the highest proportionate prison population of any reporting world nation For the most part, the U.S. rate is five to eight times that of the Western European nations with a staggering 2,166,260 of its people in prison in 2003.

In the UK many prisoners are locked up for 23 hours a day in overcrowded cells and are subject to  violent assault by prison officers and other prisoners, male rape, suicide and persistent self harm.

From any civilised viewpoint, the confinement of large numbers of population in prison “hell holes” is itself a legalised crime carried out by the state.

The use of law in socialism will be a means of safeguarding individuals and the community against dangerous or other anti-social behaviour.  It would be humanely administered with the sole object of solving problems without any kind of punishment. The vile prisons as we know them would be abolished.   On the assumption that it would still be necessary to hold some persons in places of secure confinement these would allow occupants to lead dignified lives in pleasant conditions. But the use of law in socialism would not only be concerned to avoid dangerous or anti social behaviour, it would also be practised for the regulation of democratic administration and would provide procedures for accountability.

In making a distinction between socially useful law that would be continued and law that could have no function in a socialist society we begin with the fact that much of present law exists to uphold and enforce property rights, to regulate the wage labour/capital relationship, and to mediate between contesting parties over monetary or other property disputes.   However, over the past two centuries, legal systems have expanded enormously, partly into socially useful areas which are not directly to do with the protection of property rights.                                           

For example, laws regulating foetal experiments, abortion and the age of sexual consent, whatever we may think of them, arise from moral or ethical questions.  This kind of law has changed over time within states and varies enormously between states in ways that have little bearing on economic relationships. Similarly, we have laws on drunk driving, professional qualifications, licences for drivers, air line pilots, ship’s captains; laws on assault, murder, rape, child abuse, public nuisance; laws on planning and constitutional law which defines the boundaries of decision making amongst public bodies. All these examples arise from the organisation of civil society and would continue to be necessary.                                              

Company law and income tax law would be redundant together with civil law for processing disputes over contracts, money transactions and property. Criminal Law deals with theft, fraud and assault etc., and so before the courts there is a sad parade of burglars, muggers, bank and building society robbers, car thieves, credit card fraudsters and drug offenders. But courts also deal with many cases which are less directly connected with present economic relationships.  The law on this side deals with drunk driving, speeding and other traffic offences such as unlicensed or dangerous driving.   When eventually arrested the courts deal with the paedophile who moves from district to district, using different names, posing as that “nice man” who helps out at the youth centre. They deal with the rapist, the violent schizophrenic, the psychopath, domestic violence and occasionally, but with predictable regularity, as we have noted, they deal with the child killer.

Planning law would continue to regulate housing, the use of buildings and industrial/manufacturing development in accordance with social policy.  As at present, neither individuals or nor any public body would be free to develop a site without following the procedures of planning consent.

Family law would be continued.  Just as night follows day it is certain that couples will continue to fall in love and have families.   Sadly, it is equally certain that some will fall out of love.   Family courts would not need to decide matters such as money maintenance, but this still leaves plenty of scope for disputes in which courts would need to arbitrate.  It is unlikely that any society, however conducive to reasonable behaviour will succeed in removing the emotions of jealousy and bitterness that are inherent in family fall outs. This would be where couples cannot agree on questions such as who should leave or stay in the family home, custody of children, hours to be spent with one or the other parent.   There is always a point where a relationship is over, despite this, it is sometimes the case that one of the couple refuses to accept that it is “over” and becomes a persistent nuisance, with a risk of violence.  Here again is a situation in which the community through the use of appropriate law would need to intervene to protect the victim.

Housing is also an important area where new arrangements would require the backing of new law. Without a housing market, and housing mobility made possible by buying, selling and rent, the alternatives in a socialist society could vary, but one possibility is that the housing stock would be commonly owned with security of tenure held by occupants in the form of a lease from the community.  Such leaseholds would have the backing of housing law.

What would be possible is that to begin with occupants would be granted leaseholds to the houses or flats they occupy.  When moving house leaseholds could be swapped, either directly between leaseholders or through a local housing authority.   This would mean that all rents or mortgage payments would cease and freehold ownership would be replaced by legal rights of occupier use in the form of a permanent lease.  Residents taking on new homes in an area or when moving to a different area could be granted leaseholds to empty premises by an appropriate local housing authority.   

This is not to suggest that the afore mentioned Dukes of Buccleuch, Westminster and Northumberland would be granted continued legal rights of exclusive occupation of their present   531,500 acres and the houses thereon.   As fine examples of architecture, fine art and crafts, their great houses would pass to the community with the National Trust a ready made institution for the management of such heritage homes.   Any sentimental attachment by these dukes to their former properties would have to be satisfied with perhaps occupation of a suitable gate house or game keeper’s cottage!

However, this does not remove the unavoidable fact that to begin with there would be considerable inequality in the use of homes.   Under such proposals, leaseholders of terraced houses in the inner suburbs of big cities would have to accept that other leaseholders a few miles away would enjoy the better facilities of perhaps four bed roomed homes in the leafy suburbs.  The plain fact is that in socialism, any policy concerning the relationship of town and country would present many complex problems that would take a considerable time to sort out. 

Constitutional Law

As now, Constitutional Law would regulate procedures for the election and running of public bodies such as Parish, District, County and Metropolitan councils as well as Parliament.   This would define the freedoms and the boundaries of decision making and action both in and between these various spheres of public organisation.   Constitutional Law would also provide rules for the running of public services such as hospitals and schools; the democratic structure and management of units responsible for the production and distribution of goods.  

Violent Reaction

It is prudent to anticipate a possible violent reaction to the capture of political control by a majority of socialists and the enactment of common ownership of all resources and means of production.   This would be action by a recalcitrant minority.   The history of great social change does not bode well for a peaceful transition.  From this record we should assume that at least some sections of society with a great interest in things staying as they are, would be unlikely to respond with calm acceptance, even in the face of a popular and democratically organised movement.

Nor would such a recalcitrant minority have any difficulty in finding a justification for any violent reaction.   In the tradition of contriving moral authority for upholding sectional interests, and perhaps borrowing from some dubious 18th Century philosophy it could be argued that the private ownership of land, natural resources and means of production is a natural human right that is integral with a democratic society. It would follow from this that the dispossession of an owning minority would be an undemocratic action against the natural rights of a social minority by a tyrannical majority.   In these circumstances, it could be argued that violent reaction would be justified. 

There would of course, be not the slightest prospect of reversing a decision by a majority of people to commence the organisation of a socialist system.   The barriers to the establishment of Socialism exist in the minds of most people who do not yet accept the ideas of socialism.  With the growth of the socialist movement to the point where a majority exists the consequence will be the capture of political control and with it, the entire machinery of government.   The conversion to common ownership will be legislated as a legal enactment and from this point on the entire framework of law will be adapted, enabling the formal enactment of common ownership to be applied as action throughout society.

To reverse the process, the majority of people would have to be reconverted to support for the capitalist system by means of propaganda. The ruling groups would already have lost the battle of ideas, their social influence will have gone, together with their monopoly of the means of life.   To suggest that at some point individuals will be able to take over socially owned property and force members of the community to work for wages and the profits of companies is a complete abandonment of logical reasoning.  To argue that the same result could be obtained by violent minority action is equally absurd.   This is not to suggest that a recalcitrant violent minority could not fight a desperate rearguard action whilst blindly unaware of the futility of their actions.   The irrationality of such actions is possible but this could not be described as a serious attempt to destroy socialism and restore the capitalist system.   Socialism could not be forcibly overthrown.  

Acts of violence, sabotage or any other form of anti-social activity could only be carried out by renegade groups acting outside the law.   This would not be tolerated at any stage.  If the hypothesis includes a residue of people "at war with society" who make mindless attacks endangering the well-being and lives of other people then the means to deal with them would exist and would be used as necessary.  Such situations already exist under capitalism, but with this difference, that while capitalism has no solution because capitalist conditions create the problem, for socialist society the problem would be a passing phase of short duration.

On the assumption that we are speculating about acts of violence mainly during the post change over period, obviously, force would be used if argument and reason failed. With the capture of political control the machinery of government, including every section of the armed forces would come under the control of the new democratic administration.   Implicit in this is the recognition that, in the period of changeover, control of the armed forces would be continued for as long as necessary in the light of conditions then existing. In view of the possibility of violent reaction by a minority it could not be guaranteed that that simultaneously with gaining control the armed forces would at once be wholly dismantled. 

This does not mean that armed forces would have to be used.   Control of armed forces by Parliament would prevent their use by any renegade group and would act as an effective deterrent without these forces necessarily having to be used.   The conditions for the success of the change over from capitalism to socialism will have already been completed before the winning of a majority in Parliament through the ballot box.

The achievement of a socialist majority will mean that socialists will be in the majority throughout every section of production, distribution, services, administration and government departments.  From this basis, cooperation to run society directly for needs would be commenced.   It is inconceivable that the police or armed forces would remain outside these developments or would act against the tide of democratic events.  It is against this background that the hypothesis of possible violent obstruction by an undemocratic minority has to be considered.

Not all of the hypothetical minority working to restore capitalism would be prepared to take violent action for that purpose.  This will present no problem to socialism.  It is likely that diverse political groups will be active in trying to influence social policy.   In line with democratic practice, a group wishing to return to the capitalist system will be free to propagate their views and to organise democratically to win over the majority.  They will of course, operate against the tremendous disadvantage of advocating a return to an outdated system of exploitation, economic chaos, waste, destruction and war. 

Administration of Law in Socialism

The practical ways in which the structure of law and its administration could be adapted to serve the needs of communities in socialism is far beyond the competence and scope of this book.   Indeed, the subject is so extensive it could not be attempted in any single book.  As well as its complexity, law has also evolved with great local and regional variations and no doubt this would continue.   A single unified system would be neither possible nor desirable.

However, we have been able to suggest the general methods that we should apply to the question.   In principle, the reasons for the adaptation of law in socialism would be no different to the way in which law, throughout history, has had to adapt to new situations in line with developing society.   As in all societies, law in socialism would have the job of upholding the general aims of the new society and of setting out the procedures through which it could achieve those aims.

We define a socialist system as one based on common ownership, voluntary cooperation, production solely for needs and democratic organisation.   Having been enacted as legislation, the relations of common ownership would have the force of law and this would be the legal basis on which all means of production and all resources would pass into the common property of the whole community.  From this point on, people doing socially useful jobs would carry on doing them as voluntary cooperation in production units under democratic management by workers themselves.   

It is in these important fields of production and distribution where many of the existing functions of law would become redundant, for example company law and law regulating the wage labour/capital relationship.  It is also here where new law would be required to coordinate working relationships between public decision making bodies and the actions of production units in implementing policy decisions.   Together with new law a great deal of existing law would be continued.  The test to be applied is whether or not any existing law can continue to serve the needs of individuals or the wider community.

The administration law would be humanised. The present hierarchical, authoritarian procedures which govern the structure of the legal system would need to be democratised.  The present use of juries and lay magistrates, drawn from a wide social background, and acting under legal advice from qualified legal officers offers an acceptable basis which could be extended.  However, such anachronistic procedures whereby judges are appointed by a Lord Chancellor, and in some cases by the Monarch on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, would hardly be compatible with the principles of democratic organisation.  Perhaps, after nomination, persons making judgements could be elected by a ballot of all barristers and solicitors.  Rotation of office would also be a healthy practice.  For the same general reasons that apply at present, including the practice of democratic accountability, it would be important that the entire practice of law, though not beyond public criticism, should continue to remain independent of all other public bodies. 

Finally, it should be emphasised that a fully democratic society, in which all citizens would be able to cooperate on equal terms around a common interest, would achieve a vast reduction in crime.   This would be both a moral and material basis for decent human conduct.  We also have every reason to trust that all public bodies would work conscientiously within their terms of reference according to the rules set by Constitutional Law.   This being the case we may anticipate that overwhelmingly, in every sphere of life, conduct of people will be self regulating, without a need for society to intervene with the use of law.

 Pieter Lawrence

Link to Chapter 7.

Law and what? (1971)

From the March 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism would break down in universal chaos, because without law there would be no order; without the coercive apparatus of the state to keep us in check, no police, law-courts or prisons, we would all run amok; nothing and nobody would be safe; all kinds of crime and violence would everywhere abound — so the argument runs.

This ‘objection’ to Socialism in fact has a lot in common with the ‘human nature’ objection. It assumes that human beings are by nature aggressive and anti-social. It further assumes, that present-day patterns of social behaviour are static and have always existed. And, since the police, politicians, lawyers and judges are also human beings, and therefore as inherently ‘anti-social and violent’ as the rest of us, it begs the question, who or what makes them behave in a ‘lawful’ and ‘orderly’ manner?

Far from being a profound argument against Socialism, as soon as one starts to examine it, it is seen to be superficial and absurd. Most members of the working class uncritically accept the shallow ideology of capitalism’s apologists.

This ideology consists of a series of excuses which seek to explain away all that happens in the modern world of capitalism. If, as the ideology tells us for example, the ‘powers of freedom’ must stand up to the ‘powers of tyranny’, the amassing of H-Bombs and even a third world-war must be accepted. Should the outcome be the total extinction of life on earth, this is sanity — this is normal. But, by token of the same ideology, should a petty crook with a gun or a cosh steal £10,000 from a bank, he must be caught and locked in a cell. He is wicked and abnormal.

Internationally, the order of modern capitalism is the order of the H-Bomb, the ‘order’ of a global war strategy with a liberal sprinkling of Korea’s, Vietnam’s and Middle-East situations.

It must not be thought, that in condemning the lawful military violence of world capitalism we are condoning armed attacks by individuals. We maintain that both arise from the way society is organised and that both will only disappear when society is changed.

It is the private-property basis of capitalism, whereby a minority class monopolises the productive forces of society, that give rise to crime. A crime is by definition a violation of a law. Over 90 per cent of crimes in this country are crimes against property. This means they are cases of people who are have-nots trying by illegal means to acquire property from people who own it. 

At this point we can hear the indignant objection of our opponents that the ‘people who own it’ are often workers whose gas-meters are broken into or even old-age pensioners who are coshed for a few paltry shillings, and of course, this is perfectly true. But whether it is the miserable few shillings of a worker or several thousand pounds from a capitalist, acquisition remains the motive. The fact that under ten per cent of the population own 90 per cent of the wealth, shows in whose interests the legal machinery works, and whose social dominance is served by private property institutions.

This is where the apologists of capitalism are thrown into a tailspin. They have to explain how the capitalist class came to own 90 per cent of the wealth, if not by robbery? This is the rub. Private property in the means of production, land, factories and so on is itself the result of the legal plunder by the capitalist of the working class. The wealth produced by the workers is systematically acquired by the capitalists. Anything the workers produce over and above their wages belongs to their employers. By means of this confidence trick, the world’s capitalists have accumulated many thousands of millions of pounds. Compared to the scale and scope of their operation the Mafia gets peanuts and it’s all perfectly legal because either they, or their muscle-men the politicians, make the laws.

Now let us return to the argument that we must have law and order. There is one further assumption made by our opponents. Namely, that law and order co-exist; where there is law there is order, and vice versa. It is only necessary to look at the soaring crime figures to conclude that the reverse is much nearer the truth. A succession of governments in this and other countries have promised to fight crime. Both Nixon and Heath fought their elections as “law and order” men. A better equipped and full-strength police force, with all the aids of modern science, was to enforce the law and establish that elusive thing called order. Alas, the crime figures continue to rise.

What then, can capitalism do? The answer is, nothing. As with the other major social problems, crime and violence are an integral part of capitalist society. While private property remains, society cannot even get beyond the primitive concept of punishing people, which today takes the idiotic form of locking them in cells in the vain hope that being dehumanised will make better people of them.

Harry Baldwin