History and the battle of ideas (1988)

From the September 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

What makes an idea serious or crazy? The "realist" will tell you that the distinction is easy to make Serious ideas are about making reality work. Crazy ideas are incompatible with reality, they are dreams, utopian fantasies, unrealisable ideas.

Few people doubt that ending mass starvation under capitalism is a serious idea. The Right argues that free markets and the elimination of state-dominated economies in the countries where millions are starving would put an end to malnutrition The buying and selling system, left to its own devices, would put food where there are consumers for it. That is the magic of the market, so the economic magicians of the Ministries and universities tell us with faces straight. The Left rejects this method of ending world hunger. The left-wing of capitalism argues that what is needed is more overseas monetary aid from the "rich" nations to the "poor" ones and more state-regulated planning of food production, so that the market is forced to work for the people. Right and left compete openly to prove that they have the most serious idea to end the obscenity of widespread human starvation, with 15 million under the age of five dying yearly for lack of food in a world of plenty.

The socialist argues that both the Right and Left are wrong. Their policies will never succeed. Capitalism cannot meet the needs of those who are hungry but moneyless. The solution is to do away with the profit system which dictates that only those needs which it is profitable to satisfy will be provided for. Do away with money, which stands as a barrier between humankind and the abundant resources of our planet. Take the world, and everything in it, into common possession. This is a revolutionary proposition.

It is also, according to the ideologists of the Left and Right of capitalism, a crazy proposition. It is unrealistic to conceive of a worldwide society where production is solely for need, not profit. To abolish money is a monstrously crazy idea. Free access would never work. Evidence to back these claims is rarely offered. When it is it is usually based on distortion. "Ah, these socialists want to abolish money and replace it with barter." No we do not; we want to abolish money and replace it with free access. "Human nature is such that people could not operate in a society where everything is freely available " Not a scrap of biological evidence is provided to back up this claim that there is something inherent in the human genes which makes us incapable of sharing the world as a united species, each with our different talents and needs. The fact is that when the apologists for capitalism are pushed to deal with the socialist idea, they reject it simply because it is not in line with what exists now. However unworkable their own ideas and policies are, they are defined as "serious" if they fit in with the continuation of capitalism

Getting religion

It was the same in the past. In classical antiquity the ownership of one human being by another was the economic norm. Slave production prevailed. Until the last century in North America slave plantations flourished. The slave who objected to being owned would be labelled “a utopian". Even his or her fellow slaves would find crazy the notion of not being owned by a master or mistress. Under feudalism vast numbers of men were recruited to fight the Crusades against those who rejected the Christian faith. According to this faith still existing in society, but thankfully ignored by most people — all humans are born as sinners and must pray to a Lord in the sky who sent his only son down to earth to be murdered and born again. All very serious. Few people call Archbishop Runcie a crazy man. When Pope Urban II wanted to recruit men to fight and die in these vicious Crusades of mass human slaughter, this is what he said:

The invaders befoul the altars with the filth of their bodies They circumcise Christians and pour the blood of the circumcision upon the altars or into baptismal fonts They stable their horses in these churches, which are now withdrawn from the service of God .Yea, the churches are served, but not by holy men — for the Turks are torturing Christians, binding them, and filling then with arrows, or making them kneel bending their heads, to try if their swordsmen can cut through their necks with a single blow of the naked sword. What shall I say of the ravishing of the women? 

(H Lamb, The Crusades,  Iron Men and Saints, 1931, p 39.)

What are we to think of the ideas presented in Urban II's racist, fantastic, war mongering scare story? Do we accept that it must have been serious because most Europeans at the time believed it? Do we say that it is crazy, even though it reflected the economic needs of the feudal ruling class, who needed to protect the Church’s ownership and control of land and ideology against other rulers with other religious myths to confuse the minds of the oppressed? A few weeks ago the present writer bought a copy of The Watchtower, a magazine sold from door to door by devoted men and women who have ideas to pass on. They are Christians of the Jehovah's Witness sect and. among other things, they believe that the world is soon to end and God will "come down'’ to judge us all. It seems a worthwhile insurance policy to keep a copy of The Watchtower under the bed. Their 15 July issue has a headline JESUS CHRIST GOD. MAN OR MYTH? Had the woman been selling the magazine in the days of feudal totalitarianism, when belief in religious nonsense was compulsory, she would probably have burned at the stake for posing such a blasphemous question. Times change. Inside we are told that in the first century, thousands of people accepted Jesus for what he was the promised Messiah, or Christ, sent to earth to vindicate Jehovah’s sovereignty and to offer his life as a ransom for mankind . . . Today, millions of Christian disciples know that Jesus is no myth. They accept him as the heavenly enthroned King of God's established kingdom, who is now progressively taking control of the earth and its affairs" (p 8). In "the first century" it is not that surprising that human beings, lacking much scientific knowledge of their environment were taken in by the myth of a miracle performing magician descending to earth from heaven. The same belief had been held by countless god-worshippers in countless centuries before the first one AD. Today, we might find it harder to understand how serious people can believe that a messiah, alive only in the "spirit world beyond", can be taking control of the world's affairs. If one went to a psychiatrist with such a story, he would probably diagnose insanity, unless he knew the social conventions which make such faith respectable.

Mental phenomena

Dogmatic faith in ideas of no scientific substance is not confined to orthodox religion. On the Left there has long been a belief among some people that the tyrannical, anti-working class police states of the Russian Empire, China or Albania are socialist societies Although they exhibit all the characteristics of capitalism — wage labour, capital, buying and selling, rich and poor, leaders and oppressed — some workers will not give up the idea that these are examples of socialism in practice. Interestingly, S. M. Lipset has pointed out that

In Holland and Sweden. recent studies show that the Communists are strongest in regions which were once centres of fundamentalist religious revivalism. In Finland, Communism and revivalist Christianity often are strong in the same areas (Political Man, p. 106.)

What seems to have happened in these cases is that workers have given up one set of unscientific, crazy ideas and adopted a new set of pseudo-scientific, equally crazy ideas.

People are not born with ideas. Thinking is a social process. To think we need to think about something, and that something is our environment Our minds, which are not tangible parts of the anatomy but social phenomena, are located in the environment This is why we think most of the time about ideas which relate to our environment. When we are living in cities, surrounded by supermarkets and fast-food joints, we don't think about going out into the jungle and hunting for meat. Hunter gatherers, living in a primitive society, do not think about whether to have pickles on their Big Mac. Primitive hunters did not think about money because they lived in a society where goods were shared by the whole community, without money intervening to restrict the satisfaction of their needs. Big Mac Man thinks a lot about money. He will do more or less anything, including selling himself to a capitalist who will exploit him, in order to get more of it. In many primitive tribes, such as the Panare of South America, it is considered a supreme indignity to work for wages. Who is crazy, the moneyless, sharing primitive, or the highly civilised, highly exploited wage slave? 

In a property-dominated society most of our ideas are property related. The pronouns 'mine", "yours" and "theirs” become very important. People become neurotic about them. The smallest children are taught, "That's not yours. Don't touch Mustn’t touch. Not yours." Grown men and women work forty-hour weeks in factories. When they leave on a Friday they are checked by security guards in uniforms with buttons almost shiny enough to make them cops They are checking that these untrustworthy wage slaves have not stolen a bit of what they produced They produced the goods, the capitalist, who was probably not seen in the factory all week, possesses the wealth. If workers want what they produce they can spend some of their wages buying it. You build mansions but live in a slum.

We are taught to accept that possession is power. The child who says to her mother. “Well, that might not be mine, but I want to use it" will have a problem in understanding the ways of the world. If this carries on she will need to be taken to a child psychologist. In the past she would be belted, probably not quite as humiliating as being sent to the child psychologist. If a socialist factory worker says, "Look, we produce all the wealth and then we're robbed of the fruits of our labour. Why don't we make the means of production — not just this factory, but all of them, and the offices, farms and mines as well — into our common possession!" he will soon be branded a troublemaker. Crazy ideas. If he is lucky he will be derided as a utopian, or he might be blacklisted and persecuted as a Red wrecker.

A culture of deceit

There are some ideas which we arrive at our selves. We do not need to read books to discover that fire burns us or soap tastes horrible. Other ideas we discover by listening to other people. Prolonged exposure of the skin to the sun can damage it; carrots add a bit of flavour to a casserole; if you sleep with a hooker in Bangkok you stand a good chance of catching a dose of something you won't like. These are serious ideas, learned either from direct experience of the environment or from the experiences of those who have no reason to deceive us.

Some people do have an interest in deceiving us. Capitalism is based on a culture of deceit. It pretends that class inequality either does not exist or, if it does, is natural and ineradicable; it pretends that employment is a fair contract rather than a process of legalised robbery; and that profit is the just reward of the hard working entrepreneur, rather than the surplus value obtained by the capitalists, who pay their workers less than the value of what they have produced. Capitalism claims that all workers can become rich if they try hard enough, that hard work will always be rewarded with social success. These are lies. Professional liars — journalists, priests, professors, teachers, politicians are in the business of knocking these false beliefs into the minds of the workers. They are being entrusted with a very responsible job. If they fail, workers might stop accepting the capitalist myths. No wonder the Minister of Education is so eager to ensure that the right lessons are being taught in the curriculum, and Thatcher is so busy trying to censor the BBC. Ideas which we. pick up from the depositories of wisdom which capitalism provides for us are what socialists call Ideology. Or, to put it simply, distorted experience

A few months ago the case of the moving picture became a big news story Thousands of copies of prints had been sold for the £7.50 tastes of proletarian art collectors. Well, they cover the stains on the wallpaper and if you know nothing about painting they look just like the original. One of these paintings depicted a dancing girl, and on walls all over Britain reports came that she was starting to dance. Well, to be honest, what happened first was that one report came in. An old lady in Solihull had spotted this dancing girl on her wall. In stepped that journal of sustained. scientific investigation. The Sun. And would you believe it. within only a few days of reading about the sighting by this Solihull Sun reader, there were girls dancing on the walls of pretty well every city in Britain. They were dancing two to a street in Ireland, where early Catholic indoctrination has made the workers a soft touch for this sort of craziness. (In Ireland the Virgin Mary is known to appear in fields quicker than you can say "Let's build an airport" ) The myth of the dancing girl does nobody much harm. One can imagine the dull and uncreative lives of the poor workers who imagined that they saw their painting dance. Other myths, however. are more harmful. For example, most workers in Britain have never met a Russian. If they did they would probably think he was a German. But most British workers will tell you that "we" (the British) cannot trust the Russians. If necessary, "we" must be prepared to protect ourselves by annihilating several million of them. Indeed, the whole British defence policy supported by Tory. Labour and Liberal alike is based on the assumption that we must maintain a permanent threat to kill millions of Russians if British capitalist interests are endangered. British workers have been given an enemy to fear and, when the time is right, to hate and kill. In Iran and Iraq this creation of artificial human hatred has resulted in hundreds of thousands of workers, many of them only teenagers, marching with enthusiasm to their deaths. Such is the sick nature of capitalist ideology

Socialist ideas

This journal is called the Socialist Standard. You may have bought it for one of many reasons. What Is likely is that before you bought it ideas about what socialism means were fed to you. They were probably not fed by socialists. All kinds of people with a direct interest in discrediting the idea of socialism — from the Sun with its "loony lefties' and the Guardian with its Marxist states", to our class enemies in the pulpits and on party platforms — will have contributed their bit to arouse suspicion about the establishment of a socialist world society. Socialists are willing and able to counter these ideas, preferably face to lace in open debate. In debate the case for socialism is invincible. But more often than not, ideology is perpetrated by means of dishonesty and innuendo, appeals to fear and prejudice rather than self-interest and social awareness Why are socialist ideas attacked? Clearly, it is not because the case for socialism is completely crazy. After all, the capitalists do not invest millions of pounds in opposing the ideas of the Flat Earth Society or the man who advertises regularly in the Guardian to inform us that Jesus Christ is alive and living in Brick Lane, London. Ideas are attacked when they endanger an interest. The Church of England devotes much time and money to discredit crazy religious sects, like the Moonies and Scientologists, who are challenging its monopoly of religious craziness. Why do the Cigarette manufacturers spend money on convincing us that tobacco addiction is not really half as bad for you as these wicked, unscientific anti-smoking activists claim? They do so because in recent years the health dangers of smoking have become more obvious, smoking in public has become stigmatised and some very fat profits indeed are in danger of being lost. Where there is an interest to defend the battle of ideas hots up.

Socialism is the most dangerous idea conceivable for defenders of capitalism. Those who support a system of minority affluence and privilege are not going to sit back complacently while we undermine support for their social order. They will fight with all the lies, distortions, bribes and more sinister weaponry at their command. That is why there is a class war between them and us. It is not a war of bullets and bombs, which capitalists and would be capitalists feel most comfortable with, but a war of ideas. Our objective is to unshackle the minds of our fellow workers: to educate the victims of political confusion.

Socialists are serious about ideas because knowledge is the most potent weapon our class can possess. That is why we are not bothered about whether our ideas are regarded as serious or crazy in some philosophical, academic sense. Socialists could not care less if the pontificating lookers on in the struggle of history deem us to be cranks. It is better to be a class-conscious crank than a serious and respectable accomplice to human oppression. Neither are we bothered about the hangers-on to socialist ideas, often to be found flogging their worn out fallacies in the various sects of left wing capitalism. They have been around a long time, and Engels described them as 

. . . all those who have nothing to look forward to from the official world or have come to the end of their tether with it—opponents of inoculation, supporters of abstemiousness, vegetarians. anti-vivisectionists, nature healers, free-community preachers whose communities have fallen to pieces, authors of new theories on the origin of the universe, unsuccessful or unfortunate inventors, victims of real or imaginary injustice who are termed "good for nothing petty-foggers" by the bureaucracy, honest fools and dishonest swindlers —all throng to the working class parties in all countries (On the History of Early Christianity, in Marx and Engels on Religion, p. 31)

For socialist knowledge to win the day. and capitalism to be destroyed by a well organised working class, two factors are required. The first is a socialist movement which sticks to its principles and never betrays the true interests of the class which is to be emancipated by socialism, Secondly, it is only possible for ideas to change as fast as material conditions themselves change out of the contradictions of everyday life under capitalism arise new ideas. Today some workers might think they are doing well because they own a few shares in British Gas, a few tremors on the Stock Exchange should be sufficient to shatter their illusions. In 1988 you might vote for nuclear bombs in order to keep the peace, it will only take one mushroom cloud to shake that dangerous myth out of your head. As you read this you may be thinking that socialism sounds like a great idea, but you simply haven't the time or energy to do anything about it. Capitalism might create plenty of time for you; it might push you so hard, assault your dignity so much and insult your humanity to the point where you have no alternative but to devote your energy to overthrowing it. As Marx explained:

At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come info conflict with the existing relations of production, or — what is but a legal expression for the same thing - with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters Then begins an epoch of social revolution

(Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy)

Steve Coleman

Knowledge is mostly potential (1996)

Book Review from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Can Change the World: the Real Meaning of Everyday Life. David G. Stratman, New Democracy Books. £7.

From a socialist point of view, this book has much to commend it. However, it does have a few features which make us less happy. First the positive points. David Stratman’s main thesis is a critical opposition to both capitalism and Communism (the system he sees as having operated in the USSR) and their replacement by what he calls revolutionary democracy. In Part I he seeks to show the links between class struggle and people’s everyday lives. He discusses the bussing in Boston of black children into white neighbourhoods, the British miners’ strike of 1984-5, a meat packers’ strike, and working-class opposition to an élite educational programme. The common theme he sees running through these episodes is that “class struggle is a struggle over different conceptions of what it means to be human”.

In Part II Stratman backs his claim that “the history of the past two decades is driven not by competition among rival business economies, but by a struggle between the world élite and most people over the future of human society”. One chapter is devoted to “revolutionary” activity in the USSR. The author’s general conclusion is that “the problem of capitalists is not each other; their problem is their inability to subdue the working population. Capitalism is in crisis because it cannot win the class war”.

Part III is intended to show that “Communism” has been consistently counter-revolutionary and that trade unions function as instruments of capitalist control. In a chapter on the current US political scene Stratman attacks “the left” for not really believing in the possibility of revolution and hence restricting themselves to aiming at a reformed capitalism as the best possible system.

Finally, Part IV discusses the nature of the revolutionary movement, and the rôle of the revolutionary party which follows from “a new model of social change and a new view of people”. Socialists would not dispute his contention that “the role of a revolutionary party is not to bring to the working class a consciousness from outside, but to uncover and bring together the fragments of consciousness that are already there, rooted in workers’ experience and their values and social relations”.

Stratman writes well and with conviction. He says many things with which we agree. However, here are some differences and disagreements.

We recognise that Stratman and his associates are living in a country where, perhaps even more than in Britain, “communism” is insistently and deeply identified with what went on in the USSR and elsewhere, and even “socialism” is grossly distorted. But do we get over this problem by calling our object the attainment of “revolutionary democracy”? Stratman admits that both “democracy” and “revolution” have been distorted in meaning, but he doesn’t make a convincing case that a doubly distorted label for the kind of world we are working for is any better than a singly distorted one.

His major failure to recognise the positive theoretical insights to be drawn from Marxist thinking is made worse by his unsustainable claim that “Leninism is a consistent development of the internal logic of Marxism, adapting it for practical use … The Soviet Union and other Communist societies represent not a betrayal of Marxism but its fulfilment.” There are also some worryingly approving comments on the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China.

Stratman talks about a “revolutionary party”, yet he is very vague about what a revolutionary democratic world will actually be like, other than that it won’t be capitalism. Will it be a world in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled? Will it be a world in which there are no nation states, no armies and police forces, no buying and selling, no money? In the absence of a solid and widely understood basis for fundamental change, and democratic action to achieve that change, some form of capitalism will surely go on.

Stratman believes that “people collectively know enough now to crush capitalism and to create a new world”. If they do know enough, what’s stopping them? The answer must be that the knowledge is mostly potential, and that it needs to be converted into actual knowledge and then appropriate revolutionary action.

Stan Parker

Why does the Left oppose free access? (2026)

From the October 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘The idea that socialists want free stuff is the great lie of capitalism. Socialists want the fruits of our labor to be equitably distributed rather than allowing 10 old men to hoard half the planet’s resources’ (Post on Ancap vs. Ancom Debate Facebook group).

Seriously? Why would socialists not want a society in which goods are freely distributed? This is just the logical extension of bringing the means of producing those goods into common ownership. If you have to buy these goods, that would imply private or sectional ownership of these means.

One left-wing respondent even went so far as to suggest that ‘free access’ was not a Marxian principle at all: ‘nothing would be free in socialism’. No doubt capitalism´s more gung-ho supporters will be relieved to hear that their left-wing critics have no intention of implementing what the Communist Manifesto (1848) called the ‘communistic abolition of buying and selling’.

Free access to goods produced by our voluntary labour has always been fundamental to a Marxian vision of a post-capitalist society. Many anarchists have also supported the idea, including Peter Kropotkin in The Conquest of Bread (1892).

True, Marx himself did not think it would be feasible straightaway in socialism. Ongoing shortages would necessitate some rationing, for instance via a system of labour vouchers, a proposal that many modern-day socialists see as obsolete. However, suggested Marx, rationing would eventually give way to free access, ‘after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly’ (Gotha Programme Critique, 1875). Then the principle would apply, ‘From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!’

The problem is that you don’t hear much about this in left-wing circles today. Mostly, you will look in vain for any reference to the revolutionary goal of a moneyless, wageless, classless and stateless alternative to capitalism – what ‘socialism’ or ‘communism’ means in classical Marxian terms.

Such labels were used interchangeably as synonyms before Lenin changed the meaning of the former by equating it with just the ‘lower phase of communism’ (something he then further misrepresented by suggesting it would retain a state and wage labour). Lenin´s redefinition of ‘socialism’ functioned politically to legitimise the Bolshevik programme of state capitalism, capitalising on the positive associations the term ‘socialism’ generally elicited at the time.

The question arises – why this strange reluctance among many supposed ‘socialists’ or ‘communists’ today to even acknowledge the revolutionary goal of a non-market stateless society? Is it because they feel embarrassed that this might expose them to the charge of being ‘utopian’ or, worse still, ‘idealistic’?

Under the spell of ‘capitalist realism’ (Mark Fisher’s term), it is as though they feel obliged to formulate their political programmes in terms that pragmatically acknowledge the irreplaceability of such capitalist categories as money, markets and wage labour. However, no social revolution has ever succeeded by slavishly conforming to the values and ways of thinking of the status quo.

This is the problem with what is called the Hard Left. Its timidity and opportunism – its craven desire to appear credible to a (still) overwhelmingly non-socialist electorate, perpetually condemns it to the political sidelines. For if the objective is merely to mend capitalism rather than end it, why would a non-socialist majority want to vote for some small Trotskyist sect when they have the opportunity to vote for some much larger (and more electable) reform party, like Labour or perhaps, now the Greens?

Muddying the waters

There was a time when, arguably, the case for a genuinely post-capitalist society was better known and appreciated than today. Two main developments muddied the waters considerably.

The first was the rise of Social-Democratic parties associated with the Second International (1889-1923), advocating a ‘minimum programme’ of reforms in the short run alongside a maximum programme of social revolution. Predictably, the latter was abandoned, these parties being duly transformed into fully capitalist entities.

Today’s ‘soft left’ might be said to be the outcome of this development. It has no vision of a future beyond capitalism, only a more humanised version of capitalism.

The second development was the emergence of various state capitalist regimes commencing with the Bolsheviks in 1917. Though these claimed to be ‘socialist’ by expediently redefining what ‘socialism’ meant, such regimes retained all those basic features that make capitalism, capitalism. Above all, a system of wage labour. Marx himself talked of capitalism being the ‘wages system’. In Value, Price and Profit (1865), he argued that trade unionists, rather than limit themselves to a guerrilla war against capitalism’s effects, should use their organised force as a ‘lever for the final emancipation of the working class, that is to say the ultimate abolition of the wages system’.

How has state capitalism advanced this goal by even one iota? Quite simply, it has not. Yet one still comes across Leftists calling for nationalisation of the ‘commanding heights of industry’ (this, despite the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 provoking some soul-searching, and prompting some to gravitate toward less statist variants of so-called ‘market socialism.’)

Moreover, China’s rise as an economic powerhouse, implementing a different kind of state capitalism from the Soviet Union’s so-called ‘command economy’, has injected new vigour into the Left´s love affair with state capitalism. However, love is blind, and it has certainly blinded these adoring fans to the fact that capitalist China is one of the most grotesquely unequal countries on the planet, with a crop of multibillionaires surpassed in size by only America. There is no more prospect of China paving the way to a post-capitalist society than the Soviet Union did.

So why do these people still cling tenaciously to this state capitalist model of social transformation, despite occasionally paying lip service to the goal of a post-capitalist society? The usual excuse is that you cannot realistically hope to jump straight from capitalism into a post-capitalist society. Pragmatically, there needs to be a ‘transition’.

Profound misunderstanding

Superficially, this does not seem an unreasonable point to make. Nevertheless, it reveals a profound misunderstanding. To see why, we have to consider what the basic preconditions are to establish a post-capitalist society.

Firstly, we must have the capacity to produce enough to satisfy our reasonable needs. Significant shortages, as noted, could make the principle of free access unworkable even after capitalism has disappeared.

According to the Communist Manifesto, before capitalism disappeared, certain (state capitalist) measures would be needed to ‘increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible’ . Writing in 1848, Marx and Engels sensed that socialism was nowhere near being a practical proposition back then.

However, by the late 19th century, they began to see that circumstances had changed. Those earlier measures proposed by them were now thought to be outdated due to the ‘gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848’ (1872 Preface). As Murray Bookchin put it: ‘A century ago, scarcity had to be endured; today it has to be enforced’ (Post-Scarcity Anarchism).

The other precondition to establish socialism is that a majority of workers should want it and understand what it means. It cannot be imposed from above by some enlightened vanguard. Those who implement such a society will also have to operate it. How can you do that without knowing the new ‘rules of the game’, without embracing the mores, values and expectations that this new system of society would entail?

This is precisely what a genuine ‘transition’ must involve – the gradual, if painfully slow, build-up in support for, and awareness of, a genuine alternative to capitalism. Engels understood this perfectly in arguing against minority action:

‘The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of masses lacking consciousness, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organisation, the masses themselves must also be in on it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are fighting for, body and soul’ (Introduction to Marx´s Class Struggles in France, 1895)

Actually, ‘The Transition’ is something in which we are already participating (though there is no guarantee it will lead to a successful outcome). However, it is not, and cannot possibly be, what the Hard Left imagines it to be – some far-off hypothetical stage after the Vanguard Party has captured power.

Any model for successfully exiting capitalism has to have a clear destination that breaks completely with capitalism. You cannot possibly do this if your whole strategy is built around perpetually postponing and deferring what is crucially required to make this happen – promoting awareness of what should replace capitalism.

The Hard Left’s belief that it is inappropriately ‘utopian’ now to even discuss a genuinely post-capitalist alternative is precisely what ensures there never will be an appropriate time to begin discussing it. Meanwhile, state capitalism is promoted on the spurious pretext that it will somehow prepare us to move beyond capitalism. That may have been true in the early 19th century, but not now. State capitalist regimes are no closer to a post-capitalist society than any other regime. This is the great deception. The relationship of the ruling class to the working class under state capitalism is precisely the same as anywhere else. It is the irreconcilable class antagonism that exists between capital and wage labour.

To imagine any state capitalist ruling class would ever voluntarily relinquish its privileged class status by facilitating the emergence of a classless society is utterly naïve. In fact, without exception, all state capitalist regimes obsessively promote bourgeois nationalism and support for their ‘socialist motherland’.

Under capitalism, nationalism is the universal ideological format that enables a ruling class to deflect any expression of class struggle that might otherwise threaten its rule by positing an illusory commonality of interest between workers and capitalists – the so-called ‘national interests’. The Hard Left’s susceptibility to this nonsense is not only evident in its support for nationalisation; it also shows in its willingness to align with the so-called ‘oppressed nations’ (and their comprador bourgeoisie) against the ‘imperialist nations’.

Shadow boxing

The shadow boxing it constantly engages in is particularly evident in its attitude towards reformism. For all its talk of ‘non-reformist reforms’, there is, in practice, no difference between the Hard Left and the Soft Left in this respect. The Trotskyist concept of ‘transitional demands’, supposedly designed to serve as a bridge between the minimum and maximum programmes, is anything but. Cynically promoting demands you know the system is incapable of granting is more likely to result in rank disillusionment than revolutionary consciousness.

You can’t trick or manipulate workers into becoming socialists. While some disdainfully dismiss what they call ‘abstract propaganda’, the fact is you cannot possibly achieve socialism without these workers knowing what it is about and wanting it. Plainly speaking, that means talking about it.

This is what the Left has been conspicuously reluctant to do. As noted, it even seems embarrassed by the very thought of doing this. Notwithstanding its steadily declining fortunes in recent decades (with one or two notable exceptions), the Left seems hell-bent, not on learning from its past mistakes, but on recycling them.

According to Bhaskar Sunkara, founding editor of Jacobin magazine:

‘Any serious democratic socialist politics must pursue a politics of rupture with capitalism. You can’t reach the abolition of class through an infinite series of small reforms” (‘Reforming Capitalism Is Not Enough’, Jacobin 8 June 2026).

One glance at the small print, however, reveals something totally different. Sunkara’s idea of a ‘twenty-first-century socialism’ is not remotely a post-capitalist one. Markets, he imagines, are a ‘great tool for socialism’ (and for ‘coordinating a complex economy’). Wage labour will continue in his ‘twenty-first-century socialism’ and hence also a class-divided society of employees versus employers. Unsurprisingly, the state, as the institutional tool of ruling-class domination, will continue to be needed in such a society.

For all the rhetorical flourishes concerning a ‘politics of rupture’, Sunkara’s musings boil down to just ‘business as usual’. Sadly, this might also be said of the Left in general. Good intentions will never be enough to eliminate capitalism.

Robin Cox

Tiny Tips (2026)

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

Money may not grow on trees, but according to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), it appears to be growing exceptionally well for a tiny fraction of Americans. In a recent post on X, Sanders renewed his long-running criticism of wealth concentration in the U.S. ‘Never before have we had so much income inequality’, he wrote. ‘Last year, the bottom 50% saw their income go down by $27, on average, while the top 0.01% gained $2.9 million’, Sanders continued. ‘And the top 0.001%? They saw their income go up by $20 million. In a single year. “Yes. We must tax the rich,”’ 

[Yahoo]

‘“Democratic Socialist” is to the Communist what “National Socialist” was to the Nazi’, reality TV star and former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt [sic] posted on X. 

[Fox News]

Zinn expressed the source of his motivations. ‘I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel – let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing’, he said. ‘I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers’. 

[Portside]

… Petrograd’s local Soviet government and Bolshevik Party organizations struggled to implement the Bolshevik Party program, fight domestic and foreign counterrevolutionaries, quiet labor unrest, and provide food, fuel, and education to the local population. The methods and strategies used by the government and party organizations to organize public life and fight enemies, domestic and foreign, not only preserved the infant Soviet regime but proved to be the first manifestation of what would become the one-party authoritarian Soviet political system. 

[The Bolsheviks Survive. Petrograd 1919. By Alexander Rabinowitch]

We emphasized, with Marx, that the proletarian revolution is not only necessary to overthrow capitalist rule but also to change the proletarians, so that they become fit to transform the world. Through the experience of prolonged collective struggle and being forced to reinvent their social practices to survive, proletarians throw off ‘the muck of ages’ as Marx put it, the weight of capitalist and pre-capitalist ideology and practices. Fredo thinks it is utopian to put that much ‘faith in revolutionary transformation of attitudes’. But isn’t it utopian to think that the revolution can succeed without attitudes and social practices being thoroughly transformed? 

[Internationalist Perspective]

The fear of acting incorrectly, of causing harm, or of being criticized by others can become politically paralyzing. One interviewee captured this dynamic succinctly when she explained that she would rather refrain from acting than risk doing something wrong. Such statements reveal an important contradiction. The ethical demand to act responsibly can, under certain conditions, undermine political action itself. This is not because ethical concerns are inherently conservative. Nor is it because criticism lacks political value. The problem is rather that individualized responsibility offers a weak response to problems that are fundamentally collective.

[Jacobin]

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

Definitions of Socialism (1952)

From the April 1952 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who are comparatively new to the ideas of the Socialist Party will perhaps wonder why we attach great importance to terminology. Unless there is agreement over terms, misunderstandings must follow. We don't wish to be pedantic, but the history of political movements indicates the enormous amount of confusion caused directly through the lack of satisfactory definitions. Because of this the Socialist Party always makes a point of defining what it means by socialism in every publication which goes out from the party. When we claim that the Labour Party is not a socialist party, and that the Communist Party is also not a socialist party it is because we have at least a clear idea of what we mean by socialism, and from this we don't intend on departing for any momentary political gain. Socialism has been defined by others as “The state control of exchange and a system of equal wages for all.” Such a definition we could not accept for four reasons. Under socialism there will be no state, for the state exists as an organisation for suppression, and for maintaining existence of a class or hierarchy. Secondly there will be no exchange under socialism, for exchange signifies buying and selling mid therefore ownership. Thirdly there will be no wages under socialism, because the wage system signifies that somebody is being exploited (and not getting the real fruits of their labour). And fourthly there will be no money under socialism, because money will not be needed. So for all these reasons we could not accept such a definition of socialism.

Von Scheel has defined socialism as "The economic philosophy of the suffering classes.” Such a definition is very inadequate; at all events the suffering classes have no philosophy in common even though they have poverty m common. G. Belot's definition was “The common entente with a view to social welfare. ” There are many such vague definitions. Even Wm. Morris was also vague in “The realisation for the purpose of satisfying the requirements of all these equalities.” and Hyndman "Socialism is an endeavour to substitute for the anarchical struggle or fight for existence an organised co-operation for existence.”

Chas. Bradlaugh who was a champion of free speech was never a Socialist, by his own or others definition, and said “Socialism denies individual private property and affirms that society organised as the state should own all wealth, direct all labour, and compel the equal distribution of all products ”

John Stuart Mill in his “Political Economy” gives us “Socialism is any system which requires that the land and instruments of production should be the property not of individuals but of communities or associations of the government. ” This definition comes a little nearer to the ideas of Socialism which we hold. Marx on the other hand wrote that socialism was"Substitution of conscious development of humanity for the unconscious development.” This is of course more of a philosophical than an economic definition not designed for use in day to day socialist propaganda and because of this could not be used by an organisation as the Socialist Party. Engels’ definition was also a bit philosophical “Mental reflection of the conflict existing in reality between the productive forces and the modes of production.”

A. Schäffle in “Quintessence of Socialism” writes “The Alpha and Omega of socialism is the transformation of private and competing capitalism into united collective capital.” Such definitions, which are common enough, have been the cause of a large amount of real confusion between nationalisation and socialism, and have been deliberately fostered by the labour parties throughout the world, as indeed it is their idea of socialism. Ramsay MacDonald was equally confused in his “Socialism is the application of mutual aid to politics and economics.” Proudhon's definition was likewise inadequate “Socialism is every aspiration towards the amelioration of society.” We might all argue with justification as to what constitutes an amelioration of society. Bebel in his “Woman and Socialism," invokes science and takes us up into the clouds with, “Science applied with clearer conscious and full knowledge to every sphere of human activity.” In “Le Mouvement Socialiste," T. De Wyzewa defines socialism as "A doctrine which demands the suppression of the proletariat and the complete control of wealth and power by the collectivity.” Such an adverse definition savours of influence from Russian Bolshevism. Another from K. Diehl in “Uber Socialisms, Kommunismus und Anarchisms,” “Negatively Socialism is the abolishing of private property in land or capital; positively it postulates personal income derived from labour only, and the abolishing of private possessions of capital” Again the Socialist Party could never work on such an inadequate definition.

There have been no lack of adverse definitions of socialism, and although these are not accepted except by anti-socialists, a few are interesting and can be given to show that even socialists have a sense of humour. “Socialism, like every other social system, when stripped of its emotional trimmings, gets down to a formula for living without work.” The author, was perhaps a little biased for it was Henry Ford. Mrs. Fawcett authoress of a little book on political economy renders the follow amusing verse.

“ What is a Communist?

Why one that hath yearnings,

Of equal division of unequal earnings,

Idler, or bungler, or both, he is willing,

To fork out his penny, and to pocket your shilling!” 

Winston Churchill left one to go down in history after him, when he declared a few years ago that, "Socialism was the equalisation of poverty and the organisation of misery.”

One of the most curious was perhaps Lenin’s serious definition that “Socialism is Soviet Power plus Electrification.”

So when you read our literature again we hope you will appreciate the very sound reasons why we always print our definition and declaration of principles in all party material, and we don’t mind being pulled up on them because they are what we believe.

Horace Jarvis

Beware the bogey-men (1986)

From the December 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

There was a time when hard-pressed parents sought to control their high-spirited children by threatening that, if they were not "good" (willing to conform to parental convenience). the bogey-man would get them. The owners of newspapers use the same device to frighten their readers into conformity with ruling class ideas and. on occasion, to create a willingness to die in their defence.

The earliest bogey-man the writer can remember was the "Hun" — the subject of fear and hatred during the first World War. This was the name given to the Germans of that time in spite of the fact that the Huns last swept across Europe from Central Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. However. "Hun" was a convenient alternative to "German" since the British Royal Family were related to Germans.

Then, with the Russian revolution of 1917, a new bogey-man appeared on the horizon. He was known as a "Bolshy" and, although this was an abbreviation of "Bolshevik", meaning "one of those forming a majority", this in no way detracted from the horror with which people were persuaded to regard him. This bogey-man was unique in having an alternative name: "Red", which was on occasion applied to members of the Labour Party as well as supporters of the Communist Party.

But then, when Hitler disappointed the British ruling class by deciding to invade the West instead of the East, the "Nazi" became the biggest bogey-man of all. "Nazi" was an abbreviation of Nationalsozialist — meaning National Socialist — and workers should bear this in mind when others lay claim to being socialist when they represent just another form of capitalism.

However the bogey-man of the 1980s is certainly a "Marxist" — often a "hard-line Marxist", whatever that means. Now. presumably a Marxist is one who agrees with the main economic and political ideas of Karl Marx. So it might be as well for those members of the working class who might be frightened by this latest bogey-man to find out exactly what his ideas were.

Marx maintained that in an advanced capitalist country the population was divided into two main social classes whose interests were diametrically opposed: the capitalist class and the working class. He pointed to the fact that, because the capitalist class owned the means of production of wealth (the land, factories, railways and so on) the working class was dependent on selling to the capitalists their only asset, their ability to work, in order to live. In this process he explained the exploitation of labour, the inevitable poverty of a majority of the working class — and the origin of profit:

The fact that half a day 's labour is necessary to keep the labourer alive during 24 hours, does not in any way prevent him from working the whole day. Therefore, the value of labour power and the value which that labour power creates in the labour process, are two entirely different magnitudes and this difference of the two values was what the capitalist had in view when he was purchasing labour power.

(Capital Part III Chapter VII)

Marx also held that the only solution to the poverty of the working class was for them to make the means of production of wealth the common property of all mankind:

When therefore capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transferred into social property.

(Communist Manifesto)

In the above statement he was also answering those critics who asked what would become of personal belongings. The result however of the change from private ownership of capital to common ownership would, Marx pointed out. mean the cessation of buying and selling since this can only occur if wealth is privately owned:

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying (free trade) disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying and all the other brave words of our bourgeoisie [. . .] have no meaning when opposed to the communistic abolition of buying and selling

(Communist Manifesto)

It would also mean the end of the wages system by which workers were exploited:

Instead of the conservative motto: "a fair day s wages for a fair day's work" they [the working class] ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword: abolition of the wages system.

(Value, Price and Profit) 

Finally, he maintained that the establishment of this form of society must be achieved democratically by the working class itself:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy.

(Communist Manifesto)

and

Thus socialism was. in 1847. a middle-class movement, communism a working-class movement. [. . .] And as our notion, from the very beginning, was that the emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself, there could be no doubt as to which of the two names we must take.

(Preface to the Communist Manifesto)

So what can we conclude from the above quotations? Firstly that members of the working class — and in this group we include those who think of their wages as "salaries" — should have nothing to fear from this latest in a long line of "bogey-men": the Marxist. The true Marxist brings the key to the emancipation of all people from poverty and conflict.

Secondly the above quotations should enable us to distinguish the true Marxist from the many who assume, or are given, this title Reading back over the quotations, we can ask whether the self-styled "Marxist" explains the economics of capitalist exploitation, believes that the means of wealth production should be the common property of all. explains that this means the abolition of buying and selling and the end of the wages system — and whether the revolutionary change from capitalism to socialism (or communism) must be the democratic act of a majority of the working class.

Or does the "Marxist" represent an élite who claim they can lead the working class — offering reforms on the way — to a form of society in which they see themselves as the new ruling class? If so. here is your true bogeyman.

John Moore

Jottings. (1912)

The Jottings Column from the December 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Dean of Lincoln (Dr. Fry), speaking at Kennington recently, gave utterance to the following characteristic remark : “I wake in the morning with a joy I have not known for years to think that we may, in a few weeks, have the Cross over St. Sophia and Constantinople.” Which means, to give it its true interpretation, that if there are any pickings to be had, they mean, vulture like, to be among the first at the feast, brazenly disregarding the fact that the history of Christianity is bloodier even than that of the Turks.

* * *

It is interesting to note with what alacrity the wealthy class have protested against the flogging clause in the White Slave Traffic Bill. One would suppose that they were actuated by motives of honest indignation against a survival of Middle Age methods of torture. To the Socialist, however, the reason is quite clear. For is not this the class from which the “White Slavers” draw most of their clientele ? And are they not responsible in a double sense, inasmuch as it is due to the exploitation of labour by this class that the degradation of women exists, thus making “white slavery” possible.

* * *

According to news from Paris, a lady has been seen in the Champs Elysees, accompanied by her dog, which was wearing india-rubber boots laced high up the legs, ear protectors, goggles to shield the eyes from cold and mud, and a Raglan overcoat lined with, thick flannel, and provided with a pocket from which projected a tiny handkerchief with a monogram on it, with which to wipe its dear little nose.

In order to more fully appreciate the above I cite another instance of riotous extravagance taken from the same paper (“The London Budget,” 27.10.12).

“An old soldier with the best of characters complained to the Westminster magistrate that everything he possessed, except a small bundle, had been taken from him for a balance of 5s. under a hire-purchase agreement and 3s. 6d. for a week’s rent, which he was unable to pay through being out of work. He showed receipts covering a period of two years for instalments amounting to £12 11s. paid for goods priced under the agreement at £12 16s.” After this who wouldn’t prefer a dog’s life ?

* * *

A circular has been going the rounds of late, issued by that confused set of scaremongers known as the Anti-Socialist Union. It is a wild appeal for “help and support,” promising that “neither the names of members nor subscriptions are published without permission.” In the course of the appeal (which is anonymous, as usual) it states that “predatory Socialism” is rampant in the House of Commons. According to the “antis” there were 40 Socialists in Parliament in 1911, and since 1897 the National Debt had risen from £545,171,525 to £733,072,610, ostensibly due to their advent in the House.

This is certainly news to me, yet I would be satisfied if the A.S.U. would furnish the name of one Socialist in Parliament, now or any other time. This sort of stuff may do to frighten the commercial and business class to whom these leeches make their appeal, but to the Socialist it is laughable.

* * *

Here is another sample : “One of the first principles of Socialism is the repudiation of the National Debt. That is why Socialists show no concern at the rapid piling up of the nation’s liabilities.” This is both right and wrong. It is wrong in so far that Socialists do not repudiate the National Debt, for the simple reason that it makes no difference to the workers of this country whether the nation has a big National Debt or none at all. The workers’ condition remains the same. They don’t make the debt, and they don’t pay the debt. Therefore the Socialist doesn’t concern himself with the National Debt, even to the extent of repudiating it. It is right in that the Socialists have no concern with the nation’s liabilities. The liabilities are not theirs, be they piled as high as that beautiful place they tell us about. On the other hand, having regard to the fact that Socialism will not be established except as a world-wide system, all national debts, liabilities, Anti-Socialist Unions, and other capitalist institutions will automatically become defunct. Meanwhile, spread the light !

* * *

Keir Hardie, “the famous British Socialist” (according to the Americans), has recently returned from a lecturing tour in that land “flowing with milk and honey.” Asked by an interviewer how he became a Socialist, Hardie (it is reported) answered : “I can’t just say how my own life turned me to Socialism, I think I got my first ideas from reading Robert Burns and Thomas Carlyle. Then came the New Testament.” Good heavens ! I have several times wondered where he got it from !

It seems that Hardie’s services had been requisitioned to give a fillip to the S.P. of America (an organisation similar to the I.L.P.), since Roosevelt had stolen all their platform, and left with them no distinguishing principles upon which to fight. It had been suggested to the party that Hyndman be asked to perform, but the offer was declined on the score of expense. Instead, Hardie was booked at £10 a lecture !—at least, so grumbles “Justice.” It would be very interesting to know what Hyndman’s figure would have been, seeing that Hardie was considered to be a cheap substitute at £10 a time.

Considering he addressed 43 meetings it cannot be said that he did badly, and yet it certainly was indiscreet of him to tell the interviewer that “the commonsense of humanity is bound to manifest itself sometime.”

Whilst agreeing that this is probable, yet, it seems to me, if its manifestation depends upon the dissemination of Carlyle and the New Testament at £10 a dose, then it is a very long way off indeed. Happily, however, there are teachers of Socialism in the field.

* * *

The Executive of the Labour Party has been wroth with Mr. J. G. Hancock, M.P., because he announced his intention of attending the meetings of the Mid Derby Liberal Association and reporting to them his work in Parliament. The Executive does not see how he can square this attitude with his pledge to support the Labour Party ‘s constitution.

To me there appears to be no difficulty whatever. Events have proved that the Liberal Party stands for all that the Labour Party stands for. Besides, was not Mr. Hancock congratulated years ago by Mr. Asquith and Mr. Lloyd George on his former successful campaigns in Mid-Derby ? Why was he not pulled up before ? Simply because the Labour Party has known all along that Mr. Hancock was a Liberal. He has never disguised the fact. Again, did not Mr. Ramsay MacDonald himself say that Socialism was to be approached, “not by a broad, ready-made road, but through morass, through forests, up hill and down dale, round this corner and that” ? (Oxford, 13.10.11.)

Numerous instances could be cited where Labour M.P.’s have admitted their identity with the Liberal Party. So why blame a member if he elects to go “round this corner and that” ?

* * *

If those who support a Labour policy are desirous of doing a little house-cleaning, they have set themselves a huge task, for upon observation we find the same treachery throughout the movement. On the occasion of the conference of the freedom of the City of Liverpool upon Lord Derby, we find Mr. “Jim” Sexton present on the platform in spite of the resolution passed by his Trades Council, forbidding members to take part in the ceremony. Not satisfied with this, he needs must inform his audience that he “regarded it as a very considerable privilege to be there.” I can quite believe it, and hope Lord Derby will duly appreciate his services. “A small section of the community,” said Sexton, “have expressed, their disapproval, and whilst I do not doubt their sincerity, I cannot appreciate their motives.”

After this is there any doubt as to which class Mr. Sexton is serving ? Of course, nothing will happen. The only difference is that on this occasion a Tory was supported, whereas it is usually the right thing to support a Liberal.

As Mr. W. C. Anderson, the Chairman of the I.L.P., says in the Liberal “Daily Citizen” (13.10.12): “Some would argue that the Labour Party must prove its independence of the Liberals by voting against the Government, even when the Government are supporting some useful (!) reform. But that is not independence: it is much nearer being an advanced stage of political lunacy. On a number of political questions—Lords’ Veto, Plural Votes, and Home Rule—the Liberals are certainly more advanced than the Tories. On all such questions Labour will go into the same lobby with the Liberals without the slightest sacrifice of independence.” Which is quite true. It would be difficult indeed for them to sacrifice something which, for them, does not exist.

At Manchester last month, during the municipal elections, both Labour and B.S.P. candidates signified their willingness, if elected, “to work for the unification of Rates” and “the transference of Rates from property to site values,” for which they were promised the support “by word, deed and vote” of the League of Young Liberals. These are issues, be it noted that are of no import to the workers, but are intended solely to benefit one section of the capitalist class by shifting the rates burden onto the shoulders of another section, incidentally using the worker as a mug in order to accomplish it.

* * *

According to Lady Aberconway, there are “only two ways for a woman of the upper classes to obtain money ; one by inheriting from the dead, and the other by begging from the living.” I venture to affirm that this is not quite correct. There are three ways of getting a living : by working for it, by begging, and by stealing. Knowing that the “upper” class neither work nor beg for their living, there is no other conclusion left us than that they get it by stealing—from the workers.

* * *

Robert Blatchford has recanted on the question of compulsory military service, of which he was such a strenuous advocate. He admits that “universal military service under the control of the ruling ‘classes’ would result in slavery : it would undoubtedly lead to the enslavement of the workers.” (“Clarion,” 1.11.12.) Which is an admission on the part of R.B. that his position, after all his protestations to the contrary, was the wrong one. It has taken him a long time to find it out, which, in itself betrays the fact that he has not devoted much time to the study of Socialism. Seemingly it requires concrete instances, such as the employment of troops as blacklegs in the recent strikes, to force home to him the absurdity of his position. The point is, what becomes now of his “Britain for the British,” seeing that one position conditions the other ?

Tom Sala

Letter: A realist writes (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

A realist writes

The Editor.

Socialist Standard.

Being a realist rather than an optimist. I have to state the obvious fact that there are very few good points about being unemployed. Not because I feel particularly depressed, ashamed, useless, or guilty about not performing some type of so-called productive task, and thereby helping to maintain the coffers of our profit-orientated society. No, my reasons for finding my situation unpleasant, uncomfortable, and unenviable are purely financial, for I still recognise the truth that I am no less a person as a result of my lack of paid employment.

But there is one advantage to being unemployed it gives you plenty of time to think And during the past 14 months or so of serious mental application to matters political, social, and religious. I have definitely concluded that the only solid hope for this overcrowded and sadly exploited little planet is to be found in socialism. There can surely be no doubt any more that virtually every crime, either individual or international, originates from the obsession with profit and the motivation of material greed. I have finally come to understand just what my venerable, white-haired granny meant when she used to tell me that "money is the root of all evil"; although 1 would qualify that by saying that it is not money as such  — for it is merely a shorthand mode of exchange, being slightly more convenient than conventional barter — but it is rather the hunger for money that causes the problems. Hunger for money, hunger for power, and obsession for the temporal and temporary superiority which money and its power confer upon their holders, those are the evils which must be beaten before our species can begin, as a race, to become truly mature, social, human beings.

But all I have done so far is state the obvious, and repeat in my words some of the things which 1 could read in your magazine any time. The thing is. what do we do about it? Sure, we can write letters like this, we can hold meetings, we can even talk to our friends about our creed of world socialism. But this letter will only be read by people who are already convinced of our truths, and our meetings will usually only be attended by others with our interests, and friends have a tendency to become alienated by heavy political statements. So the question remains, what positive action can we take to throw the outmoded and genocidal politics of the present into the trash-can where they belong, so that they may be replaced with the only remaining logical system in which we believe?

The voting public of this (and most other) countries are very conservative in their attitudes. They are conditioned to the apparently comfortable limitations of party politics. They vote only for "acceptable" parties and candidates, in this country meaning Conservative. Labour or Liberal/ SDP. and they do not even consider voting for someone who, as far as they are concerned, does not stand a chance of success in an election.

Worse than that, our public image is not good. It is not yet viable The average person simply translates "Socialist" as "extreme left" or "Communist", and consequently we are doomed before we start. Of course, in order to promote our replacement social system, we must to some extent compromise our position by fitting into the existing system. Before we can become viable, we must have a public platform of some sort, which means finding public representatives of sufficient conviction and of strong enough image to become feasible candidates in public elections. The system will not change by itself, and we will not change it until we can get inside it. People form that system, and they will not change either their social attitudes or their political affiliations unless they are given a very sound and convincing alternative to their present ones.

So instead of wittering to each other from somewhere on the sidelines, let's work to build ourselves into a solid group — I try to avoid the term "party" because of its old connotations and then maybe we can really begin to change this world into something we can live in with humanity, justice and peace.

Yours fraternally, 

R K Chalmers

(Newton Abbot)

Reply:

We have some minor differences with Mr Chalmers but we think his letter is an interesting comment.

Editors.

Letters: Who’s afraid of socialism? (1999)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Who’s afraid of socialism?

Dear Editors,

As a sympathiser but not yet a member of the Socialist Party I have been interested in the discussion about the “S” word. When one considers the diverse characters who have misused the word—Hitler, Stalin, Mao down to Wilson, Kinnock, Scargill, Hatton and many many more, there is no wonder that many people are deaf to preachings in the name of Socialism.

In my opinion it has become imperative that an alternative terms must be adopted. May I suggest Common Wealth Party? (Not Commonwealth!). this is descriptive of aims and “fresh” sounding—stimulating further interest instead of instant dismissal by a potential convert to our cause.

I believe this subject deserves more serious consideration as a means to obtaining more sympathetic listeners to our message.

Robert Coleman, 

Wellington, Somerset

Reply:

Actually, there was once a party called the Common Wealth Party. It even had an MP, but he ended up defecting to the Labour Party.- Editors

That word again

Dear Editors,

I can’t help but feel that the term “socialism” has become a scapegoat.

The concept of socialism is just as vulnerable to prejudice and misunderstanding as the term we use to denote it. Those who associate “socialism” with bolshevism or the Labour Party are almost always incapable of envisaging a system of common ownership and instinctively equate it with nationalisation of one form or another. Changing our terminology will not alter the fact that many people cannot imagine an alternative to capitalism even when they have it explained to them. To imagine that it would is to accept the simplistic logic of political correctness.

Besides, abandoning the term “socialism” would bring us numerous disadvantages. We risk appearing to have broken away from our past. Our record of arguing the case for socialism is a distinction which we cannot afford to lose.

Equally, we risk appearing to have modified our views, or the suspicion that we have something to hide. We risk appearing to have succumbed to a New Labour-style victory of style over substance, or the duplicity of renamed factions of the former Communist Party. Socialism is a righting word; One World, Free Access and the like sound like Women’s Institute sub-committees.

In any case, the word socialism will always be associated with Karl Marx and his ideas, ideas which bring many people to the Socialist Party. I knew I was a socialist because that’s what Marx was and he made far more sense than anyone I’d heard of before. That’s why I bothered contacting the Socialist Party.

The irony of all this is that the problem is actually decreasing. You don’t meet many 20-year-olds who would call the Labour Party “socialist”. When I put the case for socialism to people my own age it is rare for them even to mention the USSR. I used to point out the difference between socialism and bolshevism; now most people pre-empt me.

The end of the Cold War is prompting many people to go back to Marx and re-evaluate his ideas. There is increasing interest in what most people will still call “socialism”. Now is the time to cling to that name more tenaciously than ever.

Matthew Vaughan-Wilson 

Southampton

And again

Dear Editors,

I fully accept Max Hess’s main arguments that it is better not to mention the word Socialism initially and that the positive personal benefits of socialism need more stress. I must disagree however with his conclusions regarding the Party name. Like many members I was attracted to the Socialist Party by its name rather than put off (at 14 I carefully scrutinised Tony Benn’s “Arguments for Socialism” in a vain attempt to find arguments for socialism!). Changing the name, e.g. to the “Free Access Party” (which sounds like an undergraduate debating society) or something to do with “Autonarchy” (some sort of bizarre S&M?) would be a catastrophe. For a start we would lose all rights to the Party’s history—which some of us are proud of.

Other organisations have similar problems—the anarchists for instance have a constant battle regarding the bomb-throwing jibe—yet they haven’t got this constant navel-gazing obsession with titles.

If anything it is the fake “socialists” who should be asked to change their name not us (the SWP becoming the SCMTP—State Capitalist Mostly Teachers Party, the ex-Militants becoming the RNSP—Reformist Name Stealing Party, etc).

If we’re not making socialists as rapidly as we might hope there is a case for re-examining the effectiveness of our propaganda. However the Socialist Party has never had any time for the theatricality of “spinning” (name changing included). What we say is what we are.

Keith Scholey, 

Hull

Letter: Free access (1999)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free access

Dear Editors,

Regarding recent letters urging socialists to avoid using the S-word, the Socialist Party should take account of Tom Jones’s article about life being so “dull and hopeless that a lot of people hope for nothing more”. And how “psychological effects of many tiring, boring hours has a knock-on effect” in that “workers are unable to imagine a world free from the drudgery of wage slavery” (June Socialist Standard).

While agreeing with your February view that it’s wrong to “surrender the word”, I think most socialists accept Paul Azzario’s April letter point that “socialism” can evoke an immediate disapproving “Pavlovian reaction”. And this conditioned negative response (which a very influential media is still reinforcing today) combined with today’s widespread pessimistic indifference does require an apposite approach. Not a Basil Fawlty “Don’t mention the S-word”—just avoiding using it too soon.

One feature that can overcome disinterest, pessimism and any latter negative reaction to the S-word is the free access to food, goods and services that common ownership brings. Concentrating foremost on promoting shopping without paying; free homes, cars, overseas travel etc; and all public services being available without any cost is a promise that cuts through social despair and attracts interest, even if with disbelief more often than not. Supported by the basic explanation of collective asset-owning resulting in an equal right to everything produced, together with other significant benefits, means voters find socialism—far better than socialism trying to find voters with premature S-word use, and detailed meanings which, given Tom Jones’s accurate report of downbeat thought processes, inevitably turns people off. Getting major advantages across first and why they aren’t pie-in-the-sky, then gradually introducing the S-word no longer unintentionally puts backs up. As Aki Orr’s February letter said, “adapt language and tactics” to promote socialism. Capitalism’s hopelessness has necessitated spin doctors to conceal defects and lack of substance. But the Socialist Party must also spin socialism to break through with trumpeted benefits and supporting content—not raising an immediate S-word obstacle which does regrettably stop socialists from communicating and the exploited from listening.

Regarding the Socialist Party name, despite its fundamental truth and long existence, is it not credible that a title-change to Free Access Party (or whatever) could ironically help increase socialist awareness and party support considerably? I cannot see a changed title causing upset as socialists will only be concerned with completing the journey as soon as possible—not the vehicle’s name conveying them (and which is to be abandoned once socialism’s established). Is a membership vote on this possible to settle matters and avoid further doubts and distractions?

Max Hess, 

Folkestone, Kent

Letter: Why so little effect? (1996)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why so little effect?

Dear Editors,

It seems hard that the "Socialist Case" as put up by the Socialist Standard and by many Socialists in one-to-one situations has had so little effect, that is in motivating people towards Socialism.

Every opportunity socialists have of influencing anyone must impress on such a person the true meaning of Communism and Socialism. To do this one must demonstrate the similarity of the system that existed in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, that being capitalist, not as most of their names suggested as "Socialist”.

To demonstrate, the elements of capitalism are mainly money, wages, profit. Any of these elements present in any system of society, make that society a capitalist variety.

Regardless of what some leaders (dictatorial or not) choose to call their countries, that is. Communist of Socialist, they remain capitalist, because of the presence of the elements of money, wages and profit. 

Jim Sideris

Wembley, Western Australia

No More Family Life. (1908)

From the January 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the awful pronouncement which greeted readers of the Daily Distress one morning in October. Said the Editor:—

“We have proved from the writings of Socialist leaders that atheism is one of their principal creeds, and that the marriage ties are not considered to be of any importance. But our exposures have caused consternation at the Socialist headquarters, and every effort is being made to deny our charges in order to allay the fears of those who have succumbed to the blandishments of the smooth-tongued street-corner orators. Socialism cannot endure exposure. It flourishes in the dark.”

Socialism flourishes in the dark, you see. Only a day or so previously a leading article in the same veracious journal impressed upon its intelligent clientele that “the greatest mistake we can make in dealing with the Socialists is to debate with them. It is just what they want.” It is painfully evident that we Socialists don’t know when we are well off. After all, why should we seek the light of debate when, so the Express says, we “flourish in the dark” ? To us, our hundreds of meetings in the open air, in parks, at street corners, at factory gates, have savoured of extreme publicity, and the invariable presence of the police would appear to warrant the assumption. We have nurtured a phantom. On the authority of the Express we have been in Stygian blackness the whole time. Hence our flourishing condition. This, of course, is Express reasoning. If the editorial tongue were not so plainly visible within the editorial cheek, a plain man might be tempted to style it twaddle. Mr. Pearson further informs us that:

“Under advanced Socialism every child is to belong to the “State.” Parental responsibility in every shape is to be ended. Feeding, clothing, training, educating—the State is to do it all. One stands aghast, and wonders whether the result would be more disastrous to the parent than to the child,”

but on page 4 of the same issue a Mr. Claude Lowther “dealing” with the “Canker of Socialism” says “of course we recognise that the child belongs to the community and that the health of the child is the well-being of the State.” So it would appear that Socialism has stolen a march upon us and is here in all its hideous nakedness. And the mother don’t seem to mind. Or shall we say that Mr. Lowther would be well advised if in future he compared notes with the Editor before rushing into type ? There is a possibility of a glimmer of sense creeping in by accident whilst the present haphazard arrangement lasts. Don’t risk it, Claude.

Education again, we always understood, was the particular concern of the State. But read this first :

BARRACK NURSERIES

And what about character ? What about individual care ? What about family life and that affection which makes childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering ? Because many homes are unhappy; because many poor little children cry for food in the slums ; because some parents are without love and kindness, are all children to be without parents and to have a barrack for a nursery and a soulless “State” for a mother’s care ?

THE HOME IS TO GO. FAMILY LIFE HAS TO GO. Let the little ones wake in the night and cry for their parents — Let the mother stretch out for the child.

It is not hers at all. It is the State’s !

Socialism has no care for empty arms and wistful mothers. The child is the State’s, and mothers must go desolate. The little shoes, the little baby clothes—the kind “State” will provide those, and they will be all of a pattern and all alike.

Under Socialism every child will be a workhouse child. If the mothers dressed them, one would be prettier than another—and that would not be Socialism.”

Let me emphasise the fact that the article here quoted appeared in the Daily Express, Oct. 8th, not in Punch as perhaps might be imagined.

Only one thing is lacking to complete the harrowing picture. Why not prevail upon the talented artist who enlivened the last L.C.C. election with his beautiful and soulful conceptions to endeavour to depict the interior of a “barrack nursery.” Nothing appeals to the masses like a picture, and one such of a very long room, tall and broad, filled with hundreds of squalling infants, each seated before a “soulless” half yard of indiarubber pipe, through which the State pumped nutriment, would carry conviction. I present the idea to the Daily Express for what it is worth.

But coming down to hard facts and above all, those of present-day life, how does this strike the Editor of the Daily Distress and those who think with him that human society has reached its highest possible expression in that of to-day, so completely does it meet the individual wants of its components ? This is from the Boston American, July 28th :—

”MINOR EMPLOYES OF STEEL TRUST SOLD BODY AND SOUL.

Parents Are Compelled to Sign Release Deed Before Work is Secured.

Hundreds Execute It.

Worcester, July 27.—The American Steel and Wire Trust is buying children in Worcester for one dollar a head.

Several hundred have already been sold to slave in the three huge mills of the trust in this city, and the sale of hundreds of others will soon be consummated it the State authorities do not interfere.

Many parents have refused to sell their children into slavery, and it is expected that they will soon have to find employment elsewhere than in the trust mills for their boys and girls.

The Steel and Wire Trust is determined that it shall own its employes body and soul.

To secure absolute control of the children the trust recently demanded that their parents sign “A MINOR’S RELEASE.”

Each parent who signs this receives one dollar, and for that dollar he or she waives forever all control over the child: all right to collect his or her pay and all legal rights, in the opinion of the trust’s attorney, to collect damages should the child be killed or maimed in the mills.

Here is a copy of the “minor’s release,” by which the parent makes his child a slave for a mite of the trust’s gold:

MINOR’S RELEASE. 

Know all men by these presents, That, in consideration of the sum of One Dollar and other good and valuable considerations, to me in hand paid, I ………. of …….. have emancipated and do hereby emancipate …… of …… my son, of and from any and all liability to render or account for his services to me, and all obligations to me of whatsoever kind or nature, and do hereby release and forever waive any and all right which I may have in and to his services, or any wages or salary earned by him; and do hereby authorize any and all persons whomsoever to contract with my said son without any liability to me, and to pay him his wages, and to do any and all things and make any and all contracts, with said son, without any liability to me ; and authorize the said son to appropriate and receive, for his own use and benefit, without any liability to me, his services, and pay and all proceeds or avails thereof.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal at …… this …… day of 190…

Witness : ……………………………………………………………………

(Seal)”

Comment is almost needless. The Socialist is simply charged with certain proposals : here is an actuality. What of family life ? “Let the little ones wake in the night and cry for their parents—let the mother stretch out for her child.”

It is not hers at all. It is the Trusts !

“And what about character? What about individual care? What about family life and that affection which makes childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering ?”

How awkward for the Express that we here can speak in the present tense. THE HOME HAS GONE. FAMILY LIFE AS WELL.

And the American Socialists have denounced it. And the American prototypes of the Express have denounced the Socialists.

We need not travel so far as Tariff-protected America for indications of the ineffable state of bliss, marital and otherwise, in which the working class exists. We are indebted to capitalist sources almost exclusively for our best and most illuminating arguments and statistics.

The census returns show about 43 millions of human beings as inhabiting the British Isles. Of these 38 millions take just over half the national yearly production of wealth, the other 5 millions taking the remainder. The average income of the larger division is less than £160 per head. Thirteen millions are perpetually on or below the poverty line, and nearly a million receive Poor Law relief. What a bed of roses ! What possibilities for the formation of character and that affection which makes childhood’s day’s etc., ad nauseum. Beautiful language the Express people pour forth. “Because many homes are unhappy; because many poor little children cry for food in the slums ; because some parents are without love and kindness; are all children to be without parents and to have a barrack for a nursery and a soulless “State” for a mother’s care? ”

I reply : Because a paltry, parasitic, useless, one-ninth of the population absorbs nearly 50 per cent. of the national income and own seven-eighths of the whole wealth of the country; because less than one-thousandth per cent. of the population owns more than 50 per cent. of the total area of land ; because 5 millions of the lazy plunder 38 millions of the industrious; because of these and scores of similar facts, are 13 millions of wealth producers to be perpetually on the brink of starvation ? Are nearly 90,000 human beings to die in workhouses, lunatic asylums and similar institutions annually ? Are 120,000 workers, the only people who matter, to be robbed of life or limb every year, whilst creating wealth they never enjoy ? Are nearly a million fellow-creatures to be so reduced by privation that they are compelled to claim public assistance and become, despite the repressive measures adopted by “sweet charity,” paupers, in the midst of colossal wealth?

A million married women are compelled to work for wages. What of home life ? And childhood’s days so sweet in the remembering? Nearly 140 in every 1,000 never have any childhood’s days to remember, for they die before their first year of “life” is completed. And family life too ! What of that ? Yes, what of family life ? The average age of the worker is 29 years. The lunacy figures have doubled during the last 40 years. The unemployed problem becomes ever more intense. The worker’s wife and children have now to turn out on the labour market and help to keep a roof over their heads until the arrival of the undertaker—at the age of 29 or thereabouts.

“The home is to go” wails the Express. “Family life too” it sobs. Pass on ! it makes one peevish.

And now what of the Socialist proposals. Of course volumes could be written and have been written upon the institutions of religion and marriage. But briefly, very briefly, the position occupied by the Socialist in viewing the institutions named is very simple and readily understood. It is this.

Before man can formulate a religion, or a social custom like marriage, it is fairly apparent that he must be living in a community, and that the nature of that community will depend largely upon the methods by which the material wants, primarily food, are supplied. For instance, where animal or vegetable food is difficult of access, there, as history shows, one can confidently expect to find cannibalism. The social customs of that community will be an exact reflex of the way they are compelled to get their living. Their god will be as partial to human flesh as they. Their frailties, passions and virtues will find a truthful mirror in their deity. This is so historically and logically true that the wonder is that any person is to be found who, having given a very moderate amount of study to the question, can for a moment doubt it. Take the ancient Norsemen : men of pillage, rapine and plunder ; wild, restless, roving pirates, as fond of wine as they were of war. Their gods, Thor, Wodin, etc., were glorified counterparts of themselves. Higher in the scale the Greeks, a people who had brought the arts to a marvellous pitch of perfection, personified the arts and graces, that is, they made their gods and goddesses after their own image, and then deified and worshipped them. With the decay of the Greek civilisation, their deities died of the same complaint. So that as regards religion the Socialist position should be fairly clear. Change the economic condition of a people and their god or gods obediently dance to the altered tune. A moment’s reflection should make this abundantly clear. Even in the case of Christianity it is continually changing as the minds of its adherents change. “It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdon of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle” said Christianity’s great expositor 2,000 years ago. But a system of society has arisen in which the rich capitalist is looked upon as the mainspring by which Society is enabled to move: a society in which the followers of the humble Nazarene become the possessors of enormous wealth. And—mark what happens. Dr. Akeds arise in scores to prove that Christ did not really mean it. Theologians go to extreme pains to prove that the eye of a needle was something entirely different to our domestic implement. The camel’s task was really very easy : only a bit of a squeeze and he was through. Same with the rich man, and so on.

And now regarding the custom of marriage. There is something decidedly humorous in the spectacle of the introducers of the Divorce Courts reproaching anyone with sinister designs upon the “sacred contract.” The severing of the marriage tie by means of divorce is a measure that surely no one will lay to the door of the Socialists. And who is it that fills the Divorce Court ? The very people who are now accusing the Socialist of designs upon the purity and sanctity of home life. Who are the greatest patrons of the horrible social ulcer known as prostitution ? The question is almost automatically answered. Regent Strest and Piccadilly are not working-class quarters; they are not even, remotely “tainted” with the “canker of Socialism.” Yet the bare names of these thoroughfares have become synonymous for the vice which flourishes, unashamed and practically unchecked, upon them. The average man (who is not a Socialist) will tell you that prostitution is a necessary evil, and that the unfortunates who are its victims should receive State recognition and be licensed, as on the Continent. The upholders of the present system cannot conceive of human society without it. “It always has been and always will be” sums up the whole of their philosophy.

The true Socialist position is that the present marriage contract is by no means the last word to be said upon the subject. History shows that as the economic basis of human society has changed, so the customs of that society have altered, including, necessarily, marriage. The present social system is based upon the ownership of private property, and the marriage contract is in essence a property contract. The single sentence from the Marriage Service, “with all my worldly goods I thee endow” is indicative of this, especially as the recipient of this cornucopean shower immediately surrenders all control over it by promising to “love, honour and obey” the benevolent “bestower.” The Married Women’s Property Act legalises the holding of property by married women, but even this becomes an expedient by means of which the bankrupt can secure some of his “hard-earned” plunder against the inroads of his swindled creditors, provided he has sufficient foresight.

It should be clear, then, that present-day society is organised upon a basis of private property in the means whereby the wealth creators live and that necessarily the customs of Society will partake of the general structure. With the change in the basis, necessarily the superstructure must follow suit. Abolish a system where the mainspring of all effort is the glorification, and aggrandisement of the individual at the expense of the community ; where the ideal is tersely expressed as “every man for himself and devil take the hindmost,” and substitute a community whose driving factor shall be collective effort for the mental and material well-being of all, and whose chief concern shall he the free and unfettered development of all its component units ; abolish the one, we say, and substitute the other and the way is easy for a marriage based upon mutual esteem; upon Love in actuality and not as at present, merely as an accessory after the fact—the fact of the possession of a “decent berth” or a banking account.

One thing the Express and those of its kidney appear to overlook is this. In any society where woman were the social equal of man, is it to be imagined for one moment that she would acquiesce in anything the Express portion of the population cared to suggest? No ! Capitalist morals, bourgeois ethics, would follow the Express into the oblivion of a hideous past. Under Socialism there will be no sex barrier. Elementary logic would appear to show that the individuals most interested, or rather more affected, by social changes, should at least be among the first to be consulted. It does not seem to have occurred to the Express that woman would have a voice in the ordering of her sex-relationship. Need her answer be anticipated ? Think it over !

W. T. Hopley