Labour's logic (1985)

Book Review from the June 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Breaking the Nation A Guide to Thatcher's Britain Edited by Tony Manwaring and Nick Sigler. Pluto Press and New Socialist.

This book has been researched and written by fifteen members of the Labour Party Research Department. and its title sums up its purpose — to blame what has happened in Britain since 1979 on the Tories, and in particular Margaret Thatcher. As such it is not a serious political analysis but a 240-page political tract that could provide material for numerous Labour Party political broadcasts.

The authors' approach and their whole attitude to politics can be seriously questioned. They seem to have started with a pre-conceived notion and then only sought information to support it, disregarding other material. The argument is that Thatcher = Tory = Uncaring of social problems; therefore Thatcher is the cause of our problems. This idea that the fault lies with certain personalities in the government can only harm the attempt of socialists to turn workers' minds away from petty party squabbles and to look instead at how society functions regardless of who governs.

There is no doubt that recently the working class in Britain have been suffering cruelly. But this observation can be made of nearly all countries in the world. These other countries do not have Thatchers or Tories and some even have governments that carry out policies identical to those which a future Labour government would apply in Britain. The world economy as a whole has been going through a depression and Britain has been seriously affected because it is more dependent on selling goods on the world market than most other countries.

The book examines many aspects of the Thatcher government and the result is very embarrassing for any Tory. Official government statistics are used to show how the Conservatives have failed miserably in a whole range of the aims and goals published in their election manifestos. Claims to create "real" jobs, to wipe out inflation, reduce taxes, reduce crime, and to decrease centralised bureaucracy by giving people more control over their own lives, are all past promises that hang heavy around the necks of the Thatcher crew. Sadly, the impression is given that these policy aims could have been achieved if only the government was made up of Labour and not Tory politicians.

Because the authors do not envisage a society free from the restrictions of the market their thinking is trapped in the logic of capitalism. To them, what is wrong with society is not the market system but rather a particular version of it — the free market version. In particular, the book shows that the Labour Party embraces the nationalist ideology of most workers:

British industry needs to invest in modem technologies if it is to have any chance of competing in world markets (page 96).
It (the 1984 budget) made manufacturing investment less profitable (page 83)
Tory monetarism has made British industry less competitive than ever before (page 91).
For the first time ever in our industrial history Britain now buys more manufactured goods from abroad than it can sell overseas (page 89)

The Labour Party solution — to rebuild Britain's manufacturing base and sell more goods on the world market, thus stimulating job growth in Britain at the expense of workers abroad — is one that could come from any other capitalist party. Much is also made of the decision of the Tory government to abolish exchange controls, which facilitates British capital investment overseas rather than in Britain. Even more is made of the fact that British goods are about 20 per cent less price-competitive against foreign currencies (other than the dollar) since 1979. Such blatant nationalist propaganda is in direct opposition to the socialist case, which requires the abandonment of workers' nationalist prejudices and an acknowledgement of the interests of their class worldwide. If you accept the logic of the profit system then the Tories seem to have the most logical policies: free movement of capital and labour appears to suit the needs of capital accumulation.

The authors, then, are not against the profit system — they simply attack its inefficient operation in Britain. They barely mention socialism, which, to them, is capitalism with full employment. Britain outselling commercial rivals, plus Labour leaders in power to administer the system on behalf of the "British people". In other words, it is the claim that Labour can make capitalism do what the Tories cannot.

Gareth Thomas

Capitalism and globalization (2002)

Book Review from the November 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx's Revenge – The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism by Meghnad Desai (Verso Books)

Ever since the collapse of the USSR and the so-called “communist” regimes in Eastern Europe, many column inches have been written and words spoken proclaiming the triumph of capitalism and the demise of socialism. Karl Marx, we are told, has been thoroughly discredited and his theories have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The “End of History” had arrived.

Meghnad Desai, Professor at the London School of Economics and a Labour Peer, however, argues in his latest book Marx's Revenge – The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism (Verso, 358 pages) that, far from discrediting Marx, the events of the last twenty years would have vindicated him. Not only would Marx not have supported the Eastern European regimes, but he would have welcomed their downfall. According to Desai, Marx argued that socialism could only be successfully established when society's productive capacity had been fully developed under capitalism. This was certainly not the case in Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Desai, however, maintains that capitalism is still far from having reached its potential. Although, he entertains the possibility of genuine Marxian Socialism, he relegates it to a distant future.

Desai begins his investigation at the end of the eighteenth century when feudal society was giving way to industrial capitalism. Adam Smith was developing his theories on the historical or “stadial” progress of society, in which Smith considered the newly emerging free market capitalist society as the highest stage. Hegel was propounding his theory of dialectic: the idea that human society would develop greater awareness over time through a process of struggle. This sets the historical context in which Desai discusses Marx's political and economic ideas. He examines Marx's economic theories as set out in Capital and finds that they do not suggest that capitalism will inevitably collapse. On the contrary, capitalism could continue indefinitely. Even the 'Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall' as described in the third volume of Capital only suggests a long-term tendency, with countervailing tendencies against it.

State capitalism

The period from the end of the eighteenth century until the First World War is described as the “first episode of modern globalization”. Here the development of capitalism in Western Europe and America is characterised by free trade and minimal state intervention. Classical economic theory was the prevailing philosophy. The First World War changed all this. The use of central planning by the German state in directing the economy towards the war effort, known at the time as “war socialism”, impressed many including Lenin and the Bolsheviks, who used it as a model for the new regime established in Russia in 1917. This, along with the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, set the scene for the next seventy-five years where the state would take a larger, and in some cases predominant, role in directing the national economy. Desai calls this the period of “deglobalization” or “capitalism in one country”.

Desai remarks that Russia, at the time of the revolution, was mainly an agrarian country where the industrial working class constituted a small part of the population. In these conditions, the Bolsheviks were forced to embark on a course of rapid industrialisation. The Bolsheviks and their supporters look to the earlier works of Marx and Engels, which optimistically predict an immediate revolution as justification for the Russian Revolution being a genuine workers' revolution. They overlook the later and more mature works of Marx that argue that capitalism must be fully developed before a socialist revolution can be successful. Thus Leninist ideas on capturing the state through the vanguard party and organising society on state capitalist lines became the orthodox interpretation of Marxism. Although Desai describes, at least in the early years, the Soviet Union as state capitalist, he also rather inconsistently refers to it as an example of “Socialism outside Capitalism”, the attempt to build a state controlled society, alongside the privately run capitalism of the Western countries.

Desai also discusses what he calls “Socialism beyond Capitalism”, what Marx argued in theCommunist Manifesto would supersede capitalism after it outlived its usefulness. Desai describes this as “a self-conscious society, aware now that capitalism as a system of private property profiting from the social division of labour could not offer any further betterment, that would proceed to take control over the economy – society, mind you, not state.” In chapter 12, entitled “Can Socialism Work?”, Desai briefly discusses the theories of Otto Neurath on the feasibility of establishing a moneyless society. But these appear to apply to a centrally planned economy rather than a democratic socialist society. Desai also appears to not fully understand how a genuine socialist would be able to function, when he asks “how such a society would decide about saving and investment”.

Desai contends that the Great Depression in the 1930s undermined the general belief in the free operation of the markets, and Keynes' arguments that markets failed to perform efficiently and that state intervention was required for the smooth running of the economy gained ground. In the years after the Second World War, Keynesian economic theory clearly emerged as the dominant influence in the Western universities and on Western government policies, particularly in Britain and to a lesser extent the US. It heavily influenced the reformist policies of many Western Labour and Social Democratic parties, to which Desai refers as “Socialism within Capitalism”.

At the same time state capitalism expanded its influence with the coming to power in China of the “communists” in 1949 and the inclusion of most East European countries in the Soviet bloc. Many of the new countries that achieved independence from the former European colonial powers in the post-war years looked to the Soviet system as a model for economic development.

The 1970s saw something of an upheaval: the onset of a long-term economic crisis in leading Western countries, involving “stagflation”, where both inflation and unemployment rose together. Conventional Keynesian demand management policies were found wanting. The advocates of free market economics, such as the monetarists, who began the fightback in the universities in the 1960s, gained more credibility and the Keynesians were in retreat. In the late 70s and early 80s, the tide turned in favour of free market economics, with the coming to power of conservative leaders such as Reagan in America, Thatcher in Britain and Kohl in Germany.

Back to 1914

The USSR and Eastern Europe went into terminal economic decline, culminating in the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. This marked the end of what Desai calls “the short twentieth century” and the beginning of the second period of globalisation, where restrictions in the movement of capital have been removed in the major industrial countries; free trade prevails; the former Soviet countries and many third world countries are integrated into the global capitalist order. The world has returned to where it left off in 1914.

The Leninist regimes in Eastern Europe have fallen. The reformism of the Western Labour and Social Democratic Parties is in retreat. However, Desai will not be joining us in working for world socialism. He declares that “there is no rival mode of production on the horizon as a viable alternative. Capitalism is the only game in town”. He claims that, far from collapsing, capitalism has been rejuvenated. He points to the latest developments in telecommunications and computer technology, and that many third world countries are modernising along capitalist lines. The world is not ready yet ready for real socialism (“Socialism beyond Capitalism”). Desai suggests that Marx would agree with him. He wonders if genuine socialism will ever be achieved.

The main problem with Desai's analysis is that he treats the state capitalist regimes in the USSR, China, Eastern Europe (“Socialism outside Capitalism”) and even the reformist policies of the Social Democratic parties (“Socialism within Capitalism”) as separate modes of production. It is true that the state capitalist regimes attempted to insulate themselves from the world economy in their earlier years. However the economies of these regimes were based on wage labour and production for profit and so were capitalist. The Western Labour and Social Democratic parties introduced policies to regulate capitalism not to replace it. Both were failed attempts to control capitalism. But as Desai well knows, and argues in this book, capitalism is resistant to any attempts to transform it into anything other than a system based on profit.

Looking at capitalism from a global point of view, it has already created the productive capacity world-wide, which would allow a world socialist society to produce abundance for the world's population. All further developments only aid the capacity of capitalist society to further enrich the capitalist minority, while their potential use in enhancing the well-being of the human race is restricted by the profit-seeking structures of capitalist society. What is now required is for the world working class to become class-consciousness and work to replace capitalism with socialism.

The Leninists may have appropriated Marx for the cause of state capitalism. But Desai wishes to appropriate him for free market capitalism. He seems to want to join with other academics and New Labour, in celebrating the triumph of free market capitalism, while at the same staying true to the left-wing idealism of his youth.

Oliver Bond

Goals and penalties (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

In September the UN adopted seventeen Global Goals, intended to build a better world by 2030 (www.globalgoals.org). These include such aims as ending poverty and hunger, promoting clean water and renewable energy, achieving gender equality and combatting climate change. All very worthy, and at least the global nature of problems and solutions is recognised, but let’s step back a bit and look at the background and history of such efforts.

The Global Goals are a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the UN in 2000 (www.un.org/millenniumgoals), though with 1990 often taken as a benchmark. There were just eight MDGs, from eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to reducing child mortality and combatting HIV/AIDS. For a discussion of one aspect of this, see Material World in the August Socialist Standard.

The UN’s report on the progress of the MDGs was published in July this year. This speaks of ‘profound achievements’, but, even if we accept the claims at face value, what emerges is at most a series of qualified successes. Among the achievements (all quoted from the report):

•    The number of people living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015

•    The number of out-of-school children of primary school age worldwide has fallen by almost half, to an estimated 57 million in 2015, down from 100 million in 2000

•    The global under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, dropping from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015

•    Since 1990, the maternal mortality ratio has declined by 45 percent worldwide, and most of the reduction has occurred since 2000

Yet as the report also notes, ‘the poorest and most vulnerable people are being left behind’. For instance (again quoted from the report):

•    About 16,000 children die each day before celebrating their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable causes

•    In the developing regions, children from the poorest 20 percent of households are more than twice as likely to be stunted as those from the wealthiest 20 percent

•    About 800 million people still live in extreme poverty and suffer from hunger

•    In Latin America and the Caribbean, the ratio of women to men in poor households increased from 108 women for every 100 men in 1997 to 117 women for every 100 men in 2012

•    By the end of 2014, conflicts had forced almost 60 million people to abandon their homes – the highest level recorded since the Second World War

Thus it would seem that the fifteen-year project established in 2000 was so successful that another fifteen-year project, covering many of the same aims, was set up when it came to an end. Extreme poverty, for instance, was reduced but it had certainly not been eradicated, as the goals had it.

As far as hunger was concerned, the true aim was not that nobody should go hungry but that the proportion in developing countries suffering from hunger should be halved between 1990 and 2015. The reduction allegedly achieved was in fact from 23.3 percent to 12.9 percent, which is not quite a half. This was against a background of higher food prices, extreme weather events, natural disasters and the economic recession. Much of the reduction was in China, as the economy there saw short-term expansion and the country became a source of cheap labour power for global capitalism. But progress was much slower in the Caribbean, Oceania, Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. South Asia alone has 281 million undernourished people.

So what conclusions do we draw from this? That the new Global Goals will not deliver either? That the whole enterprise is a charade intended to cover up the continuation of poverty and inequality? That the UN is hardly the best organisation to oversee such projects? That yet more such projects will be needed subsequently?

A more appropriate response would be to say that in technological terms it is perfectly possible to meet the real goals of ending poverty and so on, and to do so straightaway: that the planet and its inhabitants are perfectly capable of growing enough food for everyone; that maternal mortality can be significantly reduced if the required resources are put to it; that no child needs to grow up hungry or stunted or illiterate or abused; that the environment can be properly nurtured. In other words, the current suffering and premature deaths are quite simply unnecessary. But it will take a revolution to achieve all this, not tinkering within the present system. 

Paul Bennett

"'Should Socialists Affiliate With The Labour Party?'" (1913)

From the September 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

A debate upon the above subject was held at the King and Queen Assembly Rooms at Brighton on 25th July.

A local celebrity, Mr. Winchester, took the chair, and introduced what he called “the two gladiators” to the audience. Mr. J. Ingham (I.L.P.) took the affirmative, and Mr. J. Fitzgerald (S.P.G.B.) the negative.

In opening the debate MR. INGHAM said the subject was not what was Socialism, nor even whether the legislation supported by the Labour Party leads to Socialism, but whether Socialists should affiliate with that party with all its shortcomings.

For the sake of clearness, the speaker went on to say, it would be as well to state that Socialism implied three changes—economic change, political change, and mental change. That was the theory or aspiration of Socialism. In practice it meant the revolt of the masses; but this revolt must have power behind it, and this power was both economic and political.

The power behind the vote was the power of nomination, which the working class have only had in late years.

As far as the capitalist class were concerned the S.P.G.B. or I.L.P. or B.S.P. didn't matter much, and the only menace to the rulers in society today were the Labour Party. They were demanding the right to manage affairs for themselves. It might be true that they were not doing this in the best way from the standpoint of the Socialist, and he aid not uphold the part played by the Labour Party in the House of Commons, but they represented the social consciousness of the the unions, who laid down the policy of the party.

The Labour Party consisted of the I.L P. and the Fabians—who formed the intellectual Socialist wing—and the mass of the organised workers. In all historic movements the intellectuality followed, it did not lead, the movement.

The question the Socialist had to face was, should he help the movement of the organised workers—the Labour Party—by being inside, or should he play the part of the so-called intellectual and stand outside on a mountain criticising and carping at their actions. Despite all their shilly-shallying and support of the Government the Socialist should be inside, doing his best to help it and to help it to take the right road.

The Revolution would be carried out by the workers becoming class-conscious and taking hold of political power to overthrow their rulers. In this connection he would point out that there had never been a traitor in the House of Commons. Every member there represented the views of those who sent him there. No member of the Labour Party could represent others than those who sent him to Parliament.

Intellectual Socialists should be inside of the Labour Party, guiding it by getting hold of the reins for that purpose. (Bell rang.)

MR. FITZGERALD said one fault he had to find with his opponent’s definition of Socialism was the order in which the changes were placed. Before the working class could carry through the political change having for its object the change in the ownership of the means of life, there would have to be a change in their understanding of the situation and a determination to alter it. Hence the mental change must precede the political and economic changes involved in the establishment of Socialism.

His opponent had said that the revolt must have power behind it. Exactly. But what power? What must it consist of? To answer the question it would be necessary to examine the power in the hands of, and used by, the present rulers. The working class to-day were in want and misery because they had no access to the means of life except by permission of the master class. How did the master class retain their possession of those things? Leaving out the various secondary agencies, the essential force came to the front when any big dispute occurred, as a railway strike, a miners’ or a transport strike. Then the army and navy and the judicial machinery were used, rapidly and ruthlessly, against the workers.

These forces received their instructions from the War Office, Naval Office, Home Office, etc., but the officials in the departments were appointed by the House of Commons, and this was done without any reference to the Hones of Lords, showing the character of the Labour Party’s campaign against that institution.

Hence the capitalists must have control of Parliament for the purpose of using the armed forces for the preservation of their property. To get this control they must be voted into Parliament.

The people possessing the majority of the votes were the members of the working class. Hence the political promises, the election red-herrings, and the buying of the “leaders” of the working class when elections were on. The capitalists clearly saw the importance of political power, and spent millions to obtain it.

Where did the Labour Party stand in this connection? They acted as decoy ducks to the capitalist class. From their first formation to the present day they had refused to lay down any principles or policy in the interest of the wording class. The Socialist Party’s Manifesto gave numerous instances and proofs of their treachery, but one or two cases having a particular bearing on his opponent’s statement would be useful.

In 1906 a group of nearly 40 “Labour” leaders were returned to Parliament with the help of the Liberal Party. So much were they really part of the Liberal party that when, a little later, a by-election took place at Leicester, the Labour Party dared not contest the second seat. The same thing occurred at Newcastle, but it was left for the January 1910 general election to completely pull the veil away. A short time previously the Labour Party had received an immense addition to its membership and leaders by the affiliation of the Miners’ Federation, yet after the election they had only about 43 seats. This result by itself was a collapse of the Labour Party, but worse than this had happened. His opponent had said “those who nominate control," and had stated that the members of the Labour Party had nominated their representatives. At the 1910 general election the nominations of the rank and file were withdrawn by the score at the orders of the Executive acting on the instructions of the Liberal Party. Again, the election had been fought by Liberal and “Labour” Parties on the Veto of the House of Lords and the Budget. When the election was over Mr. Asquith announced that the Veto question would be deferred until after the Budget had been taken. A paper called the “Labour Leader” described Mr. Asquith’s action as one of treachery to his constituents. When the matter was first voted upon the Labour Party voted for the Government. They therefore were equally as guilty of treachery as Mr. Asquith.

In March 1910 the Labour Party moved an amendment on the Army Estimates over the wages of Government employees, and when it was voted upon about 22 were absent and 15 of the remainder voted against their own amendment to save the Government.

The fact that the Labour Party had lost every three cornered contest—as well as several others—in the January election, showed how completely dependent upon the Liberals they were.

While the working class accepted “leaders” they would always be misled. It showed that they had not yet reached that stage of class consciousness that was necessary for their emancipation. When they became Socialists they would abolish “leaders” and “leadership,” and keep control and power in their own hands.

Mr. INGHAM in his second speech said it appeared to him that the philosophy of the , S.P.G.B. had changed since the issuing of their pamphlet on “Socialism and Religion” according to Mr. Fitzgerald’s statements. There they laid down the materialist conception of history as their basis, while his opponent took up the idealist position. He was beginning to believe the S.P.G.B. had no intellectuality.

The working class must be free mentally from the influence of their rulers, but every class who had revolted had leaders. His opponent had stated that the S.P. were going to take control of the army and navy when they had a majority in Parliament. Did they think the capitalists would let them? Without organised labour outside political power would be useless. Men always had had and always would have leaders. It would not be by teaching but by economic pressure that the change would be brought about, and the mass would follow leaders at the period of change. Bat ae they would nominate these leaders they would control them. TheTories controlled those they nominated. Mr. Lloyd George was controlled by his nominators, who forced him to introduce measures that threatened his political career.

Snowden and Macdonald occupied the position of himself (Mr. Ingham) and the S.P.G.B, fifteen years ago, while men like Broadhurst then took up the attitude of Macdonald & Co. to day. Despite this, Labour politics must lead to Socialism and the future laid with the trade unions.

If the majority were with him at the Conferences the clique would soon be turned out. So long as the working class thought a clique represents their interests they would support them. It was because they thought the Liberal clique thus represented them that they supported them to day.

MR. FITZGERALD said that his opponent clearly contradicted himself, and in parts admitted the correctness of the policy of the Socialist Party.

If the workers must be free mentally from the influence of their rulers, obviously a mental change was the first requisite. With reference to the point of the lack of intellectuality on the part of the S.P.G.B., what he (Mr. Fitzgerald) had said was that the S.P. contained no “intellectuals” of the type condemned by his opponent. To try and twist this into an admission of "lack of intellectuality ” was both cheap and childish.

With regard to leaders, it was, perhaps, a trifle elementary, but as his opponent had introduced the point he must deal with it.

Under any system of organisation various activities had to be delegated to different individuals, but this delegation of function did not necessarily mean a sheep-like following, or the placing of power in the hands of the delegates. Thus in the Socialist Party certain members were delegated as speakers, some as writers, others as organisers, etc. But each and all were under the control of, and obeyed the directions of, the membership. The position of Mr. Ingham was similar to that of Keir Hardie, who stated that mankind was a herd who followed leaders, and that that was "the purest form of democracy” ! That, of course, was the sort of following the clique who run the Labour Party wanted, so that they could make their bargains with the Liberals for posts and positions a la Shackleton, Cummings, Mitchell, and others.

His opponent's statements on the army and navy showed how little he understood the power of the ruling class. They controlled these forces because they possessed the political machinery. When this machinery was wrested from them by the working class, how could the capitalists prevent the workers controlling those forces? He had dealt with these matters in his first speech and his opponent had not shown a single point to be wrong.

His opponent’s next statement showed how completely he was misled by the Anarchist rubbish re-labelled Syndicalism, that an economic organisation can destroy capitalism. No matter what the form of organisation or how complete its membership, such a combination of unarmed men would obviously he powerless against the armed forces while the capitalists had political power.

Macdonald and Snowdeu may have occupied a position fifteen years ago similar to that of his opponent to-day, but neither then nor now did they take up the attitude of the Socialist Party — i e., the Socialist attitude.

If his opponent agreed that he must get a majority on his side to get his views adopted, he was admitting the correctness of the policy of the Socialist Party, for this was their position.

MR. INGHAM in his last speech said that delegation of function was exactly the position of the Labour Party. To take up a position of delegate of the organised workers one must be in their ranks, not outside. The Macdonald crowd would be pushed aside by those inside the Labour Party, not by those outside. While they (the S.P.) remained outside their organisation, criticising and fault-finding, they antagonised the workers and had no influence upon them.

By economic pressure, not by intelligence, the workers would be forced to take control. The great trade unions were endeavouring to express themselves upon society, and would change with the growing consciousness of the workers. Thus the railway unions formed their great combination from inside; it was not formed by any men outside. The economic pressure would force the workers to realise the necessity for the Revolution, and the Socialists should be inside, aiding this development and bringing to a realisation the Socialist hopes and aspirations.

MR. FITZGERALD denied that the Labour Party adopted the policy of delegation of function that he had described. Their policy was one of delegation of power —and this made ail the difference. If a position outside the Labour Party would antagonise the workers, then opposition to the Liberals would antagonise a still larger number, as the working-class following of the Liberal Party was much greater than that of the Labour Party. And actually what his opponent was defending was Socialists joining the Liberal Party, for as he (the speaker) had shown them in his previous speeches, the Labour Party was but a portion of the Liberal Party.

Take the question of nomination continually insisted upon by his opponent. The rank and file could, within certain limits, make nominations, but they did not control them. As shown in mass in Jan. and Dec., 1910, as shown in various bye elections, the Liberal party controlled them, and at their instructions scores of nominations were swept aside. The support of the Government, even against their own amendments, coupled with these facts, showed that the liberal managers held the Labour Party in their grip, and dictated the policy as well as selected the candidates to be put forward. Hence his opponent's whole plea was for Socialists to join the Liberal Party.

The Socialist knew the majority of the workers were still below the stage of mental development necessary for the revolution, but experience showed that the most effective method was to fight all the enemies of working class interests, i.e., Socialism, to add to the education, and so shorten the time required for the establishment of Socialism.

Republican and Democrat united (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

The supposedly opposing Republican and Democratic Parties are both 100 per cent united in their support of the existing society, seeking solutions and palliatives to the problems that result from its very nature, that forever remain immune to the never-ending "cures".

Two crucial political fallacies permeate thinking at voting time. First, that the present system can be so organised that it will operate in the interests of the majority, through a process of applied reformism, and second, that "proper leadership" is an essential requirement. However, neither of the foregoing will ever remove any of the major social evils. An examination of the economics of capitalism, together with its awesome history, supports this contention.

American workers are urged to be concerned about an approximate $175-200 billion annual Budget deficit while 8,000,000 of them are unemployed, surviving on a pittance, and those slightly more fortunate are doomed to a precarious wage-grubbing existence that keeps them perpetually mired in the red ink of their own debts. Since the election in November the Treasury Department has announced a plan to overhaul taxes including the full taxation of all unemployment compensation. Under the guise of "taxation”, unemployment benefits are to be reduced. Is it not an insult to intelligence to expect the working class to ponder the problems of the national Budget while enduring the inequities of a system that creates their own, personal, ongoing deficits and deprivations? The whole question of taxes belongs squarely with the capitalist class and their representatives, and should be recognised as a non-issue as far as the working class is concerned. In any event the gigantic US Budget deficit is likely to remain for years to come, fuelled by an armament programme with an insatiable appetite.

Taxation techniques create the illusion that both the rich and the poor have joined hands in the mutual maintenance of the capitalist state. Such is not the case. The working class are solely responsible for the production of the surplus value from which their employers derive a livelihood and from which the financial burden of the state is paid. In reality the bulk of the taxes "paid" by the working class constitutes a bookkeeping item only, reflecting mythical earnings that never in actuality reach the recipient. Net wages figures are the ones that count, in conjunction with what the money can buy. Nor is the trade imbalance of nearly $70 billion in 1983 a working class issue. The workers are limited in their "trading" to the sale of individual labour power and therefore should turn a deaf ear to such matters that remain extraneous to their own affairs.

Interest rates (which have dropped somewhat) and inflation (which is supposed to be under control but still persists in a slow upward trend) are constantly varying factors which adjust to the economic climate, more susceptible to the inordinate workings of the system than to the tinkering afforded by governments. Thirty years ago US houses, masonry constructed, could be purchased with approximately 5-6 per cent financing. Today, homes literally built of wood and cardboard/stucco are predominant in, for example, Arizona with a current mortgage rate of approximately 13-14 per cent.

Over the years inflation has been progressive, with utility bills in many instances equalling the mortgage payments of bygone eras. In fact, in many parts of the country people's lives are in jeopardy during the winter because of utility costs and the danger of cut-offs when bills are not paid, resulting in sickness and death through lack of heat. In the final analysis, notwithstanding inflation and interest rates, working class wages will guarantee poverty and insecurity — "perpetual recession" during employment. "depression” for the job-seekers. The elderly, those who have endured a life-time of toil, with a limited few years remaining on government handouts, are assured an income that is way below the official poverty line. As to the destitute, during an NBC TV news broadcast on December 4 we were informed that “there are more homeless on the streets than at any time since the Depression".

The working class are conned, by innuendo and incessant misrepresentation, into a tacit acceptance of a concept of common interests wherein the problems of the capitalist class and the state machine are theirs also. The suggestion is that we in the US all belong to one of the world's mightiest military and industrial powers, sharing equally in the glory; and let's all work still harder to increase the arms and wealth of the rulers. The belief that there exists a community of interests from which we all derive common benefits is mistaken. The capitalist class and the state are primarily concerned with safeguarding and improving the efficiency of a society geared for the realisation of rent, interest and profits. Those who, in order to survive, have to depend on wages should approach these problems from a completely different angle

Samuel Leight

World Socialist Party of the United States

Editorial: Fifty Years After: The Crisis in the Labour Movement (1953)

Editorial from the October 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just fifty years ago, in 1903, the workers who, in the following year, were to found the S.P.G.B., were weighing up the claims of those who argued that the sure road to emancipation had already been found by the Trades Union Congress and its political offspring, the Labour Party (then known as the Labour Representation Committee). Their view—and a most convincing one it seemed to most workers who had begun to think about the matter—was that the separate unions would conduct the struggle for improved wages and working conditions, the TU.C. would formulate general claims for protective legislation and, along with the Labour Party, would work towards independent working class representation in Parliament. They were able to combine activities at home with the belief that war could be abolished through the international trade union and Labour movement, and their ultimate aim of a reconstruction of society had already been formulated in a resolution passed by the T.U.C. in 1903, which supported “the principle of collective ownership and control of all the means of production and distribution." That such a resolution was passed at that time was due more to the zeal of a politically active minority than to any conviction on the part of the rank and me, but the minority hoped and believed that in time acceptance of this ultimate aim would become general. They were soon congratulating themselves on their success in popularising the demand for “Socialism” when they succeeded in getting more and more workers to become enthusiastic about the prospect of a Labour Government which would introduce, along with numerous social reforms, the general nationalisation of industry.

Against this flowing tide the warning of the S.P.G.B. that the reform of capitalism, Labour administration of capitalism and the extension of State capitalism would solve no working class problem, had little chance of being heard. The S.P.G.B.'s insistence on the paramount need to build up a Socialist movement, having as its sole aim the replacement of world capitalism by a Socialist system of society was fated to be dismissed as a well-intentioned but impractical policy that would soon be forgotten as the trade union-Labour movement triumphantly advanced.

Now, at the recent Trades Union Congress and at the Conference of the Labour Party, the rights and wrongs of that controversy of fifty years ago come to mind once more. But with what a difference after this passage of time!

On a superficial view, and if the opponents of the S.P.G.B. had been correct, the T.U.C. and Labour Party should be celebrating their final victory and the inauguration of the new society they had vaguely dreamed about but never seriously examined. Their membership has grown enormously; they have achieved social reforms in great number and of a magnitude they could hardly have hoped for at the beginning; they have had years of Labour Government and have seen the transfer of large industries to State ownership. Yet, instead of self-congratulation and confident progress to new victories they find their movement split into warring factions. While one group presses for more nationalisation with the kind of arguments they used 30 or 40 years ago the majority of their political and trade union leaders warn the rank and file that such a policy has now become unrealistic and unrelated to the real needs of the present situation. The lengthy report of the T.U.C. General Council that was endorsed by the Congress urged a “go-slow” policy on nationalisation on the grounds, among others, that the hasty and ill-considered extension of nationalisation, particularly to manufacturing industries, would show a failure to appreciate the financial and trading needs of this country and would not be in the interest of the workers.

From the standpoint of those who tacitly accept the position of making the best of British capitalism in a capitalist world this is, of course, a powerful argument and it was not surprising that the Report received the approval of the capitalist Press. But this brings us back to the point we were at fifty years ago, when the S.P.G.B. foretold that the T.U.C.-Labour Party policy meant just that and could mean nothing more.

This is indeed where we came in. Half a century of further experience of capitalism, with its poverty, unemployment and wars powerfully reinforces the case consistently advocated by the Socialist opponents of reformism and State capitalism. Workers seeking their emancipation and the inauguration of a Socialist system of society should now more easily appreciate how unanswerable was and is the case of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Blatchford, Jingo & Patriot. (1909)

From the May 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Where He may lead I'll follow,

       My trust in Him repose,

And every hour in perfect peace

        I'll sing, He knows, He knows.

When Pope Blatchford issues his encyclical he obtains explicit obedience from his followers. No matter what fad Blatchford for the moment may patronise, he is humbly supported by Messrs. Suthers, Thompson, Dawson and Beswick. When father says turn they all turn. Blatchford is a great one. He is the Hero as prophet. Clarionettes claim that he has made more Socialists than any other living Socialist, that he has effectually smothered Christianity, and of course is the editor of a Socialist (!) weekly “possessing a larger circulation than any other Labour or Socialist newspaper." Blatchford preaches “Socialism" without having studied Marx and Engels; he teaches Determinism without having read Mill and Bain; he initiates a campaign against Germany with remarkably finite assets in the way of facts. “Since God is responsible for man's existence he is responsible for all his acts.” (Bottom Dog.) Poor God! To be held answerable for R. B.’s mental twists! Socialism learnt from Thoreau, Dickens and Emerson! Tactics learnt at the feet of Hyndman and Grayson! But our business in this article is to examine briefly Blatchford’s latest—the supposed coming German invasion.

He claims that over four years ago he drew attention to the "German Peril" and our unsatisfactory defences on the East Coast. And Hyndman, Quelch and other S.D.Peers have ever since been asserting it with a great weariness of repetition. Let us examine the quality of Blatchford’s "evidence." On one occasion after a sinister reference to miles of quays and wonderful harbours capable of holding 200 torpedo boats, he made the reader's hair stand on end by a yarn that 200,000 soldiers had practised embarking at Emden. Obviously the preliminary steps of a mighty invasion: history was to repeat itself with a great German Armada. But the Liberal Manchester Guardian took upon itself the task of abolishing this legend. It traced the story back beautifully to its source—the National Review and Toby of Punch. What had actually occurred was a single regiment practising embarkation. Four days Jater Blatchford humbly apologised, admitted that he had been duped, “had felt at the time all the difficulties," but “had confidence in his informant," and so on ad nauseam.

But what an experience for a Socialist! To see a Liberal organ with dearly a larger knowledge of the subject calmly, and with much real dignity, rebuking a popular “Socialist leader” for his commonplace jingoism. I say jingoism. Take this as typical: “In the old days, when war threatened our fathers, it was the custom to light beacon fires upon the hills. I light my fire to-day, and it shall not go out if I can keep it burning." When Blatchford, the creator of that outburst, was at Burnley a few months ago, he was raucously cheered for five minutes by six thousand Social Democrats, I.L. Peers., and the like. And this man is referred to as the actual potentate of Socialism in this England of ours. Last week's circulation—81,000. Eighty~one thousand what? Jingoes, sentimentalists, altruists, cyclists.

Blatchford speaks of “ this hour of national peril" Mark, national peril, not class peril. Anyone who was the proprietor of a universal store in Liverpool, and there was a danger of the precious pile being shelled by the German fleet, could rationally be rhetorical about national peril and beacon fires. But from the worker's point of view the capitalists who exploit “this little isle in the silver sea" are of the same calibre as the capitalists who extract surplus-value in the Fatherland. Hasn't Hyndman always been a defender of German working-class conditions against the charges of the Liberal Free Traders? The British Board of Trade, after an elaborate investigation into the condition of the German working class, concluded that it was equal to three-fourths of the English standard. And if the Germans had made an examination into English working-class conditions it is probable that they would have issued a like bulky report with the opposite as a conclusion. Why, then, this Clarion hysteria ? Surely we have evolved past the stage where it is believed that Kaiser William or Edward Rex govern their respective domains? They occupy the position so long as their respective ideas are in harmony with capitalist interests.

Then let Blatchford spout and rave and declaim. Let us not be gulled with passionate sentiment about national sentiment and defensive wars. Hervé has well shown that where capitalist interest are concerned it is impossible for the workers to know which country is the aggressor in case of war. Germany as a rapacious nation may be all that Blatchford makes her out to be. So the British lion is rapacious, the American eagle, the Russian bear, and all the other atavistic symbols of birds and beasts of prey. The attitude of the worker should be one of deliberate detachment from all national perils and quarrels. The ties and attachments we will defend are those created for us by economic development and the class struggle, namely: unity and solidarity among the oppressed toilers of all lands. The Hyndmans and Blatchfords must not be allowed to lead us into the arms of the workers’ common enemy, the international capitalist class. Divide and rule has ever been the oppressor's motto, and when the S.D.P. and Clarion crowd seek to set British and German workers against each other they play the oppressors’ game, and thereby become our enemies, for they are misleaders of the working class.

John A. Dawson

Letter: The Tragic comedians (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sir,

I should like to comment on one or two points raised by your reviewer (June, Socialist Standard):—

(1) He gives the impression that I write as a Communist sympathiser. What 1 said in my Introduction was “I have approached it (the CPGB in the twenties) from the point of view of an informed British socialist of the nineteen twenties, accepting the principles of Marxism, sympathetic to the aims of the Communist Party, but aware of its shortcomings" (p. 11).

(2) Any reader who believes that 1 have made "an uncritical acceptance of the grandiloquent claims made by the Communist Party" should read the book itself (especially the sections on "the New Line" 1928-1929) or Palme Dutt’s review in the Daily Worker (7th April, 1966).

(3) Your reviewer may have been convinced by reading The Communist that the Council of Action set up in August, 1920, "had no perceptible effect on the actions and policy of the British Government," but this was not the view of the Government itself or of the whole Labour Movement. The Cabinet Minutes for 9th August. 1920, refer as follows: "In the subsequent discussion great stress was laid on the very strong public opinion against intervention in the Russo-Polish War, and during the meeting information was received to the effect that several Parliamentary Labour organisations were meeting, and it was apprehended that Labour might endeavour to prevent the intervention of Great Britain by declaring a general strike." A visit to the Public Record Office is recommended.

(4) Mr. H. by insisting that as far as I am concerned "we are all socialists" seems to imply that I see no essential differences between the Labour Party, ILP, Guilds Movement, and the Unemployed Workers’ Movement and is good enough to inform me that most of them were not really revolutionary bodies. Again space requires me to refer your readers to my book itself. It is worth mentioning that I pointed out how events led the Communists in the Unemployed Movement "to present the organisation more as a movement of social protest and less as an instrument of revolution" (p. 129). This should please your reviewer.

(5) Mr. H. complains that I do not criticise Lenin’s estimate of revolutionary prospects in 1919. If he will refer to p. 278 he will find the criticism he is looking for.

(6) While it may surprise H. that I do not refer to the internal conflicts in the Communist Party on the issue of religion, it will not surprise those who were active in or knowledgeable about the activities of the CPGB in this period. Religion was not an issue which confronted either the working class or any but a small minority of the Party’s membership.

(7) I did not refer to the establishment of the SPGB in 1904 because the history of that Party is irrelevant to my theme which was the British Communist Party. I was not unaware of the birth of the SPGB—it appeared as a footnote in my original doctoral thesis!

(8) I should be happy in future editions of my work to amend the "extraordinary statement" which offends your reviewer to read "Was it surprising that the overwhelming majority of Marxists and socialists everywhere should turn to the leaders of the revolution (of October. 1917) for inspiration and guidance."

L. J. Macfarlane, 

Ruskin College, Oxford.

P.S.—I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the SPGB for the loan of certain pamphlets while I was carrying out my researches.

Reply:

The most important issue raised in Dr. Macfarlane’s attempt to answer our criticisms is his statement in paragraph (7) that the history of the SPGB "is irrelevant to my theme which was the British Communist Party."

Dr. Macfarlane claims that he accepts the broad principles of Marxism, that the Communist Party is Marxist and that he is sympathetic to the aims of the Communist Party. Those aims included the suppression of Parliament by Workers Councils, direct action, the general strike and armed uprising to get power, a spurious "dictatorship of the proletariat" and urging workers to vole for the Labour Party and other perpetuators of capitalism. If he wished to treat his theme seriously he was under obligation to justify this travesty of Marxism and meet the Marxist case against it. In the years covered by the book the one solid body of opposition to Communist Party theory was the SPGB (sufficiently successful for the Communist Party to issue a directive telling their members not to get involved in arguments with the SPGB). What Dr. Macfarlane did was to make a brief reference to “some Marxists” who pointed out that according to Marx and Engels a socialist revolution was impossible in Russia (see p. 12). Here was his opportunity to seek to justify his and the Communist Party’s claims about being Marxists, but that, of course, would have required meeting openly the SPGB case. All he did in his book to meet this case was to refer to the answer to it by the Russian Communist leaders, which was that they relied on extending the revolution to Europe, where, according to Dr. Macfarlane, "this call to arms was eagerly taken up by revolutionary Marxist groups.” Now he comes back (see his para. 5) with the statement that he thinks the Russians were wrong and that “there was no possibility of working class revolution in Britain at this time” (p. 278). All the more reason therefore why he was under obligation to meet the SPGB case as part of his theme.

In reply to (4) he did in his book (pp. 12 and 123) describe all of the organisations he names as being socialist, including the unemployed movement

In (3), dealing with the failure of the 1920 Council of Action, he offers us a couple of red herrings. The claim he made in his book (p. 24) was that the Council was “to arrange for the whole industrial power of the industrial workers to be mobilised . . . " He tells us that some members of the Cabinet took note of strong public opinion against intervention in tho Russo-Polish War. Of course large numbers of people, wearied of four years of war, hated the thought of another; but what has this to do with industrial action to stop munitions going to Poland? The second point is farcical. Some Labour MP's were giving off hot-air about calling a general strike but did not even attempt to do so! The munitions went to Poland in a flood. The Russian armies were driven back and the Russian government was forced to accept peace on terms which allowed Poland to annex great areas of Russian territory. When the Communist journal admitted in October, 1920, that “the National Council of Action has failed" they were right.

Pressure of space prevents going into other questions, but if the SPGB had been mentioned in Dr. Macfarlane’s book a number of other statements made by him would have been shown to be incorrect, only sustainable by treating the SPGB as if it did not exist.

One small point, probably not known to Dr. Macfarlane, is that a small number of members of the SPGB left and joined the Communist Party at or soon after its formation.

Editorial Committee

We wrote this fifty years ago! (1974)

From the November 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE GREAT SHAM FIGHT AT THE POLLS 

The election, in spite of its heat, was a sham fight, not in the sense that any of the party machines was worked at less than full pressure, but in the sense that there was no issue in dispute worth fighting about. The Conservatives said it was a fight against Socialism, but they left Socialism alone and concentrated their energies on mudslinging and appeals to the most brutal and ignorant prejudices. The Liberals had no time to spare from their task of preventing a stampede among their own sheep. They raised the dear-bread cry to hedge the right wing off from the Conservatives, and the Bolshevik bogey to hold in the Liberal left wing. The result was heavy losses in both directions. The Labour Party was only too willing to take up every trivial challenge its opponents chose to throw down, and avoid not only the question of Socialism, but also what it says are its own principles . . . Socialism itself, even if the word may have crept in now and again to satisfy the left-wingers, was not treated as practical politics.

How often are we told by ‘Socialists’ who join the Labour Party of the magnificent opportunities they will have of carrying on Socialist propaganda. Usually their ‘Socialist propaganda’ consists in helping some place-hunter into the House of Commons by defending a sickening mixture of the platitudes of degenerate Christianity and the exploded nostrums of the trashy Liberal economists of the late nineteenth century, which is all the typical Labour election address contains.

The Communists made themselves ridiculous, as usual. Communists at Deptford were delirious with joy because Bowerman, supporter of a Bill to make Communist propaganda illegal, was returned again. If they received orders from Moscow to do so they would hang themselves.

Only when the workers become Socialists will the great sham fights at the polls give place to a real political struggle between capital and the working class.

From an editorial in the SOCIALIST STANDARD, November 1924. This was the election that ended the first Labour Government in Britain.

Letter: Socialism and Insurance. (1925)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reply to a Correspondent.

Miss Hilda Brock (Leyton) writes asking us to explain a passage which occurred in a recent article on ”Socialism and the Middle Class.” The passage is: “What need of insurance clerks in a world where risks are borne by society instead of by a special section with a view to making a profit.”

Miss Brock is of the opinion that under Socialism insurance and bank clerks will simply be transferred to the service of the State, which will take over these institutions, and that there will consequently be no labour set free for productive work.

It is evident first of all that Miss Brock falls into the common error of supposing that Socialism is merely an extension of State ownership. In fact, State Capitalism and Socialism are irreconcilable, and the Socialist Party accordingly opposes parties which advocate the former, such as the Labour Party.

Capitalism is continually producing insecurity for individuals, both capitalists and workers. Insurance companies make profit for their shareholders by insuring these individuals against some of the effects of that insecurity. Where profit cannot be made, the State (that is, the capitalists as a whole) is compelled to step in, and must in the last resort, maintain destitute workers to prevent mass starvation.

When private ownership, which is the cause of the workers’ poverty, is abolished, there will be no need to protect them against insecurity which will no longer exist. There will be no room for any kind of profit-making, and therefore no private banks, insurance companies or other capitalist concerns.

Society will organise the production of goods and their distribution to those places where the members of society want to consume them. Clerks will be needed to keep records and make estimates of wealth production, but they will not be needed to waste their labour, making private profit for insurance shareholders out of the misfortunes of individuals arising from the disorganisation of the social system.

Ed. Comm.

The Terror-Torn Capitalist (1911)

From the April 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

As thinkers we Socialists are pitifully shallow. We don't seem to get to the root cause of things, like the panders of the capitalist Press.

Not, for instance, like Lady McLaren, who has recently illumined the World (both this terraqueous globe and the newspaper of that name) on the subject of race suicide. The decline of the birthrate, it would appear, is causing consternation in our Upper Circles. So her ladyship, instead of wasting time in absurd condemnation of an economic system which slaughters wholesale the children of the very poor, dives below the mere surface and makes the problem plain.

In a tense drama the comedian need not be excruciatingly funny to excite amusement; amid the tragedy of penal courts the magistrate calls forth laughter without being inordinately witty. But to arrest public attention on the peril of the race, writers in our prostitute Press must be beyond exception profound, persuasive, gushing. Lady Mac squares the circumference to a nice-T.

Admire her penetration. She maintains that the marked tendency of the birthrate to decline is due more to the unwillingness of husbands to support children than to the unwillingness of wives to become mothers. When you walk along our dirty proletarian streets and watch our ill-clad, half fed kids, meditate on the meanness of workingmen, who, although blessed with 24s. 9d. s week and acquiescent helpmates, refuse to bring into this happy land families of more than seven, nine, eleven, or thirteen potential wage slaves.

But, behind the obdurate father, someone else is primarily to blame. Who? Unthinking Socialists, you would never guess. The modern politician!

Yes. “The child is no longer an asset; it is a financial burden," our titled sociologist discovers. Formerly “the man depended for comfort upon the extra earnings of his children, and both parents regarded sons and daughters as an insurance against starvation in their old age. Modern politicians have changed that condition of things." So now you know.

We Socialists pass nasty strictures upon old-age pensions, exposing their fraudulent pretence, insulting insufficiency, and rate saving reality. As usual, we only skim the surface, and it has been reserved for the McLaren genius to explore their true hideousness. Listen and perspire.

“The granting of Old Age Tensions is merciful. But the effect on population will be marked. As certainly as old age is sheltered from want without the aid of children, so certainly will families be smaller."

Shade of Malthus, painfully invoked from deserved oblivion! 'What a monstrous shape is taken by this demoniac gift of five bob a week at the long last of life! In the affluent independence of a secured future, tho workingman will override his wife's willingness, capitalism's claims, and nature's dictates. He will set at naught the laws of God and the exigencies of the labour-market. We see him, selfishly unproletaneous, march onward to his septuagenary, careless as to what becomes of the industrial reserve army, unmindful as to who will bear arms, do the dirty work, and create surplus-value. Rosebery's “end of all" is on the horizon. The cloud of the weekly dollar, albeit not so large as one's palm, portends a cataclysmal storm. 

A. Hoskyns

Summer School (1993)

From the September 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

A non-member’s personal report on the Summer School on Mental and Social Power at Fircroft College, 9-11 July 1993.

"This was a place and a time to talk, and talk we did. In meetings, in the dining room, in the bar, strolling on the lawn or through the orchard, or sitting beneath the huge copper beeches. It was a place and time for thought, and I find myself even now going back there in my mind and continuing our discussions.

We discussed personal therapies as a money-spinning racket, as enabling only adjustment to the inhuman demands of capitalism, or as a means of enforcing that adjustment if you include the electrodes and drugs of psychiatry.

On the other hand we considered more person-centred analysis or counselling as politically neutral but effective tools for unravelling the knots of personal distress.

There again, it was argued, can personal anxiety not be a spur to Socialist awareness? Equally, might it not be an obstacle? Why should personal awareness and growth be considered antithetical to the same process on the social level?

We debated alienation-from our work, the products of our work, from our fellows and from our own lives. Television was subjected to a close examination in this context. I think we were fairly unanimous that it is a powerful agent in capitalism's need to split us from social and personal reality. There was creative use of video material exposing television and the whole money culture.

Personally. I found this Summer School hugely rewarding and inspiring. There was talk of holding future ones at a less expensive and more spartan venue, but for myself I fell the surroundings of the old. slightly unkempt grounds quiet, civilised and very amenable to the atmosphere of serious, rational and respectful inquiry. At the same time there was humour and warmth. I identified with people talking about how difficult it is to go home after spending time with people who know what you mean. I for one am back in a world of lonely alienation. I think money should be abolished, but even more insanely, I WALK places. Here I am, walking by the wheat field, this is my food. I wish I could have a hand in growing it, harvesting it, milling it and baking the bread. But at least I can touch the rough heads of the grass that gives me life. Meanwhile perfectly healthy young men whizz by, sitting down in sort of slick, multi-aerialled spacecraft on wheels. These fields might just as well be on television as far as they were concerned. 

Finally, it was the subject matter of this Summer School which obliged me to get there. Income Support or no, the whole question of the relationship between the personal and public dimensions of our understanding is one which I feel to be crucial. Many Socialists are uncomfortable with any focus on this area, and even thoughtful psychotherapists are reluctant to look at social issues. I would welcome a closer understanding between these disciplines, and I am heartened to see evidence of this happening, not least at the Summer School, which exceeded my best expectations.

After all, in this society, we live, eat, work and consume, all for some purpose outside ourselves. So are we not brought up to serve goals outside ourselves, and do we not bring up our children in the same way? That there are hard questions goes a long way to explaining their absence from Socialist literature, but they are questions nonetheless which we are all called upon to address." 

Peter Rigg

Whitewash and be damned (1979)

From the July 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no more certain a betrayer of the truth about the condition of the working class under capitalism than the political journalist. And nowhere is this more true than of those writing for the ‘quality’ newspapers: The Guardian, The Observer; the Daily and Sunday Telegraph.

This is not to suggest that journalists (or any others) who support the capitalist system should be denied a hearing. What is at issue is the exclusive nature of ‘editorial discretion’ and, consequently, the whole tone and content of the ‘serious’ newspapers — as contrasted with their loudly-trumpeted, clearly hypocritical posture as defenders of free speech.

The ‘heavies’, far from being the instruments of unfettered free speech their proprietors and editors would have us believe, are in no way different in their main aims and purposes from their bedfellows, the tabloids — blowzy tarts though they are. As with those publications, they must produce a profit; promote as assiduously as they can the political and economic interests of their owners; and fight off their increasingly carnivorous competitors. And to help readers swallow their capitalistic medicine, they must ensure that is is well sweetened. Hence the liberal supply of advertisements and features tailored to their ‘up-market’ requirements. (To go through The Observer's colour supplement is — for this ‘down-market’ contributor at least — a bit like window-shopping around Harrod’s with empty pockets on a wet Sunday afternoon.)

Long-standing familiarity with some of the ‘heavies’ has confirmed an unshakeable conviction that, considered as an exercise in democratic open-handedness, their political and economic ingredient constitutes a pitiful sham. It is the inevitable result of editorial policies as prohibitive as anything offered us by that other tightly controlled and highly effective filter of news and views, the BBC.

MERCENARY ART

To take just one well-known political columnist (who can serve as a typical example of all practitioners of that mercenary art): Peter Jenkins, of The Guardian. What he consistently offers us, however elaborately, is a hollow apology for all the crass inefficiencies of an outdated and corrupt system in decline, coupled with an ill-concealed attack on millions of ordinary wage-earners who are struggling to maintain a falling standard of living. In short, Jenkins’ efforts over the years have proved to be no more than a dismal and manifestly bankrupt attempt to convince us that the symptoms of capitalism can be cured while ignoring the disease the capitalist system itself.

Then we have capitalist politics as expressed through editorials. An amusing example was provided by The Observer during the recent general election campaign. Condescending to present us all with a breakdown on any and every issue relating to the struggle of British capitalism to survive its own inadequacies, The Observer had earlier pretended to coyness as to what it intended to exhort us to do at the polling booths. (We were expected, no doubt, to hold our breaths.) As if it made a scrap of difference to the working class what The Observer thought; or, come to that, which of capitalism's would-be executives formed the next government. As the election has once again demonstrated, capitalist politics has reduced itself to the level of a Whitehall farce in which the participants share the same bed.

VOYEURISTIC INCLINATIONS

Should you - knowing your place - consider yourself a member of the self-styled middle classes (you are a grocer’s daughter, perhaps), you will probably prefer to slum it with Peregrine Worsthorne and the Daily Telegraph. That organ’s correspondence columns can read like a page out of Mary Whitehouse’s diary. And should you feel like indulging your more voyeuristic inclinations, then its super gossip columnist, who displays his shoddy merchandise over the pseudonym of Peterborough, is very definitely your man. Never a one to deny himself an opportunity for sycophantic name-dropping or sly innuendo, this urban scribe will happily conduct you around the world of the well-heeled: the current ‘in’ people, the power-holders and seekers, Belgravian socialites, senior churchmen, royal personages, and other parasites having no visible means of support. (It is instructive to note how few of Peterborough’s subjects are without that instantly recognisable imprimatur of the capitalists and their hangers-on: the ability to live high-off-the-hog without the need to resort to so sordid and time-wasting an activity as work.)

From the foregoing it may correctly be deduced that we cast a jaundiced eye over the ‘serious’ press. This is born of many years of critical observation, years during which ‘responsible’ journalists have consistently demonstrated, through wordy outpourings, their servile conformity to the requirements of their owners and the capitalist system in which they operate. And all this in the name of democracy and free speech.

Of course, such dogged loyalty must not be allowed to go unrewarded. This can be achieved in a variety of ways. One of them springs immediately to mind. By the time this article appears in print the recent general election campaign will have become history. Capitalism’s executive committee will have settled into its pile carpets and its chauffered limousines — all ready to dispense the inevitable patronage in one form or another to its more effective and obliging friends. We may be confident that among the earliest recipients will figure not a few of the most diligent of them all: those drawn from the upper echelons of Fleet Street.

Richard Cooper