Anti-strike record (1997)

Book Review from the December 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

British Trade Unions 1945-1995. by Chris Wrigley (Manchester University Press. £12.99)

This textbook, aimed at students, is essentially a collection of extracts from trade union, government and Labour and Conservative party documents of the time.

After the war and up until at least the end of the 1960s there was more or less full employment in Britain. This seller's market for labour power put the unions in a good bargaining position, but under the Attlee post-war Labour government the unions' leaders chose not to take advantage of this. In fact strikes were illegal under this government which is supposed to have done so much for the working class.

When after 1951 workers, especially at shopfloor level, began to exploit the situation, governments threw their weight behind employers by adopting "pay pauses" and "wage restraint”. At the same time the media launched a campaign against shop stewards as well as in the film I'm All Right Jack with Peter Sellers playing the villain's role.

In the 60s and 70s the Wilson and Callaghan Labour governments were just as bad as the Macmillan and Heath Tory governments. Wilson imposed a legally-binding wage freeze in 1966 and planned to bring in anti-strike legislation as outlined in In Place of Strife. Heath brought in the notorious Industrial Relations Act under which 5 dockers were sent to jail (and released in the face of mass demonstrations).

Then came Thatcher. Eight separate pieces of anti-strike legislation were introduced over the period 1980-1995—which the present Labour government has no intention of repealing—but this was kicking the unions when they were already down: by 1979 the postwar boom was over and. with unemployment at over one million and rising, the seller's market for labour power had disappeared.

All this is documented in this book but outside of any theoretical framework. There is no understanding that, while employers generally welcome unions as stable and more or less representative partners with whom to negotiate over the price and conditions of the sale of labour power, because wage-labour is the source of their profits they don't want things to go too far and that it is the government's role to help ensure that this does not happen.

Adam Buick

English republic (1997)

Book Review from the December 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Inventing a Republic: The political culture of the English Commonwealth, 1649-1653. by Sean Kelsey. (Manchester University Press, 1997)

The defenders of the status quo will always try and kid us that nothing much ever changes. Britain, it is said, has never undergone drastic change and has for example an unbroken history of monarchy. Yet the facts of history are otherwise. Over a century before the French revolution. England underwent a bloody civil war which ended with the execution of the king. This revolution removed bureaucratic impediments to the development of capitalism and from 1649 to 1660 England was a republic.

This book is a defence of the "Rump" parliament of 1649-1653 against charges that it was inefficient and corrupt. The Rump was dissolved by Oliver Cromwell, claims Kelsey, "largely in order to prevent the successful transition to an electorally mandated free state in which the commander-in-chief of the armed forces would remain little more than an important employee of the state, albeit the most important one." That may have been so. but there were other factors at work. At Putney, in 1647, Cromwell corrected the Levellers who demanded votes for soldiers, saying that they had not fought for that, but for the limitation of the royal prerogative, the right to parliamentary government and "freedom of trading to get money to get estates by". That being so, it would have made an interesting start to an investigation, but Kelsey does not pursue it. For a more balanced and realistic explanation of the causes and consequences of the English civil war readers are referred to the writings of Christopher Hill.

Lew Higgins

Obituaries: F. Kraske & Betty King (1946)

F. Kraske at the SPGB's first Annual Conference.

Obituaries from the January 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Death of Comrade Kraske

Comrade F. Kraske, one of the small but enthusiastic band of workers who founded the Socialist Party of Great Britain in June, 1904, has passed out of the struggle at the age of 81. He died of cerebral hemorrhage on October 10th at Cheltenham. To the last he was bound up with the working-class movement, to which he had given the whole of his adult life. When failing health, during the war years, kept him out of activity, his interest did not flag; he looked to his son to keep him fully posted about the Party's doings, and always demanded a full report of what happened at conferences and similar party meetings. He was a Socialist and a good comrade in the fullest sense.

He lived to witness the first attack made by the Party on the central citadel of power in this country, and this had a very intimate appeal to him, because he was one of the party candidates in the Battersea borough election of November, 1906.

Kraske was a member of the Battersea Branch of the Social Democratic Federation, at the time he participated in the movement to induce that party to shed its social reform policy along with other rubbish. When the efforts of the group, of which he was an associate, failed to induce the members of that party to rid themselves of the leadership caucus, he came out of the Social Democratic Federation and took an active part in the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Kraske was a short, sturdy, man who looked younger than his years. He was always active in helping on the work of the party and, until a few years ago, he was to be seen at nearly every party meeting. A few winters before the war the party organised museum lectures at which members conducted parties around different museums. Old though he was, he attended these lectures. When asked why he came to them, he replied: "I am always ready to improve my knowledge.” That was his attitude to life; an increase of knowledge was to him an aid in the work of ending the system that exploited the workers.

When such a one as Kraske makes the final parting, we can do little more than express our sorrow and record his achievement. To the present writer it is the breaking of another link with a bright and fruitful past in which we clung to our hopes with the passion of youth; it is the passing out of a sturdy, honest and steadfast worker for Socialism, one of those people who really matter in a world of sordid ambitions, petty tricks, and the exploitation of man by man.

We therefore make this tribute to our late comrade so that his name may always figure on the roll of the fighters for the uplifting of humanity.

Mrs. Kraske, who was also one of the founders of the party, is still with us and, we hope, will long remain so. To her and members of the family we send our sincere sympathy.

____________________________

We have also received the sad news that Mrs Betty King, another of the early band who formed the party, died in November. She was not well known to the younger members of the party, but across the years she has given hospitality at her Stockport home to numerous members whose party work took them to the Manchester area.

To the members of her family we also send our sincere sympathy.

Gilmac.

“Common Ownership”: Ourselves v. The Labour Party (1932)

From the December 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a meeting in the provinces addressed recently by a member of the S.P.G.B. someone in the audience protested against the statement that the S.P.G.B. was the only party that stood for Socialism; and produced a membership card of the Labour Party, wherein occurred the statement that the party stood for “common ownership.” The above difficulty is typical of the state of mind of many workers who support the Labour Party under the impression that they are thereby helping to emancipate the members of their class.

In the first place it is necessary to bear in mind that the membership of the local Labour Parties is small compared with that of the total membership of the Labour Party. The bulk of the membership consists of affiliated Trade Unionists (who may be anything, politically, from Tories to Anarchists). They form the basis for the power of the leaders of the party, who adjust their electoral programmes to the varied ideas of those who pay the piper.) Thus we find in Labour Party programmes a mishmash in which the views of Liberal industrial capitalists and the Trade Union bosses predominate. In these programmes the idea of common ownership finds no place, although the words are used in their object. Common ownership would deprive the capitalists of their property rights, i.e., of their power to exact rent, interest, and profit from the labour of the workers. Common ownership involves a social revolution, the abolition of the mode of living of the ruling class in present-day society. It will be resisted by this class by every means in its power, being directly opposed to its interests.

Let us see how much resistance is offered to the programme of the Labour Party. Details of this were dealt with in last month’s issue of the Socialist Standard (” The Labour Party Conference ”).—Even when the Labour Party uses the phrase “common ownership” it is used as if it were synonymous with “public ownership.” “Labour and the Nation,” calls for the "public ownership of the coal, transport and power industries” (p. 47). No intelligent capitalist opposes such measures, in principle.

As the Liberal Industrial Report published in 1928 has it: —

Public concerns of one kind or another . . .  already cover so vast a field that the supposed choice between Individualism and Socialism is largely an obsolete issue. An examination of the existing types of Public Concerns shows that the Socialist would gain nothing by assimilating to a single theoretical model a diversity developed by experience to meet actual situations. On the other hand, it would be quite impossible to scrap the elaborate legislation enacted by Governments of every political complexion and hand over our public utilities and railways system to the operation of uncontrolled Individualism. There is, therefore, no question of principle at stake, but only one of degree of expediency. and of method.

(“ Britain's Industrial Future,” page 456.)

 The Socialist is not concerned, as is suggested above, with any "theoretical model.” We have no cut-and-dried straight-jacket into which we wish to thrust industries. We know that the precise; form assumed by the organisation of industry after the revolution will depend as always upon experience and changing conditions. Hence we offer no ready-made plans.

People who are prepared to tolerate and support capitalist ownership (whether private or “public”) are full of plans. They have to be. The problems created by capitalism are so numerous that those engaged in its administration spend their time necessarily in endeavouring to solve them and in finding ways and means of reconciling the antagonistic interests involved. Socialists, on the other hand, recognise that the most fundamental antagonism of all, that between the workers and the capitalists as classes, can find no solution within any form of capitalist ownership. What can it matter to the workers whether they are exploited by a joint-stock company, a public utility corporation set up by a Labour Government, or by a Government Department? During the strike of 1926 drivers and conductors of the London General Omnibus Co. came out along with similar grades in the employ of the London County Council Tramways.

They were members of the same union, members of the same class, with the same interest, hostile to that of the employing class no matter by what the organisation might be, through which the interests of the Capitalists were represented. Only common ownership of the means of living as proposed by the Socialist Party of Great Britain can abolish this conflict of interests, and it is the business of Socialists to make this plain to the workers.

The Labour Party, however, found no difficulty in accepting office with Liberal support, just as it found it easy to win seats in Parliament by means of Liberal programmes. The most advanced proposals of the Labour Party only involve the buying out of groups of capitalists. How can the workers, who have nothing, buy out those who have everything ?

The Labour Party propose to convert shareholders into Government bondholders, enjoying interest guaranteed by the Government. This will leave the working class non-owners in the same position as they are now. .The capitalist class as a whole, being politically organised, would continue to use the State as its executive power; and would also use the Labour Party, as it has already done, to confuse the workers by accepting official responsibility for the administration of capitalism.

Lacking definite Socialist principles the Labour Party can only repeat the disappointments and failures to which it has hitherto led those workers who have placed their trust in it, breaking up into fragments whenever faced by a crisis that demands definite action in the interest of the workers. Having been built up on the "principle" that it was necessary to gain the support of the Liberal section of the capitalists for "reforms," it can act only as the tool or catspaw of that section.

There is no substitute for the conscious political organisation of the working-class aiming at the common ownership of the means of life. That involves constant opposition to all sections of the master-class, which is represented in this country only by the S.P.G.B.

Eric Boden

For Carter and Ford—Read Capitalism (continued) (1976)

From the November 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Arch-reactionary Barry Goldwater, who was for all-out war in Vietnam in 1964 when Johnson was still regarded as a “dove”, is supporting Ford. This is taken as an indication of how far to the “right” Republican sentiments have moved. The lines of demarcation between so-called “liberal” and “conservative” are entirely imaginary. Those who fondly regard themselves as liberal regard Carter as a liberal, and the conservatives think he is one of them. The balancing trick of appearing to be all things to all men is the essence of the capitalist politician.

All the polls indicate that people vote on the candidate’s personality rather than his policies. They want to know how steady his finger would be on the button. . . .
(Sunday Times 22nd August 1976)

Since differences in their policies need to be searched for with a large magnifying glass, “personality” becomes the only means of telling t’other from the which. There is no conception as yet in the minds of the American working class, of a world without “the button”. This lack of any penetration beyond the reformist spectrum is something they share with their fellow sufferers throughout the world.

Running Walter

Carter’s running mate, Senator Walter Mondale, is reported as saying:

in the whole range of human problems I’ve dealt with in my 12 years in the Senate — hunger, housing, labour, Indian education, migrant workers, children, ageing — I keep getting back to one thing; the strength of the family.

A nice piece of side-stepping, but what about the problems? The choice of running mate is a shabby bit of expediency aimed at “balancing the ticket” (vote-catching). Mondale is rated a liberal, and this has focussed attention on spending. Are people opposed to spending as such or only to wasteful government spending? Do people want less government or better government? “The opinion polls show total ideological confusion”. (Guardian, 17th July 1976.) The opinion pollsters ask only a limited range of questions, designed to sound out what is popularly expected of capitalism. Workers are not asked to consider and discuss the nature and extent of waste under capitalism, or the desirability of a world run democratically, without government.

In 1967 Mondale made a speech supporting Johnson’s Vietnam policy. Four years later, he told an interviewer that it was

a painful speech . . .  I think the worst mistake I’ve made in public life is to be a slow learner on Vietnam. This has been the most tragic mistake this country has ever made . . .  and I share part of that blame, and the record is there, I’m not proud of it.

(Guardian, 17th July 1976)

Mondale supports capitalism but pukes at its most brutal outcome. Here is no condemnation of war, but a slow learner realizing a tragic mistake. Any capitalist politician in power, who refused to endorse a war involving “national interests” would be forced out. The Labour Party in Britain has spawned many “slow learners” about war, who have rallied to the flag when the time came.

The Black vote

Carter is wooing the votes of America’s black workers with promises to put “more than one” black in the cabinet. There are the traditional “black jobs” in the echelons of administration, and black Congressmen, but there has yet to be a black man in the government. The Democratic convention of 1964 in Atlantic City, which nominated Johnson, had an all-white segregationist delegation from Mississippi. This year a new image is being put over. Andrew Young, an influential black Congressman, is working to get Carter the black vote. If it were a solution of problems for people to be the same colour as those in power, then white workers would have had all their problems solved long ago. So would the black workers living under black dictatorships in Africa. Incidentally, it is fear of Russian “infiltration” in Africa that prompts Ford to send Kissinger to put pressure on the South African government to help bring about majority rule in Rhodesia. Kissinger is obviously thick-skinned enough to ignore America’s own brutal record of racism. America has its own style of apartheid and ghetto living. Though not backed by legislation, the effect is the same.

Issue

Senator Moss of Utah, who is chairman of the Senate Committee investigating alleged fraud and abuse in the Medicaid programme for the poor, sent out a team of snoopers who made more than two hundred visits during four months in eight cities. (Investigating fraud is a form of waste peculiar to capitalism.) They found that patients usually get substandard care whether they need attention or not. Cases were reported of patients in need of care going untreated and X-rays being taken without film in the machines. In Los Angeles a woman who handed in a mixture of a soapy water was told her “urine sample” was normal.

Medicaid was started in 1965 to provide medical facilities for 20,000,000 poor Americans. Eligibility varies from place to place. In New York, you need a family of four and an income of less than $5,000 a year. Some doctors are making more than $100,000 out of fiddles. More than half the delegates at the Republican convention were in the $30,000 income bracket.

Ford and Carter and (if capitalism remains) those who succeed them, will be promoting more reforms to sort out the mess produced by past reforms in the vain attempt to reduce the running expenses of capitalism. The poor and their problems will still be here.

Issue — What Issue?

The governor of California, Edmund (Jerry) Brown Junior, who was a rival candidate to Carter for the nomination, is to give Carter all the help he can. Governor Brown, a former Jesuit Seminarian, says that Catholic misgivings about Carter are “overblown and inaccurate”. Asked if he would run again in 1980 Brown said:

I’m not even sure I’ll run for Governor again. I may even retire to the monastery to figure out what this is all about.

As both Carter and Ford are bible-belters, God is put in a difficult position rather like that of wartime, with both sides praying for victory. In his “infinite wisdom”, he has the consolation of knowing it will make no difference either way. Farcical though the whole thing is, it is too tragic to be funny.

As Socialists, we often observe when an election takes place in the UK that the “manifestos” of all parties other than the SPGB are so closely similar that if the names were blanked out they would be virtually indistinguishable. Although we have been dealing with the American Presidential election, capitalism and its absurdities are so similar all over the world, we could change the names and be dealing with almost any other country.

How much longer we will have to live in the suffocating atmosphere produced by a politically ignorant working class is the real question of our times. Socialists, however, have good grounds for optimism. Nothing demonstrates the bankruptcy of our opponents better than an election, and we have the only workable answer to their system of chaos and misery.

Socialism will be a classless world community, democratically administered without leaders, Presidents, or governments. Production will be geared to meeting human need, on the basis of free access. The privileged private or state property institutions of capitalism will make way for communal interest and cooperation. Money, wages and profits will be no more. Thus, every “issue” being bandied about during the Presidential election campaign will disappear, never to be seen again.

Harry Baldwin

For Carter and Ford—Read Capitalism (1976)

From the October 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before commenting upon some of the things being presented as issues in the American Presidential election, it is important to clarify a few basic questions which will never be asked by the contending parties. For Ford and Carter the objective is power, but why such power exists and whether its continuation serves the welfare of the majority of society are other matters.

Why the need for the Presidency? What is the Presidency? It is a particular form of political power structure, resting upon a private property foundation. The military, legislative and coercive superstructure is based upon the dominance of one class and the subjugation of another. The President is the head of State. The ultimate political authority over the armed forces. The number one national leader in a hierarchy of wealth and privilege. He is the top Political Executive of the capitalist class as a whole. The state represents the interests of the national capital. The Presidency is a political cloak for the operations of big business capitalism. Politics in general and government activity in particular, provides the capitalist class with the shield of anonymity. The capitalist is removed from direct responsibility for his system. The state can be regarded as above the fray.

The turmoil of capitalism, economic crisis, unemployment, poverty, bad housing and wars can thus be blamed on the ineptitude of the President or erroneous government policies. When dissatisfaction boils over, the President and the government can be changed, posing no threat to the system. The falsehood that capitalism can work without creating social problems is kept going by the appearance of making a fresh start. A new President? A new government? Now things will change! Socialists reject these assumptions which are promoted by the mass media and accepted by the majority of the working class. We reject the political trickery of capitalism because we see behind the façade of “a fresh start” the ownership of the means of production by a profit-motivated minority, whose commercial operations engulf the entire world. No solutions to basic problems can result from changing leaders, since they are products of the system, who advocate its continuation and therefore necessarily serve its ends.

To make judgements and form opinions on the basis of personality—the alleged attributes of Carter against those of Ford—is totally futile and irrelevant. To think in terms of “liberal” versus “conservative” is really not to think at all, but to swallow the cut-and-dried concepts of the pundits. Capitalism sets the limits within which they can move.

Issue

Two US officers killed in Korea. The north claims previous weeks of provocations. Ford sends in the fleet. Demonstrates military power. Show of force is good for prestige in this mad society.

It turns out that 41,000 us troops have been in Korea since 1953 when the war “ended”. Korea is mineral-rich and strategically important in relation to both China and Japan. The Guardian headline of 23 August read: “Korean flare-up stops rot in metal prices”. The prospect of a new war in Korea could add one hundred pounds a tonne to the price of copper and three hundred pounds to a tonne of tin.

Is Ford saving face by showing no weakness with the election coming, or can we expect renewed warfare in Korea when the election is over? Certainly, war sometime, somewhere, while capitalism lasts.

Carter Foreign Policy

Asked about his lack of experience in international affairs, Carter said:

I’ve been a student of foreign policy, and I understand it. There’s no mystery about it—its simply a matter of decency, judgement, common-sense, and intelligence.

He has been briefed by dozens of “experts” (we are left to wonder who briefed the experts.) He would insist that Russia refrain from irresponsible intervention in other countries such as Angola, or he would consider an economic embargo of Russia, including the “total with-holding of trade”. This, no doubt, in his common-sense and intelligent judgement, would be the “decent” thing to do. And if the Russian capitalist class took counter-measures that led to a major war, we assume it would be a “decent” war! Carter like Ford would increase the US defence (read war) budget, but not by so much. He would negotiate with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons and insist on overall parity. With a firepower capable of wiping out all life on earth several times over, talk of “reduction” is meaningless. He would withdraw us troops from Asia—except those necessary to fulfil us commitments to Japan and, yes, Korea.

Under Ford and Kissinger, last year America sold more than eleven thousand million dollars’ worth of war-making hardware around the world. Carter wants a ceiling on the yearly amount sold, and a case-by- case review to see whether sales further American objectives.

The Guardian, 23rd August, ventures the comment that if elected Carter “would be forced to bend to the realities of congressional opinion and of other nation’s needs and demands.” In other words, capitalism would run him while he went through the motions of running capitalism.

Carter in New York

In his nomination speech, Carter said:

It’s now a time for healing. We want to have faith again. We want to be proud again. We just want the truth again.

This platitudinous drivel can mean anything or nothing. “Healing” is taken to mean recovery from Watergate; Bad-guy, Republican Nixon, let everybody down. Inference? The American workers should rally to good-guy Carter. “Faith again”? Faith in Nixon made Watergate possible. Faith and leadership mean continuing jingoism and ignorance. “Proud again”? The working class have nothing to be proud of in the performance of the ruling class. It is implied that Watergate shamed America. This is of no concern to workers. A far greater shame is continuing poverty and millions unemployed in the world’s richest country. “Truth again”? Truth has never been the strong point of capitalist politicians. The last Democrat President was Johnson. He told so many lies, particularly about Vietnam, that they coined the phrase “credulity gap” to cover the distance between what was really happening and the White House handouts.

On TV Carter (briefly) spoke the truth. His first words were:

Hello, I’m Jimmy Carter and I’m running for President.

A sad reflection on working-class awareness, rivalled only by Gerald Ford running for President.

Harry Baldwin

To be continued

Making of a candidate (1984)

From the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) is widely credited with having democratised American politics. Reforms initiated about this time led to party conventions taking over as the vehicle for the selection of presidential candidates. Each state sends delegates, mostly pledged to vote for a particular candidate although some are uncommitted. In fact this was not as successful as had been hoped. Control of state delegates fell into the hands of party bosses, the most notorious of whom were those who ran Tammany Hall, the headquarters of the Democrats in New York. This put into a key position another class of professional politicians who expected and received patronage from political hopefuls whose path to power they smoothed. A major reason for the advance of the primary system was that it struck a blow at these state bosses.

The primary system varies from state to state, with a number still mandating their delegates through a party caucus. Others hold closed primaries where the voter is required to register as a member of the party before voting. Some have open primaries where the voter selects the primary ballot for and then can choose candidates from that list only. In a few, however, the names of all candidates from all parties are printed on the ballot and the voter can cross party lines. This gives the process the trappings of democracy. However the graft, corruption and scandals of the heyday of the party bosses are still remembered.

Very little has been heard this year of Republican primaries, as Ronald Reagan has finally decided to stand for re-election. Not since 1912, when William Howard Taft dispensed patronage ad lib to beat off a challenge from Theodore Roosevelt, only to be beaten out of sight when Roosevelt stood as a third party candidate, has an incumbent president had any real difficulty in securing the nomination of his party. While recent opinion polls have shown Gary Hart running ahead of Reagan, these are still early days. Comparison with the British election last June shows what a difficult task the Democratic hopefuls face this year. It has even been suggested that this is the reason that Edward Kennedy has opted out this time. While the upturn in the American economy is extremely modest it is a weapon that Reagan will use for all he is worth. Although in earlier times relative unknowns arriving at the convention with little support sometimes were chosen as compromise candidates when deadlock between the main contenders could not be resolved, this again hasn’t happened for some time. Now that they no longer follow an isolationist policy, American capitalists are much more concerned with their image abroad. They do not want a repeat of the Teapot Dome scandal which finished Warren Gamaliel Harding, the last of the old-style compromise candidates to reach the White House. Their recent "bad luck” with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew is still fresh in their memory.

The Democrats’ choice to face the president in November thus appears to boil down to three, one of whom is already looking like an outsider. He is the demagogue Jesse Jackson, who draws attention to the disadvantages which negro workers suffer even in comparison with their oppressed white fellow wage slaves. Jackson claims that the election of a black president can fundamentally alter this situation. This is dangerous nonsense. The special problems of the negroes arise from their being an easily distinguished minority within the oppressed class of the capitalist system. Ignorant workers pick on them as scapegoats for the evils they experience which are in fact an integral part of the system itself. Jackson in directing his appeal to such a degree to negro prejudices, however understandable these may be, risks inflaming these passions, thus doing the class a considerable disservice. The votes he has collected thus far have come almost entirely from black areas and his appeal seems too narrow to give him a real chance. He might just acquire some bargaining power if it is a close call in the San Francisco convention this summer.

Walter Mondale is the candidate most favoured by party workers and those city bosses still with influence, such as those who control the famous Cook County in Chicago. This in itself is no guarantee of selection. The darlings of the faithful are not necessarily the best winners of uncommitted votes. One of the reasons for the existence of the more open type of primary is to gain some indication of the winning potential of the candidates. The system is not fool proof in this respect, as was shown by the candidacy of the backwoodsman Barry Goldwater for the Republicans in 1964. However it would be incorrect to class Mondale as the Democrats’ 1984 equivalent of Goldwater. Mondale's association with the Carter administration has led to insinuations that he is a “yesterday's man”, and he has made no real attempt to dissociate himself from the former president. While the Democrats have never claimed to be a socialist party, since the era of Franklin Roosevelt they have performed many of the functions the Labour Party carries out in Britain. Like Labour, the Democratic Party has relied to a large extent for its vote on the less well off sections of the working class, and most American cities vote Democrat just as they usually vote Labour here. Mondale realises the need to hold on to this traditional support. As The Times reports (22 March 1984):

Mr Mondale won the Illinois primary the old fashioned way by piling up a big margin in white working class areas of Chicago, and then performing better than expected in the suburbs and down state. He also won a majority of the Hispanic vote and held on to those blacks who were not mesmerized by Mr Jackson’s vision of a "rainbow coalition”.

Mondale has also widespread support inside the trade unions. It is of little importance whether in achieving this working class support he has acted as a conscious deceiver or as an honest but rather ignorant individual. Either way it is the stuff of which presidents are made.

Gary Hart burst onto the scene a few weeks ago, apparently from nowhere, promising sweeping new' deals both inside the Democratic Party and in the USA at large. When this “new" approach is examined much of the cosmetic glitter fades. The Times (10 March 1984) had a feature article on “What Makes The Maverick Hart Tick". In this we read:

   Arguing that "the pragmatism of the new deal has become doctrine”. Mr Hart says the US must find a way to move from the economy of the past to the economy of the future, an economy not only expanding but which can meet the challenges of increased international competition and rapid technological change.
  He is an advocate of an "industrial policy" in which the Government would take the lead in bringing business and labour together to work out the nation's industrial strategy.

and later:

   He believes that the burgeoning cost of social entitlement programmes, such as Medicare and Medicaid, must be restrained, not simply through cuts but by putting more emphasis on preventive medicine and home care.
   On most economic issues Mr Hart has tried to emphasize the need to examine how government money is spent rather than how much. He believes the economic debate between Republicans and Democrats has become bogged down between those who favour fiscal generosity and those on the side of frugality.

This is just a sample of what Professor Samuel Beer of Harvard calls Hart’s "ideological mishmash". This is the confused groping of the politically ignorant, distinguished only by the inevitable concern for capitalism’s welfare. Hart fails to distinguish the old from the new in politics. Indeed we have now reached the stage when there are no new options for capitalism to try, only regurgitations of old, and Hart scarcely seems the best equipped to find the least sickly mixture. No wonder Hart’s star is now emitting a much dimmer light.

Nevertheless, barring real surprises, either Hart or Mondale will win through to oppose Reagan in the autumn. Certain Reagan is far from invincible. His track record on welfare, the US term for social services, is callous even by capitalist standards. The soup kitchen and the church mission, both of which many though had gone for good, have made a big comeback in the wake of the cuts imposed by the Reagan government. But could the Democrats take advantage of this? It would scarcely suffice merely to promise redress, as everyone knows that increased "public expenditure” (actually taxation on the capitalists) would be required. In the present climate few dare to advocate this. Still fewer will advocate a serious reduction in the US arms arsenal. No wonder voting in American elections is so low, particularly in deprived inner city areas. While many have fallen prey to apathy and despair a sizeable number are through with voting for capitalist parties, period.

E. C. Edge

Support the Status Quo! (1993)

From the December 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

No, we haven't gone barmy and been converted to the money system. Nor have we sold out to the forces of the status quo. We just want to show you how it is possible to support capitalism and prevent the growth of socialism without perhaps consciously intending to do so.

It may be helpful to propose a number of maxims to follow (for readers not into irony: not to follow):

1. Limit your vision.
Ignore the structural causes of social and individual problems. Pretend, for example, that psychological disturbance has nothing to do with the social forces that shape personality development. By doing so you can help those force's to continue unabated. Intervene only at the individual level. It's fine to help homeless people on a case-by-case basis. But don't enquire into the policy decisions and economic arrangements that brought about their predicament. That would only serve to invite drastic changes. Treat each example of corporate wrongdoing (illegal dumping of toxic wastes, for example) as an isolated incident and not the fault of the system. In that way you can help to keep the system intact.

2. Adapt.
The best way to keep the status quo intact is to make sure that individuals adjust themselves to serve its needs. Such adaptation was once enforced by crude, authoritarian methods of "re-education". Today this is hardly necessary. A wealth of advice is available on how to become successful, or at least to cope. How to get a job, what to wear, how not to become a victim - all such advice proceeds from the premise that you should adjust yourself to conditions as you find them. Adaptation means you must solve your problems within the institutions and according to the rules that already exist. To fit in is to fortify the structures into which you are being fitted.

3. Think about yourself.
The more you limit your concerns to yourself, the more you help to sustain the larger system. This does not apply only to material well-being. Even therapeutic and spiritual enterprises are useful for preserving the status quo. In encouraging you to attend to your own needs, they effectively direct attention away from social structures. Look after yourself and let the rest of the world go on its way — what better strategy is there for perpetuating existing structures? Exceptionally, personal growth could be a route to change your ideas about society. But the human potential movement generally doesn't go that far. so you need not either.

4. Be "realistic".
You don't have to defend capitalism. You can even nod in sympathetic agreement with socialists who condemn it. But you must accompany this nodding with a shrug. Phrases such as "like it or not" and "that's the way the wicked world is" should be employed liberally to emphasise that nothing can be done about the larger picture. Such protestations of powerlessness are actually very powerful, of course, since they make sure that things are left exactly as they are. Every person who takes such a stance is another person rescued from socialist activism.

5. Label Socialists "Idealistic".
When you come across people who refuse to resign themselves to the way things are or to believe that we are helpless to make fundamental changes, immediately label them "idealistic" or "utopian". Don't be concerned about the vaguely complimentary connotations of having ideals. An idealist is someone who doesn't understand "the world as it is" ("world" - "our society"; "as it is" "as it will always be"). This label calls attention to socialists' faulty understanding of "human nature" and helps to ensure that they are not taken seriously. By contrast, those who are "pragmatic" know that we must always work within the confines of what we are given.

6. Rationalize. 
You can make it more difficult for socialist critics of capitalism — and salve your own conscience at the same time — by claiming that your real reason for acting as you do is to "change the system from within". You can join any of the political parties that offer reforms (which means all of them except the Socialist Party) and you won’t actually have to take part in making fundamental change. Even if this really were your goal, you would be permitted to work only for insignificant reforms that never come close to challenging the structures themselves. A variation on this theme is that you are going to support a reformist party for only a short time, waiting for the socialist movement to grow before you consider joining it (if every one does this, socialism will be postponed for ever). If you are audacious enough, you can even rationalize your reformism as the most efficient way to change the system. The more people who accept this reasoning and follow your example, the more secure capitalism will be.

Stan Parker

The Future of Leisure (1953)

From the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The phrase “working for a living” suggests a distinction between working and living which most people accept. But if “working occupies five or six days a week and fifty weeks a year, how much “living” is left?

That was the challenging question put to readers of the “Radio Times” some little while ago, in describing a programme on “What is Work?” The question is of particular interest to socialists, who advocate a form of society in which such a distinction between working and living (or the division of living into work and leisure) will no longer be recognised.

The present division which exists for most people between their work and their leisure is the product of historical conditions. Probably the concept of leisure as something apart from and opposed to work was unknown in societies in which there was no privileged class. Some primitive people have no word for “work”—work is for them the expression of living. And even the class-divided Greek civilisation evolved no separate word for leisure—the word they used also meant “school.”

The handicraftsman and artisan received a certain satisfaction from the work they did. They made whole articles, and used their skill and inventiveness to overcome the difficulties which arose. They were really educated by their labour. But the manufacturing division of labour under Capitalism has changed all that. A large proportion of workers are relegated to monotonous machine-minding and office routine, and few are able to gain real satisfaction from their work.

Even those who do make things that are useful to people often do not gain the pleasure of a good job well done, because of the tyranny of clocking-in, speeding-up, and down-to-a-price quality of products. Capitalist and worker alike are dominated by the need to compete successfully with others, since failure means an end to their “living"—yet success is bought only at the price of orienting one's life to goals that are trivial and artificial instead of basic and real.

Leisure Class

The emergence of a class in society that is not compelled to participate in production coincided with the beginning of private ownership. A leisure class was the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, some being considered worthy (“exploit” by the males) and other unworthy (drudgery by the females).

“During the predatory culture labour comes to be associated in men’s habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of inferiority and, therefore, comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. . . .  In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence. . . . A life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive evidence of pecuniary strength and, therefore, of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure can live in manifest ease and comfort.”—(“The Theory of the Leisure Class” Veblen, p. 36-8.)

Yet the fact remains that work is the foundation of any society. Hence, the value of work to society should be its prime consideration. But because, within property society, the dominating ideas arise from people who need not toil, and because a substitute for satisfaction from work must be found for millions who know it only as an evil necessity, leisure becomes the supreme goal.

Employment is a necessity imposed upon all but a privileged few. Consequently there comes to be a divergence between the conditions of working “for a living” and the kind of life which is held out by supporters of the system as desirable. The message preached is that the end of life is idleness and enjoyment. But workers, having absorbed the message, must return to the factory or office to earn the money without which they cannot live.

Machinery of Amusement

The means of mass influence—press, cinema, radio and television—all focus attention on those aspects of our lives that have nothing to do with everyday tasks. People figure in the “news” who are notable only for having money and time to spend. The constant display of wealth and leisure as desirable ends influences the standards of those who seek an outlet to express themselves which the conditions of their work deny them.

Various factors have combined to oust the old family-gathering type of popular leisure—doing has given way to watching and listening. Probably the Victorian party-piece was not as happily endured as many would have us believe, nor is the advent of television the unmitigated evil that some suppose. Nevertheless, leisure has largely taken on the form of a commodity that is passively consumed rather than an experience that is actively enjoyed. As Henry Durant writes in “The Problem of Leisure":

“All forms of leisure have become commercialised, endless devices are offered to the idle person, each to be enjoyed only on condition that he has money to pay. Without money he is condemned, unable to share in the pleasure and pastimes which press on him from all sides. But commercialisation does not merely erect a gate through which only those with the necessary fee can pass. It has a profound effect also on the nature of the fare offered. The ’machinery of amusement’ is run by business men actuated by business motives. Their concern is not primarily with the character of the entertainment or amusement they provide, for it is merely the means to the end of making profits.”

The ways in which leisure is spent are unavoidably influenced by the prevailing conditions of employment. Take, for example, the workers on a belt system in a factory who, in the course of their work, use only a small part of their brain capacity and nervous system. To stave off monotony their off-duty hours are mostly spent in such feverish pleasures as speedway and the more hectic forms of dancing—and their nervous systems inevitably suffer.

When work lacks interest it is either forgotten altogether on “knocking off ” or else it is the subject of grumbling. It is not complimentary to be told that you can never forget your work; and those who do take their socially useless work seriously often develop boring personalities and have few interests outside their daily occupations.

Self-expression

Here we can do no more than touch upon the various ways in which people search today for something different, something outside of their own drab existence. The cinema is an obvious example that springs to mind, but there are others that are not so often considered. All the preparations, the plans, the excitements and the ballyhoo that surrounded the recent Coronation surely demonstrate the emptiness of most people's everyday lives. And what of the weekly football pool coupon that excites study and comment out of all proportion to its importance? The punters are members of a Happy Circle, so they are told—and the atmosphere of mock geniality is shattered only when a court action is brought over winnings. Then it is admitted that the “Happy Circle" is just an advertising circular.

Some imagine that the socialist revolution either will or ought to bring a state of affairs where all will spend their leisure as the wealthy do now. Certainly the atmosphere in which they move is one to which the adjective “drab" hardly applies. Yet if you ask those who minister to the “needs" of the élite whether the latter really have the control over their environment that is the mark of free men, then the answer may surprise you. According to one writer, for instance, the rich take up gambling more or less because they are driven to it—they find they are “out of it" unless they join in roulette or whatever happens to be in vogue. And so they drift from one aimless diversion to another . . .

Whilst the first onset of mechanisation has taken all the joy from work, it may be predicted that its final result will be to return to human activities a freedom that is absent today. Man will then possess the machines and use them selectively, thus restoring dignity to all human occupations. Labour, in Marx's words, will be not merely a means to live, but itself the primary necessity of life.

Stan Parker

A Letter From Ireland (1949)

From the January 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our "Friend from Across the Water” (as the Otoe, Indian tribe of "native Americans" rechristened Eamon De Valera, during his recent tour of the U.S.) has indeed been at all times only too anxious to prove himself a “friend in need, a friend indeed” for the industrial-capitalist class of Eire. And now he’s off again, campaigning against the Partition of Ireland, but still in the service of his same old masters. This man who, as you well know, is boosted as the indefatigable opponent of everything anti-Republican in Ireland; this man who resolutely stood out against the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty in 1921 and, when all else failed, took “arms against a sea of troubles” ; this man who tenaciously stuck to his guns and his Republican principles—this man is actually non-existent, he’s a figment of the imagination.

Wasn’t it “Dev." who declared fearlessly at Newry, "north of the border,’’ in 1918, that he was “ready to blast the North out of his path”? And, again, in 1919, to an American newspaper correspondent:

“If the Paris Conference fails to take steps to extend self-determination to Ireland, violence will he the only alternative left to Irish patriots. This will mean something like continued revolution until Ireland’s rights are recognised.” (Times, London, March 13th, 1919.)

"Fighting words," you say? Perhaps. Though let me remind you that those were “fighting days.” However, let’s skip, for the moment, all that happened afterwards and come to the year 1946. In that year, in our parliament, “An Dail,” a certain man made a speech. Among other things, he said:

“The Border can only be done away with when the majority in the North decide of their own free will to come in and join us, without any coercion or compulsion whatever, and if any coercion or compulsion was used to bring them in I would he the first to oppose it.”

Yes, it was—" Dev.” When you’re in, you’re in; when you’re out, it’s another story. See? And now that “Dev’s.” out he’s been telling another story—the Newry story. To an audience in Chicago during his recent American tour, he said:

“If we get assistance the day will not be far off when we will have not twenty-six counties (Eire) but thirty-two.” (Press, March 21st, 1948.)

Now I ask you—can you beat it?

For sixteen years, remember, he wielded the power of a continental political dictator—he commanded the whole forces of the Irish State—and for sixteen years this great man, who was destined (“they’’ said) to fulfill the "1916 dream" of Irish Republicans, sat on his backside and lifted not a finger to bring any nearer that “glorious day.” What a man ! And what a game !

And now, in Britain, no less than the U.S. and Ireland, he’s once more donned the cloak of the Irish Republican Moses, and is rearing to storm the Stormont citadel in the North and lead his people to the wonderful Promised Land, “the Republic.” However, the above statements surely show, if nothing else, the utter disregard of principles which characterises this much-inflated personality, Eamon De Valera.

“For the Irish Republic! For national independence!”—remember the inspiring phrases which so intoxicated the Irish working man and woman? In the meantime, though, De Valera and his crowd were getting on with the real, down-to-earth job of attempting to establish the supremacy of the Irish manufacturers and industrialists. That was their goal.

Yes, history does record that De Valera was indeed the leader of the anti-Treatyites when the so-called split took place in the Irish Republican movement (Sinn Fein) over the signing of the Treaty in ’21. But did this division arise over some fundamental difference between those for and against that Treaty? Did it divide those involved into “for the Republic” and “against it”? And was there, from now on, an impassable gulf between these two sections? To all three questions the answer is a very simple “no”! The split over the Treaty was, in fact, no more than a fake split It didn't occur because the terms of that Treaty were such as to make manifest two irreconcilable principles within Sinn Fein. All that took place then was merely a disagreement between two sections of one negotiating side over the terms of the bargain struck, but, as a matter of fact, neither of these two sections were opposed to the conclusion of such a Treaty. Both accepted the basic conditions laid down by Lloyd George for the British Government.

From the official correspondence between the British Government, and Sinn Fein which preceded the actual Treaty conference of 1921 (published by the British Government, Command Paper 1470, 1921), I quote the following:

September 12, 1921. De Valera to Lloyd George: declaring Sinn Fein’s willingness “to enter a conference to ascertain how the association of Ireland with the community of nations known as the British Empire can best be reconciled with Irish national aspirations.”

(“Reconciled,” mark you! The Republican virgin was going to lie down with the Imperialist profligate . . Kathleen ni Houlihan!)

September, 29,1921. Lloyd George to De Valera: ‘‘There is no purpose to be served by any further interchange of explanatory and argumentative communications upon the subject. The position taken up by H.M. Government is fundamental to the existence of the British Empire, and they cannot alter it.”
September 30, 1921. De Valera accepts : "Our respective positions have been stated and are understood. . .”

So much for the alleged Republicanism of De Valera. But the whole tragedy was that this fiction was a not unimportant contributory cause of the Civil War which followed the signing of the Treaty. For the best part of that following two years, brother slayed brother. You well know all that. And what did these men and women—the men and women who did the fighting—get out of it? But need I ask you that? You know they got nothing. Why, even the victors got little more than the vanquished: a pittance and some medals. They weren’t invited to the “Irish Free State banquet” which followed, although it was they who provided all the good things that were spread on the table. That historic banquet is now celebrated annually by a few, at functions known as “annual company meetings.” But those who were once the soldiers at the front are now no more than the wage slaves in the rear. Some of these soldiers, as you may be aware, are lying in the re-named Dublin Workhouse, St. Kevins, as I write, and—perhaps—are fondling their medals and certificates of ‘‘I was there.”

After the Civil War, Fianna Fail was formed, in 1926, with “Dev.” at its head. Yes, he forgave and forgot, accepted and recognised the Government that derived its legitimate authority from the 1921 Treaty, and prepared to battle for political power. During the years that preceded his 1932 victory he and his party were always ready and willing to barter, to sell their support and the votes they commanded for a share in the governing and administering of the new, up-and-coming Irish capitalist exploitation of the Irish people. And they were not loath to offer their allegiance to their “bitterest enemies” either, the so-called pro-Treatyites. Shortly before the 1927 elections, when the leader of the “pro-Treaty Government” in power then; Cosgrave, declared: “I am prepared to forgive and forget,” Sean Lemass, for “Dev’s ” party, replied:

“We are prepared to forgive . . .  If he wants a political truce with Fianna Fail he can have it tomorrow.” (The Republic, September 17th, 1927.) 

See how they trick you!

The wide gulf that separated the “friends of the Republic” from the “enemies of the Republic” wasn’t so very wide after all. In point of fact, it just didn’t exist. It was as imaginary .as “Dev’s” compact morroco-bound, Oxford dictionary, Republic or his own “100 per cent. Republicanism.” One side was as wide awake as the other on the desirability, and resulting advantages, of building-up a native capitalism. That is the plain fact. They merely differed as to the means to employ to achieve that end. In such conflicts the workers have nothing at stake. The interest of the worker is to dispense with his chains, not fight over who shall rivet them.

Today, Irish working men and women are in the same old boat. Yes, the old tramp, the coffin-ship of millions, capitalism; the only difference being that now, in Ireland, there’s a Republican master at the helm. But wage-slavery for the majority continues—now, in the Republic, as much as before it. De Valera or Costello—either name spells capitalism and exploitation of the mass of the Irish people!

Let me quote once more. From an old article on the Sinn Fein movement in the Socialist Standard:

“What part can the Irish workers, devoid of capital, take in the Industrial Revival except the toiling part? All those revivals are useless to the worker until he owns the product of his toil, then he will be able to enjoy to the full all the advantages to be obtained. So long as private property is the order of the day it matters little to the property less Irish worker (the vast mass of the Irish population) who rules Ireland.” (June, 1917.) 

It’s a far cry from 1948 to 1917 but the foregoing is every bit as applicable now as it was then.

And now “Dev.” and Costello, and the other “great Irish leaders,” are hitting the headlines with speeches railing against Partition in Ireland. Well, in conclusion, let me say that we Socialists in Ireland equally desire, and ceaselessly work for, the ending of Partition, also—but we never get any headlines in the Press. Oh, no; for the Partition we speak against is not a geographical one but an economic one. The Partition we oppose is that between the rich and poor, between the capitalist class and the working class. That is the Partition, a universal one, which Socialists everywhere seek to abolish, and that I suggest, is the only Partition which you, and all other workers, ought to concentrate on and bend all your efforts towards removing.

National boundaries may be altered—may even disappear—but such re-arrangements of things geographical can in no way abolish, or even lessen, the poverty of the many. The solution to that problem will not be found by struggling for Empires or Republics (whether of the 26- or 32-County variety), but by striving for the World Socialist Commonwealth.

So—Yours for Socialism,

CHRIS. WALSH.

(Dublin Socialist Group.)

The Tribune Group: Organized Hypocrisy (1975)

From the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Circus provides many political analogies. There are the clowns, of course; balancing and tightrope acts; tamed lions and dogs walking on hind legs; fire-eaters, who all give it up because it harms their mastication.

One other which should not be overlooked is the anti-circus freaks. Wherever a show appears, comes an earnest lady or two with a placard saying Stop the circus — it's cruel. Like the old men carrying religious texts on Derby Day, they are part of the attractions; and their political counterpart is the Tribune group. While Healey swings on a trapeze and Wilson cracks his whip, the Tribunites parade the ground crying woe and disapproval. And then go home to tea.

Tribune began in 1937. It was founded by a group including Bevan, Jennie Lee, Cripps and George Strauss, to advocate support for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War and to oppose rearmament. These original aims established the fatuousness which has been Tribune's hallmark. It demanded on one hand that the British government should stop making arms to fight dictators; on the other, it wanted Britain to give military help against dictatorship in Spain.

Its overt purpose has always been to sustain a “left wing” inside the Parliamentary Labour Party and protest against “betrayals” which, sadly for it, occur day by day in labour politics. In the postwar years the Tribune supporters were known generally as “Bevanites”. Bevan having died, after the Labour victory of 1964 the left-wing faction formed an organized group using Tribune as their platform. The principal figure of the group — until recently, at any rate -— has been Michael Foot; but his remaining a member of the crisis-bound Wilson government has reduced the left’s enthusiasm for him.

The conviction hanging round the Tribune group is that they are would-be revolutionaries, probably Marxists, bent on prosecuting the class struggle. The Observer, in an article on 13th July, remarked as evidence of Tribune's being “plebeian” that its appearance is inelegant and its offices are behind Smithfield meat market. That is mendacious nonsense which Tribune has fostered, like an intellectual wearing hobnail boots in the hope that they will lead to his being mistaken for a rat-catcher. In fact throughout its lifetime Tribune has been financed by well-to-do Labourites. Cripps and Strauss provided £20,000 to launch it in 1937; in the Bevan days it was supported by the millionaire Howard Samuel, and on one occasion was got out of trouble by Lord Beaverbrook.

Tribune has always attacked inequality, the profit motive and the horrors of capitalism. Its standpoint is not that of the class struggle, however, but of moral indignation. And like most moralists it is a hypocrite. Before the war it propagandized for the Soviet Union and — so as not to alienate Communist support for a “united front” — ignored the barbaric Russian purges. Today it excels at being frank when the appropriate time has passed, neglecting to mention at election-times what it will assert afterwards: that Labour is being led by untrustworthy and incompetent people — whom, nevertheless, it campaigned to get elected. Earlier this year Foot described a Labour minister, Reg Prentice, as an “economic illiterate”. His remark was capped by Sydney Bidwell, chairman of the Tribune group, who said Prentice was a “political illiterate” too. No doubt each thought of his phrase while looking in a mirror; but why did not Tribune make Prentice’s condition known at election-time last year?

The publicized aims of the Tribune group in 1975 (besides its anti-Common Market campaign) have been to oppose government policies of wage restraint, and to have Labour return to policies of nationalization and “soaking the rich”. During July newspaper headlines spoke of a threatened “big revolt” against the government’s Anti-Inflation Bill. On its introduction the revolt turned out to be no more than protest, with divisions among the Tribunites themselves. That could have been anticipated: the bright idea at the head of the government measures, the £6 limit on pay increases, was first proposed by the TGWU leader Jack Jones — who is one of the directors of Tribune.

Thus, the Tribune group’s impotence is now as widely commented on as, a short while back, was its clamorousness. The Guardian on 17th July had an article headed “Tribune’s opposition pales to a shadow”. The Observer article already quoted said: “Not so long ago, the group seemed to be capturing the whole party. Now, despite its successful campaigning in the trade unions, in the local constituencies, and on the National Executive, the group’s influence on Government policy appears to be nil.” What this amounts to is that the group was able to disport itself, “capture” and be “successful” as long as the contest was not too serious. When the mucking-about stopped the wretched little creature was found — as always — boo-hooing that its ball had been taken away.

The impossibility of the Tribunites’ position is in the fact that each is a Labour MP, and therefore committed to administering the capitalist system. The basic situations and problems created by capitalism are parts of its structure, and simply cannot be altered while it exists. The members of any governing party find themselves with no choice against the necessities of what they have taken on. The pre-war “disarmament” Tribune group supported the war which broke out two years later, and served in the wartime government under Churchill; just as Labour leaders in Britain and other countries urged the workers to war in 1914, after swearing in concert that they would not.

“Reluctance” is meaningless. A kick from a reluctant person hurts the same as a kick from a willing one. The Guardian article spoke of Tribunites’ giving Wilson “grudging and qualified support in the lobbies” — but whatever its frame of mind, a vote is a vote. But these are, in any case, marginal matters. The Tribune group has no idea of abolishing capitalism; it wants it managed in a different way from which, it hopes, results will be better. Its proposed alternatives to the government’s anti-inflation policy included a price freeze, import controls, cuts in arms spending, and “an extension of public ownership and accountability”.

In addition to this rag-bag of reforms the group called for a wealth tax to achieve a “fundamental and irreversible shift of wealth and power in favour of working people”. It is difficult to visualize a mind which can put such twaddle into lofty-sounding words. Does it mean the rich are to go on making riches so that they can be taken away? If so, how can they make riches without exploiting the workers who must therefore be kept poor? Or is it to be transferred from one address to another, so that we all have a turn at being rich and being taxed and then being poor again?

It is unlikely that any Tribunite would be able to explain or, if he could, that his explanation would resemble any other Tribunite’s. But Socialists can always shed light on these questions. First, the proposal to shift wealth towards working people accompanies a list of other measures which are all aimed to get capitalism in Britain out of its difficulties and keep Labour in power. It is, in other words, a carrot on a stick: help us over this hill, and then see what we’ll give you.

Second, whatever form the “shift” was intended to take, it would not envisage actually giving more wages. The whole of Labour history is against that. Every Labour government has made its special business to try to keep wages down. Let the working class have money? Not likely. The shifting would be a hypothetical arrangement known as a “social wage”, a notional benefit, etc. It would most likely take the form of subsidies and rebates, be accompanied by a heightening of the housing problem, and lead to the indignant discovery by a Tribune group ten years later that the workers were no better off.

As for a “fundamental shift of power in favour of working people’’, the Tribunites either do not comprehend or are happy to misrepresent the nature of political power. It means the control of the state, and while capitalism exists that can only be to conserve the class ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class can and one day will take control of the powers of government — to replace capitalist ownership with common ownership; but it can do that only when the majority have become conscious of the need for Socialism.

To speak of redistributing power as a social reform under capitalism is absurd. If the Tribunites desired that the working class should acquire Socialist consciousness and aim for control of the state machine, there are two steps their group could take. One is, of course, to say so and stop preaching reforms which patch up capitalism. The other is to remove themselves from the posture of leaders and make known that the working class is able to emancipate itself; which would involve also giving up the secrecy to which Tribune and its group are addicted.

Failing that, the Tribune group goes on doing harm. If its influence on the Parliamentary Labour Party is negligible, it exercises a more dire one on the voters. In particular, many are persuaded that a Socialist purpose is to be found in the Labour Party — that if instead of “betrayers” the opportunity is given to men of good will, they can produce a change in society. There are large numbers of people who express themselves as disillusioned with Socialism. They mean they have believed these buffoons, or a previous generation of them. With their rejection of the means for their emancipation, the Tribune group stands charged.

Robert Barltrop

Land and liberty (2007)

Book Review from the February 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Zapata of Mexico, by Peter E. Newell (Freedom Press, £9.50)

The Mexican Revolutionary War which began in 1910 saw political power transferred from a reactionary military dictatorship allied to foreign capital to the liberal constitutionalists of the rising national bourgeoisie. Zapata supported the overthrow of dictatorship but once this was achieved his Liberation Army of the South refused to disband until their primary objective had been fulfilled. That objective was the return of communal lands that had been appropriated by plantation owners during the period of dictatorship.

The new government refused to redistribute land and so fighting continued for the rest of the decade until Zapata's peasant forces, a people in arms, could no longer maintain a guerrilla war against the larger and better armed government forces.

Zapata resisted entering the politics of the national government, though he encouraged the tradition of direct democracy in the communities he fought for. At the height of Zapatista military success they conquered the country's capital. When Zapata was invited to sit in the presidential chair in the National Palace, he is quoted as saying 'It would be better to burn it, for I have seen that everybody who has sat in this chair has become an enemy of the people'.

Despite opportunity and popular support Zapata refused to install himself as national president. Though Zapata's political writings and speeches are restricted to the aims of the revolutionary peasant army it is thought that he was influenced by the ideas of Ricardo Flores Magón, a Mexican anarchist who was then publishing a newspaper from the USA. The Zapatista slogan of tierra y libertad - land and liberty - was taken from Magón.

However, the Casa del Obrero Mundial (House of World Workers), an anarcho-syndicalist industrial union founded originally by Magón, considered Zapatismo to be reactionary. They opposed the peasants politically and militarily until increasing industrial action led to the new liberal government proscribing the union. Many members subsequently switched sides. Zapata did use the examples of the new government’s repression of industrial workers as evidence of the counterrevolutionary nature of Mexico's new political leadership.

Zapata is not thought to have been religious, in fact he is said to have written 'ignorance and obscurantism have never produced anything other than flocks of slaves for tyranny', but he deplored the anticlerical violence of the new liberal government which aimed to reduce the power of the churches. The banner of his 'Death Legion' depicted 'Our Lady of Guadalupe', a Mexican apparition of the Virgin Mary, above a skull and crossed bones.

Since the revolutionary war, inspired by the popular image of Zapata's heroism and virtue as a leader, rhetoric from anarchists to governments promising reforms have invoked the name of Zapata. Zapata has even appeared on banknotes. Newell's respected biography does not dwell on personality traits, military aptitude or leadership skills but describes the material history that produced Zapata, the revolutionary war and its outcome.

This republication of Newell's book of 1979 begins with a new introduction which relates Zapata to the contemporary Zapatista movement, the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional. The book contains a list of sources, references, bibliography and internet links and an appendix which discusses the land question in greater detail.

Piers Hobson

Reformist Roundabout (1980)

From the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

The reformist roundabout never stops. Once you climb upon it the circular road ahead is endless. Bombs to be banned, “houses for all” to be built, “jobs for all” to be provided, pollution of the atmosphere to be legislated against, begging bowls for the starving millions to be handed around, battered wives to protect, police powers to be kept in check. The reformist’s work is never done, not for lack of energetic effort, but because the problems to be abolished bit by bit invariably multiply faster than reform measures. Like a nightmare in which the more you run the longer is the road ahead, the never-ceasing production of social distress caused by the present system leaves the reformist running faster and faster in order to stay in the same place. Read any copy of Socialist Worker or Newsline and you will be out of breath by the third page—Fight this, Smash that, Campaign against this, Demand that—the energy of the exercise is staggering. But add together the results of all this fighting and smashing and campaigning and demanding and the effect is rather less breathtaking: fifty policemen's hats knocked off, a number of jolly marches to Hyde Park and back and a few new recruits for the Labour Party. Is this really the way to change society?

In popular parlance, the reformer is the advocate of change, while the conservative stands for stability. In fact, most conservatives advocate some degree of change, as long as it does not alter the basis of the social system, and all reformists are conservative insofar as they only seek change within the structure of the present social system. Socialists do not oppose reformists because the latter want change, but because the change which we advocate is of a broader character.

Socialists oppose capitalism as a network of social relationships based upon the private ownership and control of the means of producing and distributing wealth. The system is one in which there are two classes: those who own the means of life, but have no need to work (the capitalist class) and those who, because they do not own the machinery of production, must sell themselves for a wage or salary in order to live (the working class). Capitalism is a system of exploitation whereby the profits accumulated by the capitalists are obtained by paying workers less than the value of the wealth they produce. This legalised robbery means that the wealth producers do not have access to what they produce, but must buy it from the exploiting class by spending their wages and salaries. As production under capitalism is for profit before need, if the capitalists cannot sell their commodities on the market people who need them must go without.

If people are homeless while houses stand empty, there is not in fact a housing shortage, but a shortage of money on the part of the workers needing accommodation; when millions starve, it is true that malnutrition could be eradicated tomorrow but for the need for food companies to make a profit; as the weapons of murder are set in readiness for the next war, this is not because people are inherently aggressive, but because under capitalism the protection of property is more important than life; whenever self-created tragedy afflicts the human race, the socialist is not to be found weeping in mournful despair, but ever more determined to convince the working class that the reason for the bloody mess is capitalism.

Such analysis is not to be found in the heads of the furniture re-arrangers of the capitalist system. Hopping from one problem to another, the reformist attends to the symptoms while leaving the cause intact. Cause and effect are terms of little meaning to the reformist. Not understanding what the system is all about, the reformist cannot understand just what sort of perverse game he is indulging in: pleading with the robber class to throw back to the robbed a few crumbs of wealth. Asking for a “fairer” slice of the cake, while leaving the bakery in the hands of those who do no baking is a game for mugs.

“Better something now than everything tomorrow”, says the defensive reformist. But can capitalism fulfil even the limited and second-rate “short-term” objectives that reformists have? The record of more than a century of reformism provides the answer. They were promising full or near-full employment in 1945, but we have not got it. Charities have been passing round collection boxes for a century, yet a main British charity, Oxfam, has recently had to admit that there are more starving people today than when they started. Decent homes for all workers has been on the agenda of every political party for a hundred years, yet in 1979 the Department of the Environment stated that there were 53,000 homeless families in Britain. (This is widely believed to be an underestimation.) Millions of decent people have chanted their wish to “Ban the Bomb”, but bombs are still very much with us. The so-called Welfare State, not a great provision at the best of times, is today being whittled away by cuts in state expenditure. True enough, children no longer go down the mines and the work- houses are less obvious institutions than they once were, but after a century of social reform, during a period when the capacity for producing wealth has increased considerably, is the present standard of life the best that we could have achieved?

The provision of legislative reforms is both limited and fragile. Furthermore, they serve an important political service for the capitalists who provide them. Reforms can secure social stability: when the rule of capital appears to be under threat the ruling class is “only too glad to buy a prolonged armistice at the price of ever-repeated concessions to the working people” (Engels). In short, reforms are often a means of buying off the working class. That is why, as working class consciousness grows, so the offer of reforms by the capitalist class will increase. When the working class, armed with the knowledge that all social wealth can belong to the community, are offered reforms they will tell the capitalists that half-loaves are not enough.

But what of the so-called revolutionary reformers, like the Socialist Workers’ Party, who claim that they only advocate reforms to demonstrate to the working class that capitalism cannot provide them? Like a muddle-headed driving instructor who teaches someone to drive by showing them how to crash into a brick wall and then says, “Now that I’ve shown you how not to do it, you will have no trouble knowing the correct way”. Demand the Right to Work, the SWP proclaims, in order to prove that there is no such right under capitalism. Then, according to the crackpot theorists, the unemployed will realise what is wrong with capitalism and start to organise for revolution. In fact, workers who support these daft tactical reform campaigns usually believe that they will get what they are demanding. The result is that capitalism is either reformed to their satisfaction (for the time being) and they become acquiescent wage slaves or else the reform campaign fails, they become disillusioned with politics and apathetic or, in some cases, turn to more sinister reform gangs like the National Front.

Socialists are not against reforms which improve the material existence of all or some workers. Indeed, socialists are neither for nor against particular reforms, but are uncompromisingly opposed to reformism. If, for instance, a reform could be passed making it easier for socialists to have access to the media we would be pleased; in that sense we would approve of the reform. What we would not do is join a campaign with non-socialists to ensure the legislation of such a reform, for by doing so we would be forced to support whichever capitalist party agreed to grant the reform to us. Reformism is a capitulation to the power of the capitalist class.

Those who want to re-arrange the furniture of capitalism tell us that it is utopian to seek change which is not slow and gradual. We reply that we are in a hurry; we are not content with the way in which capitalism has been reformed and there are no reforms which could be offered that will distract us from the clear road ahead; we have a world to win and those who will not join us stand in our way.

Steve Coleman