Sceptical about Socialism (1984)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

A reader—Mr. R. Alderson of Manchester, who describes himself as a "socialist sceptic"—has sent us a number of discussion points for our reply. 

Question: 

Is either Historical Materialism or Dialectics relevant to the socialist cause, or do they add unnecessary complications?

Reply: 

Historical materialism—the interpretation of human history by reference to the prevailing mode of wealth production—is essential to the socialist case because it provides the only valid understanding of history and of why and how capitalism must be replaced by socialism. The dialectical method, within this interpretation, is useful in its understanding of the motive forces in social evolution.

Question: 

Throughout the history of human society the relations of its members to the means of production, which Marxists take as the determining characteristic of various distinguishable stages or types of society, have always grown from imperceptible beginnings. Socialist relations of production—common ownership and control—by definition cannot grow, but have to be established ready made, world wide. You can't have “creeping common ownership". Isn’t this a disabling condition?

Reply: 

In previous social revolutions the conflict between social relationships and the mode of production has been expressed in the rise and growing power of a minority to challenge the ruling class, also a minority. Such revolutions have been the exchange of one set of oppressors for another. The socialist revolution will be basically different: it will be a change carried through in the interests of the working class, the majority. In that sense it cannot validly be compared with former revolutions. One function of capitalism has been to develop the means of production to the point at which socialism is materially possible; now it needs the working class to understand socialism and to opt for it. to take over society and run it in their interests.

Question: 

The general political consciousness has always lagged behind changes in production relations in social history. The latter grow independently until they conflict seriously with the old order. The conflict is more or less prolonged, more or less violent. When the new production relations gain the ascendancy, the general political consciousness becomes geared to the fait accompli. The socialist revolution would need to achieve the exact opposite: a growing socialist political consciousness preceding any material change in production relations. Is this possible? 

Reply: 

There has yet to be a social revolution based on majority political consciousness, in the interests of the majority. To that extent, this question is not valid but it must be said that capitalism has itself made possible the birth and the spread of socialist ideas, by refining the class structure down to only two opposing classes, by improving communication so as to emphasise the international nature of class interests, and so on. 

Question: 

Since virtually every means of influencing people—press, television, radio, film, theatre, literature etc.—is controlled by capital, how can the socialist cause assert itself?

Reply: 

Socialism could do with a lot more publicity. but if political consciousness depended on the capitalist media a socialist movement could never have been established, let alone survived. Nor would workers ever come out on strike, nor would they protest against the effects of capitalism. Ideas spring from material conditions. and reflect those conditions; people who want a socialist revolution are not to be impressed by propaganda in favour of keeping capitalism.

Question: 

It is said that the contradictions and crises of capitalism educate the working class in the need to replace capitalism with socialism. What evidence is there to sustain this claim? 

Reply: 

The most immediate piece of evidence is that all the protests about the effects of capitalism, as well as the more vital, radical socialist movement, arise from the contradictions of capitalism. Socialists oppose these protests as reformist but we recognise that they are aimed at capitalism's contradictions and crises. Socialists have taken the matter further, are alive to the futility of reformism and protest and have concluded that the contradictions can be removed only by the abolition of capitalism.

Question: 

There can be no socialist revolution without first having a majority of socialists. That’s the first principle of the SPGB. A socialist society would be a rational and planned affair: no place for irrational prejudices like racism, chauvinism, corrective institutions, greed for power and so on. The irrational and the myth have been part and parcel of the human character down the ages. It’s conceivable that in a socialist society they could no longer endure. But how do you eradicate them first in order to establish socialist society? Isn’t this a dilemma? Is the working class itself the fatal obstacle to socialism?

Reply: 

Socialists may become impatient with the lack of political consciousness among the working class which is indeed, at present, an obstacle to our propaganda. But the human race has not been so wedded to irrationality and myth that it has failed, at crucial points in its history, to take decisions which fitted in with its needs. This is not necessarily “rational" behaviour, only a response to the demands of material conditions. Socialist awareness is not a matter of people becoming more "rational", but of them understanding that the problems of capitalism can be solved only by a fundamental social change. Socialism will not be the ultimate, perfect, rational system; it will simply be one in which the contradictions of capitalism, including such as racism, chauvinism and the rest, will have been eradicated.

Question: 

The working class is overwhelmingly apathetic or even hostile to serious political philosophy. Its ignorance of capitalism and socialism is due to sheer lack of interest. Would there have to be an unprecedented breakdown of the social order before it questions capitalist society? If there were such a crisis isn’t it certain that: parliamentary democracy be suspended, revolutionary parties be outlawed, emergency rule be enforced? Another world war?

Reply: 

Socialists have come to their consciousness. and have built a movement—and Mr. Alderson himself has come to some political awareness—without a breakdown of the social order. Such a breakdown is more likely to result in a socialist party finding it very difficult, if not impossible. to survive, than in an upsurge in working class awareness of socialism. Capitalism will not collapse into socialism; however depressingly low the level of workers’ understanding there is no alternative to working to raise it to the point of revolutionary action.

Question: 

There is a heartbreaking need for socialism as the only solution to man’s problems. And all (!) that is missing is the subjective dimension—socialist consciousness. But then, this has always been the case. Socialism was needed 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago. x years ago. The idea of socialism or communism had always been around, it wasn’t discovered by Marx; it didn’t originate in the epoch of capitalism. True, only today can we create an abundance of social wealth. But had the subjective dimension been present in the past, a co-operative commonweal would have been built which would have obviated most of the ills that bedevilled subsequent history, and a world of free access would already be ours. There was never any such need for feudal or capitalist societies; they were simply able to evolve from small beginnings independently of any mass consciousness. Socialism can’t do this! It has always been the absence of the subjective dimension! Ease of communication notwithstanding, is it any nearer today than it was 1,000 years ago?

Reply: 

The important question is of course why the "subjective dimension” was absent. The people of feudal society, with their ideas fashioned by the material conditions of their time, could not have conceived of socialist society let alone operated it. Of course a very small minority held theories out of their time, so that ideas about human equality, about a society organised on the lines of human priorities and so on have been around for a long time. But they were little more than idealism, before the material and social developments needed for them to become reality had taken place. It is misleading to talk in terms of past social systems not being necessary; history moves along broad guidelines, there is a pattern to it within which there is room for accidental. even inexplicable, developments. What is important in understanding history, and using that knowledge, is that there is the force of expansion in the means of wealth production and that this must result in a drive to change social relationships. Those relationships exist within a pattern, or a system, which must change in line with changing material conditions. Socialism will come about through one such change.

Editors.

Sick service (1984)

Book Review from the March 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The NHS: A Picture of Health? by Steve Iliffe (Lawrence and Wishart 1983 p/b £3.95 224pp).

This book, written in a fluent, easily readable style, examines health politics from the industrial revolution to the present time.

The author, a general practitioner in North London, is already well known to readers interested in health politics as a regular contributor to medical and political magazines, as a member of the editorial committee of Medicine in Society and a pamphleteer for the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The first chapter deals briefly with the years leading up to the formation of the Health Service and describes how, in the 1830s, cholera, syndicalism and chartism "emerged from the slums and threatened to harm the established order" and that although repressive measures followed, the government realised that some reforms had to be made to reduce the threat to established power.

The political motives underlying the 1911 National Health Insurance Act are examined with its attempts to undermine the influence of the new Labour party; placate labour agitation; provide a fitter fighting force for the impending war with Germany; make the working population believe that the war was worth fighting on the promise of substantial social change. The 1948 National Health Service was "to be a 'jewel in Labour's crown", the greatest public institution in the new socialist Britain. Unfortunately, the reality did not conform to either fantasy” (p. 24).

The pay and conditions of Health Service workers in the next two decades are discussed in more detail. The author describes how manual workers in the National Health Service during the 1960s were among the lowest paid workers in the country and that the government, uninterested in providing adequate Health Service funds, exploited overseas workers who were recruited to fill the gaps. The low market value of manual and domestic work is seen as the major obstacle to better pay, outweighing the weakness of health workers' unions. The last decade is examined in greater detail — the cuts in the level of services provided; discontent among health service unions; higher rates of disease and death among working class people.

The closure of mental hospitals without adequate alternative provision causes mentally ill people to drift into the “homeless, workless population that sleeps in cardboard boxes and derelict buildings, rummages through litter bins and provides police, courts and prisons with an unpunishable stratum of hopeless recidivists” (p. 103). Steve Iliffe describes how administrators

. . . were able to use loopholes in the regulations to accelerate change. "Temporary" closures could be announced, without recourse to consultation through the CHCs (Community Health Councils) and quietly be made permanent, later on (pp. 122/3)

The author discusses the mixed economy of health and states: "Only the Communists and the far left advocate economic renewal aimed at a preserving and expanding public services". No evidence is given to back this statement and, indeed, socialists are aware that only a socialist, moneyless society can resolve the contradictions of capitalism.

There are two very interesting chapters on commerce and professionalism, and class, consumerism and resources. The author describes how market forces have developed a health service which treats rather than prevents disease because of the profits to be made. Professionalism is seen as the setting up of "trade secrets" and is based “on the idea of service and the practice of trade" (p. 46), placing control in the hands of professionals.

In looking at attitudes to smoking the author makes some interesting comments about Russia;

The USSR faces a chronic labour shortage and has many reasons to pursue a health provision policy, but these appear to be offset by other economic and social considerations

and

Only by denying that the USSR is socialist can we maintain the myth that socialism will solve our current problems, and then we have only hopes, dreams and the thoughts of assorted prophets, past and present (pp. 176/7).

Also there are odd statements such as: "British 'socialism’ is at its strongest when shaping the state, even when it shapes it in the interests of capital”. The book concludes:

The right has the market relationship as its basic form of social organisation. So far Labour has concentrated on a different relationship between state and citizen, that was designed to modify the market relationship In the future it may not be able to gain much advantage from this approach, and will have to think again about social organisation and the role of the state. The development of participatory democracy now, in experimental ways, could inspire that new thinking and shift the initiative in health politics further to the left than it has ever been before.

The NHS: A Picture of Health? is a stimulating book for the arguments put forward, and for the brief, but interesting history of health services in this country. However, there are considerable areas of disagreement and it is the political tactics, opportunism, reformism and compromise embodied in the final paragraph which socialists entirely repudiate.

Carl Pinel 

Editorial: It's up to you (1984)

Editorial from the February 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904 for "Socialism and nothing but", by over one hundred men and women who were hostile to reforms and leadership, and who took hold of the concept of no compromise. Learning from past experiences, these founding members deliberately set up a party that did not seek power to run capitalist society or to build up a blind mass following. The party had to ensure that its membership was socialist and socialist only. Our Declaration of Object and Principles (to be found at the back of this journal) was drawn up to prevent the party repeating the mistakes of earlier organisations, which had been drawn to compromise, political dealing and reformism.

Applicants to join the party were then, and today, only admitted if they had understood the socialist case. In no sense do we operate as a sect, but at the same time the test of admission to the Socialist Party must ensure that our members are socialists. To include other workers would prove fatal to our prospects of surviving as a party solely for socialism.

The Socialist Party has continually stood for the interests of the working class and has assessed the political chaos of capitalism in relation to these interests. When after the Russian Revolution people on the Left claimed the existence of socialism, we saw the growth of a wages system and state power, and concluded that it was merely the development of capitalism. We have opposed two world wars and numerous others, because no working class interests are included in quarrels between rival capitalist classes over markets, raw materials and trade routes. With the first majority Labour Government in 1945 we pointed out that nationalisation had nothing to do with socialism and that nationalised industries, whether governments like it or not, are forced to be run on capitalist lines — production of goods as commodities to be sold on a market with a view to profit. In short, we have refused always to take part in the chase for futile reforms of a system that can never be made to work in the interests of the majority.

The Socialist Party is growing but this growth needs to be maintained and increased. If you have pondered about making contact with the party in the past and then decided not to, think again. You will find that socialists will welcome you to the movement. We are just ordinary members of the working class. You will not just get a boost yourself from meeting socialists, but you will give the party a boost also. Every new member has as much say as any other member, and every new member is important.

When we talk of free access to what you need in socialism, without the compulsion of the wages system or the restrictions of money, we mean a society capable of keeping up with the material demands of the population. Today we have such a society. The only thing that stands in the way of socialism is a lack of demand for it by a majority of workers across the globe.

Stop wishing for better luck when filling in your football pools coupons. Life is chaotic for most of us, but cries of despair and complaints on their own will achieve nothing, except to reassure the capitalist class that their survival as a class is in no real danger. What is needed is a democratic revolution whereby the means of production and distribution are taken over by the whole human race, so that production can take place directly for people’s needs, as opposed to production for the profit of a minority.

Socialism is often thought of as a distant prospect — “something we hope the human race will be like in the future", a Labour Party person might say. The Socialist Party has seen this for eighty years. Imagine the socialist movement as a Saturn V rocket to the moon. Just after lift off it is still struggling to stay off the ground but as it climbs higher and higher nothing can stand in its way. As class consciousness spreads so nothing will stand in its way.

The achievement of that goal depends in no small way on you as workers to recognise your interests — and to work for them. Our task is not just to understand the world, but to change it. For as long as the world is divided into two classes and production geared to profit rather than human needs, then our task will always remain that of the achievement of socialism.

Briefing: Colour schemes (1984)

The Briefing Column from the January 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

A recent issue of the magazine Management in Industry contained an article entitled “Using Colour to Boost Your Factory Output” aimed at enterprising managers, who no more own the factory in which they work than do the workers they “manage” in the interests of the capitalist class. Don Mason, the Colour Advisory Manager at ICI Paints, tells the reader that:

Colour is a powerful psychological tool. It can make walls move, changing the apparent shape of a room, it can affect the length of time we spend in the bathroom and it work it can affect employees' moods and performance to a marked degree.

The profit-conscious manager goes on to learn that:

A recent example of colour at work influencing employees involves a company manufacturing optical equipment. A small workforce was engaged in skilled, highly detailed work requiring a great deal of concentration. The problem was that operatives complained of headaches and were generally unhappy.

The solution was not a decrease in the time spent on the "skilled, highly detailed work requiring a great deal of concentration". According to Mason:

The solution was to devise a colour scheme which took account of the fact that most of the work involved looking down at optical lenses. It was important that they should be seen against a background which made them as visible as possible.

As an added bonus for the no doubt overjoyed workforce. "The second stage was to put restful greens on the walls to provide relief for the eyes when they looked up from their work".

Apparently colour can also act as a psychological time machine. Dulux colour consultant Jack Widgery explains:

We can slow down or speed up the apparent passage of time by the use of colours. For instance, red is a dynamic colour which seems to make time pass more quickly, whereas cool colours — blues and bluey greens — tend to make people less conscious of the passage of time.

One major manufacturer’s production workers were spending too long in the toilets, where they would sit reading newspapers and smoking! Perhaps management had special cameras installed in the cistern to observe this unprofitable activity. The solution, Widgery explains, “was to introduce reds and pinks together in a scheme which seemed to speed people up and perhaps gave the illusion that they had been in there longer than they had”.

Living in a society based on the ownership of the means of living by the capitalist class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced, our time is never our own. Next time "your” workplace is given a fresh coat of paint there may be more behind it than your bare prison walls.

Bob.

Four fallacies about inflation (1989)

From the August 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Although Marx gave the valid explanation of inflation, very few writers on the subject agree with him or even know what he wrote about it. But they cannot agree among themselves how to explain it. Among the currently popular theories on offer are that it is caused by high government spending; by government borrowing; by low interest rates; or by high wages.

That Too High Government Spending Causes Inflation

Those who use this argument measure government expenditure against the size of the National Income. A former Treasury official, Leo Pliatzy, (The Times, 16 February 1982) was very worried that government expenditure had been as high as 45 per cent of National Income in the year 1982-3 and hoped to see it brought down to 41.5 per cent or less. Enoch Powell in his Freedom and Necessity, having said that “the expenditure of government itself is the prime factor in causing inflation", went on to indicate that the danger was “expenditure increasing beyond 40 per cent of national income".

Events do not support the theory. Government spending in all the years 1948-1967 was below 40 per cent of National Income so there should not have been inflation. In fact prices rose between 1948 and 1967 by 113 per cent, an average of 4.5 per cent each year. And government expenditure has been brought down from the 45.5 per cent in 1982 which worried Pliatzky. The 1987 Tory Election Programme claimed that the Thatcher government “are engaged in steadily reducing the share of the National Income taken by the state". Yet between January 1982 and December 1988 prices went up by 38 per cent and are still rising.

The theory itself is absurd. It assumes that prices are pushed up when the government spends more, because government expenditure increases total expenditure in the country as a whole. It does no such thing. If a government increases its expenditure by £1,000m a year it does so by taking £1,000m a year away from taxpayers and investors in the National Debt. Government expenditure goes up by £1,000m, but their expenditure on purchasing goods and services goes down by the same amount.

That Government Borrowing Causes Inflation

The economists and politicians who attribute inflation to government borrowing maintain that it does not matter how high government expenditure is provided that it is all raised without government borrowing. If a government raises all its revenue by taxation, with no borrowing, they say that the budget is balanced and there will be no inflation.

A budget which relies wholly or partly on borrowing is a deficit budget. A budget which raises more by taxation than total expenditure and uses the surplus to pay off the National Debt is a surplus budget.

In 1957 the Labour Party published some articles by Harold Wilson, who became Prime Minister in the Labour governments of 1964-70 and 1974-6, under the title Remedies for Inflation. In it he claimed that the proper policy "in inflationary times” is a “large Budget surplus". He also said that the Tory Party, being Keynesian like the Labour Party, accepted the same policy for inflation though Tory governments sometimes were prepared to sacrifice it in order to get popular support.

The Thatcher government is now doing what Harold Wilson, in 1957, said they ought to do—running a large budget surplus. In his budget speech on 15 March 1988 the Chancellor, Nigel Lawson, said that the government aimed not only at a balanced budget (which had occurred only once since 1950) but at a budget surplus. He put the surplus at £3,000m for the year 1987-88, and expected the same surplus in 1988-9. In his 1989 budget speech he revised the figure for 1988-9 upwards to £14,000m. A budget surplus is expected to continue for at least the next two or three years.

If the theory held by Harold Wilson and others is correct, inflation should have halted and been reversed before March 1988. In fact between that month and December 1988 prices rose a further 6 per cent and are still rising despite the greater than expected budget surplus An article in the Financial Times (11 January 1989) had this to say:

The Chancellor has done exactly what the doctrine told him to do. Indeed he has overfulfilled the plan, and has been repaying the National Debt. Yet here we have inflation moving up towards 7 per cent.

That Low Interest Rates Cause Inflation

This theory holds that inflation is caused by low interest rates and therefore can be halted by higher interest rates. In his budget speech in March 1988 Lawson

said:

Short-term interest rates remain the essential instrument of monetary policy . . . I will continue to set interest rates at the level necessary to ensure downward pressure on inflation.

This is still very much government policy. In March 1988 the bank minimum lending rate was 9 per cent. In the following months the Chancellor announced a series of increases so that by January 1989 it was 13 per cent. The mortgage interest paid by house mortgage-holders was correspondingly raised. Last June the bank minimum lending rate went up again, to 14 per cent.

The theory, as stated by the Chancellor and his supporters, is that when interest rates go up borrowers, including mortgage-holders, have to pay higher interest, which reduces the amount they can spend on other things and thus "damps down" the economy and holds back inflationary price rises. The theory fails to look at the other side of the transaction. The effect of higher interest rates being paid by borrowers is, of course, that they have less to spend on other things, but this is exactly balanced by the lenders' income being increased. The combined purchasing power of lenders and borrowers is exactly the same as it was before interest rates went up.

If low interest rates cause inflation prices between 1870 and 1914 would have been rising fast because the bank rate then was far lower than it is now. It averaged about 3.5 per cent and never reached 5 per cent. Now it is 14 per cent and in 1980 it was 17 per cent. Yet prices in 1914 were 10 per cent lower than in 1870.

There is a relationship between inflation and interest rates but it is almost the opposite of the theory held by Lawson. The relationship is that when prices are rising, interest rates rise and when prices fall interest rates fall.

If prices are rising at 10 per cent a year it means that the purchasing power of the £ is falling by about 9 per cent a year. If, against that background, a lender lends £100 for a year at 10 per cent he receives £110 at the end of the year. But the purchasing power of the £110 is equal only to the purchasing power that that £100 had at the beginning of the year. In effect the lender has lent £100 for a year for no interest at all.

So, when prices are rising, lenders stand out for a higher rate of interest and succeed to some extent in protecting themselves against the rise of prices and consequent fall in the purchasing power of money. When prices are falling, and what money will buy is increasing, it is the borrowers who stand out for lower rates of interest.

That Wage Increases Cause Inflation

As employers have an interest in holding wages down as much as possible it is not surprising that they support the theory that wage increases cause inflation, but the theory is also supported by economists and members of governments, Labour as well as Tory (it was Harold Wilson who said “one man's wage increase is another man’s price increase”). Many workers, especially those who have kept out of trade unions, support it.

It is easily shown to be fallacious. While the price level in 1914 was almost exactly the same as in 1850, average money wages rose by 90 per cent in that period. And in the years 1870 to 1914, while wages went up by 42 per cent, prices actually fell by 10 per cent. What was happening in those years was that fast growing membership and improved organisation enabled the unions to share in the small annual growth of output per worker and also to make inroads into profits.

The continuous inflation in the past 50 years has been caused by governments pushing excess currency into circulation, not by what has been happening to wages: it would have caused prices to multiply whatever course wages took.

Marx’s Explanation Vindicated

For Marx the key factor determining changes in the general level of prices is the amount of "money" (notes and coins) in circulation in relation to the amount needed in given conditions of production and trade. Writing about Britain in which the government, through the Bank of England, controls the issue of notes and coin, Marx showed that the government can adopt one or other of three policies: push more currency into circulation and raise the general price level—inflation: keep the amount of currency under control—a relatively stable price level as in the century before 1914: or reduce the amount of currency in circulation and so bring down prices—deflation. Marx set it out in Capital, Volume I, Chapter III, section 2. He based it on his law of value and used as his illustration the Gold Standard as it existed in Britain at that time.

In the past two centuries we have seen all these policies operated in the United Kingdom. Under the Gold Standard the amount of notes and coins in circulation was controlled, with the result that the price level in 1914 was almost exactly the same as in 1850. Between 1920 and 1925 the amount of notes and coins in circulation was reduced on the instruction of the Treasury to the Bank of England and prices fell by 29 per cent—deflation. Since 1938 the amount of notes and coin in circulation has been multiplied by 30 and is still rising, and the price level is now about 24 times what it was in 1938—inflation.

Several qualifying factors need to be taken into account.

Modern economists, both the Keynesians and the Monetarists, and the Treasury and the Bank of England use the term "money supply”, but they do not mean by it what Marx meant by money. For them “money supply" is predominantly bank deposits. They all reject the idea that notes and coins are a governing factor in determining the price level. A writer in the Financial Times (19 January 1989) referring to notes and coin in circulation wrote: “It is not the basis of anything. Nor does it cause anything to happen”.

A stable price level, as existed from 1850 to 1914, does not mean no price change at all. Prices rise moderately in booms and fall in depressions. Further, the "needed" amount of currency rises with growth of population and production and falls with monetary developments such as the growth of the banking system (to which Marx drew attention) and later on the use of credit cards, and the like. So Marx never subscribed to the theory that every change in the amount of currency produces an equal change in prices.

The only proof for any theory is that it does explain the course taken by the factors it sets out to explain. The Marx explanation of inflation, stable prices and deflation is the only one to pass the test.

Those who reject it, that is to say all the various schools of economic thought which deny the relationship between the price level and the amount of currency in circulation, cannot explain why prices were stable before 1914, why they have risen every year since 1938, and why prices fell between 1920 and 1925. Every Labour and Tory government since 1945 has proclaimed its intention to halt inflation and has put into operation policies supposed to achieve that end—and all of them without success.

The only policy none of them have tried is the policy of controlling the amount of currency in circulation. Confused by Keynes’ teaching that it is not necessary to control the amount of currency in circulation, modern governments and their advisers have forgotten something more or less clearly understood by governments in the 19th century and in 1920, before Keynes muddied the waters.

It would however be quite fallacious to assume that workers would necessarily be better off if inflation were to come to an end and prices fell. It might happen that way but it frequently does not. The only fall in prices this century was when the government in 1920 decided to reduce the amount of currency in circulation and so brought prices down by 29 per cent between 1920 and 1925. Wages fell by more than prices and the workers were worse off.

On the other hand, it is equally fallacious to assume that workers must be worse off when prices rise. During the past six years, with prices continually rising, average weekly wages have consistently risen by more than prices. When industry is trading profitably, as it has been in recent years, employers make concessions to union wage claims rather than have the flow of profits halted by strikes.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: Pollution (1989)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

The main drive of capitalism demands a commodity market where everything is for sale with a view to profit. This drive is the profit motive. It is generally accepted and idealised as the best possible motive for producing what society needs. It operates in all countries of the world and every country has a ruling and subject class. There are no exceptions.

The profit motive works — after a fashion and at a terrible cost to society.

While we produce commodities that we may or may not need, we produce in the process huge piles of garbage and toxic waste, a polluted world, an endangered earth and a threat to all forms of life.

For evidence of these serious charges read, “Planet of the Year" in Time Magazine, 2 January 1989.

Unfortunately, the authors see the problems but not the root cause. They offer no real solutions, only band-aids. By accepting the profit motive they misdirect us and show their class bias by expecting “ordinary people to adjust their life styles", while conveniently shielding the rich. They call for political leadership which always favours the few at the expense of the many.

The profit motive is a corruptive force. It cripples the spirit of co-operation while promoting competition which leads to either a cold or hot war.

It breeds false prophets who preach that monetary riches lead to security, success and happiness. It divides people and cultivates hate, favours the few and condemns the many. It is outdated, unnecessary, unhealthy and must be replaced.

The question is, “By what, how and by whom”? Modern technology harnessed by common sense can work for the common good of all people. This means replacing the profit motive and market economy, with a human motive and democratic economy, where the role of the individual will simply be, "From each according to ability, to each according to need".

We don't have to be saints or utopians but we must be politically informed, and to know our real interests. The popular concept of a democracy today is a farce, the propaganda of the ruling class and its supporters.

We must desire, demand and build a real democracy. A real democracy can only be achieved on a world-wide basis. It cannot exist on a national level. The people, as a whole, must own and control the means of life and democratically make the decisions. We do not need leaders. We need only ourselves, the working class, and together with the tools of technology and the desire of a sane society we can complete the job. If we meet this challenge we can easily solve the pollution problems of the mind and the environment.

Our reward will be a world without classes, just people living life to its fullest and getting along together. The only thing that can stop us is ourselves, and nothing can stop an idea that has come of age.

John F. Ahrens 

VANCOUVER, CANADA

Why ecology is important (1989)

Editorial from the April 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

In recent years the environment has become a major political issue. And rightly so, because a serious environmental crisis really does exist. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat have all been contaminated and polluted to a greater or lesser extent.

Natural materials are being transformed into substances (including waste) which nature cannot decompose, or such substances are being created at too fast a pace for nature’s decomposing processes to be able to keep up with them. The result is the current environmental crisis — or, more accurately, the ecological crisis, since what is involved is much more than unsightly skylines in cities or ugly factories in rural areas. Substances which are poisonous or cannot be decomposed are being released into nature — for instance lead and the pesticide DDT and also the other heavy metals and a host of chemicals. These substances eventually find their way back to us through the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. Ecology is not just about protecting nature — animal rights, saving the whale and other moral issues. It is about human beings too — the way we live and the quality of our life.

Nature and the environment are being damaged today because productive activity is oriented towards the accumulation of profits rather than towards the direct satisfaction of human needs. The economic mechanism of the profit system can function in no other way. Profits always take priority both over meeting needs and over protecting the environment.

This is why the Earth's easily-accessible resources have been plundered throughout the history of capitalism without a thought for the future, why chemical fertilisers and pesticides are used in agriculture, why power stations and factories release all sorts of dangerous and noxious substances into the air and water, why road transport has replaced rail transport, why human waste is not recycled back to the land, why animals are injected with hormones, why detergents have replaced soaps, why lead is put into petrol, why goods are made not to last . . .  the list of anti-ecological practices indulged in under capitalism because more profitable is endless.

Where we differ from the various Green parties and movements which share this ecological perspective is over what should be done. To find an effective solution, awareness and indignation about a problem must be accompanied by an understanding of its cause.

Explanations of the cause of the environmental crisis which circulate among Greens differ from ours. Some blame modern technology rather than the use — or, more accurately, the abuse — that is made of it under the present system. Others attribute pressure on resources and the environment to overpopulation. Others say that humans are too greedy and preach restraint on consumption for moral reasons. But respecting the laws of ecology does not mean abandoning modern technological knowledge and going back to the productive methods and personal consumption levels that existed before the coming of industrial capitalism. It means rather using materials and methods compatible with a balanced functioning of nature. With appropriate modification, modern industrial techniques of production are quite capable of providing enough good-quality food, clothing and shelter for every person on Earth and of doing this without damaging the environment.

The Green Party in Britain sees the solution to the environmental crisis as lying in the achievement of "a system of human activity which is in harmony with the Earth's life-sustaining systems", as they put it in their 1987 General Election manifesto. However, they see this as being achieved through the election of a Green Party government which would take measures gradually to transform the present growth-oriented and profit-motivated capitalist economy into a decentralised, democratically-run and ecologically-sustainable one. While awaiting the election of such a government the Green party concentrates, like environmentalists in the Labour and other parties, on advocating reform measures to try to protect nature and the environment.

We are up against a well-entrenched economic and social system based on class and property and governed by coercive economic laws. Reforms under capitalism, however well meaning or determined, can never solve the environmental crisis — the most they can do is to palliate some aspect of it on a precarious temporary basis. They can certainly never turn capitalism into a democratic, ecological society.

The conclusion is clear: if the present environmental crisis is to be solved and the threat to — indeed the actual degradation of — the environment removed, then capitalism must go. It must be replaced by a socialist society based on the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Give it the E (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Squeaky trolleys, muzak and the dreaded cash desk confront workers each week at the supermarket. Rows and rows of tinned foodstuffs, packaged and preserved for cheap transportation, compete for space with mountains of liberally sprayed fruit. Endless brands of washing powder with new formulas attempt to entice us with promises of "5p off your next buy".

This is all very familiar and has been the way of things for quite some years now. Supermarkets mean low-cost retailing (bulk buying and selling, fewer shop workers, efficient use of floor space) and fast- speed spending for the consumers. Capitalism devotes huge resources to telling us exactly what we should consume — and convincing people to buy things they might not really need is no simple task. We all know from experience that packaging often belies the nature of the product itself, but in the last couple of years companies have been employing a new selling technique.

Although food adulteration is hardly a recent feature of capitalism, millions of workers have become aware of the danger of additives. It has been shown that the "E" numbers on the back of most food packets can cause or exacerbate a whole host of health problems, including hyperactivity in children and breathing difficulties. One of the most infamous is the yellow colouring Tartrazine (E 102). which is used in a large variety of packet convenience foods, cakes, sweets and sauces. Reactions to it include bronchospasm, skin rashes, rhinitis and blurred vision (M. Hanssen. E For Additives, Thorsons Publishers. 1985) and it is particularly dangerous for those who are asthmatic or prone to allergies.

After a number of books were published and TV programmes warned of the dangers, consumers started consciously to check the ingredients of food packages before buying. Products with potentially dangerous additives like Tartrazine started to lose out, and so was born a new selling gimmick. Now emblazoned across lurid tins and bottles everywhere are the magic words “Free from additives" and “No artificial colourings or preservatives". Food purity is now big business. It's almost as if products without these catchy little phrases on the front are admitting that they might make your hair fall out or bring on a rare chest complaint. So every company that wants to keep its share of the market is forced to juggle around with its ingredients until it can plaster on the obligatory “No additives".

A "jumbo sized" soft drink I recently bought from the supermarket was a prime example of this. “Free from artificial flavours and sweeteners" and most importantly "Tartrazine free". All well and good. However, in the list of ingredients were two colourings — the sublimely entitled Sunset Yellow and the not so sublime Ponceau 4R. The former is in fact additive E 110 which carries the risk of allergic reaction, especially in people sensitive to aspirin, producing gastric upset, vomiting and skin rashes. Ponceau 4R, a red colouring, should be avoided by asthmatics and anyone with aspirin sensitivity. Tartrazine, scourge of the health conscious, has been widely replaced as a colouring agent by two additives which are likely to produce similar, if not worse, effects. Of course, if companies consider it in their interest to put “Free from Sunset Yellow’ on their labels in future, they are just as likely to replace it with something as bad.

Behind neatly stacked shelves and glitzy packaging lies the reality of poor quality goods notable for their chemical rather than nutritional content. The colourings, anti-oxidants and preservatives present in so much food and drink are there to facilitate and prolong shelf-life. In short, food manufacturers and retailers are more concerned with preserving their profits than our health.

Dave Perrin

Fashion or principles? (1989)

From the January 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party single-mindedly pursues the establishment of a society freed from the constraints, contradictions and degradations of the market, commodity production and the wages system. Because we are the only political party in this country advocating socialism, we reject any thought of compromise or alliance with other organisations. Neither have we time for opinion polls commissioned to ascertain the level of public support for leaders and their policies.

Socialists do not water down their principles in order to trawl in workers who support reform programmes or the anti-democratic doctrines of the Left. Neither do we want advertising agencies or public relations consultants telling us what ought to be in our election manifestos or Party statements. When our candidates stand at local or parliamentary elections they are not first sent to image advisers to polish their style. Instead, we insist on workers attaining class-consciousness through argument, persuasion and their own experience, to the point where they understand capitalism and the need to abolish it altogether.

If, as a result, we are considered unfashionable and detached from the politics of "revolution" as understood by the Left, then so be it. We stand or fall on our insistence that democratic means must be in line with democratic ends. The politics of reform and compromise have left a trail of bitter failure throughout the twentieth century, with numerous and now largely forgotten casualties buried unceremoniously along the way.

Democratic method and clear objective have shaped the socialist movement, singling it out from these who use the word “socialism" to wrap up their own particular anti-working class policies. In 1917 we did not abandon our adherence to democracy and parliamentary action when all around us Leninists were crying "All power to the Soviets"; and during the Second World War we viewed the conflict as one involving the sectional interests of the world capitalist class and did not fall, as other parties did, for the rhetoric of fighting for "freedom and democracy"

The same consistency applies today. We reject the current fashion, spearheaded by the Labour Party, of describing the working class as "working people or consumers". as if “class" were an outdated concept with little or no bearing on the economic and political reality of contemporary capitalism. Politicians and journalists don't like to use the word because it spoils their portrayal of Britain as a united nation in which all interests are one and the same. But to socialists, “class" accurately defines a person's relation to the means of wealth production and distribution, bringing out the divisive nature of capitalism and the irreconcilable differences between capital and labour.

Class and the class struggle are not ideological constructs but concrete reality; changing words does not change society. The Labour Party needs to use the term "working people" in their desperate search for votes - but that's their problem, not ours We only ever want votes from class conscious socialists, for the purpose of organising to capture political power and introduce socialism. This means that the question of fashion or principles is an important one, for it is ultimately about the retention of capitalism or its abolition.

Richard Lloyd

A Word to the Unemployed (1932)

From the November 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The economic forces at work under capitalism tend towards a growing army of unemployed, and the problem is permanent as long as the private ownership of the means of production continues. The' increasing use and complexity of machinery, and the economies in organisation, are factors that enable production to meet the needs of consumption by the work of ever fewer and fewer workers. There used to be a possibility of temporarily easing the situation by the opening up of new markets. Now that the whole world has been drawn into the net of Capitalist production the prospect of “new markets" in foreign countries is disappearing.

Each national group is speeding up and rationalising production to the utmost of its power, and in the process meeting its own basic demands and looking for a market for its surplus. Cutting across this is the operation of the gigantic international trusts which seek to rationalise production and distribution internationally.

In the past, European and American capitalists looked to the huge markets of India, Russia, Turkey and South America as El Dorado's in which to get rid of their surplus products. These areas are now well marked on the productive map and are rapidly becoming first-class productive units with their own unemployment shadows looming menacingly ahead.

In each of these backward areas the aid of European and American trained experts has been invoked, so that their industrial development is progressing faster than the advanced countries formerly did, as the latter had to do the pioneering.

The future prospect then is one of growing unemployment and growing insecurity for those who were accustomed to believe they held “permanent” jobs. Even the bank clerk, who formerly regarded himself as among the “aristocracy of labour" is being hard hit by the new developments in mechanisation. The number of girls in banks who now, with the aid of machinery, do the work formerly only entrusted to trained men, has increased to such an extent that it has become necessary for the Bank Officers' Guild to appoint a full-time official to organise them and attend to their welfare.

All the political wire-pulling and programme making cannot overcome this obstacle. The growing insecurity and misery of the workers is solely due to their slave position, to the fact that before they can eat or drink they must sell their working power to a master. It is true a few try to avoid the necessity either by robbing or by trying to live on the crumbs of charity. But both ways are unstable and a glaring illustration of the rottenness at the root of the present order of things. .

Until the workers grasp the elementary facts of their wage-slavery and the utter hopelessness of any solution but Socialism, the unemployment problem and their other ills will continue to increase in aggravation.

In spite of the attempts of blind leaders of the blind to exploit such situations as that arising out of the means test the fact remains that the mass of the workers do not understand their slave position and consequently small temporary ameliorations are sufficient to disperse the apparent revolutionary fervour and battalions of unemployed marchers and rioters fade away. An example of how far the unemployed are from grasping the real position is illustrated by a report in The Star (October 6th) of an incident that occurred at Ilford. The report runs as follows: —

   Eighty unemployed stopped roadmaking work in Eton Road, Ilford, to-day, because, they said the 20 workers were not local men.
   The unemployed first marched to the town hall and interviewed the borough surveyor. Then they went to Eton Road, where they called on the foreman to stop his men. This was done without any disturbance.
   The job was held up until an arrangement was reached with the contractor that local men should start work to-morrow.
    Ilford Council, in their contracts for work of this description, stipulate that 60 per cent, of the men engaged shall be local.

Here is a blatant illustration of the narrowness bred out of the fight for “immediate ends” beloved of the Communist and the generations of Labour misleaders. One of the elementary principles the worker must grasp, if he wishes to be free, is that local and national boundaries disappear in the great class war of worker and capitalist. The workers of the world have one interest as opposed to the interests of the capitalists and the workers must unite to abolish capitalism and not allow themselves to be split up into warring groups like dogs fighting for the bones thrown to them.

The means test, and various other disabilities that at times press heavily upon sections of the workers are products of capitalism, and the people who put these things into operation have been placed in possession of the power to do so by the overwhelming majority of the workers at elections. While the workers agree by their votes to maintain capitalism it is futile for them to complain about particular evils of the system.

There is only one way in which the employed and the unemployed can obtain lasting amelioration of their lot, and that way is revolutionary political action to bring Socialism to birth out of capitalism.

Gilmac.

A Fruitless Recipe (1935)

Book Review from the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

"How to Make a Revolution," by Raymond Postgate, (Hogarth Press), 5s.

It is difficult to recommend this volume to anyone seriously thinking of taking up revolution-making either as a hobby or as a full-time occupation. The author does not know how to make a revolution, and takes up the major portion of his book discussing methods which have failed.

Unlike the making of a Christmas pudding or a wireless set, the making of a revolution cannot be arranged beforehand, according to a recipe or blue-print. It can occur only as a result of certain conditions, and the author adds nothing to our knowledge and understanding of those conditions. On the contrary, he endeavours to belittle the value of those ideas of Marx which express a definite advance in knowledge and understanding. After a couple of pages of obscure verbiage, he concludes comfortably, “We have, then, to abandon the dialectic," and then goes on, “With slightly more hesitation we may reject also the whole system of Marxian economics" (p. 21). In other words, we are invited to revert to metaphysics once more (under the label of "psychology") and discard Marx for G. D. H. Cole.

Discussing the concentration of capital and the exploitation of the workers, he says: " These two facts are so obvious that Marxists economics are not required to prove them." (Italics mine.) This phrase illustrates Mr. Postgate's clumsiness of thought. Marx's economic theories are not intended to prove facts, but to explain them. Only understanding can enable us to deal with society as with nature in general. The importance of the theory of surplus-value to the workers lies in the fact that it alone explains how their exploitation takes place, and traces it to its source, i.e., the capitalist ownership of the means of production.

It is because the mass of the workers are still far from clear on these points that they continue to look to politicians for the supposed benefits of "prosperity" coupled with illusory “reforms." 

Mr. Postgate rakes up afresh the bogy of the “middle-class" vote, and attributes the compromising tactics of the Labour Party to the inevitable necessity of conciliating this vote. On page 48 he makes the ridiculous statement that, “Wherever a Socialist (?) Party has approached near to office in an advanced industrial country the same thing has happened—in Italy,. Germany, France, and Britain. In each country the Party has progressed a certain way with a genuinely Socialist or revolutionary programme, only to find that its further progress depended on a gradual abandonment of that programme." Anyone acquainted with the early history of the Labour Party knows that its principal Parliamentary leaders openly gained their “safe" seats on a Liberal programme, with Liberal support. The failure of the Labour Party from the Socialist view-point is due, not to their inability to “convert” Acton and Ealing (as Mr. Postgate contends), but to their failure to educate the workers in predominantly industrial areas, Sheffield, for example, in the rudiments of Socialism. The significance of such an area returning the full complement of supporters of the National Government is obviously lost upon Mr. Postgate. The fact is that there are no safe Labour seats. All of them, having been won by compromising tactics, are liable to be swept bade into the openly reactionary fold when a period of Labour Government has resulted in inevitable disillusion.

Failing to understand history in his own country it is, of course, too much to expect the author to grasp the meaning of events abroad. Hence, on page 50, he lets fall another fatuous remark: “The more realist Socialists of Italy and Germany will admit, to-day, that the Socialist Parties of those two countries had their opportunity to make a Socialist revolution; that they failed to take it and for that reason are extinct."

Were the representatives of these Parties ever sent to the seats of Government in order to establish Socialism? Nowhere does Mr Postgate face up to this vital question. He thoughtlessly accepts the totally unwarranted assumption that parties elected for the purpose of achieving certain very limited reforms, can use their power to accomplish a social revolution. The Continental parties in the Second International have paid the penalty for having at the outset succumbed to the fatal delusion that it is the business of Socialists to play the paltry game of vote-catching in order to be able to assist the master-class in the administration of the present system.

In his concluding chapter, the author suggests the formation of yet one more organisation to reform (or should it be to “ Bolshevise"?) the Labour Party. He considers that the next Labour Government should hold on to office till it has “made Socialism." He does not tell us what is going to happen when it fails to balance its Budget. He evinces an uncomfortable feeling that the Labour Party, like its brother Parties in Italy and Germany, is hardly likely to escape from the chain of its own history, and lugubriously asks his fellow Labourites how they would like to be beaten into a state of unconsciousness with a rubber baton.

It is amusing and instructive to reflect that this is the same Mr. Postgate who, a dozen years or so ago, was cheerfully editing the official organ of the Communist Party, encouraging the workers to adopt violent and unconstitutional methods.

For a person who rejects dialectics, Mr. Postgate has certainly done his best to illustrate in his own person the negation of negation. The part of his book dealing with Communist tactics is, as a consequence, the most entertaining. His summary of the slogans of the Daily Worker could hardly be improved upon: “Come out on strike! If you do, your leaders will instantly sell you out!”

Nevertheless, Mr. Postgate has merely exchanged one form of futility for another. He is by no means optimistic about the prospects of his proposed new organisation.

He “will not even permit himself to say with certainty that such an organisation will lead to a successful revolution.” Apparently, he and others put the idea before the Socialist League two years ago without success. So that the “reform" of the Labour Party appears almost as remote as Socialism. And what is this, after all, but a reappearance of the original idea of the I.L.P. in joining the Labour Party a generation back?

Experience answers Mr. Postgate. No group, however well-intentioned, can save a Party which adopts vote-catching as one of its methods; for the group must participate in the methods of the Party and, eventually, in its fate.

Eric Boden

Editorial: Insult to injury (1966)

Editorial from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Make no mistake about it. The Labour government is out to cut our standard of living. To be sure, they claim this is necessary so that standards can rise in the future. But we need take no notice of this. After all we’ve heard it so many times before from Labour and Tory alike. First it was Cripps, then Gaitskell, then Butler, then Thorneycroft, then Selwyn Lloyd and now Wilson. But the promised prosperous futures with steadily rising living standards have never appeared and, of course, they never will. You don’t have to be a Socialist to be sceptical on this point.

What the government is trying to do is to freeze wages and salaries at July 20 levels and allow prices to rise to offset “tax increases and import price rises”. If this works, our standard of living will have been cut and more of the wealth we produce will be available for profitable investment.

It’s bad enough to have this attack on our living standards and to be intimidated by the “reserve powers” of the Prices and Incomes Act. But we have also to take Minister of Labour Gunter telling us that this is what we deserve as we have been “dishonest and thriftless” and clever Dick Crossman and the New Statesman telling us that this is a step towards Socialism.

It is surprising that there are still people who think that trade unionists and workers generally have something to gain from backing Labour. Perhaps this is because of the skilful way the Labour leaders have exploited their followers’ fears of a return to the mass unemployment of the inter-war years. They have alleged that the Tories deliberately create unemployment and misery for workers while they swear, hand on heart, that they will never allow this to happen again. But it will, they claim, if workers don’t work harder; if employers don’t get “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay”; unless- “each hour worked is filled with sixty minutes’ worth of work well done”.

These Labour appeals for harder work have fallen on stoney ground. Absenteeism thrives and the seamen took a month or so off work just because the shipowners wouldn’t pay them more or improve their working conditions. This failure has produced revealing reactions in some of the Labour Leaders. Now Gunter calls us dishonest. Last year he was shouting about “far too much indiscipline in every part of the nation”. Presumably we can take it that Labour is out to discipline us. As Wilson is fond of saying, the job of a government is to govern. Precisely—and governing involves keeping us in our place as honest, thrifty, hard-working and docile workers.

The Labour Party has always had a brutal streak in it. Since the war Labour governments have shown themselves more ready than the Tories to use the power of the state to discipline us. Remember that it was they who used troops as blacklegs. Remember that it was they who tried the last wage freeze. And remember that it was their Attorney General who prosecuted strikers in 1951.

Labour Party members accepted these events last time. Most will probably accept the same things this time. And this is where the talk of Socialism comes in. At election times Socialism is a dirty word among Labour candidates. But when they have to put over their policies to the party faithful the leaders brush up the speeches of their youth and declaim about Socialism. Generally they take the Tory view of Socialism—that it is whatever the Labour Party does. But surely few, even of the hard-core Labour men, can be taken in by the specious arguments put over by the editor of the New Statesman on September 16. Under the headline “How Labour Blundered into Socialism”, he wrote of the openly anti-union Prices and Incomes Act: “Prices and incomes regulation . . . may be a foundling; but it has true socialist blood in its veins and. properly nurtured, is likely to grow into a powerful champion of social progress.”

If this is Socialism people are right to want none of it. But it is not Socialism or anything like it. Socialism means a democratic world community in which the means of social life are owned in common so that they can be used to satisfy human needs. What the New Statesman editor is talking about is not Socialism but state capitalism which, as the example of Russia shows, has nothing to offer us.

Will Jesse run? (1988)

From the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone who expected the 1988 American presidential election to be refreshing for the high level of its political debate will have found the primaries ominously disturbing. Such was the level of tedious cant from the candidates that it was almost a relief to turn to the bigoted ravings of Pat Robertson, whose manic religion at least offered something other than endless grins flashing through exhausted platitudes.

Another candidate who tried to be different was Jesse Jackson, who gathered an unexpected success based largely on a mould-breaking appeal to bring a single-minded resolve to tackling the problems of poverty, housing, health, racism and the rest. Jackson has a past which is dubious enough to cast strong doubts on the endurance of his pledges. His place as an aide of the late Martin Luther King was not based on his entirely selfless devotion to the work of racial integration. His claim to have cradled the dying civil rights leader through the last moments of his life were not echoed by other witnesses of the assassination. There is some question about whose blood it was and how it got on the shirt which Jackson wore when he apppeared in public after the killing.

Whatever the truth, it has not held Jackson back in his ambition to be the first black president of the United States. His success in the primaries was such as to have the pros in the Democratic Party fussing about the awful consequences of their convention foisting on them a candidate who. because of his colour, would be unlikely to be elected. Of course the pros were equally worried in 1960. about the prospects of electing a catholic to the White House, except that the Kennedy machine rolled on its ruthless way to show them how wrong they were.

It is votes that worry the pros - not the fact that Jackson makes a blatantly cynical appeal to the people whose despair and frustration at American capitalism in 1988 makes them vulnerable to any charismatic trickster. Nothing is easier in politics and nothing happens more often - than mouthing seductive promises that a candidate has the ability to cure social ailments which has eluded everyone and every administration in the past.

That is why, when a president takes the oath, we hear a speech full of assurances about a new age, a new departure from outmoded ways of tackling problems, a new zeal to build a better world. That kind of speech was made by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan . . . In each case it was followed by the inevitable disillusionment and an equally inevitable despair until a new candidate came along, to make the same promises, the same speech.

So if the possibly unelectable Jackson is nominated and then elected, the American people will be on course for an experience they have had many times before. After the hysteria of the inauguration the reality will set in - that capitalism takes no account of politicians' promises.

Ivan

The S.P.G.B. and the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917 (1935)

From the August 1935 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been asked the following question: —

What was the proposal of the S.P.G.B. to the Bolshevik Government as to what should be the mode of procedure after the Bolsheviks had achieved political power ?

The question is evidently based on a misunderstanding of the attitude taken up by the S.P.G.B. It is not, and never has been, our view that the Bolshevik Government might have succeeded in establishing Socialism in Russia, or might have succeeded in engineering world revolution, if only it had adopted some policy different from the one it did adopt. On the contrary, our case has been, right from the outset 18 years ago, that the backward industrial development of Russia, and the very small number of Socialists both in Russia and in the rest of Europe, made it impossible for either of these two events to happen. It was not, therefore, a question of our telling the Bolsheviks what to do with power when they had achieved it. What we did tell them was that their hold on power would not bring Socialism, however they used their power, and that they were deceiving themselves and the working class in claiming otherwise.

Interested readers are referred to the articles published in the August, 1918, “ S.S.,” “The Russian Revolution—Where it Fails," and to numerous other articles in the years 1918-1921.

Ed. Comm.

Editorial: No More War? (1934)

Editorial from the September 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Twenty years ago a war commenced of a nature more devastating than any that had occurred before. So great was the feeling of horror aroused by the carnage and the barbarities committed at the time that there was general assurance that “never again” would such a thing happen—and ever since the governments have been preparing for even worse wars. At present, in Europe and the East, nations are watching each other on the verge of flying at each other’s throats, moved by economic motives similar to those which set guns belching death and destruction in those old unhappy years.

Already nations are preparing the ground of justification by measures to stir up feelings of patriotism and the rankling spirit of wrongs that require righting, Armies, navies and air fleets are being overhauled and increased, and scientists are hard at work devising means of defence and means of destruction.

The hollow farce of the League of Nations still plays its expensive and idle part in the game. One of its principal supporters, Viscount Cecil, speaking at Windermere on August 11th, said that "No one could feel security for peace at present. Every day new disturbances arose, rumours of war got about, and countries were preparing for the worst.” (The Observer, August 12th, 1934.)

A week or two ago a huge Italian army was on the borders of Austria fully equipped to launch into war should affairs in Austria take a turn that militated against the economic interests of Italian capitalists. At the moment of writing, Russia and Japan are on the brink of conflict over the Chinese Eastern Railway. Incidentally, the diplomats of the different countries are hard at work arranging pacts for mutual aid in the event of a war breaking out.

One fact appears fairly clear, and that is that the art of the chemist will play a considerable part in another big war. According to Lord Hailsham, it would be impossible to provide adequate defence against gas attacks. The horrors of the last war may therefore appear as pleasant memories compared with the horrors of the next. The very fact that in face of this there are large groups quite ready to engage in war is a fearful illustration of the urge of profit-seeking in modern civilisation. The underlying causes of war are the efforts to further business, buying and selling, with the object of making profit and thereby enriching those who have invested capital in various enterprises, including the making of engines of war.

The way to prevent war is not by engaging in anti-war campaigns. These are quite useless, because they leave the causes of war untouched. The only preventative is to take away the urge to war; take away the profit motive. While private ownership of the means of existence remains, the making of profit is the object of the private owners. Abolish private ownership and substitute for it common ownership in the means of production and the profit motive disappears, taking with it the seeds of war, both internal and external.

Socialism is the only means to defeat the warmongers.