Darwin and socialism (1984)

From the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The viewpoint that discerns and identifies an historic linkage between Charles Darwin and Karl Marx in regard to their respective, earthshaking theories seems not to be obvious to scientists, generally, in our times. Most scientific people, to the extent that they do attempt analysis of our social system, are no more cognisant of the traditional Marxist critique than is the bulk of the population. When it comes to political science, their thinking is dominated by the ruling class approach to the extent of permitting their political views to influence, or colour, their research efforts. In any case, a century and a quarter after the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species it would not be easy to find scientists, other than an occasional Marxist, who do see a connection between scientific evolution and scientific socialism.

This was not always the case and in the decades immediately following the publication of Darwin’s monumental work in 1859. there was frequent and heated debate among scientists over the question. For example in 1877, Ernest Haeckel, the famed German embryologist, delivered an eloquent address in which he defended and propagated Darwinism which was, at that time, under violent attack. A few days afterwards Virchow, the noted pathologist, assailed the Darwinian theory of organic evolution raising a terrible cry of alarm: “Darwinism leads directly to socialism".

The German Darwinians, headed by Haeckel and Oscar Schmidt, immediately protested, insisting that Darwinism is in direct, open and absolute opposition to socialism. In the words of Schmidt, writing in the Ausland of 27 November 1877

If the Socialists were prudent they would do their utmost to kill, by silent neglect, the theory of descent, for that theory most emphatically proclaims that the socialist ideas are impracticable.

And Haeckel wrote (in Les preuves du transformisme, Paris, 1879. p. 110 et seq):

. . . there is no scientific doctrine which proclaims more openly than the theory of descent that the equality of individuals, toward which socialism tends, is an impossibility; that this chimerical equality is in absolute contradiction with the necessary and, in fact, universal inequality of individuals . . .

In the ever popular misconception of Marxist goals. Haeckel portrayed socialism as a demand for “equal rights, equal duties, equal possessions and equal enjoyments". And having erected this straw man (one need not elaborate on the vast difference between the concept of equality in work and rewards on the one hand and a society based on from each according to one’s ability to each according to one’s needs, the societal goal of socialism, on the other) the scientist demolished it with an outpouring of words calculated to demonstrate that Darwin’s theory of descent proved that there can be no scientific validity to the “socialist goal" of equality in work or reward. In fact it proved, he argued. that the tendency of society is not even toward democracy — let alone socialism — that it can only be evolving in the direction of aristocracy!

But that was all argued out a long time ago and little if anything seems now to be said about a relationship between Darwinism and human societies. The Darwin theory has long since graduated to the status of an accepted fact by all but a minority of die-hard fundamentalists whose effect on the machinery of capitalist society is minimal at most. The capitalist class has long since accepted Natural Selection. To them, perhaps, it also provides a logical explanation for their own status; they, the "fittest", have survived the no-holds-barred struggle.

In point of fact, Darwinism has nothing to do with democracy, aristocracy, socialism, or any other sort of social system. The theory of Natural Selection, no doubt, was somewhat applicable to primitive humans but once they got organised into civilised societies (slavery, serfdom, capitalism) their survival depended more on human-made factors than natural. True, there is a ferocious competition among members of the same class — for profits or for jobs — as well as relentless contention between the classes (workers against capitalists) in capitalist society. But that is a by-product of this social order and will become non-existent in a society based on common ownership and free access to all wealth.

But aside from this factor, scientists for the most part have gone overboard on Natural Selection. As Darwin also pointed out, human beings have always been social animals with the propensity for mutual aid. At the end of Chapter 11 of The Descent of Man he wrote:

The small strength and speed of man, his want of natural weapons, etc are more than counterbalanced, firstly, by his intellectual powers, through which he has formed for himself weapons, tools, etc, though still remaining in a barbarous state, and. secondly by his social qualities which lead him to give and receive aid from his fellow-men. No country in the world abounds in a greater degree with dangerous beasts than Southern Africa; no country presents more fearful physical hardships than the Arctic regions; yet one of the puniest races, that of the Bushmen, maintains itself in Southern Africa. as do the dwarfed Esquimaux in the Arctic regions . . . (p.333, Modern Library ed.)

So much for what Haeckel had to say — especially on that “pitiless" struggle for existence that supposedly has always taken place among the human race. Even among the most primitive it was not that pitiless — according to Darwin and Mutual Aid naturalists such as Peter Kropotkin. Populations among the more primitive have always been small — whereas in civilised societies, despite the most horrible hardships, death-dealing implements and pollutants unimagined by primitives, populations have continued to multiply. Mutual aid does play an important role, even under advanced capitalism.

But what of the socialists and their reaction to Darwinism? Beginning with Marx himself, there was tremendous enthusiasm. Darwin’s book was published in the same year as Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In the words of John Spargo of the old Socialist Party of America:

. . . Marx regarded it as a fortunate coincidence that his own book appeared in the same year as that of Darwin. He recognised at once the importance and merit of Darwin's work, and at once brought it to the attention of his fellow radicals at their meetings. Liebknecht has told us how for months the Marx circle spoke of nothing except the value of Darwin’s work. With great frankness Marx likened his own work in the sociological field to that of Darwin in the biological field, and he was always manifestly pleased when others made the comparison Once, in the late sixties, when it had become commonplace in Marxian circles. W. Harrison Riley, editor of the International Herald, made the now familiar comparison and Marx replied: "Nothing ever gives me greater pleasure than to have my name thus linked with Darwin’s. His wonderful work makes my own absolutely impregnable. Darwin may not know it, but he belongs to the Social Revolution”. (Karl Marx: His Life and Work, B. W Huebsche, NY. 1910. p 200)

It did not take long for Darwin to indicate that he was not anxious to be thought of as belonging to “the Social Revolution". Isaiah Berlin writes, in his Karl Marx, His Life and Environment:

(Marx) offered to dedicate his Capital to Darwin, for whom he had a greater intellectual admiration than for any other of his contemporaries. regarding him as having, by his theory of evolution and natural selection, done for the morphology of the natural sciences what he himself was striving to do for human history.

But Darwin was apparently not interested in being identified with a revolutionary socialist. He must have realised that his own book would give him more than enough troubles as it was, so:

(he) hastily declined the honour in a polite, cautiously phrased letter, saying that he was unhappily ignorant of economic science, but offered the author his good wishes in what he assumed to be their common end — the advancement of human knowledge. (A Galaxy Book, NY, Oxford University Press. 1959. p.232)

We should also have a brief look at what Engels had to say on the subject. In his Anti-Duhring, he devotes some eleven pages to a defence of Darwin against the attack by Herr Eugen Duhring, a German “reformer” of socialism:

The main reproach levelled against Darwin is that he transferred the Malthusian population theory from political economy to natural science, that he was held captive by the ideas of an animal breeder, that in his theory of the struggle for existence he pursued unscientific semi-poetry, and that the whole of Darwinism, after deducting what had been borrowed from Lamarck, is a piece of brutality against humanity. (Foreign Languages Publishing House. Moscow. 1954. p.97)

A little later Engels writes:

Now Darwin would not dream of saying that the origin of the idea of the struggle for existence is to be found in Malthus. He only says that his theory of the struggle for existence is the theory of Malthus applied to the animal and plant world as a whole. However great the blunder made by Darwin in accepting the Malthusian theory so naively and uncritically, nevertheless anyone can see at the first glance that no Malthusian spectacles arc required to perceive the struggle for existence in nature — the contradiction between the countless host of germs which nature so lavishly produces and the small number of those which ever reach maturity, a contradiction which in fact for the most part finds its solution in a struggle for existence — often of extreme cruelty . . . the struggle for existence can take place in nature, even without any Malthusian interpretation. For that matter, the organisms of nature also have their laws of population, which have been left practically uninvestigated, although their establishment would be of decisive importance for the theory of the evolution of species. But who was it that lent decisive impetus to work in this direction too? No other than Darwin, (page 99)

In retrospect one can understand the excitement of revolutionaries like Marx and Engels, in the latter half of the 19th Century, over a book such as Origin of the Species. The basic message of Darwinian evolution, they were certain, would sweep the world and with the spread of scientific information superstition would be forced into swift retreat. The superstition of religion had been, historically, a major pillar of capitalism. Origin of the Species knocked the very props from under it. And the general acceptance of biological evolution must, they thought, lead inexorably to an acceptance of social evolution and the principles of socialism.

To put it mildly, the pioneers of scientific socialism were over-optimistic. On the one hand, in these last two decades of the 20th Century, we have a battle still being waged between so-called Scientific Creationists and Evolutionists while religions such as Roman Catholicism and various Protestant denominations are able to teach Darwinian evolution in their Church-owned schools of higher learning with no apparent damage to the future stability of their adjoining temples of superstition. On the other hand, some nations of state capitalism such as Russia. China and North Korea, have demonstrated that they are able to carry on the basics of a capitalist economy with little more than a limited toleration of religion — or no apparent organised religion whatever.

So the general acceptance of Darwinism in modern biology, even in the “communist" and “socialist" worlds has added little to the basic political understanding of the workers.

Harmo.

Immigrant struggles (1984)

Book Review from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Immigrants and the Class Struggle: the Jewish Immigrant in Leeds, 1880-1914. Joseph Buckman. (Manchester University Press. £19.)

This excellent and readable book examines the economic and social life of the Jewish immigrant community in Leeds between 1880 and 1914. The community comprised refugees from Russia and other parts of Europe, who were to provide a cheap and pliable source of labour for the tailoring and slippermaking trade in Leeds and elsewhere. By the use of Yiddish sources and untapped statistical material such as factory reports, a vivid picture emerges of the social and economic relations in the Jewish community over this period.

The author argues that far from being one happy family, the Jewish immigrant community developed class antagonisms resulting from the capitalist mode of production. Buckman is highly critical of the commonly held view that the growth of the Leeds factory system in the tailoring industry led to progressive improvements for the workers. The alien tailoring trade was subordinate to the indigenous factory system, which was to undergo deskilling, division of labour and cheapening of products. Under such conditions and with for the most part a hostile host society, it was to take 35 years of struggle — until January 1912 — before they achieved a reduction in their working day to nine hours. In the tailoring trade socialists, anarchists and progressive trade unionists made some real gains in workers' organisation but the slipper trade over this period was a different story.

The forces driving wage labour against capital in a relentless competition for profits involved the intensification of working conditions in doomed pre-industrial type of manufacture. Despite valiant attempts to organise workers in the slipper trade in Leeds between 1896 and 1903, the wages had fallen by 50 per cent and a horrific 18 hour day was commonplace. Faced with the hopeless task of struggling against the machine, the Jewish workers replaced the host workers and eventually slippermaking in Leeds declined.

This book shows that capitalism is synonymous with suffering and misery. However, the class which does all the useful work in society has the power to organise for their own emancipation and put an end to sweat shops and the other misery of the wages system once and for all. 

W. McLellan

Party News (1984)

From the August 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Party’s presence at the rally to mark the 150th anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs was very productive: 170 July Socialist Standards were sold, 1,000 leaflets on the subject of the Tolpuddle martyrs were distributed, and dozens of back-issues of the Standard were given out.

New Party groups have been formed in Bournemouth and East Anglia and both are on course to do well in the effort to expand membership. It is hoped that there will be a new group in Beddau before too long and Doncaster group has been stepping up its activity recently. Any readers in these areas who would like to get involved are urged to get in touch with the addresses listed on the inside back page.

Some members of Manchester branch are working on plans to carry out a campaign of activity in Yorkshire, probably in September. Readers interested in being involved — or who have suggestions about places in Yorkshire where meetings could be organised — are urged to tell Manchester branch, either in writing or by telephone.

Any members or supporters of the Party who are going to college or university in September/ October and would like to be put in touch with local members are urged to approach the Propaganda Committee at Head Office. October, when university terms begin, is an ideal time for socialist activity and any members or supporters who are interested in fixing up a meeting will be given assistance by the Party.

It is probable that there are some regular readers of the Standard who have friends who would be willing to become subscribers. One way to boost the sales of the Socialist Standard is by persuading one or two others to subscribe. Other ways of boosting circulation would be to persuade your local library to subscribe, to arrange for your trade union branch to subscribe, or to give a subscription to a friend (or enemy for that matter) as a gift. Any information from readers about bookshops willing to sell the Standard would be most welcome.

Any readers wanting specific news about activity in their area are requested to approach their nearest branch or group or to write to Head Office.

Steve Coleman

SWP: recruiting sergeant for fascism (1984)

From the July 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1977 the fascist National Front received 119,000 votes in London. They were talking about becoming "the third major party" and silly little men in Nazi uniforms were dreaming of re-enacting the Third Reich while skinheads roamed the streets believing that racist violence was being legitimised through the ballot box. At the time the Socialist Party did the only thing politically conscious workers can do: exposed the dogmas of the NF as dangerous illusions which are part of the sick ideology of capitalism.

By the early 1980s the NF was a spent force. Its various leaders were busy stabbing each other in the backs; the neo-Nazis were squabbling among themselves as to who would play Hitler when the big day came, and Fuehrer-in-waiting Tyndall left to form his own tin-pot outfit. Most of the thugs who had provided the muscle behind the fascist re-emergence in the late 1970s either joined the British Movement (the party for those who fail the entrance exam into the NF) or fell back into political apathy. By 1983 the NF vote had dropped to a mere 17,000 in the whole of London—102,000 less than six years earlier. Martin Webster, the one-time tactical commander of the party, is in the process of taking the NF leadership to court because they have expelled him and he does not want to go. In short, at the beginning of 1984 the NF was falling to pieces.

Two years ago the Front sent Patrick Harrington, their student organiser, to recruit members within the North London Polytechnic, where he was supposedly studying philosophy. Clearly, he was not there for the scholarship, as he did not even take the trouble to sign up as a member of the library. His aim was to recruit members to the NF. As democrats, we can no more object to the spreading of overtly racist views than we can to the expression of other anti-socialist ideas. Needless to say, that is not the view of fascists.

The Socialist Workers' Party does not aim to recruit members by talking to them about socialism. Their theoretical whizz-kid, Alex Callinicos has referred to such activity as "abstract propagandism" and accused the Socialist Party of this alleged tactical error (see "Politics or Abstract Propagandism?" International Socialism, Winter 1981). According to the SWP, the movement for "socialism” (a term about which they are not clear) must be built up by winning workers to the cause on the basis of single issues. The SWP prides itself on its "tactics". So, when it was discovered that an NF recruiter was at work in the North London Poly, the self-appointed vanguard saw an ideal opportunity to do some recruiting for themselves.

Now, one point must be made clear: the fear of students—especially blacks—that Harrington was in the poly to compile hit-lists of those expressing views unacceptable to the fascists is quite probably justified. The NF in Islington, where the polytechnic is based, have a reputation for intimidating their enemies: arson attacks on anti-racists have taken place; socialists selling this journal in Chapel Street market have been intimidated; and not very long ago a woman working in The Other Bookshop in Islington was attacked by fascists and suffered a fractured skull. Without doubt, the NF does compile hit-lists and activists like Harrington are potentially dangerous. But the fact is, there is no evidence that Harrington recruited a single member into the NF during his two years at PNL or that any hit-lists were compiled.

The SWP were not prepared to be confused by the facts. They saw Harrington as an "issue" around which they could recruit members. So, a mass picket was organised to prevent Harrington from entering the polytechnic building and after a few days they organised an occcupation. This was precisely the publicity Harrington and his dwindling party were looking for. He was presented by the media as the persecuted underdog; the NF was able to raise the issue of “civil liberties” which it clearly does not believe in granting to others; and, worst of all, the concept of “socialist activity" was linked to the suppression of free speech. No wonder the press were eager to give publicity to the SWP's antics.

The National Front has been given a new lease of life as a result of the undemocratic. adventurist, anti-socialist tactics of the SWP and their foolish allies. When students are shown on the television waving placards stating "FASCISTS DON'T DESERVE AN EDUCATION" we have one answer: fascists, along with all other politically ignorant workers who support the continuation of capitalism, need to be educated. If the battle is fought in the arena of working-class ideas the fascists will be defeated utterly. By adopting the methods of fascism to fight fascism the SWP distort and damage the name of socialism.

Socialists will continue to present the case for a society without nations and without classes. We will not involve ourselves in the tactical manoeuvres of the infantile Left, who are opposed to the task of winning workers to socialism by open and democratic means.

Ironically, the National Front and the Trotskyist Left are united on many issues. Both want to nationalise the banks; both support import controls; both want to pull out of the EEC. both want American military bases off “British soil"; both believe in "smashing opponents". Both will get occasional boosts in their membership campaigns as a result of publicity from momentary campaigns, but they are destined to remain insignificant because they arc pro-capitalist political factions which do not suit the current needs of capitalism. Neither the pure state capitalism of the Left nor the corporatism of the fascists arc likely to ever be adopted by the capitalist class.

The end result of the SWP's tactical brilliance is that Harrington is still attending the polytechnic—students who tried to have him expelled feel defeated because they acted too soon, before there was evidence to remove him—and the local NF has received some useful publicity and. in all probability, an increase in membership. And the SWP lecture us about tactics!

Steve Coleman

Sun, sand, sea . . . and slavery (1984)

From the June 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The holiday season is here again and for a short while workers can escape from the realities of life into the illusion of freedom. Thus ends a process which began last Boxing Day before that other great commercial event, Christmas itself, was half over, when the television screens, backed up by the newspapers and magazines—not to mention the glossy brochures— began to sell holidays. For today holidays are big business and the form which they take reflects the society of which they are a part.

The modern holiday is divorced from everyday life, for people drop everything and go away. This reflects the way in which life in industrial society is departmentalised with work, pleasure and personal interests all in separate packages. It was not always so, for holidays in the medieval world were different. They were numerous, but they fitted into normal life and were not the complete stoppages that we know today. Work had to be done, animals had to be fed and everyday tasks performed. What is more, holidays fitted into the natural pattern of the year. Christmas lasted for twelve days, but came at a time of year when very little work could be done on the land. Lent was a time of fasting, but by that time supplies were anyway running low and the new season’s growth had not yet begun. Holidays were mainly religious, often pagan with christian overtones—ancient rituals to placate the gods or earth spirits to bring clement weather and good harvests. Only the gods and spirits had been updated as saints or demons. Thanks for a good harvest, successfully gathered, were both offered to the same deities and it was a pretty rowdy affair. As early as the ninth century the Saxon King Edgar attacked the drunkenness and debauchery and commanded that all should pray devoutly. This cry was repeated down the ages, so it could not have had much effect. Every Sunday after mass was a holiday largely given up to sports, which were often cruel.

The growth of towns and cities gave holidays a new form which has some resemblance to the modern Bank Holiday. But they also had a serious purpose, were often centred around sheep and horse fairs, wool and cloth fairs— the mediaeval version of a modern trade exhibition. The greatest and most famous of these was the cloth fair of St. Bartholomew, held every year in London’s Smithfield which brought clothiers from all over Britain. Funfairs began as a sideline to the main show but as time passed the funfair took over as the main attraction. Games of all kinds were played but the most popular of all entertainments was a public execution and if it were of a famous person, such as Charles 1 or the Earl of Strafford, it would command vast crowds.

With the development of capitalism and the industrial revolution the old holidays were gradually whittled away until today only two ancient holidays—Christmas Day and Good Friday—remain. Puritan attacks on all forms of enjoyment spearheaded this, but the grim poverty produced by the new factory system made the taking of time off financially impossible for vast numbers of workers. Even Christmas declined. A favourite scene on Christmas cards and in magazines is the stage coach with snow-covered inns and jolly landlords by blazing log fires. In fact, during the 18th and 19th centuries the celebration of Christmas

reached its lowest ebb and it took the efforts of people like Charles Kingsley, Dickens and Prince Albert to reverse the trend. Dickens’ sentimental novel A Christmas Carol, with its servile hero Bob Cratchit, was pro-Christmas propaganda, promoting the idea that if people loved each other on this one day they would carry on throughout the year. There is no need to comment on the success of that one, but it did have the effect of restoring Christmas. Most of the ancient customs and ceremonies now celebrated actually died out in the last century, only to be restored when the world of which they were a part had completely vanished.

While the working-class holidays declined the wealthy began what was to become the modern holiday. First they went to the Spas, to take waters which were supposed to have medicinal qualities, successors perhaps to the holy wells of earlier times. The spa’s virtues were usually exaggerated, but the wealthy flocked there to drink and bathe in the waters, mainly in an effort to offset the effects of over-eating and over-drinking. As a result the spas boomed into fashionable resorts: assembly rooms, coffee houses, libraries, concert halls and, of course, shops, grew up around the pump rooms and baths. Elegant and expensive houses with parks and gardens were laid out. Fashionable society congregated there, followed by others hoping to cash in on the scene. The next step was the development of a new kind of spa. the seaside, with sea water taking the place of the medicinal springs. It was thought that to drink and bathe in sea water was beneficial to health and the sea, which had been shunned as hostile and dangerous slowly became attractive. Revolting concoctions like sea water mixed with milk, or with port, were advocated. The claims were even more exaggerated than those for spa water, but they were believed.

Today people go abroad to the Mediterranean or the Bahamas in search of the sun although it was not on sun-drenched beaches that the practice of sea bathing began but here, at Scarborough and Brighton, where the wind can cut like a knife—and not only in summer, for there was bathing as late as November. The original aim was not pleasure but health. (Sunbathing was not then popular; begun by the Italian Fascists in the 1920s, it has become a mania as great as any which has gone before. To the Georgian sunburn was vulgar.) Small ports and fishing villages, whose main industry until then had been smuggling, began to spread and expand. All the facilities to be found at Bath and Cheltenham began to appear in the new seaside towns.

The early seaside resorts were refined and expensive, but first the steamboat and then the railways began to change all that, as working class holidays became possible and workers in the rather better jobs could use Sunday to go to the sea. The day tripper arrived on the scene, much to the disgust of the wealthier visitors who moved on to other places. The rapid expansion of the seaside towns brought the inevitable rackets. It was in the mid Victorian period that the great landlady joke began, a godsend to comics everywhere, which was largely justified as conditions in boarding houses were often bad. The rapid expansion of these towns also brought sanitation problems, with raw sewage spewing into the sea. The more refined resorts fought back against the tripper; Bournemouth banned Sunday trains and Sunday steamer trips, and Bridlington put restrictions on street musicians and band concerts on Sundays, even considering closing public houses on Sunday. The early resorts had been refined but lively, but now they divided into two types—brash and vulgar but lively, and refined but dreary—a label many resorts later found it difficult to lose. The heyday of the seaside resort was in the years leading up to the First World War. The horror that was to begin on that Bank Holiday Monday in 1914 marked the end of an era.

After the war the seaside resort revived but by then the old boarding house set pattern of meals at regular times, with holiday activities in between, gave way to a more restless approach. The car and motor coaches enabled people to travel more widely. A rash of bungalow growth spread for many miles along once unspoiled coast, while miles of the River Thames were faced by cheap shacks. Farming was in a bad way and farmers were happy to sell off poor quality land for development and to go in for catering for holiday makers. The Thirties saw the rise of the holiday camp in which accommodation, catering, swimming pools, entertainment and sports facilities were in one establishment, usually at an all-in price. These were usually away from the old resorts and in competition with them. It was fashionable to sneer at holiday campers, as it had been to sneer at day trippers before them and is with the package tourists of today. The inter-war years slump were the time of expansion of the cheap recreations of hiking, cycling and camping; the Youth Hostel Association came into being as a result.

Since the last war the holiday trade—or tourism to give it its modern title—has become international. Greater planning powers, as well as public pressure, has prevented a further spread of cheap development and has cleared away a lot of it, but in its place has come the caravan sites which, although they can be ugly, arc generally better sited and better controlled. The holiday trade has grown out of all recognition of its origins. Longer holidays and the five-day week have enabled many more people to travel. Every town has its Tourist Information Office providing books, guides, maps, calendars and souvenirs. The recession has affected the trade but tourism today is not just big business: in line with the development of capitalism it is a major industry.

Les Dale

Prejudices (1984)

Book Review from the May 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Thatcher Government by Peter Riddell (Oxford, 1983)

This book, an examination of the first Thatcher administration, discusses the nature, aspirations, performance and prospects of “Thatcherism". Riddell is partially sympathetic to the administration and claims that many of the decisions made on economic and industrial matters were inescapable. The Conservative government’s aim has been to change the direction of economic policy by shifting the frontiers between the public and the private sectors. It has also attempted to restore “law and order" and assert British capitalists' interests in the world, to a large extent continuing the programme begun under the Labour governments of Wilson and Callaghan. The question that Riddell raises is whether "the (probably necessary) shake-up of British industry could have been achieved with less suffering, perhaps through a modification of the basic strategy" (p.4).

Riddell sees Thatcher not purely as a defender of free enterprise or monetarism but as a moral crusader, the voice of the provincial and suburban "middle class", concerned with personal responsibility, the family and national pride. This means that there has been no radical change in the British economy and society, for Thatcher is firmly committed to capitalism, the profit motive and private enterprise. Riddell sees her approach as "a combination of provocative rhetoric and cautious practice" (p.29). She has been committed to an increase in expenditure on defence and law and order at the expense of industry and employment budgets and housing subsidies. Riddell is particularly sympathetic to the Thatcher administration's attack on trade unions. He panders to popular prejudice, claiming that the government came to power in response to a "collapse of authority" (p.38). by which he means the failure of government to keep the unions in check.

Margaret Thatcher has surrounded herself with supporters because she "likes to have her own prejudices reinforced" (p.55) but her approach is not novel in that "if there has been a Thatcher experiment, it was launched by Denis Healey” (p.59). Her major success is seen as the reduction of “inflation", but that has occurred alongside a massive increase in unemployment. According to Riddell:

with all the necessary qualifications, economists have estimated that between two-fifths and a half of the rise in unemployment can broadly be attributed to Government policy (p.91).

The steep rise in unemployment partly explains the lack of initiative taken by the unions, whose so-called realism in industrial relations is largely a response to the economic recession. This has been exacerbated by the Thatcher government and has led to much resignation and apathy among trade union members.

The continued talks about an overall reduction in public expenditure have been frustrated by the recession. Yet there have been attacks on housing, education and social security and Riddell argues that the NHS will be threatened next. The poorest members of the community have suffered most but the working class as a whole has been frustrated by the problems promoted as the greatest ills affecting society. The need to control trade unions or reduce the size of state run monopolies is not the issue, for this is to argue simply for a change in the organisation of capitalism. The belief that an efficiently run capitalism will be of real benefit to the working class is an illusion but one that Riddell accepts. He talks of the dangers arising out of the power exerted by the public sector unions and is also unhappy about the monopolies of the public utilities, although he feels that denationalisation should not include social security, health and education.

Riddell accepts the strictures imposed by capitalism and is not unwilling to put forward his own prejudices about the nature of contemporary society. He embraces the notion of an increased need for law and order when he argues that "a renewed drive against crime and increased expenditure on the police were necessary in 1979” (p.204). He supports immigration control when he argues that:

a redefinition of British citizenship was probably necessary in view of the changed position of the UK in relation to its previous colonies and the Commonwealth (p.203)

and he waves the flag at jingoism when he says

there is no dispute that the retaking of the Falkland Islands by the British forces was an outstanding achievement . . .  determination paid off, thanks to the single-mindedness of Mrs Thatcher (pp.218-9).

This book may be an accurate description of Britain during the period of the first Thatcher administration but it is weak in analysis. Riddell is correct when he argues that the real losers have been the trade unions and the least well-off. There has been the destruction of large parts of the manufacturing process and a reduction in the level of public services. He is also correct in arguing that the interests of the working class would not have been met by the Labour Party and that in many respects the Conservatives have continued a trend begun under Labour administrations. It would be a fallacy to pinpoint Margaret Thatcher as the cause of Britain’s woes. Thatcher may have been more ruthless in attacking the working class by insisting on the primary importance of profit, but that is the nature of the present system of society. It is equally true to say that had the working class been offered various crumbs of reforms their position would not have been radically altered. Riddell claims to provide an analysis of Thatcherism but what he really shows is the failure of yet another attempt to fool the working class into the misguided notion that capitalism can be controlled.

Philip Bentley

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.