The Passing Show: Class co-operation (1962)

The Passing Show column from the April 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class co-operation

In a society where ten per cent. of the people belong to the owning and ruling class, and where the other ninety per cent, belong to the propertyless and working class, it is obvious that there is a continuous conflict of interest between the two. The owning class live on the surplus value extracted from the workers: the workers have to wage a ceaseless struggle to maintain even a part of the value of their work for themselves. In such circumstances it is a truism to say that the more the owners can fool the workers into believing that there is no conflict of interests, the happier—and richer—the owners will be. Just as the slave-owners used to push the view that really the slaves and their masters were all working together for the good of society, so there is an endless barrage of propaganda from the ruling class in our form of society that employers and employed should all co-operate “for the good of the country." When one investigates what this “co-operation” means, it is what one would expect—the workers must never strike, must at all times devote all their energies to their employers' interests, and must, of course, never be so vulgar as to ask for a wage-increase, or for that matter even oppose a wage-cut. if the employers decide it would be "in the best interests of the country."


Dozen awkward chaps

Propaganda to this effect is, of course, as common in state-capitalist industry as in private capitalist concerns. And according to a recent article in The Times, this propaganda has been very successful at the Littleton Colliery, in the Cannock Chase coalfield. “It has been nine years since anything worth calling a strike happened at Littleton, which employs about 1.900 men." The employers, apparently, are very satisfied with conditions at Littleton:

. . .  the miner's understanding of life beyond Cannock has also been broadened by television and National Coal Board propaganda. Thirty years ago the rather more desk-hound managers on the Chase were very much "the other side" to colliers, and they themselves reflected the narrowest of points of view. Today Littleton's young manager. Mr. G. A. Schofield, calls his union president (Mr. Richard Owen) “Dick", and Mr. Owen says: “We have about a dozen awkward chaps among 1,900, but all the rest understand we have to make coal pay its way."

One should, of course, be chary of accepting the estimates of the supporters of capitalism of the extent to which the workers have been duped by the propaganda put out by employers, whether directly, or indirectly, on the mass media such as television. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly a shrewd stroke by the employers to win over trade union leaders to their way of thinking.


Good old days
In fact, supporters of capitalism not infrequently regret the days of the Labour Government of 1945-51, since when Labour was in power trade union leaders were heard preaching “co-operation” even more frequently than they are now. The economist Graham Hutton wrote to The Times (8/2/62) on this very theme:

I think of those whom Labour and Tory Governments marshalled between 15 and 10 years ago to organise the productivity drive: Arthur Deakin, Lincoln Evans, Jimmie Crawford, Tom Williamson, Ted Fletcher, Vincent Tewson — these from the unions and T.U.C.—and the leaders of our industry from the F.B.I. B.E.C.. etc. I recall the Ashorne Hill conference a decade ago to discuss between what we all then agreed was a misnomer, namely, “both sides of industry”, their representatives' unanimous conclusions from the 66 Anglo-American Productivity Teams’ visits to the U.S.A. between 1947 and 1952.

Ah, happy days, when the employers and trade union leaders were not only reaching unanimous conclusions about the way industry should work, but were even agreeing that it was wrong to speak of “two sides" to industry! Former Labour ministers can take comfort from the fact that their efforts when in power towards “co-operation" in industry are still remembered with affection by such supporters of capitalism as Graham Hutton.


Social gulf

Despite what trade union leaders say, however, the facts of capitalism as daily revealed at the coalface, the factory bench, and the shop counter, mean that the class struggle continues. Sir David Eccles, Minister of Education, in a speech on February 8th. admitted as much, and had to relegate the ideal of co-operation between the exploiters and exploited to the distant future:

He told the Conservative Women's National Advisory in London that these (fee-paying) parents should consider the long-term future of their children in a society which would either he united socially or still hampered by the “we” and the "they" complex that so bedevilled industrial relations.

While admitting the effect, however. Sir David went astray when he came to explaining the cause:

Sir David said that one of the chief instruments which created the social gulf in our society was the system of education. Nine-tenths of all children went to maintained schools and the remainder—the bosses' children—to the independent fee-paying schools.

This is an error into which Labourites fall even more often than Conservatives. The divided system of education in our society is not the cause of the “social gulf,” but one of its effects. The class division, the social gulf, is not caused by the fact that the “bosses' children” (in Sir David’s words) go to special schools: but by the fact that there are bosses. For if in any society there are bosses there must also be the bossed: the one group cannot exist without the other, any more than horse-riders can exist without horses. Sir David must resign himself to the existence of the social gulf so long as he supports the system which gives birth to it; for it will be with us until capitalism makes way for Socialism.

Alwyn Edgar

Redundant managers (1981)

From the June 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment has particularly hit workers in manufacturing, shipbuilding, textiles and construction, but another section of the working class whose jobs have generally been protected until now has also suffered. This is the “executives”, those workers who are employed as managers of one kind or another. The Professional and Executive Register (PER), a department of the Manpower Services Commission, had 30,000 unemployed executives on its books in March 1974 but the total stood at 117,000 at the end of 1980 and is certain to be even greater now.

Until recently companies which wanted to economise during a slack period would get rid of shopfloor and clerical workers readily enough but would continue to carry managerial staff on the grounds of “mutual loyalty". Nowadays, the slump is biting so hard that, just to stay in business, companies are compelled to have a clear-out right up to the highest level, even the boardroom, and the result is a flood of redundant executives.

Who are these executives, and can they really be classed as workers at all? The Executive Post, which is the PER’s job-finding magazine, is mailed to registered jobless executives each month and the advertised jobs are almost all for “managers”, “officers", “administrators” and the like, but this cannot hide the fact that these are merely fancy titles for what are, in the main, only higher paid workers. The truth is that they have to sell themselves on the labour market in order to live just as mechanics, shop assistants, bus drivers and bricklayers must. Incidentally, many of these executives are not all that highly paid: although the salaries advertised in the Post go as high as £30,000 they go right down to £3,000 and many shopfloor workers earn a good bit more than that.

All these redundancies have given birth to a whole new industry in the shape of a horde of private agencies which, for a fee, will provide a course designed to teach jobless executives how to look for a new employer and maybe even find them one. Some of the “quality” newspapers regularly feature ads from these agencies in the job columns:

We offer the UK’s first Redundancy Counselling Programme designed exclusively for senior people. A concentrated, intensive programme to help you to resume your successful career path. (Daily Telegraph, 28/4/81)

Help from such agencies can cost as much as £2,000 so many of the jobless rely on the free course provided by the state-run PER or cheap courses run by other organisations like the Institute of Industrial Managers.

And how this help is needed! Many of the jobless executives have spent all their working life with one company and simply haven't a clue about how to look for a job. After all, getting the sack had always been something that happened to somebody else. The sacked executives are actually in a worse situation than their shopfloor counterparts because they have further to fall. They will almost certainly have much higher financial commitments such as a huge mortgage and perhaps children at expensive private schools. With the job will have gone various perks like the company car, expense account or private medical cover. Also, their chances of finding a similar job are poorer. They can expect to spend six weeks job-hunting for each £1,000 of salary they want, so a job at £8,500 a year will, on average, take a year to land. And because there are so many in the same boat they can also expect to follow up 200 leads with only one in ten of these producing any response.

So despite the ego-massaging and corner-cutting techniques of the agencies the prospects of finding a job at all aren’t rosy because there are many more applicants than vacancies. According to the Sunday Times (14/12/80) all of this causes the redundant executives to suffer loss of confidence and become depressed and bad-tempered. All very well for the course organisers to tell them to “suffer no indignities” while job-hunting, but how do you keep your dignity after you have attended several interviews, written dozens of letters and been either turned down or ignored? In any case, indignity doesn’t end with landing a job: having to sell oneself to an employer is an indignity in itself.

The same article in the Sunday Times described how one redundant executive lost his £20,000 a year job. Having just planned the sacking of ten fellow executives and 750 other workers he found his own head was next on the block. How ironic that he had been employed as a “long range planning director": the anarchy of capitalist production means that it is nearly impossible to plan with any certainty what will happen next month never mind years ahead. How could he have forecast that the strength of the pound last year against the dollar would force his American employers to switch production back to the United States?

The popular notion that all redundant executives receive a “golden handshake” is untrue. For example, the chief executive of a big toy manufacturer which went bust last year earned £25,000 a year but left with only one month’s salary. The reason is that many executives are on a “service contract" which means they only get the outstanding amount of their salaries when they leave, just as sacked football managers do, and are not entitled to redundancy payment. This wangle is gradually being introduced onto the shopfloor. Marathon, the big oil-rig builder on Clydeside, employs its workers on thirteen week contracts which can be renewed at the end of the period but there are other companies whose workers are employed on contracts lasting as little as one week. That way you never qualify for redundancy payment. If the history of reform teaches us anything it is that a way can always be found round any reform which gives temporary benefit to the workers.

Doubtless, many of the redundant executives will find new, equally well paid jobs but many more will probably have to move down a notch or two on the salary scale. All of them, however, must be painfully aware that they are no longer a protected species where unemployment is concerned. Their position as members of the working class is being forcibly demonstrated to them along with the fact that, just like any other workers, their future job prospects will depend less on their “loyalty” to the company than on whether or not it is profitable to employ them.

Viv Vanni

May-Day in Bedlam (1939)

From the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Marching of Armies coincides with the May-Day March of the Workers. In every country in Europe, preparations for war are being feverishly concluded, so that everything seems set for yet another orgy of mass-murder.

And remember, it is a mere twenty years since the last “War to end all Wars”—barely time for a new generation to be born and ripen into manhood.

Twenty years of poverty, of slums, of unemployment, of struggling and starving, and now, with supreme contempt for the millions who were the sufferers, your rulers may want you to fight and die so that those who come after you may perhaps inherit another twenty years of that self-same existence.

It is not too late, even now, for the common people of this and other lands to halt in their mad stampede to the slaughter-house and ask themselves WHY?

Many people believe they have got the answer. “Liberty is at stake," they say; “that precious freedom for which our forefathers fought.” Others maintain that “Hitler and Mussolini must be stopped, else they will seek to dominate the world.” With such fine-sounding phrases do working class men and women delude themselves, blindly ignoring what happened in 1914-1918, when those very same slogans lured millions to a horrible death.

The workers of Britain and France are not alone in their fatal ignorance. In Germany and Italy masses of people are convinced that they will be fighting for “a place in the sun,” for “room to expand,” not knowing or understanding that their working class opposite in the "Glorious British Empire” is just as sun-starved and cramped in his slum-cage of poverty.

It's "Class" that Counts

That is the great tragedy of to-day: the workers have not yet learned their most important lesson, the lesson of CLASS.

They allow themselves to be lined up as Britons, Frenchmen, Germans or Italians, never as workers and capitalists. Yet a German, Herr Thyssen, has more in common with a British .Lord Nuffield than with the men he employs.

Bata, the Czech boot manufacturer, comes to England and is still a capitalist, merely exploiting British wage-slaves instead of Czechs.

So capitalism puts everyone in his place, not according to language or nationality, but according to the economic position. That is the fundamental fact for the workers to consider, and all other questions mean little in comparison.

Remembering this, you must understand why the Socialist will not support a capitalist war to prevent Hitler or Mussolini grabbing parts of Europe or of the British Empire. For that Empire has no more meaning for the worker here, or anywhere else, than has the gold in the Bank of England. He knows it is there and is told that it belongs to him. But he has never been able to make any use of it, for the simple reason that it does not belong to him at all: any more than the street he lives in. And the native population in those parts of the world have so far shown no signs of preference for any of the imperialist gangs. It is a different question for those who have been able to invest large sums of money in those places. Owners of oil wells, of diamond mines, of rubber plantations, those are the people who are seriously perturbed by the threat of German and Italian aggression, and rightly so. For they fear the loss of their property and income, and it is that fear which is responsible for the enormous outlay on armaments by the British capitalist class, a class that not so long ago pleaded poverty as a reason for reducing unemployment pay by ten per cent.

When the British Government pledges with open heart to protect the “independence” of poor little Greece or Rumania or Poland, many coloured inhabitants in parts of the British Empire may well be making rude noises. For they are feeling the iron heel of a despotism that is comparable with anything “made in Germany.” So we are I left with the fact that neither on economic nor moral grounds should British workers trouble to defend the Empire.

If Hitler attacks Britain!

Here we are confronted with another bogey. Should we then put up no resistance at all and “allow Hitler to march his hordes into Britain?” Here at least there are some liberties left, and surely to kneel before Hitler and his like would mean the instant suppression of all freedom, including the right to put forward Socialist propaganda. This latter point is considered by our opponents as clinching their argument, and they point triumphantly to Germany and Italy, where in very truth all kinds of opposition have been ruthlessly suppressed. Is this not to be resisted? we are asked.

We will agree without hesitation that Socialist propaganda is worth preserving. But is it going to be preserved by lining up under the banner of British Imperialism in a war that will kill millions?

The first point that arises is the obvious fact that when Socialists allow themselves to be recruited for such a war they do not only commit suicide physically but ideologically as well. For they renounce completely the fundamental axiom of Socialism, namely, the directly conflicting interests of workers and capitalists, a conflict that, so far from being abrogated during a war, stands out in sharper contrast than ever. For that war, although it will be fought mainly by the workers, will not be RUN by the workers; it will be run by the ruling class, and their method will be to crush ruthlessly any attempt to express any working class opposition, whether in the factory or politically. In other words, the workers will have to place themselves wholly under an iron control of militaristic capitalism, and who is going to argue that if and when such a war is ended workers can start again where they left off?

In France to-day, the tactics advocated here “for the defence of democracy" have led to the establishment of a virtual dictatorship, which has as its first reactionary step stolen from the French working class all and more than was gained previously by independent working class action. If the workers here are stupid enough to fall for the same lies, they will be rewarded with savage economic and political oppression.

And, above everything, try and remember something about the last Great War. Then the Kaiser "had to be stopped." Ten million human beings who took part in stopping him were killed. millions more were maimed and wounded. The Kaiser is still living, enjoying a comfortable old age in his castle at Doorn. In his stead rules an even worse despotism, produced in part by the bitterness left over by the last war. What will the end of the next war bring? No one can tell for certain, but one thing it will not and cannot bring: that is a real and permanent peace and freedom from oppression. Neither can it bring relief from poverty.

And those objects alone are worth fighting for. We do not preach passive acquiescence to Fascism any more than to any of the other evils for which capitalism is responsible. We preach the Struggle for Socialism. And that struggle is not for a Utopia of a dim and distant future. For in its development we can play a more and more effective part. As the Socialist movement extends its influence to an ever-widening circle of the working class, so will we be able to actively interfere with the machinations of the capitalists, whether they be of so-called “peace" or even those of war. Let there be signs to-day that more and more workers are becoming class-conscious enough to understand the real causes of capitalist wars and see how quickly our rulers would forget their international quarrels.

There are those who say that, by preaching Socialism to-day, we are playing right into the hands of Fascist reaction. We want to remind those people of what happened during the last war in one country—Russia.

The workers and peasants there were not Socialists. But they refused to fight and turned their attention to their real enemy at home. And what was the result ? Not only did they drive out a most reactionary regime, but their move helped to play a decisive part in the collapse of German imperialism, and thus hastened the end of the war. How much better could a strengthened Socialist Party in this country play its part in bringing home to workers everywhere die madness of fighting each other in the interests of the class that oppresses and exploits them.

We call upon you, Fellow Worker, to help us. Our message on this May-Day, in a world driven mad by capitalist greed and brutality, is the message of Marx and Engels:—

“ Working men of all lands. Unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains; you have a World to Win !"

Sid Rubin

May-Day and the War Clouds (1939)

Editorial from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

MAY-DAY, 1939, finds working class internationalism at its lowest ebb for many a year. How low can be seen from the success the rulers have had in the various countries in turning May-Day demonstrations from their former purpose. The celebration of Labour Day each year was formerly a spontaneous gesture by the workers' organisations that they repudiated the national hatreds fostered by reactionary interests for their own profit-seeking ends. By this sign the producers of the world's wealth gave, expression to their longing for peace and their growing desire to co-operate with their fellow workers in other lands. But the year 1939 finds May-Day half submerged in the growing tide of nationalism and war preparation. In Germany, May-Day has been filched by the Nazi Government and turned into a compulsory parade demonstrating the gigantic powers of the war-machine and the equally gigantic suppressive power of the Nazi State apparatus over the ideas and longings of the working class. And the dictator-states are not alone in their fever of nationalism. It is reported from France that the French trade unions, which have just had to sacrifice their forty-hour week and go over to sixty hours for armament work, have this year decided, in the same cause, to refrain from their customary stoppage of work to celebrate May-Day. At the same time, Parliamentary Government in France has reached a precarious stage under the system of emergency powers to facilitate the armament programme and war preparations.

In Great Britain the call for conscription has already succeeded.

Thus does the set-back of the working class movement on one side of a frontier exercise its evil influence on working class movements everywhere. In Great Britain, too, the year 1939 sees working class organisations being drawn deeper and deeper into the mire of nationalism and war preparation.

Of course there are many voices assuring the workers that their mistrust of this trend is mistaken. Telling them that defence of the Anglo-French Empires against the German-Italian encroachments is in the interest of democracy, and is therefore in accord with "true" internationalism and social progress: but those voices carry a false message. There is no practical effective internationalism except that which springs strong and self-reliant from the workers' community of interest, sweeping across national frontiers like a cleansing wind blowing away bestial hatreds and fears. The future of the human race demands the destruction of the national barriers which divide the peoples of the world. Not the defence of national independence but the destruction of capitalism must be the watchword of those who would build for the future of the human race and at the same time help to stem the flood of war in which capitalism threatens to engulf civilisation. The doctrine that each group of workers should rally round their own ruling class in defence of the “national interest” only plays into the hands of the war-makers in every country. Just as British and French workers gain hope and courage whenever they read of German and Italian workers who have resisted the mass propaganda of their rulers for war and nationalism, so also the internationally minded workers in Germany and Italy would be inspired to further brave efforts if they heard that their British and French comrades were refusing to ally themselves with Anglo-French imperialism: and correspondingly depressed to learn that many of those workers were falling into line behind their capitalist rulers.

For, make no mistake, Europe is not on tire verge of war for the sake of Nazism and Democracy, but for the sake of a re-division of the spoils of the last great capitalist war.

From a working-class point of view, the ideological differences between Chamberlain and Hitler are as nothing to the common cause they both espouse—the capitalist cause. When Hitler declares that German capitalism must export or perish, the representative of British imperialism, Mr. Robert Hudson, Secretary for Overseas Trade, answers in the same language of predatory capitalism: —

We are not going to give up any markets to anyone . . .  Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe.—(Speech in Warsaw, March 21st. News Chronicle, March 22nd, 1939.)

Let the British and German capitalists quarrel about their profit-seeking interests. Let British workers set an example to their fellows in all lands by proclaiming that the interest of the working class is in internationalism, not in wars for markets. Let working-class May-Day be an answer to all who would seek to turn the thoughts of the workers to nationalism and war.

Long live Proletarian May-Day!Long live International Socialism!

Parliamentary Activity (1939)

Party News from the May 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are now in a position to speak with greater confidence of our plans in connection with the Party’s campaign in the Parliamentary constituency of East Ham North. A number of Party members have responded in a gratifying manner to the recent call for canvassers. Dagenham branch’s response was immediate and consisted of an offer to accept complete responsibility for canvassing and literature distribution in one part of the constituency. This is good work—and sound from the organisational point of view. If all branches, particularly local ones, assumed responsibility for other parts of East Ham, and could undertake all the work involved in their part, then the work would run itself simply and would not involve those of us at Head Office who are concerned with coordinating activities, with unnecessary worry. Dagenham’s example is not an isolated one, though at the moment, it is the most healthy. We have received a response from the membership in most branches, which, shall we say, is encouraging, though not completely satisfactory nor sufficient for our needs. Quite obviously, many Party members imagine that we should come after them. This attitude is a mistaken one, though, of course, it is not meant to be unhelpful. We cannot hope to know the capabilities of members, even if we were personally acquainted with them all. Nor are we able to judge what the resources are of branches for giving assistance. We have, therefore, to depend chiefly on the response to written appeals in some form or other. If this fact were realised we are sure all our difficulties would rapidly be solved. That is not to say that we make no individual contacts, but they must of necessity be limited.

Certain aspects of the work done so far give us great encouragement. We have disturbed the rest of local parties and politicians who regard us as poachers on their preserves. We shall disturb them all the more in the forthcoming season of outdoor propaganda activity. We plan a campaign including canvassing, literature distribution, bill-posting, intense propaganda, loud-speaker publicity and, if we can manage to provoke our opponents to bite—debates.

Comrades, your co-operation and disciplined efforts will make those plans an enormous success. Remember, one of the topical issues of the day, war and peace, promotes a ready interest in the Party’s case. Our message stands alone. It is worth every ounce of energy that you can give it —it is worth some sacrifice. Give—willingly and generously. You will enjoy it.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE. 

Circuses as well as bread (1995)

Book Review from the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Le communisme n'a pas encore commencé by Claude Bitot, Spartacus, Paris 1995.

This book, whose title translates into English as "Communism hasn't yet started" presents an interesting analysis of the working class movement over the last 150 years. As it is unlikely to be translated into English we summarise in the next five paragraphs the book's arguments, before adding our own comments.

Communism (or socialism, as we would normally call it) was not really on the agenda in the 19th century, because conditions were then not yet ripe for its establishment. In fact, if a communist party had come to power in 1848 or if the Paris Commune of 1871 had lasted the outcome could only have been some form of state-run capitalism.

Marx and Engels eventually came to realise this and then placed their hopes not on an immediate seizure of power but on the gradual development of working-class consciousness and organisation leading to the conquest of political power by a party enjoying majority support. But this didn't work either, as the Social Democratic parties which did emerge were not really socialist parties, but the left-wing of the bourgeois democrats. They expressed the aspiration held by most workers for better conditions within capitalism. The trade unions were similarly an expression of the workers desire to reform rather than end capitalism. Both helped integrate the working class into capitalism ideologically.

The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was also a false hope. Russia on its own was clearly not ripe for socialism. Some Bolsheviks. including Lenin, realised this; which was why they relied on a socialist revolution occurring in the West, in Germany in particular, to save them. This was a miscalculation; which should have been obvious. Only a small minority of the workers in Western Europe were revolutionary. Most weren't, as was demonstrated by their actions. For instance, a majority didn’t even vote for left-wing parties. In fact most of the workers in Russia weren't socialist-minded either; they wanted peace, workers’s control, etc., which was understandable enough, but still amounted to wanting a better deal under capitalism rather than socialism. The end result was (as Lenin himself described it) state capitalism, and the eventual emergence of a new ruling class in the form of a state bourgeoisie.

The reason for the failure of these three different attempts was that capitalism had not yet reached the end of its historical cycle. It was still able to expand production and so offer reforms and increases in living standards. At the same time it was able to ensure that workers did not use their increased free time to develop their socialist education (as Marx had hoped). Capitalism supplied them with circuses as well as with bread.

Capitalism, says Bitot, has now reached the end of its historical cycle. It can no longer offer reforms and improvements; in fact there haven’t been any since the early 1970s. Nor are there likely to be any; on the contrary, conditions can be expected to get worse. This, says Bitot, will generate a socialist consciousness— this time, a majority socialist consciousness—which will put the Communist revolution back on the agenda. This time for real.

An obvious criticism springs to mind. In making both reformist and revolutionary consciousness a mere reflection of economic conditions (capitalism's ability or inability to expand production and offer improvements) Bitot is clearly being too determinist. But on another point— the implications of a majority socialist revolution—he boldly goes where no previous "left communist” has ever dared go before, by raising the prospect of a relatively peaceful overthrow of capitalist rule rather than the prolonged and bloody civil war they all still cling to.

If millions and millions of workers have become socialist, he writes, we can envisage what will happen;

"in reality, internally divided, on the point of breaking up, the existing power will be ready to capitulate, which will make it not too difficult to knock down. What will be the precise form of this overthrow? Obviously no one can know in advance. But what it is already possible to glimpse is that the capture of power will take place relatively without violence. No doubt the power will be tempted to install a dictatorship, but will it still have the strength, undermined as it will be from the inside? . . . A minority can be crushed in this way, but this can't hold back for long on immense majority determined to see things through; in the long term the power will be obliged to give up.” (pp. 241-2).
 
"Some Marxists continue to be inspired by these revolutions of the past and so urge extreme violence against the power, revolutionary civil war, as the only ways possible, while condemning in advance as 'opportunist', 'reformist', the more peaceful ways of capturing power which Marx himself envisaged for certain advanced countries of the time." (p. 242).
   
"If the revolution still has to pass through a fierce civil war (apart from being the equivalent of a third world war) this would only prove that conditions weren't ripe. The future revolution will take place with a minimum of violence since by becoming the movement of the immense majority it will have radically altered the relationship of forces to the detriment of the tiny exploiting minority, desperately seeking to maintain an exhausted and outdated economic system." (p. 243).

Adam Buick

Cooking the Books: Allocating Resources (2017)

The Cooking the Books column from the January 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since it was published in August financial journalists has been commenting on a paper put out by the US fund management firm Sanford Bernstein entitled 'The Silent Road to Serfdom: Why Passive Investing is Worse than Marxism'. If passive investing is worse than Marxism it must be really bad! But what is it? It’s when those investing money on the stock exchange, generally for others, invest it in a fund that passively tracks an index such as the FTSE 100, rather than actively picking stocks and shares themselves.

According to the paper, this impedes ‘the efficient allocation of capital’. Under capitalism investment (and so what gets produced) tends to flow towards those sectors of the economy with the highest rate of profit. The argument is that if those in charge of investing money-capital chose to invest only in companies included in an index without checking whether there are more profitable companies that are not included, then capital is not being invested in the most ‘efficient’ way.

The assumption here is that allocating productive resources according to what brings the highest monetary profit is the most efficient way to decide what should be produced, and when and where.

Socialists challenge this on the ground that, from the point of view of satisfying human needs, it misallocates resources. It leads to short-term projects being given priority over more useful longer-term ones. It leads to booms that inevitably end in an economic slump when production actually drops. It leads to financial bubbles. And, given the unequal distribution of income built-in to capitalism with profits being shared by a rich few and the income of the rest of us being restricted to our wage or salary, it leads to the wants and whims of the rich being given priority over the needs of the rest.

But where does Marxism come in to this? It wouldn’t if the apologists in America for unrestricted capitalism hadn’t spread the lie that anyone who advocates government intervention is a ‘socialist’, even a ‘Marxist’, whether they consider themselves one or not. Most in fact don’t. After all, capitalism could not exist without the help of the state.

According to the Irish Times (6 September), the paper argued: ‘Capitalist economies rely on the market to allocate capital, whereas Marxists attempt to “optimise the flows of capital” by central planning.’

Certainly some who have called themselves Marxists have advocated that the government should allocate ‘capital’ in a planned way, but this wasn’t the view of Marx himself. He did of course favour the planned allocation of resources to directly meet human needs, but of resources as such (materials, energy, etc) not in the form of money-capital.

He was quite explicit about this. In Volume Two of Capital he wrote:

‘If we conceive society as being not capitalistic but communistic, there will be no money-capital at all in the first place’ (chapter 16, sec" on III) and that ‘in the case of socialised production the money-capital is eliminated’ (chapter 18, sec" on II).

To the extent that Marx may have believed in ‘central planning’ it would have been of actual resources and not of the distorted reflections of them in capitalist society as money-capital.

Obituary: Harry Hayden (1992)

Obituary from the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Harry, who died in July at the age of 88, joined the Party in 1932 after an association with the No-War Fellowship. After serving his apprenticeship he spent his working life as a lighterman on the Thames. During the 1930s slump he was unemployed and the resulting hardship left an indelible impression on him, as it did on many other workers who suffered during that period. He was a conscientious objector in the war, but was ordered to continue in his job as a lighterman.

During the post-war period he served on a committee representing lightermen which issued a journal warning of the redundancies that would result from the Devlin Plan for the reorganisation of the docks during the 1960s. Several of his fellow lightermen of those days attended his funeral.

Harry had a vast knowledge of both the history and geography of the Thames and in his youth was an accomplished sculler. He was well read in history, literature and the works of Marx, and gave classes in Marxist economics for the Party. He assembled a splendid collection of the works of Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Kautsky and William Morris which he donated to the Party. He was well versed in classical music, opera and literature. He can aptly be described as an educated and cultured member of the working class.

Having lived through the 1930s slump he took the view, when the question of capitalist economic crises came up for discussion in the Party, that the tendency was for world slumps to worsen. He steadfastly stuck to this view throughout the post-war period always maintaining the longer postponed the worse it would be. His passing results in a further diminution of the number of Party members who joined in the 1930s. We extend our sincere condolences to his family.

T. L.

Confusions of the Left (1987)

Book Review from the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anthony Wright. Socialisms: Theories and Practices. Oxford University Press (Oxford. New York, 1986).

The title of this work is significant for the author argues that there must be a rejection of a single "correct" meaning of the term socialism for many interpretations are possible. Wright claims that those who deny the pluralistic perspective have embarked on a course which is "illegitimate, its basis flawed, its consequences damaging". However, far from clarifying the meaning of socialism, this book merely adds to the general confusion associated with the term.

It would appear, according to Wright's argument, that any claim to be "socialist" would be "legitimate". However, he argues that in Britain there is no political party with a "Marxist basis” (thus excluding discussion of the Socialist Party), and concentrates instead on the 1LP and the Fabians which he sees as the main school of "reformist socialism" in Britain.

Wright sees the Russian revolution as a turning point which led to Marxism becoming "Marxism-Leninism, with few prepared to quarrel about the hyphen”. Yet the term, Marxism-Leninism, simply adds to the general confusion since politically it has no meaning, or at least not for those with any understanding of the politics of either Marx or Lenin. Wright's insistence that Russia proved that there could be different interpretations of socialism depending on the social conditions, seems to assume that socialism can be anything at all. In fact, Russia, since the revolution, rather than establishing socialism, has seen the development of capitalism - state capitalism - with the state as owner rather than private individuals. Lenin himself referred to state capitalism in the context of Russia and Wright might have done well to have read Lenin more closely.

According to Wright "the world is full of socialisms" and the plethora of definitions he presents us with is certainly confusing. Because the author rejects the idea of a single “true" socialism, or socialist tradition, he can therefore include discussion of many strands of left-wing thought which call themselves socialist.

Wright has a tendency to slip into cliche at the expense of argument. So, for example, he claims that Lenin was "socialist of the deed and not of the book" and. having provided a thumb-nail sketch of Marx, writes him off as having left "a profoundly ambiguous legacy". Similarly the 1945 Labour government is described as a "vindication of the viability of a democratic socialist strategy" an observation that is merely stated, not argued for.

Wright argues that history has shown that the working class has abnegated its responsibility for establishing socialism and that this has now become the function of the "party”. And here we can see clearly Wright's affiliation to Leninism rather than Marxism. But new confusions soon occur. Wright does not think that racial, ethnic, religious and sexual conflicts have a class basis. As a result he says that the need is now to build a "socialist movement of persuasion and reform capable of making a wide appeal to people of different social classes". Thus in addition to the plethora of "socialisms", we now have a plethora of social classes. Of feminism he writes

It is a major achievement of feminism not merely to have identified the limited stereotype of socialism's traditional actor (male, manual, muscular) but to have identified the limited character of the wage-labour-capital relationship that underpinned it. Feminism has extended and enriched the definition of the socialist project, from "work" to "life", and has extended the range of possible socialist actors in the process, (p. 115)

But such an attitude expresses the limitations of the "socialisms" that Wright discusses, rather than the limitation of socialism as such. The Socialist Party has always had a concern not just with "work" but also with "life". And while we recognise that there are certain problems experienced by women in capitalism, those problems cannot be separated from the context of the class society in which they occur. Also, to focus on the particular problems of one section of the working class at the expense of the common problems experienced by all workers may result in divisive antagonisms between workers.

Wright dismisses Marxism with the self-contradictory statement that "every Marxist state is a dictatorship" and opts instead for what he calls "welfare capitalism" claiming that it can deliver what socialists have traditionally stood for, if the capitalist system is milked for what can be got out of it. But to adopt such a strategy would amount to accepting the crumbs of capitalism instead of seizing the banquet for socialism.

Socialisms: Theories and Practices ought to be retitled "Confusions of the Left: Claims and Counterclaims". There is a tendency for ever more absurd statements to be made such as: "there is a whole range of Marxisms". This is only true if we accept uncritically the claims of those who profess to be Marxists, or indeed socialists.

Wright concludes by observing that those who refuse to acknowledge "credible socialism" or socialism of a "realistic" kind, have not learned from "political and economic experience". Of course this begs the question of how we are to interpret that experience and what lessons are to be learnt from history. Socialism is more than moral outcry in an uncaring world, as Wright assumes. He argues that both socialism and capitalism are compatible with despotism but only capitalism has been capable of providing democracy and political freedom. This leads him to opt for a "third way between state socialism and welfare capitalism” a solution which is as unrealistic as Wright obviously feels socialism to be.

This book is yet another attempt to undermine socialism. It pretends to be offering "realism" but in fact is little more than an avowal of capitalism and an apologia for the Left.

Philip Bentley

Pollution and poison (1987)

Book Review from the January 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Poisoned Womb. 1986. John Elkington. (Pelican Books. 255pp. £3.95).

This book sets out to describe the dangers to health and, in particular, the health of future generations that drugs, radiation, pollution and pesticides pose as a result of the increasing use of toxic substances which damage reproductive capabilities or cause mutations.

The author, a prolific writer on environmental problems, has collected an impressive amount of evidence to illustrate the ecological disasters which have occurred because of the need to make a profit under capitalism.

Infertility, miscarriages and congenital diseases have always occurred and the interplay of factors causing them make it difficult to prove that individual substances are harmful. But as the author points out, in the USA in the late 1950s about 2 per cent of newborn babies had some physical, mental or learning defect compared with about 4 per cent today (p. 18) and research carried out at Florida State University showed that by the late 1980s some 20 per cent of American males could be functionally sterile, compared with only 0.5 per cent in 1938. when scientifically sound sperm counts began, (p.48)

The different methods used in the analyses of pollutants and contaminants and the problems and limitations of the tests employed are described in interesting, though sometimes technical, detail in chapter one.

Chemical poisoning is not a new problem however. The ancient Romans suffered from lead poisoning due to the extensive use of lead drinking vessels and Napoleon suffered a number of symptoms as a result of arsenical contamination of the wallpaper in his room at St. Helena.

Multinational firms have, in many instances, ignored safety regulations, falsified research records of dangerous substances and been socially irresponsible in the search for increased profits. At least 5,000 children were born with deformities of the limbs by 1961 because their mothers had taken the drug thalidomide during pregnancy. The drug had been distributed by Distillers under the trade name of Distival in spite of the fact that Dr. George Somers, Distillers' pharmacologist, found in 1959 that a liquid preparation of thalidomide was definitely toxic. He tried to get Distillers to publish his findings but the company chose to keep them secret, (p. 101)

In 1976 the James river in Virginia had to be closed because of contamination from the manufacture of the insecticide Kepone by Life Science Products. Workers at the plant were found to be working in an environment where Kepone dust was several centimetres deep, and a number of workers suffered from severe headaches and tremors and some were found to be sterile. An investigation showed that a pollution control system had not been implemented because it would have affected profitability

Ciga-Geigy deliberately sprayed unprotected children with the insecticide Galecron to see how much of the insecticide was excreted, (p.232)

It is claimed that the damage can cause to reproductive systems has led to discrimination against women in the workplace. In 1979 five women opted for sterilisation to keep their jobs with Cyanamid Corporation. USA. The resulting controversy, although acrimonious, was by no means new: at the beginning of this century women were banned from working in the heavy lead-using trades in Britain because of research carried out at Guy's Medical School. The fact that lead may have been equally toxic to the fertile male worker was not considered and it is consistent with capitalism's priorities that it is more profitable to exclude certain categories of workers than make industrial processes safer.

Under capitalism profits can be made from any misfortune:

The Xytex Corporation . . . is aiming to publish a thriving market in human sperm: it sends out frozen sperm by mail order to doctors carrying out artificial insemination, supplying catalogues listing donors with details of their ethnic origin, height, weight, hair and eye colour, skin colour and blood group, (p.64)

John Elkington has provided many examples of the way in which the drive for profits harms workers' health without drawing clear political conclusions and the book ends rather lamely by stating more people are concerned with environmental issues. Even when political statements are made:

Such problems cut right across political frontiers, as it forcefully illustrated by recent experiences in Siberia. The rapid development of the region's natural resources has resulted in soaring birth defects and worker-mortality rates, (p.20)

Elkington misses the point that problems in the state-capitalist countries are caused by their integration into the capitalist system. Although this book provides a lot of useful information it does not offer a solution to the present system. Readers looking for a socialist alternative to capitalism's nightmare will have to look elsewhere.

Carl Pinel

Editorial: A message for the New Year (1965)

Editorial from the January 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another new year has arrived, and with it the usual crop of wishes for health, wealth, and prosperity. It is customary for the politicians and press at this arbitrary point in time to review the last twelve months and talk about our prospects in the coming year.

Probably many of them, Tories in particular, will be glad to turn their backs on 1964, not without a shudder. For the Conservative Party, it was a time of internal ructions and fortunes at a low ebb. Under the rather uninspiring leadership of Douglas-Home, they were still trying to live down the effects of the Profumo and other scandals, and were sensing the swing of opinion against them as the general election drew near. For the Labour Party, it was of course a different story.

With the turn of the year, Wilson's hundred days will be more than three-quarters gone, and with them perhaps some of the working class enthusiasm which gave him his precarious victory last October. A settling-in period he called it, and in that time the Labour Government have been busy imposing just the sort of measures which they so heartily condemned when their predecessors used them. There is nothing surprising in this. Such is the stuff of capitalist politics that even the best-intentioned promises are broken just like so much piecrust.

If the sentiments of a new year’s wish could become a reality by wishing hard enough, life would be a lot simpler, but whatever we may wish, capitalism will determine what we get, and for most of us it will be a pretty second rate existence.

For we are the majority and we have no ownership in the means of production and distribution; we have to rely on our wage packets to get by. Because of this, 1965 basically will not be any different for us than the years which went before, although Labour politicians will try to tell us otherwise.

For the owning minority it is another story. Capitalism will determine what they get also, but it will be very much more worth having than the very best for which workers can hope. It will in fact be for them a life of ease and comfort, with the best food, clothing and shelter that money can buy. Despite the ups and downs of business, this will be the general picture of their life from one end of the year to the other. They are the capitalist class.

Capitalism is based upon the minority ownership of the means of life, where the paramount interest is the production of goods for sale and profit Such a system is anarchic, riddled with anomalies and contradictions, and relegates human interests to a point way down the list of priorities. Yet despite all this, it will not die of old age, but will stay in existence until the workers of the world decide to end it. It is against this background that the failures of governments fall into perspective. They just cannot deliver the goods as far as workers are concerned, because capitalism can only be administered in the interests of the capitalist class.

The only answer is to establish a world of common ownership, where production is carried on solely for the use and enjoyment of the whole of the world’s population. It will take mass working class knowledge and understanding to achieve, but that it can and will be done is our confident expectation, despite the apparent bleakness of the present outlook.

The Anti-Socialists at Tottenham. (1909)

Party News from the January 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tottenham—where the I.L.P. have long since ceased from troubling and the S.D.P.  are at rest—has been honoured. The Anti-Socialist Union decreed that our time had come. Tottenham was to be saved from us, and we of the S.P.G.B. were to be finally and definitely put to rout. Well, we heard of the coming conflict, and trembling—with joy awaited the day of battle. Did we prepare to meet them by attacking their meetings, singing and shouting "Red Flags." etc., and generally behaving as hooligans to prevent them getting a hearing? No, such inwardly tactics would have implied a lack of confidence in our own propaganda, and is at all times an insult to the intelligence of the people. Knowing the work we have accomplished in Tottenham, and that no real argument can he brought against Socialism as propagated by the Socialist Party, we at all our meetings advertised the ruining of the Anti-Socialists, and advised our hearers to attend their meetings, listen courteously to what was to he said against Socialism, and judge for themselves. At long last they came—they saw and were conquered! Down upon Tottenham swooped the legions of the Anti Socialist League. Three or four specially prepared gramophonic orators, each guaranteed to we able to emit “Daily Expressions” about Socialism for at least ten minutes headed each attack.

Two such attacks on Sunday evenings fizzled out immediately our ordinary meeting commenced; then a Saturday evening appearance was tried, but again they packed up their traps and stole silently away, leaving large and enthusiastic audiences listening to our speaker. Despite reports to the contrary in the Daily Express, there was no organised opposition, no fighting, there was no I.L.P., either, to applaud or assist them at those meetings—only laughter and jeers at the ignorance of the Anti-Socialists. With their armoury of absurdities they courted disaster and were defeated—and disgraced. Complaining that they had been denied a hearing, they were offered a platform with a guarantee of a peaceful hearing, but refused. They funked the debate they challenged us to. They referred us to their head office, who refuse to take up the challenge, and now, exeunt the Anti-Socialist Union. It is to be placed on record that a "Tottenham Labour League” has been brought into existence by a few local politicians seeking notoriety, “to fight the Socialists of Great Britain/' and taking up the cry of the unemployed in the interests of the master class, have successfully wrecked what little organisation the unemployed had. In this they were assisted by men who still claim membership in the I.L.P. and S.D.P. The President of this precious “Labour" League is Councillor A. E. Harvey, I.L.P. Its Vice-Presidents include several well-known local Liberals. Their actions are being watched by the local branch of the S.P.G.B., and should that league live much longer it may be the subject of a future note.

Alex Anderson

Editorial: Our New Year Message. (1920)

Editorial from the January 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the commencement of another year it may be expected that we should send out to our fellow workers the Customary New Year message. It is, however, one of the penalties of advancing years in the life of a journal that it becomes increasingly difficult to find anything fresh to say upon the recurrence of such a monotonous event as the birth of another year, or to put pen to paper upon such an unsuspicious occasion without dropping into platitudes. But to-day “ye gods” are kind—ye gods for the moment being those very honourable and proper personages, the Prime Ministers of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

These gentlemen have issued a New Year’s Message to “Our Fellow Citizens of the British Empire," and as luck would have it, their opening sentence fills the aching void for this year, at all events—provides a sort of text for a New Year sermon.

Says their bigbugships: “The war, in shaking the very foundations of ordered civilisation, has driven all thoughtful men to examine the bases of national and international life.” Well, let us assist in that examination.

Ye gods, as might be expected, find that the “hope of a 'brotherhood of humanity’ reposes on the deeper spiritual fact of the 'Eternal Fatherhood of God,’” and declare that “In the recognition of the fact of that Fatherhood and of the Divine purpose of the world, which are central to the message of Christianity, we shall discover the ultimate foundation for the reconstruction of an ordered and harmonious life for all men.” That is their message—now for ours.

If anything has become clear “both through the arbitrament of war and through the tests of rebuilding a life of peace” (as the Premiers say), it is that all the goodwill and spirit of brotherhood in the world go down before the force of economic interests. It must necessarily be so. Take the case of two men struggling for one job. Does the spirit of brotherhood dictate that one should stand aside for the other? Then what of the men’s children? No, the divergent interests of the two men dictate that they fight it out to the very last gasp. To fail to do so is death, and not very heroic death either.

The “real foundation for the ordered development of the world’s life,” therefore, is the unification of their material interests. Not while one class lives on the toil of another class can there be harmony; not while the wealth produced is the subject of a struggle between those who produce it and those who do not can there be peace. The only way is to make the interest of all the same. How can it be done?

The reason of the conflict of interests in the society of to-day is that the people are on two different economic planes. One section own the means of life, the other section own only the means of operating those means of life—their labour-power. It is dear, then, that those who do not own the means of living must either wrest those means of living from the owners or sell their labour-power to those owners for the means of subsistence. This means of subsistence is part of the product of their labour.

There must, then, always be, in the first place, a struggle over the division of this product of the workers’ toil—this struggle is the wages struggle. And in the second place there must be a struggle for freedom on the part of the enslaved workers.

The ground is clear enough now. Harmony can only be established by destroying the private ownership of the means of living. This is the Socialist remedy.

The "ultimate foundation for the reconstruction of an ordered and harmonious life for all men" we declare, in contradiction to ye gods the Six Premiers, lies in making the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth the property of the community, and using them to produce wealth for the use of the community, instead of for sale. 

That is our New Year message. To that consummation, which will open a way to a harmonious life for all men and women by harmonising the economic interests of all men and women, we urge all members of our class to devote their attention in the new year that has come upon us. So shall we find emancipation and happiness in years to come.

About Books (1953)

Book Reviews from the January 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Spartacus was the leader of the third, and greatest, slave revolt against Rome (about 73 B.C.). A Thracian by birth and a gladiator, he rallied an army of slaves and, over a period of years, by adroit generalship, he defeated army after army of Roman soldiers sent against him, until the revolt was finally suppressed with great cruelty.

It was almost inevitable that a writer like Mr. Howard Fast, who selects the subjects for his novels from the struggles of exploited peoples against their oppressors, should eventually write a book about this revolt. His latest book, “Spartacus,” published by The Bodley Head (13/6) may not be such a gripping story as some of his earlier writings, but it is splendid reading and is to be recommended.

This story is not a chronological history of the slave rebellion. It is more in the nature of a symposium, the story being told through the mouths of a variety of characters each of whom views the revolt from a different angle. Licinius Crassus, the Roman general who led the army that eventually defeated the slaves; Lentulus Gracchus, a shrewd, successful Roman politician; Lentulus Batiatus, who kept the school for gladiators at Capua from which Spartacus escaped; Marcus Tullius Cicero, who later became the famous Roman philosopher, writer, politician, orator and consul; David, a fictitious Jewish rebel slave who in the book was closely associated with Spartacus from beginning to end of the revolt; these are some of the characters who tell the story and discuss the problems of chattel slave society.

A number of these problems have their parallel in present day capitalism, as, no doubt, Mr. Fast intends us to realise. Instance, unless the slaves could destroy the chattel slave system there was nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do but to struggle until they were either killed or driven back into slavery. So it is with wage workers. Unless they abolish capitalism, struggle how they may, they will remain an exploited class.

The author gives a clear analysis of the Roman republic. It was a world in which the majority had nothing whilst a few had almost everything. Those who owned so much, needed protection from the slaves who produced it for them. The Roman soldiers, in the main, were peasants who had been driven from their land in order that slave plantations could be developed. The slave plantation had turned them into landless paupers. They had no more to defend than the rebel slaves whom they were sent to fight against. Those who owned nothing, who possessed no slaves, had to march their feet off, live in filth and squalor, wallow in blood and die fighting the slaves, in order that the slave owners could live in comfort and luxury. Had the Roman soldier but realised it, he had more to gain from a slave victory than from a slave defeat.

The job of the Roman politician was to be an illusionist, to convince the landless Romans that they had power, that they were the strength and glory of Rome, that they were free and that their freedom was precious, that they controlled their civilisation by their vote, to make them feel proud and superior because they were not slaves. Then, no matter how they stank, how hungry they were or where they slept, they felt proud and ready to defend the society that kept them in that condition against those who were their companions in misery—the slaves.

The horrors of crucifixion and gladiatorial combat, the depraved morality of the Roman leisure class, the comradeship within the many-tongued slave army and the hopes and fears of the slave leaders are splendidly dealt with in this book. It is well worth reading.

In an introductory note the author tells that, with the help of friends, he had to publish this book himself in America. Owing to the political temper of the times no commercial publisher would undertake the publication and distribution of such a book in the U.S.A.

Penguin Books are publishing a new series on the development of English society. It is to comprise eight “Pelican” books with the following titles:

1. Roman Britain.
2. The Beginnings of English Society (From the Anglo-Saxon Invasion).
3. English Society in the Early Middle Ages.
4. England in the Late Middle Ages.
5. Tudor England.
6. England in the Seventeenth Century.
7. England in the Eighteenth Century.
8. England in the Nineteenth Century.

All except the first of this series have been published. Each book is by a separate author and each author is a specialist in the period about which he, or she, writes.

The authors have had a free hand with their work, with the consequence that each has put his own emphasis on different aspects of social development, but, in general, the series is good.

Certain chapters in these books are complete essays in themselves and very useful essays, too. Instance the chapter “John Wesley and the Road to Salvation,” in “England in the Eighteenth Century,” by J. H. Plumb.

The influence of Wesley’s early life and his parents is dealt with. When, after 1738, he started to preach his Methodism and to build the organisation of Methodist chapels he was helped by the fact that the newly developed industry in this country was creating a number of new towns which had no churches. The tie-up between the Anglican church organisation and the state was such that the Anglican church ignored the new towns and so Wesley had a clear field. He had a violent dislike for radicalism and preached that the people should have no share in government. For him, the way to reform the evils of society was to transform the will of the individual. He preached thrift, abstinence, hard work and concentration. It was the Puritanism of the previous century shorn of its political radicalism. To an embryo capitalist class, striving by thrift and frugality to accumulate greater capital this teaching had a great appeal.

Wesley was intensely superstitious. He believed in witches and the possession by devils. His teaching called for no exercise of the intellect and appealed to his uneducated working class audiences. The owners of the workshops and factories that were growing up all over England, following the inventions of Savery and Newcomen, Arkwright and Hargreaves, the Darby’s of Coalbrookdale and others, were demanding more and more child labour. Poverty stricken workers had need of the few pence that their children could earn. Wesley taught that play was unworthy of a Christian child, that a child’s sole education need be only a knowledge of the Bible and the Catechism, that for the sake of its everlasting life a child should be at work. So, a Methodist could regard his overworked children with complacency. Methodism flourished through discipline and toil in the ugliness of suburbs and the industrial villages of England.

But the Methodist teaching destroyed its own objective. Wesley himself wrote, at the age of 84. that, through diligence and frugality many of his disciples were increasing their wealth and, as their wealth increased so did their pride, their anger and their desires of the flesh. Although the form of Methodism remained, the spirit was vanishing.

This Pelican History of England is, in total, very useful. There is another Pelican book entitled “Pre-historic Britain” which, although not one of this series, is a useful addition to it as a prelude to the series proper.

W. Waters

The Savage Eye (1960)

Film Review from the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

THE SAVAGE EYE, at present showing at the Curzon, is something of an emotional block-buster. Staggering out into the neon lighting, the dazed cinema-goer finds himself asking, “Is life really as dreadful as this, are people usually so hopeless and despairing?” or worse still, "Am I one of them?”.

Certainly the eye is savage enough giving a conducted tour of present-day society as seen by a bitter, disillusioned and dejected divorcee. Finding herself in a spiritual vacuum, she wanders about the city, draws her alimony cheque regularly, and spends much of her boredom increasing her disgust at the behaviour of human beings. Sourly she views the world at large from the pavement, and a singularly depressing view it is. Bad debts at the dog tracks, screams for blood at wrestling matches, vicious brawls in pubs. Men looking for women, women looking for men. and fat ladies pedalling wildly on stationary bicycles in a beauty parlour. Candid shots of gaping mouths, sagging waists and false smiles. Yet beneath their phony, gilt-edged pretensions, people struggling for recognition, love and affection. Even in one of the most pitiful and truly horrific scenes of the film struggling for their health at a faith healing ceremony ("Dear God, it's her liver. Move along friend and pray awhile.”) During all of this she conducts a cynical and at times slightly pretentious dialogue with a resonant manly voice that identifies itself as “Your inner self, your angel,” and the unhappy wanderer is finally persuaded to face reality and come to terms with the people she despises so much.

The film shows you nothing new. People are seen doing the things you know that they do, living the life that you know they live. But it does make clear the fact that society is made up of people, and that people within modern society need more than new flats, health insurance and hair driers to make them feel that life is worth living. They need to belong, to feel that they are doing something considered worthwhile to the community, to give and to receive. In a society such as ours it is quite obvious that these needs are for the greater part unrealised. Our world is dominated by fear, hatred and confusion, where cash, profit and ‘‘What's in it for me?” are so often the criteria for doing anything. When half the population do not even have their basic requirements of food, clothing and shelter met, much less their emotional needs, how can they find personal satisfaction and harmony in their every-day lives? To retain a sense of ordinary humane values requires a conscious effort. Divorced from emotional security at home, in spite of vast housing estates and modern gadgets: alienated from pride at work, for all the new machinery: still there is little sense of achievement and pleasure.

This is all shown clearly, but the film offers no solution to the problems. Surely to reorganise society on a basis of common humanity and the social considerations of the well-being of all human beings is not such a difficult task. While Socialists may feel that The Savage Eye does not look far enough, it is none the less well worth seeing for it does extend an invitation to its audience to (misquoting the faith healer) “Move along friend and think a while."

John Higgins