Two steps back (1983)

Book Review from the March 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Two Steps Back by Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson (Socialist Platform)

Do we really need yet another catalogue of the crimes and corruption of the Communist Party of Great Britain during the last war? Is it not well known that there was no filthy trick in the book to which Pollitt, Campbell, Emile Burns, Bill Rust et al did not stoop to justify their existence to their Russian paymasters? Strike breaking, organising shop floor espionage to report and name ‘‘agitators", opposing Labour candidates like Brockway in Cardiff, and calling on workers to support the Tory Minister of War, James Grigg. supporting Bevin's Act to imprison slacking munitions workers, denouncing those workers for slacking on the night shift. Small wonder that the very name Communist Party stinks in the nostrils.

But is there any evidence that the authors have learned anything from this venal and criminal enterprise? The writers show no appreciation whatsoever for the facts of the case. Like true Trotskyists, they are Vanguardists. Pollitt and Campbell may have been scoundrels, but if only the right leaders (Tearse, Haston & Co) had been in charge, all would have been well! They do not understand that the Russian Revolution could not be a socialist one. They write in the foreword that political reformist activity in Parliament is simply the political equivalent of the struggle for higher wages. This is moonshine. The parliamentary action of the Labour Party is the negation of the struggle for higher wages. It is in fact a struggle for lower wages. In spite of everything — the Labour Party in decline, the SDP formed and the Tories still winning elections — they still spout the Leninist claptrap that the Labour Party is the "Party of the Working Class". They have a pathetic belief in the existence of so-called professional classes, writing that the working class cannot come to power unless it draws behind it other support, “including sections of the middle and professional classes and the intelligentsia", whatever that may be. A good illustration of how reading Trotsky can affect you.

They refer to "Marxism" without any idea of what it really is. quoting from the Communist Manifesto that "Communists had no separate interests from the interests of the proletariat in general”, oblivious of the fact that this was written for Germany in 1847.

Jock Haston who, we understand, has retired from politics (like so many disillusioned Trotskyists) and now affects a cynical contempt for their wartime activities, had all this explained carefully to him in a debate before one thousand workers in the Woodside Halls in Glasgow in 1943. He was told that there was not a "Workers Government" in Russia. That the Labour Party was not “the Party of the Working Class". That what makes a working class party is socialist principles, not trade union expediency, and that Trotskyism, like Leninism and the Communist International, would evaporate. It is one thing to write history and another to learn from it.

Horatio.

A birthday present . . . and the future (1989)

From the March 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Yesterday I witnessed a birth. In fact, I did more than that — I assisted in the delivery. Helping someone to be born was an exhilarating experience. It was, though, a distressingly less comfortable time for the mother, but the agonies of labour were soon superseded by the joy of the new arrival. There must be few things as adorable as babies in their state of initial innocence. The process by which babies develop into soldiers, prison wardens, politicians, financial consultants, lawyers, dole snoopers and bailiffs is, however, an awful nightmare.

William Morris once observed that the people least suited to bring up children are parents. While you can often see what he meant, it would be wrong to attribute the misery of our society mainly to parental mistreatment of children. Parents are responsible for indoctrinating many young people with all sorts of social prejudices which encourage them to be politically as- quiescent in later life. This sort of persuasion, though, is probably of minor significance when you consider the torrent of propaganda washed over young people by the schools, television and radio. Several problems of this profit system are put into especially sharp focus when considered from the viewpoint of the newly arrived baby.

Poverty

Society today is class-divided. The majority of people labour to help produce and service wealth, most of which is owned by a small minority who can afford to spend their lives how they please. "It’s absolutely true that we won’t have to worry about rents or mortgages or anything like that”, said the Duke of Westminster before his marriage. He owns 15,000 acres in Cheshire, 14,000 acres in North Wales. 100,000 acres in Scotland. 900 acres in Shropshire, an estate in Fermanagh, shopping centres in Vancouver and a 12,000 acre industrial estate in Canada. What he owns in Hawaii, Australia and Mayfair is a list in itself. He also owns a plot in Belgravia worth over £l,000 million. It is unlikely, therefore, that the Duke will be stumped to find a space for any offspring or that he will get himself in a sweat about cheap ways to make a decent nursery. For the majority of people the pleasures of caring for and entertaining children are continually spoilt or diminished by money worries. The world has sufficiently advanced technologies and abundant resources to provide bright, stimulating toys made to the highest safety specifications for all children. Yet every year hundreds of children are injured by cheap, unsafe toys.

Every child could have access to open fields with fine facilities and properly furnished, inventive nursery areas. Most children though do not have these opportunities or else get them on rare occasions as special treats. Constrained by poverty, most parents have to make compromises over what they offer to children. Smug manipulators in advertising agencies work ever harder to bamboozle young minds with the desperate need to acquire some particular toy. Toys related to children's television programmes have been marketed for a long time but a new development here is the programme (often a cartoon) sponsored by a toy manufacturing company to plug its product. If parents are constantly worried by the expense of everything they wish to provide for children — food, clothes, books and toys — they are likely to be more tense, less patient and more run down than they would be if needs could be met without the obstacle of money. Unnecessarily vexed parents will not be as good with children as they could be. This in itself may be a cause of resentment in some parents which worsens the situation further.

Health and wealth

One of the greatest concerns among parents is the health of children. Health, however, like anything else in the profit system, comes at a price. We live in a society where money can buy you anything. £4,000 could, until recently, get you a new kidney from a living Turkish peasant whom property-society itself had pushed to that degree of desperation. The scheme, running at the Humana Hospital Wellington in North West London, has now been exposed but it is only a matter of time before another dirty racket is discovered. GPs are now being asked to subordinate clinical medical decisions to financial, accounting considerations in a plan that will give doctors a limited budget for drugs and buying hospital care. These proposals include a carrot and a stick. Dr. Michael Wilson. Chairman of the British Medical Association’s GPs Committee, has commented:

The carrot will be a lure to provide the patient with less care and less in the way of medicines so that money is saved on the budget. The stick will be that if doctors go over their [drug] budget there are proposals for them to be fined. These, we believe, are not the type of incentives which should be pressed upon individual doctors caring for patients.

(The Independent, 17 February)

Although kidneys-for-cash and account book medicine are repulsive practices they are really no more than savage examples of the general principle of health in the commercial world. Many GPs will tell you that over half of the problems during an average surgery could be cured by a few weeks relaxing on holiday in the sun. The sort of complaints most workers take to their GP are directly related to their work, environment or stress. Moreover, the sorts of treatment generally available are those which are financially viable rather than the best that contemporary technology can offer. Hence the urgent appeals for workers with particularly sorrowful plights (often selected by the press) to be sent to a special hospital in Hungary or the United States.

The maternity ward in which I was giving assistance was staffed by tirelessly dedicated and expert nurses, midwives and doctors who were chronically overworked and under-resourced. By contrast, a privileged few are able to have their pregnancies managed and monitored in lavish comfort in private hospitals and their children given fastidious care from the outset. Socialists do not, of course, begrudge anyone receiving such care. On the contrary — everyone should have access to it.

Religion

It is difficult to know how far the superstition and ignorance of religious dogma is a fading force in society. In any event, the arrival of many of the new babies in the maternity unit was greeted with a variety of religious nonsenses. Several babies were to be the unknowing subjects of various religious ceremonies purporting to place the new arrivals in the custody of one or other "gods". It is not unknown for religious people to express gratitude to their "god" for the safe delivery of a healthy baby.

Very young children, who rely entirely on older people for their initial understanding of the world, should never be inculcated with and misled by religious confusion. People who "thank god" for the safe delivery of a child must presumably think that "god" has some control over such matters. Where does that leave the babies who are stillborn? Was “god" negligent or just spiteful, visiting a retributive punishment to a sinful parent? Human society is the architect and builder of its own future. It is not being controlled from outside or above by another force; and nor should workers grind on in the mistaken belief that things will be better for them after they die.

The world outside the cradle

Babies are wide-eyed and innocent. The rat race soon encourages them to become frowning and pessimistic. Babies love affection and companionship. The world outside their cradles can be callous and alienating. Babies love to learn — they do so easily, rapidly and enthusiastically. This proclivity is, in capitalism, dulled and eroded by an education system designed to produce complaint wage-slaves. Babies are born without language, ideas, personalities or codes of conduct. The world outside is embattled with all of the violence associated with property, from the prison cell to the nuclear bomb. Millions of people starve and go homeless while a minority wallow in wealth. Amid the chaos, some people argue strongly that one or other legislative reform or a whole programme of them will do the trick and organise the profit system in a civilised way. That is impossible. Capitalism by its very nature cannot be democratic or work in the interest of the majority.

The baby I helped deliver was my daughter. Her life might involve a struggle through capitalism but it could flourish in a socialist society. The world that she and her generation will inherit depends on what we do now.

Gary Jay

Sting in the Tail: Market Morality (1991)

The Sting in the Tail column from the March 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Market Morality
While Iraqi and UN forces throw rockets, missiles and bombs at each other in the Gulf with little or no thought of the cost, it is interesting to note that the National Health Service in Britain is somewhat more parsimonious.

   Managers at a hospital in Manchester have refused to pay for a pricey new drug which could save the life of a seriously-ill cancer patient. . . . A course of injections with the drug, interleukin 2 (IL-2), costs around £3,000. Dr Thatcher said that he had been told by the unit general manager, Mike Fry, last week that the money was not available.

The Independent (5 February)

The war in the Gulf is costing the British government billions of pounds. This they reckon is money well spent as it is in pursuance of their policy of ensuring a cheap supply of oil for British capitalism.

£3,000 to save the life of a worker is looked upon as an extravagance. This is the logic of the market place.


God on our side
The Gulf War has seen many reservists mobilised, but one of them must be all of a dither as he has been called up by both sides! He is God, sometimes known as Allah, and The Guardian (1 February) provided a collection of the claims being made for his exclusive services.

For example, George Bush is sure that God's on his side:

We know that this is a just war, and we know that, God willing, this is a war we will win.

But Saddam Hussein rubbishes this and warns that:

  If Mr Bush makes the mistake of attacking us he will repent it for ever. If he depends on technical facilities, we are depending on God.

In case Saddam thinks he has sole right to Allah's muscle then there is his fellow Muslim, a Saudi commander, to put him straight:

  Whatever Saddam Hussein says . . . we are the ones who have been given a special mission by God.

If truth is always the first casualty in war then God is always the first recruit.


Black and white
When apartheid was imposed in South Africa 43 years ago, the Socialist Standard described the idea that 2.5 million whites could forever keep the other 9 million in subjection, as a "forlorn and fantastic hope", and so it has proved.

The South African government is to repeal the laws which are the basis of apartheid, and although there has been no announcement about voting rights for the black majority, it can only be a matter of time.

But political reform alone will not be the salvation of the black majority. Archbishop Desmond Tutu points out:

Black people would remain poor unless real barriers are removed.

The Guardian (2 February)

All he is seeking here is more land for the blacks when what is required is that all the means of production and distribution be commonly owned by everyone whatever their colour.

The Archbishop will probably not consider that proposition but there will come other South Africans who will: the mixture of political freedoms and wage slavery guarantees it.


Media Breakthrough
Any socialist searching through the media for an accurate description of socialism is fated to be disappointed, frustrated and, very often, infuriated. How pleasant therefore to read a report in the Weekend Guardian (12 January) giving an excellent description of socialism:

  "Economic conditions" he says, "are absolutely ripe for the break-through. The only thing that's lacking to build a society based on common ownership, on production for use not for sale, on the abolition of the wages system. . . .  is the intellectual factor."

This is a major breakthrough for a newspaper which at various times describes socialism as nationalisation, state control, municipalisation or some other scheme to run the buying and selling system.

It should surprise no socialist to learn that the quotation is from a supporter of the Socialist Party. After all, who in British politics could give an accurate description of socialism, other than a member or supporter of the Socialist Party?


War and Peace
Politicians are fond of pretending that capitalism is a peaceful system of society; that conflict such as is occurring in the Gulf at present is a mere interruption to an otherwise peaceful norm.

This is of course nonsense. Capitalism is a system based on competition and economic rivalry that inevitably leads to military conflict. If anyone has any doubts about this, the recent report of the International Red Cross should set the record straight.

  Thirty-eight current or recent conflicts - excluding the Gulf war - have claimed the lives of 5 million people, almost all of them civilians, according to a study released in Geneva yesterday by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
  The report, which will be used by the Red Cross to spearhead an international campaign on behalf of victims of conflict, estimates that 20 million people have died in 105 wars during the "post-war period" since 1945. A further 60 million have been wounded or uprooted.

The Guardian (29 January)

Danger zones
Every day The Independent prints a macabre death chart that shows the latest Iraqi and Allied figures for deaths in the Gulf war. It is probably all government lies but the figures shown for Day 28 (12 February) according to the Allies are Israeli 12, Saudi 1, Jordanian 7 with no figures for Iraqi dead, although the Iraqi claim is 467 dead.

No one can doubt that Baghdad, Tel Aviv and other cities in the area are danger zones but then so is London. For according to the same issue of that paper here is the position of the homeless in Britain:

  The office of John Patten, a Home Office minister, told the campaign that, in 1989, the last year for which statistics are available, 375 people died from hypothermia on the streets in England and Wales, 83 died from malnutrition and 13 from self-neglect.

The recent cold spell in the London area alone has claimed more victims:

  The death rate among homeless people could more than double over the next few weeks as a result of the cold weather, a leading doctor warned yesterday.
  Mr Jeremy Booth, consultant in charge of Accident and Emergency at the Westminster Hospital, London, said that the number of people attending the hospital had trebled during the cold spell with a significant increase in cases of frostbite and hypothermia. Gangrene of toes and fingers was also common.

Being poor is always dangerous. It is dangerous being a poor Palestinian on the West Bank when you can't afford a gas mask to protect yourself against the possibility of a gas attack. It is dangerous being a poor worker on the South Bank, London if you can’t afford the price of a bed for the night.

Scorpion.

Problem of sexism (1993)

From the March 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Before I was a socialist, I was a feminist. As for many women, the discrimination in favour of men was the most obvious and immediate. I gradually came to realize that this fitted into a far larger picture of racism, class oppression, ecological destruction. "third world” poverty, torture, starvation, colonialism, etc.

“From each according to his ability to each according to his need”, wrote Marx and, although calling women “he” raises another issue, this formula offers an answer to women's problems.

As things are, all around the world, women and women’s work are undervalued—by men, other women and themselves. This is serious, not just because of the damage inflicted on that particular half of the adult population, but also because it threatens the wellbeing of the whole human race.

Women’s oppression

In her book The War Against Women, Marilyn French writes:

Women’s gigantic task reproducing the human race, supporting and maintaining it, is specifically excluded from both Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross National Product (GNP) statistics. Women are not counted as part of the labour force because they are not paid for their work, or because men take their wages or because their work is not considered work.

My own experience was one of near incredulity when after the birth of my first child, I found myself on duty 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and yet not in receipt of an independent income, or the limited sense of autonomy that comes with it.

A housewife in the West is running the equivalent of a small business—managing finance, meeting deadlines, maintaining good relations among those in her care, preparing regular meals, undertaking cleaning and maintenance work . . . She carries a large responsibility. Yet she will habitually be described as "not working”.

Another of women’s needs is the need to feel safe. Many people in the world do not feel safe. The specific problem for women is of being under threat from attack by men, most often in the context of their personal relationships. Both battering and rape occur most frequently with men with whom women are intimate or at least “friendly”. Such experience leaves women with a sense of "no safe place to go”:

Half the married men in Bangkok, Thailand, regularly beat their wives; in Quito Ecuador. 80 percent of all women report having been physically beaten; in Nicaragua, 44 percent of men admit they beat their wives and girlfriends . . .  In the United States, a man beats a woman every 12 seconds, and every day four of these beatings reach their final consummation, the death of the woman.

There is more . . .

As regards rape, Marilyn French points out:

It is especially difficult to counter men's sense that rape is legitimate, that it is their right. Both sexes are raised in a culture that, until recently, implicitly reinforced this idea. Rape within marriage or on a date was considered impossible; rape by a stranger was the victim's fault: she was out alone . . .  she was wearing the wrong clothes or shoes, she had a drink.

What to do?

From boyhood, writes Marilyn French,

males are bombarded with the message that ‘‘real" men dominate women, which means they control women’s behaviour . . . So powerful and pervasive is this formula for the appearance of manhood that a man with an equal, mutual, relationship with a woman may adopt a posture of dominance towards her when other men are around.

Why does ail of this happen? What can be done about it?

Marilyn French’s answer is caressed in the concluding sentence of her book: "After millenia of male war against them, women are fighting back on every front”.

But is it in fact the case that the vast majority of one half of the human race feels compelled to dominate the other half? If so, why? What does socialism have to offer women, that feminism does not?

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

Socialism involves a complete change in the way the whole of humanity organizes, itself, so that we have a system which provides goods and services because people need them and not because of money. There is no money and there is no property. Land is owned and controlled by the whole of humanity. There are no national boundaries. It must be highly organized, but in a genuinely democratic way. so that all people are involved in making decisions that affect their lives. There are no hierarchies. no distinctions of class, race or sex. 

Such a system seems like the impossible dream, but the potential for it is there. Even in capitalism, men and women can be fair and compassionate and co-operate with each other. People derive pleasure from working for themselves and others without monetary reward. What it will take is for the majority of people in the world to decide that this is how they want to live, and to set about organizing it.

Clearly the resistance to this from certain quarters may be great. The capitalists will not like it, initially at least—and if one half of the worlds population does feel compelled to dominate the other half, such an attitude will have to be challenged or socialism can not be achieved.

Men not the enemy

I became disenchanted with the feminism which holds patriarchy to be the world’s primary problem, because I did not like the logical conclusion to which this kind of thinking would lead. If men are simply women's worst enemies, what should we women do? Shoot men down in the street? Or simply withdraw'? What of hopes for shared childcare and housework? Many women, men and children would like men to be more, not less involved in their families.

It is true, many women are in severely oppressive situations at home and at work. Women get more than their fair share of the work, less than their fair share of the cake and less freedom than the men they share their lives with. Women are subordinate to men. Knowingly and unknowingly, men abuse the power they have over women—but not all men and not all the time.

Men also love and care for women, and work to support women and children. Some men have been women’s best friends at crucial times in their lives—and some men are subordinate to some women: a wealthy woman may hand out orders to a male wage-slave.

The problem of sexism is complex and linked to a larger problem; that of the way the whole world is organized.The majority of women and men in the world feel and are powerless in the face of the minority powers-that-be. Part of the problem of sexism is simply a "kicking the cat” syndrome. a white employed man, oppressed by his employer (or depressed by the dole queue) comes home and puts his wife in her place, for much the same reason that the pair of them will insult their black neighbours. It is an ignoble and inadequate solution to one’s own lack of self-esteem and autonomy, to undermine someone else’s. but without self-respect it is hard to respect others. A feeling of self-respect in our present system is for most people constantly under threat.

It is surely preferable for women to work with women and men to change the whole system than against men in the hope of changing just one aspect of it. Some men are sometimes women’s enemies—but so are some women. Many men and women are women's potential friends and allies.

I hope we can one day realize our potential for mutual respect and co-operation and create world socialism. Part and parcel of this process must be the shifting of patriarchy.

Nicky Snell

Obituary: Ken Leggett (1994)

Obituary from the March 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have just learned of the death of our Comrade Ken Leggett of Enfield & Haringey Branch.

Ken joined the Party relatively late in life in 1968 at the age of 42 after reading an election leaflet put through his letter-box in the 1967 GLC elections. But, many years before, he had already taken a stance against one of the worst effects of capitalism by registering as a conscientious objector during the Second World War. one of the tasks he was given being to look after German POWs.

Ken was an amateur (tenor) singer and had a jovial and irreverent nature. He was at one time Branch Treasurer in the days when he was able to be active. In later years due to having to work long hours his activities were curtailed somewhat and the onset of arthritis finally put an end to this, making it almost impossible even to attend the Branch.

Ken took belated retirement last year and moved with his partner from London to Sussex to enjoy a well-earned rest.

Julian Vein

Reading The Economist (1996)

From the March 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you’re a strategic consultant flying to Hong Kong for a conference on East Asian futures markets, then it makes sense to read the Economist This is the magazine which depicts a world where markets can efficiently solve capitalism's problems. A world where the only challenge is for each of us to make sure that we slot neatly into this smoothly-running system.

Painting a picture of an acceptable, almost comfortable, capitalism could never be easy. The Economist is the first to call for economic growth (i.e. accumulation of profits) whatever the consequences. For example, Chirac’s recent programme of welfare state cuts in France may be causing “social unrest" but is necessary, given the economic stagnation which could yet turn into recession: The French government “knows that its credibility on the foreign exchanges depends upon its ability to see through these reforms and to cut the budget deficit” (2 December).

In the same issue there is support for Shell’s determination to continue investing in Nigeria, in spite of General Abacha’s dictatorship. After all, Shell is by no means the only multinational investing in Nigeria and “If Shell quit Nigeria, would not some other multinational take its place?” and “Shell is neither better nor worse than most multi-nationals. Every big company worth its salt is racing to invest in China, which is no less prone than Nigeria to bump off its dissidents.”

The recent global trend towards greater “capital mobility” is welcomed by the Economist. More responsive financial markets and fewer barriers on trade now enable companies to be more selective about where they invest. Governments become providers of a "favourable climate for business” (i.e. cheaper supplies of human labour and slacker environmental regulations). The Economist welcomes this extra scrutiny of them as a welcome safeguard against “unwise” government decisions (“The World Economy - Survey”, 7 October).

It is usually by overlooking the social consequences of this economic “freedom” that a picture of an acceptable capitalism is painted. Failing that, they are simply underestimated - for example, we are told that “whatever [Shell] has done to despoil the Niger delta is now being put right.” Economic decisions are approached as intellectual puzzles where getting the right answer involves calculating how to optimise economic growth and profits.

The final sections distract you with the wonders of science and technology - “Is there life on Mars?” and "Is time travel possible?” - followed by some of life’s finer, cultural points - the architecture of Hong Kong offices or “The Car As Art”. This all, of course, fits neatly into the calculus.

Perhaps only from the luxury of a business flight, or the Economist offices, could such a world view seem acceptable. Yet the logic of the Economist is no more ruthless than that of capitalism itself. For this reason we should hardly ignore it, even if we are not left sitting comfortably.

Dan Greenwood

Editorial: The Same Old I.L.P. (1958)

Editorial from the March 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time the I.L.P. makes proposals for uniting itself with the S.P.G.B. and various other organisations. One such approach to us was made early in 1954. and at the end of 1957 the I.L.P. in conjunction with several small groups, repeated the proposal. The S.P.G.B.'s attitude is always the same. We are not prepared to associate with organisations which carry on propaganda for the reform of capitalism, recruit members on that basis and seek the votes of reformists. Our case is that work for Socialism is the essential end and it cannot be combined with reformism. The I.LP.'s answer to this is to claim that since 1932 they also have accepted this principle. They say so, but their activities and propaganda belie the claim. In 1954, for example, their unity scheme was a manoeuvre to detach the local Labour Parties from the Labour Party, on the plea that the “well- meaning Socialists who are members of the political section of the Labour Party are continually frustrated . . .  when their ideas and resolutions are voted down with soul-destroying monotony," by the block vote of the trade unions at Labour Party conferences. The reply of the S.P.G.B. pointed out that the membership of the local Labour Parties is no more Socialist than the rest of the party. This was illustrated at the time from the list of resolutions put on the Labour Conference agenda by the local parties, all of which were for reforms of various kinds, all assuming the continuance of capitalism.

Kelvingrove

The I.L.P. has been in the news with its candidate at the Kelvingrove by-election, running in opposition to Labour and Tory. The I.L.P. claimed that their candidate was fighting for Socialism. against the Tory “ political gangsters of the ruling class," and against the Labour politicians who on all issues behave no better than the Tories.

The editorial of the “Socialist Leader” (1st Feb., 1958) ended with a declaration of “socialist” independence:—

“The party of Keir Hardie and James Maxton enters the fray with a song in its heart. It has nothing to fear from the charlatans and lick-spittles of the other parties. It will seek to convince the men and women of Kelvingrove that only by Socialism can the challenge of these stupendous times be met. And it will not compromise its policy and programme to win votes."

Unfortunately, even if the Editor meant what he wrote to be taken literally, it is evident that other members of the I.L.P., including their candidate, Mr. William Park, do not

“Cross-Bencher” in the Sunday Express (9/2/58) reported that the Labour Party leaders were worried about the I.L.P. intervention because they feared that the I.L.P. candidate would filch from the Labour Party its “pacifist" voters. Was this imputation of I.L.P. vote-catching unjust? Mr. William Park, the I.L.P. candidate, made it clear that it was not. While reiterating his refusal to “indulge in vote-catching” he hastened to inform the Press that he did not mean it:—

“In a statement to the Press . . .  William Park said that among the main points in his campaign would be a demand for unilateral disarmament, as well as the abolition of the hydrogen bomb.”—(Socialist Leader, 1/2/58.)

There you have the never-changing I.L.P. “Socialism is the only hope they say, and they only want the votes of Socialists: but if you happen to be a non-Socialist with pipe-dreams about Capitalism disarming and British capitalism disarming on its own, or if you think that Capitalism would be all right but for the H bomb (like it was in two world wars or in the slump between the wars!) Mr. Park wants your vote.

This disarmament policy was elaborated a week later in a resolution passed by the Annual Conference of the London and Southern Counties Division of the I.L.P. It demanded that British Capitalism should “at once” bring home all troops from abroad, and disband the armed forces, and also that it should at once take the action of “denial of British bases to all other countries.” Could political ineptitude go further than this! Just how do unarmed civilians “deny" bases to the armies occupying them? Do these amateur policy-makers for British Capitalism really imagine that the other Powers would leave a strategic vacuum unoccupied? Does the I.L.P. not remember how two years ago large numbers of Hungarian workers tried to “deny” to Russia capitalism its occupancy of bases in Hungary?

The Keir Hardie-Maxton Tradition

When their editor called the modern I.L.P. the “party of Keir Hardie and James Maxton” he was certainly right, for between them these two used every conceivable form of vote-catching. Hardie, the arch-compromiser, was the originator of the I.L.P. policy of building up a reformist Labour Party with trade union backing. In his “Confession of Faith” he claimed that achievement as the measure of the success of the I.L.P.

One of his vote-catching side-lines was the advocacy of coal nationalisation "in order that the country should have a supply of the coal without which the navy was helpless and powerless.” (Manchester Guardian, 4/3/1912).

Maxton was a fitting successor to Hardie. At the 1923 General Election, for example, when, as usual he fought as candidate of the Labour Party, he combined a pledge to overthrow capitalism with vote-catching demands for government action to raise wages, to fix maximum prices, to reduce rents and to give Scotland "a Parliament of its own” (this to catch the nationalist vote).

On occasion Maxton, like Keir Hardie. could, with some lucidity, state the case against his own reformism, but it never cured him of it. In August, 1930, he was writing that a quarter century of reforms had convinced him of their uselessness because “before these reforms have been fully operative such advantages as they seemed on a superficial examination to offer were eaten up by the development of new evils or by a further extension of old ones” (New Leader, 15th August, 1930). but within a few weeks he had become unconvinced again. He introduced a particularly stupid bill in the House of Commons designed to make capitalism pay a "living wage.” The amount was to be determined by a government committee which, among other things, was to have regard to the need for “replacement and extension of capital.”

But for the I.L.P. times have changed. A quarter of a century ago it had been so successful in building up the reformist Labour Party that 200 members of the I.L.P. were able to sneak into Parliament as Labour M.P.'s. and had all but destroyed the Liberal Party. Now. while the I.L.P. vote catcher at Kelvingrove was filching reformist votes from the Labour candidate, over at Rochdale it was a slightly revived Liberal Party whose candidate was doing the same.

Tory and Labourite agree (1974)

From the March 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

To say that large numbers of workers who endured six years of Labour government from 1964 to 1970 and five years of Tory government since 1970 are not enamoured of the ugly face of capitalism is an understatement; it has the two larger parties worried. To see voters falling away from both parties at the same time calls for some dramatic re-vamping of policies, and both parties have given thought to it.

Simpletons in the Labour Party who take at its face value what the Party says about the Tories and about itself will expect the outcome to be, on the Tory side, a publicity campaign to prove that capitalism is really quite all right as it is, and, on the Labour side, a promise to end capitalism. Barbara Castle tried to comply a few months ago by asserting that Labour was the only party “committed to remove capitalism” (Times, 3rd July 1973). But the reality is quite different, as will be seen from two speeches by party leaders published in The Times and the Financial Times on 2nd February. One speech (Times) was by the Tory, Mr. Peter Walker, Secretary for Trade and Industry. The other (Financial Times) was by Mr. Edward Short, deputy leader of the Labour Party.

The interesting thing about the speeches is that most of Walker’s speech could have been put over by Short, and vice versa. The speeches have a common theme — a promise to keep capitalism but to give it a facelift. First the Tory:

A transformation of the capitalist system in the next 25 years was forecast yesterday by Mr. Peter Walker. Secretary for Trade and Industry . . .  He said that in Western Europe a big part of the system consisted of free enterprise and private capital. A dramatic period of change was beginning. In Britain, the government had done much already to transform the basis of capitalism, yet it had passed almost unnoticed.

Now the Labourite:

He warned that the next Labour administration must arm itself ‘to act decisively’ when any company or industry fell short of what the national interest demanded and this would involve ‘a major change in the capitalist system’.

The two had no disagreement about the method. “Much greater public control over industry would be necessary’’ (Short). “We are doing this . . .  by the power of the State — a new kind of interventionism’’ (Walker).

Both indicated that there was no intention to end capitalism, but with subtle differences of emphasis. Walker intends to make capitalism “more responsible, more responsive, and therefore stronger”, while Short said that “the assertion of control would be partly by an extension of public ownership where it was absolutely necessary . . . and by planning agreements between the Government and some of the major companies”. Lest this should sound rather too drastic, Mr Short reassured his listeners by explaining that the latter means “a system which has been very successful in France”, and that “most industrialists [are] public-spirited people who would co-operate”.

Both talked about controlling inflation and maintaining “full employment”. Both talked about the so-called “mixed economy” (i.e. private and state capitalism), but Walker claimed that the Tories are better at it:

Fortunately for Western Europe . . . the moderate Conservative had been able to appreciate the rationale for a modem mixed economy far more rapidly than the socialist. [For “socialist” read “Labour Party”.]

And it all adds up to nothing at all. In the past century Liberal, Tory and Labour governments have passed hundreds of Acts of Parliament “reforming” capitalism, and the sum total is the shambles we see around us.

Edgar Hardcastle

Prejudice in the name of socialist thought (1995)

Book Review from the March 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Victorian Encounter with Marx: A Study of Ernest Belfort Bax by John Cowley, British Academic Press. £34.50.

A fatal political contradiction marred the socialist contribution of Bax. To begin with his positive work. Bax wrote in the magazine Modern Thought in November 1879 what was the first article in an English publication to explain and support Marx's ideas as presented in Das Kapital. Bax described Marx's great work as providing “a doctrine in economy comparable in its revolutionary character and wide reaching importance to the Copernican system in astronomy, or the law of gravitation in Mechanics generally". Marx re-read the article to his wife two days before she died, pleased to see the recognition of his ideas in an English-language publication. (Hyndman had summarised some of Marx’s ideas earlier, but failed to mention Marx lest the German origin of the writer put off British readers!)

Bax went on to become a friend of Engels, visiting him often in Primrose Hill. He joined the SDF and with Morris he resigned, in opposition to that organisation’s opportunist reformism, and with Marx’s daughter. Eleanor and other socialists he joined the Socialist League. The present writer's view, which is supported by Cowley’s book, is that Bax was not much of a Marxist when it came to philosophical analysis - which is what he prided himself upon. In fact, he was rather more under the influence of the pessimist, Schopenhauer. The old myth that Bax had to press Marxist ideas upon Morris does not ring true; the evidence is that Morris understood the fundamentals of Marx’s revolutionary thought rather more than Bax did.

But there is a little more to this than a sterile debate over the bones of Marxist skeletons. A living political issue was at stake. Bax was a confirmed misogynist. He regarded women as being naturally inferior to men, joined the Anti-Suffrage League (from which he was prevented from speaking by Tories in case his socialist background damaged their case!) and treated both of his wives (the first died) with indifference bordering upon cruelty. The question is: Can a man who regards one half of the working class as being inferior to the other be regarded as a socialist? Obviously no; no more than those who preach the inferiority of blacks, gays or men can be.

Of course. Bax was a personally screwed-up, repressed and morally confused product of a horrible Victorian age. But why did his fellow socialists fail to censure his male chauvinism, when they opposed unequivocally Hyndman’s obscene anti-Semitism? The only contemporary socialist to take on Bax was Eleanor Marx, who offered to debate his chauvinism in public - but, like most proponents of prejudice, Bax preferred to duck the debate.

Why has Bax been given such a decent press in the years since his death? Quite apart from his support for the First World War (which he had in common with other pseudo-socialists like Hyndman and Robert Blatchford), we should surely have learned the lesson that, at least as far as we have any control over our own lives, the personal is political. That does not mean that we should blame workers for being trapped by the necessary callousness of the capitalist system, but when they try to present offensiveness or prejudice in the name of socialist thought we should surely disown them.

Steve Coleman

The Passing Show: Implication (1963)

The Passing Show column from the March 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Implication

The recent work-to-rule campaign of the electrical power-station workers led to the usual press campaign. In the newspapers, a number of journalists and letter-writers said that the power workers should not be allowed to take any industrial action, such as striking or working to rule. Almost every prominent strike leads to similar suggestions. Even misguided members of the working class propose that workers (in other industries, of course, not in their own) should be forced to work. The obvious question which then arises—should the workers be forced to work on their own terms or on the employers’ terms?—is seldom answered in so many words, but the implication is usually plain: the workers should be forced to work on whatever terms the employers see fit to offer.

In a time of inflation, when workers have to take or threaten to take industrial action in order to try and keep their earnings abreast of rising prices, this proposal can usually be put in very reasonable-sounding terms: that existing wages and conditions should be maintained. In a time of deflation, such as occasions in the twenties and thirties, when prices are falling, it is the employers who often have to resort to industrial action to force wages down. And at those times the letter-writing brigade seldom suggests that lock-outs should be forbidden by law, and that employers should be compelled to continue employing their workers on the existing terms.

Moral right

But in the power strike, a number of newspapers went further: they made the astounding discovery that the public has a “moral right” to food, lighting and heating. And such is the lack of understanding of the way the capitalist system operates that this announcement went apparently unchallenged. Yet five minutes’ thought would show anyone the falsity of this belief. What would happen if you went into the baker's and told him you had a “moral right” to food, and that you had decided that sixpence was a reasonable price to pay for his ninepenny loaves? Unless you left the shop in a hurry, you would find yourself at the local police station being charged with a breach of the peace. Under our present system, to all intents and purposes, everything is bought and sold. No one has a “moral right” to be supplied with the necessities of life. If the seller of bread and the buyer of bread can agree on a price which the buyer can pay, then the bread changes hands; otherwise it doesn’t. Everyone understands this in practice; no one would go shopping believing anything else. And yet people can so far delude themselves as to write to the papers claiming they have a “moral right” to be supplied with food.

All the aces

Just as food, clothing, and so on, are bought and sold, so is human labour-power. Under our present system, men and women work for the capitalists because they are paid to do so. If the employer and employee can arrive at a bargain as to the price to be paid for a certain amount of work—a wage or salary—then the work is done. Otherwise it isn’t Admittedly in this process of bargaining all the aces are in the hands of the capitalist. For if the worker refuses to work for what the employer pays him, then he faces unemployment, and severe deprivation for himself and his family. The employer, on the other hand, can at least live on his money if no bargain is arrived at; that is what makes him a capitalist.

Both ways

Nevertheless, however strong one party to the bargain is, and however weak the other, a bargain—an agreement as to wages and conditions—there must be. And the very people who are now talking about "moral rights” are exactly the people who insist that this must be so. When one argues for Socialism, and suggests that men could operate a very much better system for supplying themselves with food, clothing and shelter if they did away with money altogether and worked on the principle of common ownership of the means of production, what an outcry follows! These “moral rights” people are exactly those who are first to deride the Socialist solution, and to insist that our present commercial system, where money is the god without which nothing can be done, is the best possible system. But as soon as they are put to inconvenience by the very workings of the system which they themselves uphold and vote for at each election—what a squawk they put up! They are like children who gobble down their share of cake and then cry because it’s gone. They want it both ways.

Massive attacks

It seems paradoxical, but the only members of the public who could justifiably complain when their lights and fires went off as a result of the power-workers’ campaign were the Socialists. Only those who have done their best to put an end to our present capitalist system, only those who have tried to bring in the Socialist alternative—only they could justifiably grumble at these further inconveniences and discomforts which the operation of the capitalist system makes inevitable. Of course, in practice, it is precisely the Socialists who have always supported the working class when they have taken action to maintain or improve their living conditions. The support of Labourites and Communists is never to be relied on: it depends on a dozen factors, such as whether there is a Labour or a Communist government, whether our capitalist class is making war on any other capitalist class, what the Russian ruling class is doing, and so on. Even when there is a Conservative government in power, many of our “progressive” politicians publicly join the massive attacks which are always mounted against workers who try to keep or even increase their small part of what they produce. Only the Socialist Party—as could be expected, since it is the party of the workers —can be relied on to keep the issue straight

Right to strike

A wage-worker has a number of advantages over a slave (although the slave at least doesn’t fear unemployment), but by far the most important one is that he has some degree of freedom. And of this degree of freedom, the most important element is his ability to refuse to work. The alternative is near-starvation, but still it means that he has some final retort against the capitalist who seeks to push him still further down into poverty. Judiciously used, the right to refuse to work, the right to strike, can serve in certain economic circumstances to defend or to improve wages and conditions. But this right to strike, this most important single factor which distinguishes the wageworker from the mere slave, this right is under constant attack from the capitalist state’s organs of propaganda. After reading and listening to such attacks, one has the impression that the worker has the right to strike only so long as he never uses it. Whenever workers use their right to strike, it always seems that —although, of course, the right to strike in general is quite a good thing—still this particular strike is for various reasons a very bad one, and should be ended immediately. It may be “the country's economic position,” it may be “the need to export"; it may be the particular industry the workers are employed in; there is always some reason why this particular strike is totally unjustified.

All these attacks spring from one source: the realization of the ruling class that the strike is one of the few effective weapons the workers have in the class struggle. Our rulers do not wish to revert, to slavery—the present wage-labour system is better for them in many ways: which is why slavery has been abolished in all capitalist countries. But it has this unfortunate aspect, that the workers are technically free to strike. Hence the continual propaganda against any groups of workers who exercise their right. For if they could delude the workers into never striking, the capitalists would be in the happy position of enjoying all the advantages of the capital and wage-labour system, without one of its very few (from their point of view) drawbacks. No wonder their newspapers, radio, TV, and pulpits never cease to attack strikes!

Alwyn Edgar

Mercenaries (1976)

From the March 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

If fourteen of them had not been shot for unwillingness to fight, the presence of a small number of British mercenaries in the war in Angola might well have been ignored. Their presence being made known through that episode, the result was disclaimers and threats by the government—and a study in capitalist interests being pursued.

Mercenaries are soldiers who fight for money alone, without pretending they are for good against bad. They are the “universal soldier” practically as old as war itself. In the period when feudalism was giving way to capitalism they were the nucleus of every army in Europe. The German Landsknecht and the Italian Condottieri were troops which plied for hire. With the development of the capitalist state, national armies took their place.

However, mercenaries have never disappeared. To a large extent they are produced by national armies. Speaking in the House of Commons about those who went to Angola, the Prime Minister said many of them were contacted through “lists of names of former soldiers”. Of one modern force of mercenaries, the Black and Tans recruited by the British government to serve in Ireland in 1920, a historian says:

[They were] for the most part young men who found it hard to settle down after the war, who had become used to a career of adventure and bloodshed, and who were prepared to try their luck in a new sphere for ten shillings a day and all found. They were the same type, and produced by much the same circumstances, as the Congo mercenaries of our own day.

(F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland Since the Famine, 1971)

In the 1939-45 war there were mercenaries on both sides. According to H. W. Koch in History of the Second World War (Vol. 7) there were 130,000 West Europeans, mostly Dutch, Flemings and French, in the German Waffen-SS as well as Russians and East Europeans. In The Big Lie (1955), a jingoistic account of Allied propaganda organization in the war, J B. White mentions Circassian mercenaries serving under the French in North Africa. Previously, in the Spanish Civil War, men were recruited for Franco from Morocco on the promise of pieces of land afterwards. Mercenaries have taken part in other more recent wars. Besides the Congo, they were employed in the Biafran war of 1967 and included air-pilots on both sides.

The distinction between mercenaries and soldiers in standing armies is a scanty one. Men do not enlist from patriotic or moral sentiments, but for pay and security spiced with physical excitement; in the past the Regular Army was recruited chiefly from the able-bodied unemployed. Discussing the legal position of the British mercenaries in Angola, a Times leader on 10th February said the existing law (the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870) “makes no distinction between fighting for money and fighting for a cause”. It would make no difference if it did. The British government’s alarm was not because these adventurers were deficient in lofty motives, but because they might imply a general British partisanship. The French government disowned mercenaries in the Congo for the same reason, and threatened to withdraw citizenship from them. What is “a cause”? In this context, a capitalist interest agreeable to Our Side.

In a speech in the House of Commons the Minister for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, David Ennals, said: “The mercenaries by their irresponsible action, are not only acting against Britain’s interests, they are bringing more suffering to the people of Angola.” (The Times, 11th February). The mercenaries deserve contempt, but not in those terms. It is Britain’s interests, and those of capitalism all over the world, that are responsible for the suffering. In the Biafran war, while similar pious sentiments were expressed, about one-fifth of the Nigerian side’s military purchases came from Britain. The officers and advisers in the Nigerian army were largely British-trained.

The position over the sale of arms to developing states is summed up in a chapter “The Merchants of Death” by Philip Windsor in The History of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 8 (1968).

At present, practically everyone sells in the Middle East; the major European arms producers—Great Britain, France, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium—are chipping away at the virtual American monopoly in Latin America. Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union have very large markets in South-East Asia. France and Great Britain sell what they can in Africa, and France is taking over the British role in South Africa.

Nor is this a nefarious conspiracy. It is normal capitalism : the production of commodities sold at a profit because of the certainty that normal capitalism generates wars inexorably.

“Mercenary” is a disapproving word, and mercenary soldiers characteristically are turned out and despised when their job is done. In this case it was sooner instead of later. There is another lesson here. People are often convinced by the idea of a “just” war; for instance, that the Second World War had to be, because of the Germans’ totalitarianism and their persecution of the Jews. In fact anyone who set out to fight on those accounts before his government found it expedient would have been dealt with as a trouble-maker. Governments carry out the compulsions of each one’s national capitalism. The workers kill and are killed, by order—until they see the reason, and decide they will have no more of it.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: Action for Socialism (1979)

Editorial from the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The profit system is a spent force. The present method of organising human affairs is anti-social because all goods and services take the form of commodities. The great material achievements of the past two centuries have not served to substantially improve the lives of ordinary men and women, but to strengthen the power of the rich and privileged. Sale with a view to profit is holy law.

Capitalism makes the rich rich by keeping the poor poor. There is a class division arising from the minority ownership of the means of production and distribution. The working class receive wages and salaries in return for the use of their mental and physical labour power. The capitalist needs to buy this commodity — yes, labour power is also a commodity to be bought and sold, used and disposed of — because, during the course of production workers create values greater than the price paid for their labour power. This surplus value is the source of the profit which keeps the capitalist in his parasitic position. You can't have capitalism without profit and you can't have profit without workers who are willing to be exploited.

The working class is not coerced into accepting this exploitative relationship. Most workers share the view that the capitalist system is the best possible way of running things. The capitalists spend vast fortunes on maintaining this consent. The schools, the universities, the press, the radio and television, the Church — all of these means of securing social control: they are 'the opium of the people'.

That’s not to say there is total acquiescence. Workers complain about low wages, poor working conditions, bad housing, pollution of the environment, racial and sexual discrimination, the threat of war. Sometimes action is taken. In the case of wages and working conditions trade unions are formed, yet these can only win restricted, temporary gains. Other action takes the form of demands in which workers ask for legislative reforms from the owning class. Neither trade unionism nor reformism challenge the foundation of class society.

Different political parties promise to reform capitalism in different ways. In the industrially advanced countries the working class demonstrates its consent to being exploited by electing these thieves and liars into parliament. Whether the majority of workers vote Labour or Tory the role of the government will always be to arrange for the running of the system that exploits them. The army, the police and the legal system are there to look after things should anyone get in the way.

For the sake of profit-making, workers accept the most abject degradation. Children go hungry for the price of food; families are turned out on to the street because they can’t afford to pay their rents; workers kill each other in wars for markets that they will never profit from; people die painful deaths in under-equipped hospitals from diseases too expensive to cure; grown men beg in the streets for the price of a bed for the night. Meanwhile the Financial Times index serves as a barometer of the affluence of the few.

There can be no alternative to this misery which does not propose to end class division, exploitation and profit: the three-headed god of capitalism. The end of class division will be the result of the abolition of the ownership and control of the means of producing and distributing wealth by the rich. It will not mean State control of production, for the State, as a means of coercion, will be a relic of the past once there is no working class to control. The end of the working class must mean the end of exploitation, and production for profit. Once exploitation ends there will be no more production for profit.

That is what Socialism will bring to an end, but it is what Socialism can make possible that we need to consider. For the first time men and women will be free to discover their full potential, to develop their talents, acquire new skills and fulfil their pleasures to the full. Cost and legality will be an obstacle to no-one. Human beings will be able to co-operate, explore, create and plan in new and exciting ways. Democracy will become meaningful in Socialist society for the first time ever.

It may seem strange to realise that the working class has immense power under capitalism. Clearly this is not power over wealth: the wealth producers are treated with contempt, downtrodden, placed in poverty, alienated from their very humanity. But still they have one power which the exploiters do not. That is the political power to change the course of history. The consent of the working class is vital for the continuation of capitalism. As long as the working class place their faith in leaders of all kinds, it will be gratefully accepted. If, on the other hand, workers stopped trusting and started taking democratic political action on their own, there wouldn't be a thing the capitalist class could do to stop the transformation of society.

The Socialist Party was formed in 1904 by men and women committed to working class emancipation. They understood how the profit system exploited them and felt degraded and indignant by what they experienced; they understood that the system of exploitation would not be abolished by trade union militancy, by radical reform programmes, by enlightened leadership, by violent overthrow or by sitting back and doing nothing. The only way to make Socialism is to make Socialists. The larger the party of workers who understand the need for Socialism, the nearer that need will be to becoming reality. Every new member of the Socialist Party is a further nail in the coffin of the profit system. The process is slow. But those who join it can be confident in the understanding that they are engaged in a movement which will one day eradicate the suffering caused by the profit system so that people can construct a society fit to live in.

Letter From Europe: Whose turn to screw the workers? (1986)

The Letter From Europe column from the March 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you are reading this article after 16 March you will already know the results of the general elections in France: Mitterrand's so-called Socialist Party (PS) will have lost its overall majority in the National Assembly, the National Front will have won a parliamentary representation for the first time, the previous opposition leaders will be arguing over what to do, and so on.

But this is only the tinsel of politics. The real issue in these, as in all elections everywhere in the world, is whether or not the wage and salary earning class is once again to put political power into the hands of the capitalist class that exploits them. Unfortunately, given the level of political consciousness in France, as elsewhere, the result is a foregone conclusion: these elections are going to be won by the capitalist class. Their control of political power will be confirmed by the re-election of a National Assembly composed exclusively of politicians pledged to support the continuation, in one form or another, of the money-wages-profits system that is capitalism.

The differences between the contending parties — whether the so-called communist and socialist parties on the Left or the RPR. UDF or National Front on the Right — are purely superficial, a question of which particular gang, or combination of gangs of place-hunters is to have responsibility for managing the governmental affairs of the French capitalist class. In short, who — the Left or the Right — is to have the privilege of turning the screws on the wage and salary earning class in France.

At the last general elections, held in June 1981 following Mitterrand's election as President. the Left won a landslide victory and a coalition government dominated by the PS — but with the participation of Communist Party (PCF) Ministers came into office. It promised to restore full employment by nationalising the banks and a few key industries so as to be able to plan economic growth, which would also be used to finance improved wages and social benefits. Naturally, as was predictable from a knowledge of the economic laws of the capitalist system, it failed utterly to achieve these goals.

Administering capitalism

After an initial increase in certain social benefits for the lower paid, within a year — by June 1982. to be exact — the new government had imposed a wage freeze and cut social benefits. Despite the nationalisation of the banks and the conversion of a number of firms from private to state capitalist enterprises, unemployment continued to rise and poverty to grow, as the workings of capitalism made a mockery of the Ministry of Plan's paper projects to expand production in the face of the world-wide capitalist depression.

In the end. the new government settled down to administering capitalism in the only way possible: as a profit-making system operating in the interest of the profit-taking class. The PCF participated in this anti-working class administration of capitalism for a full two years after the government's U-tum in June 1982. since its ministers did not resign till Laurent Fabius took over from Pierre Mauroy as Prime Minister in July 1984.

The outgoing government — essentially composed of members of Mitterrand's PS — is fighting the election not on what it has done to honour the promises it made in 1981 (how could it?) but on the negative theme of "we were not as bad as a right-wing government would have been". Thus, in one newspaper advertisement comparing the rise of unemployment under the pre-1981 governments with what had happened since 1981, the PS declared that unemployment had "only" risen 38 per cent since it came to power — the reader was assumed to have forgotten that the Left government had come to power on a promise to reduce unemployment, not preside over its rise to over 2.5 million. And one televised debate between the Prime Minister. Fabius. and the main opposition leader. Jacques Chirac, turned into an argument as to which of them had been the more successful in holding down wage costs — Fabius claiming that his government had been more successful than that of Chirac in the early 1970s but forgetting the PS's promise to increase, not decrease, "popular consumption"!

Since the Labour Party in Britain has a programme of vote-catching promises very similar to the pre-1981 PS — basically, trying to plan the expansion of production by the same mixture of state control and increased consumer purchasing power — it is worth examining exactly why the Left-wing government in France failed so utterly and ended up trying to transfer money from the poor to the rich (from wages to profits).

Why reformism fails

The classic reformist programme of trying to correct the evils of capitalism in the interests of the workers has never succeeded because the system just cannot work in the interests of wage and salary earners. It is based on their exploitation and functions according to definite economic laws which are beyond the control of governments, however well-intentioned or resolute.

Of course, there are certain things which governments can do. They control the armed forces and the other means of coercion. They can pass laws and apply them. In the economic sphere they control the issue of the currency. But they do not and cannot control the economy. Certainly, they can pass laws and make plans concerning economic matters but this does not mean that these can be put into effect or that, if they are, they will have the intended results. Capitalism, as we said, is an economic system subject to its own economic laws which governments ignore at their peril. These laws can be summarised as:

★ capitalism is an integrated world economy; there is no such thing as the "British economy" or the "German economy" or even the "American economy". There is only the world capitalist economy, which exists in all countries.
★ as government activity does not of itself produce wealth, all the resources allocated by governments (whether on "defence", social reforms or subsidies to nationalised industries) have to come out of the profits made in the productive sector of the economy, whether private or state-owned.
★ the private sector of the economy is exclusively motivated by profit-seeking, since profits are the main source of the finance it needs to continue to engage in productive activity. Indeed, in the end, achieving a monetary profit is the only reason the private sector has for producing.

In a depression the government — whether left, right or centre — has to pursue a policy of austerity for the working class because the logic of the capitalist system demands that priority be given to profit-making by capitalist enterprises. As a matter of fact, even in periods of prosperity governments must abstain from taking measures that threaten profits. In times of slump, however, they must do all they can to restore profitability: they must cut back and restrain both their own expenditure (which ultimately can only come from taxes and other charges on profits) and the wages of the workers (which are a direct cost to enterprises).

It is because capitalism cannot function in any other way that the outgoing reformist government in France ended up pursuing basically the same policies as openly conservative governments in Britain. Germany and America. The political colour of the government makes no essential difference; what counts are the economic laws of capitalism which these governments are obliged to apply.

In time, as the world capitalist economy recovers, markets will gradually re-appear but there is nothing that any government can do to hasten the process. They can help industry prepare for the recovery by encouraging it to "modernise" — to eliminate the least efficient enterprises — but this is what tends to happen anyway in a depression, whether or not the government intervenes. So all a government can do — and all the so-called "Socialist" government in France did — is to work with the economic laws of the capitalist system. This has been the fate of all past and present reformist governments in the world which have set out to make the capitalist system function in the interests of the workers and will inevitably be the fate of any future Labour government that comes to power in Britain.

Adam Buick 

Populist pay-off? (1984)

Editorial from the March 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ronald Reagan’s announcement that he will run for President again this year may be seen as further evidence of the success of a re-emergent style in the deceptions of capitalism's politics. Not so long ago, left wing governments were fond of representing their job of running capitalism as a complex business, which could be confidently undertaken only by heavily qualified experts. So the governments of Harold Wilson were crammed with economists, ex-university dons and the like; by sheer brainpower, it seemed, the problems of slump, war, poverty and social conflict were to be made tractable.

Well that particular intellectual honeymoon lasted only so long, until the very reality of capitalism brought it to a sour and fractious end. Since then the British working class have been governed in, and have responded gratefully to. a rather different style. Whatever the true situation in the corridors of power, in public Margaret Thatcher shows a confidence which, she claims, stems from simple, eternally sound convictions about what is right and what is wrong. More properly called prejudices, policies such as rampant nationalism, the bare-faced screwing down of workers' living standards. tolerating no dissension, have done Thatcher no electoral harm. She has exploited the populist style to advantage and can get away with mouthing the most arrant nonsense. So far, the British working class have shown no resentment at being treated like naughty pupils in a rigidly disciplined school.

In the same way Ronald Reagan has made a thespian speciality of presenting issues to the American workers as innocent as possible of any complicating mental exertion. It is all very simple, in Reagan’s mouth. America is good, it is free, its people are industrious and ingenious and peace-loving. They are of course also staunch and courageous in the defence of all this goodness, freedom, industry and pacifism. They are told that the Kremlin is populated by evil beings whose obsessive ambition it is to destroy all that is good in America, through subversion or outright force.

There are of course some snags to this theory. One is that in every capitalist state the working class are nurtured on roughly the same Reaganist principles. Thatcher pronounces the word Britain in the same devoted way that Reagan does the word America. The workers in Russia are encouraged to believe that their rulers’ military power exists to defend peace and freedom and “socialism” against he "war-mongers" in Washington. It goes in the same way for Japan, Germany, China. France . . .

One other snag is that the earthy, populist appeal may bring in the votes but it does not match up with the facts. America possesses an arsenal of a power to reflect its standing as one of the world's mightiest states. By a press of the button (perhaps, in the case of cruise, two buttons) Reagan could unleash a destructive force to wipe out much of the settled life of modern society. What was left of it would probably disappear with any counter stroke. It is not credible that such a potential is kept in being to protect the workers' freedom to organise in unions, to openly discuss political ideas, to campaign for the modification — or, in the case of socialists, for the abolition — of capitalism.

In fact, if he ever experiences any moments of insight or candour, Reagan himself should concede this very point. His government, like its predecessors, is not famous for its defence of human freedoms in Central and South America, or in Korea, or Vietnam, or Africa, or in the Middle East. While at one time it may find itself in support of a state which can be described as a political democracy, at others it will give military and economic back-up to a government noted for its ruthless suppression of opposition. The motive in American policy in those spheres is not human freedom and welfare but the interests of the American capitalist class. In that cause mass murder, or starvation, or disease, or widespread destruction, or genocide, are all to be justified. This is not a policy peculiar to American capitalism; in the same way the so-called communists states have hands as bloody as any other.

It is no accident that politicians like Reagan and Thatcher can mouth about freedom and security while condoning dictatorships and mass killing. The key to understanding this situation is in the fact that each capitalist state machine operates in the interests of is ruling class. At one time these interests may require support for a "democratic” government; at others they may require an alliance such as that between Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany in 1939, or between Stalinist Russia and America and Britain in 1941, or between Britain and South Korea in 1950.

The world’s capitalist class have the common interest of exploiting the workers, and using the material resources of the world, to the point of maximum profit and accumulation of capital. Within the capitalist class there is a maelstrom of opposing interests which causes persistent international conflict. That is the root cause of the mighty arsenals which are held in readiness all over the world by every capitalist power of any consequence. The interests of the capitalists have nothing to do with human welfare; in their rivalry it is not only permissible, but vitally necessary, to plunder, destroy and murder.

This is the awful reality behind the hypocrisy of Reagan, Thatcher. Chernenko, Mitterrand and the rest. There is as much menace for the working class in a leader's relaxed, folksy style of communicating capitalism's cynicism as in the rantings of a Hitler. The workers throughout the world must reject them all, whatever their style, and build a new society for themselves — before it is too late.