Reflections in War Time (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Somewhere around six thousand years ago, according to report, mankind started upon its civilised career. The years between then and now have largely been a record of wars. Civilisation and war—these words are twin brothers. Avarice and fear has kept the warlike spirit alive. Every war has its “demands” and every victory its “reparations.” In the main the "great” names of history are the names of war-lords: Pharaoh, Lysander, Alexander, Caesar, Charles the Great, Frederick the Great, and so on up to our own times. Every child knows the names of Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson and Kitchener, but how many can give the name of the inventor of the sewing machine or the harvester?

One problem certainly has never had a place in the causes of war or the terms of peace, and that problem is the abolition of poverty. And yet it is the one problem that vitally concerns the mass of the world’s population. No sooner has war broken out than nations, that for years have professed themselves too impoverished to pay their workers a decent wage, find themselves in a position to pour out the energies of multitudes of people on munition work. Wealth suddenly appears that is so great that hundreds of thousands of people can be kept out of production as soldiers or producing things that have no other object than destruction.

In spite of the claims that we are all in this war on an equal footing the happenings of every day tell a different story. The result of the chasm between rich and poor is still plainly visible. When the poor man’s home is destroyed he has no banking account to fall back upon to help him over his difficulties. When the necessaries of life become dear or scarce the rich can still eat well while the poor have difficulty in providing for the barest needs. While one reads of cocktails drunk in comfortable deep shelters by well-to-do people, one sees the crowds of poverty-stricken with their bundles besieging the shelters and tubes, and the appalling conditions under which multitudes of people spend the greater part of their time in the underground stations have to be seen to be believed.

The papers urge the workers to keep at it during raids and risk their lives to keep the war machine going, yet the privileged sections of society are much better able to keep out of harm’s way. While everyone who can is supposed to be giving all their money and time to their war effort, one still reads advertisements for servants for houses where two or three wealthy people have a body of menials to minister to their needs. While the needs of life are hard to come by for some the wine flows freely for others.

Long ago we were assured by the upholders of capitalism that one of the dire calamities that would befall society under Socialism was the impending break-up of family life. In these days that doleful wail has become laughable when we witness not only the break-up of families by evacuation—some even seeing their children going thousands of mile away from them—but even the complete disappearance of the poor homes they got together with such infinite trouble and sacrifice. And this is true not only of the average working man, but also of that section of the working class, the professional group, so prone to look down on all efforts to improve the conditions of the workers.

Doubtless there are some adherents to Socialism who, seeing the appalling state of the world to-day and suffering the nightmare of the beleaguered city, are inclined to despair of the future and feel that the prospect for Socialism is wearing thin. It is understandable that such ideas should take root as it is so difficult to tear one’s mind away from the maelstrom in which we are living and take a dispassionate view of events.

Yet in this miserable hour the future is by no means as dark as it may appear. The movement for Socialism is of necessity only a trickle for a long lime, and this partly deludes people into the belief that little progress is made when in reality great progress has and is being made. The mass of people move as a mass. That is to say their political knowledge grows slowly but steadily at an even pace and it is in a mass and not by ones and twos that the great body of the workers will come to the conviction that in Socialism lies their social salvation. In fact the progress is more real than apparent.

One personal statement lest anyone is deluded into believing that the above is mere idle optimism. The view set forth is the considered opinion of the present writer who has had over thirty years intimate association with the Socialist movement, and is only too well acquainted with the heartbreaking feeling of hope deferred. So be of good cheer, my brothers; in this blackest hour the hope of the future is neither faded nor fading. It still urges us to carry on with a stronger conviction of fulfilment than ever.

Gilmac.

Sir Richard Acland in a Muddle (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Richard Acland, M.P., is a Liberal who advocates what he believes to be radical and practical reforms of the capitalist system. All the same he has not got very far in his understanding of capitalism. In a letter to the News Chronicle (November 1st, 1940) he argues that this country’s property institutions must be changed drastically in order to win the propaganda war against Dr. Goebbels.

  What I submit we have got to do is to answer the Nazi taunt of “Pluto-democracy.” While more than 50 per cent. of our property is owned by less than 1 per cent, of the population and while the effective control over our economic policy is in the hands of an even smaller number of people, there is far too much truth behind this taunt for comfort, and whatever we may say, the Nazis will have a powerful weapon with which to turn small men and workers everywhere against us.

Two observations may be made on this. One is that Socialists have always had an unanswerable case against capitalism, and it has nothing to do with what Goebbels may have to say about it. The second is that Sir Richard Acland seems to have fallen for that piece of Nazi propaganda which represents Germany as a State which is run on principles other than those of “pluto- democracy.” There is not an atom of truth in it. Behind the screen of State control those ungentle grafters, the Nazi leaders and their capitalist big-business backers are running Germany for their own ends on the usual exploiting lines.

It may be said, however, that at least Sir R. Acland does want to see inequalities of ownership in Great Britain done away with, but when we read further in his letter we realise that he is only continuing the Lloyd George propaganda of 30 years ago, and the result will be the same. He asks that after the war the men who manage our giant resources “must be in some way or other chosen by all of us to work in the interests of all of us, and must not be chosen in any way by the owners of invested capital to work in the interests of the owners of invested capital.” 

Sir R. Acland probably does not see the fatal flaw in his pious proposal. He proposes that there shall still be “owners of invested capital,” i.e., people who live on property-incomes, but asks that the property from which they get their property-incomes shall not be worked in their interests! Just as a defender of slavery might have urged that slavery should not be abolished, but should be run in the interests of all! Let it be noted, therefore, that the interest of the workers is to get rid of the private ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. Short of that, and the introduction of Socialism, the more “pluto-democracy” changes the more it will be the same.

Edgar Hardcastle

Religion, War and Nazism (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

The claim has sometimes been made that religion in the modern world is a unifying force rising above national barriers. The war has shown again how little truth there is in this. Catholics and Protestants and Mohammedans are to be found supporting both sides, and it is difficult to discover any important respect in which the members of any of the religions are marked off in outlook or actions from the rest of the population. Inside the Church of England and the Non-Conformist Churches there is the utmost diversity of opinion, following political or other non-religious divisions, from an anti-war or pacifist attitude to extremes of belligerency demanding wholesale slaughter of the German civilian population. Only small bodies such as the Quakers show more consistency.

The subordination of religious theories to the needs of the State at war is most noticeable in the Catholic Church, not, however, because it is essentially different, but because the Catholic Church claims to be an international organisation. Some of the defenders of the Pope and the Catholic Church have claimed that the Pope's attitude is one of outright opposition to Nazism and Fascism, and that it is only because the Pope is bound by Treaty not to intervene in international affairs affecting Italy without the consent of the Italian Government, that reserve is maintained by the Vatican since Italy entered the war. That, of course, leaves the Vatican to defend the action of entering into such a Treaty, not to mention the difficulty of explaining why, if the Pope is opposed to Fascism and the war policy of the Italian Government, the Pope can receive 200 Italian army officers and say to them “we bless all you who serve the beloved fatherland with fealty and love.”—(News Chronicle, October 31st, 1940. Telegraphed report from Vatican City.) 

What we do see is the State everywhere trying, with considerable success, to use religion and religious organisations for political and war purposes. If the Churches are everywhere ready to subordinate their beliefs to the needs of the State, this is only matched by the readiness of the politicians and political parties to sacrifice their own professed principles in order to make religion their handmaiden. Now that the Nazis have conquered territories containing some 50 million Catholics, in addition to the 21 million in Germany itself, it is reported (Sunday Express, October 20th, 1940), that Hitler, the erstwhile denouncer of religion in general, “is making frantic efforts to win the Vatican’s sympathies and induce the Holy See to change its attitude towards totalitarian policy.”

  The first sign of the Nazi change of policy was when, on Hitler’s orders. Catholic priests accompanying his armies were decorated.    This step has been followed by the despatch to Spain of an important delegation headed by Bishop Derning, of Osnabruck, and Bishop Preyssing, of Berlin. They have offered the Spanish Churches three wagon-loads of crosses, religious paintings and Church furniture collected in Germany. Valuable pieces offered by Hitler himself are included.
   At almost the same time a new Catholic weekly paper has been launched with the title “The New Will.” It is edited by Bishop Razkowsky, of the army, whose father was one of Hindenburg’s sergeants. This weekly makes a great effort to emphasise that “Hitlerism is not as it was before.”
—(Sunday Express, October 20th, 1940.)

A little earlier the Times reported the following:—

   Most reliable sources in the Vatican city confirm a report which was first current about a fortnight ago that Pope Pius XII is about to issue a world-wide Encyclical warning all Roman Catholic believers against the continuously increasing peril of Communistic influences, which the Holy See is convinced are fast spreading throughout the world.
   These Vatican sources assert emphatically that the Church is about to initiate a decisive campaign against what the Holy See considers the catastrophic expansion of Bolshevist ideology in consequence of the efforts of various Governments to induce Russia to enter the present world-conflict. Great Britain, it is pointed out, has been openly trying to persuade Russia to become her ally, and the United States, the Holy See fears, is also prepared to come to terms with Russia in order to settle favourably the Far East struggle against Japan.
    On the other hand, the German-Russian pact has brought not only Germany but now also Italy and even Japan into the sphere of the pernicious Soviet influence. The Pope has grave fears that even the staunchest Roman Catholic country, Spain, may also fall a prey to the same course of developments. It is recalled how in the past year the geographical dominion of Soviet influence has widened to include half Poland, part of Finland, the Baltic States, Bessarabia, and north Bukovina.

—(The Times, October 8th, 1940.)

It is obvious that if at a later stage the German capitalists find themselves in open conflict with the Russian Government, the "anti-Communist” line of the Vatican would be a very useful background for an attempt to form a new grouping of Powers against Russia.

Catholicism again plays its part in the imperialism of the Spanish capitalists so that Professor Allison Peers gives it the name "Catholic imperialism” (Manchester Guardian, August 8th, 1940). Some more discreet exponents of this imperialism might say that they were concerned only with defending “a spiritual and religious conception of civilisation,” but Professor Peers sceptically asks the question whether that is all General Franco meant when he declared “We have a will to empire.” The collapse of France opens the way to Spanish expansion in Africa, and the Spanish Press talks about "Tangier, Gibraltar, Casablanca, Algiers, Fez, Oran."

Luther The First Nazi?

However, it is not by any means a question of British Protestants lining up against foreign Catholics and holding them responsible for the world’s troubles. On the contrary, several writers have sought to blame German protestantism and particularly Martin Luther for the Nazi creed. In a review of "French War Aims” (Denis Saurat, Methuen, Is.), the Manchester Guardian says: —

   One of the most interesting of his discussions is on religion. He finds a chasm between the conception of Christianity held by Germany and that which subsists in the Western democracies. German Christianity from Luther to Karl Barth is based on the idea of predestination and of the election of special persons and nations as the chosen instruments of God. In the Western democracies Christianity implies the freedom of the individual soul.

—(Manchester Guardian, July 9th, 1940.) 

The Very Rev. W. R. Inge is more explicit in his denunciation of Lutheranism. Writing on "German Frightfulness” in the Evening Standard (August 1st, 1940), he blames it all on the way the Lutherans reconciled the Christian’s adherence to the Sermon on the Mount with their acceptance of the State, "which includes among its institutions war, criminal justice, the acquisition of wealth, and, perhaps, slavery.”

The first compromise solution, he says, was that the Church said to its members you must do one or the other, either accept the State and all it implies or else retire to a monastery.

  The Christian conscience was never quite happy about this compromise, which was thought to be sanctioned by Christ’s words to the rich young man, “If thou wilt be perfect, sell all thou hast and follow me." At the Reformation the prevailing view was that this double standard could not be accepted. " We are all bound to obey the commands of Christ.
   This left the old conflict between religious and secular ethics quite unsolved. Martin Luther made a new compromise, which has had disastrous consequences, not only for Germany, where his teaching was most popular, but for Europe generally. He taught that Christianity is a matter for the individual only, not for the State. The State is not only not bound by the teaching of Christ: it need not obey any moral principles at all.
   This had been already accepted by Machiavelli, who found, truly enough, that petty States of divided Italy were absolutely unscrupulous. He coolly said that this was, in fact, the principle, or want of principle, on which Italian politics were conducted.
  Ever since the time of Luther, this horrible doctrine has been openly taught in Germany by theologians, philosophers and historians.
    I will quote two examples, one from Luther himself, the other from a modern Lutheran. “ The hand which bears the sword is no longer man’s hand but God’s. It is not man, but God, who hangs, breaks on the wheel, beheads, strangles, and makes wars.” So Luther found it consistent with his Christianity
to hound on the German princes to butcher the unlucky peasants who were in revolt against intolerable conditions.
  My other quotation is from Naumann, who had a reputation as a theologian in modern Germany. “Both are necessary to life, the mailed fist and the hand of Jesus. Only upon this foundation is the higher morality of the Gospel to be realised. This sounds hard and cruel, but it seems to me to be soundly Lutheran.” I am afraid it is.

It will be understood that those who tried and still try to solve the above problem by juggling with morality and some supposed divine necessity of obedience to authority are in a hopeless tangle. They will never solve their problem.

Dean Inge goes on to quote a saying of Frederick the Great, which sums it all up in a manner more true than Inge himself appreciates. What Frederick said was this: —

   I take what I want, I can always find pedants to prove my rights.

There we can leave the matter. The ruling class everywhere take what they can and have little difficulty in getting professorial and parsonical pedants to prove their rights.

Edgar Hardcastle

Far From Wealth (2018)

Book Review from the May 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Hinterland: America’s New Landscape of Class and Conflict’. By Phil A. Neel. (Reaktion Books. £14.95)

The hinterland is the area of the US outside the wealthy cities, ‘the growing desert beyond the palace walls’. It can be divided into the ‘near’ parts, the mainly suburban areas outside the central parts of cities, and the ‘far’ parts, primarily the rural areas but also including urban wastelands where much housing has been demolished. Even the far hinterland, however, has a great deal of industrial space, from factory farms to logistics complexes and mines, and is dominated by the informal economy of the black market and production of illegal drugs.

Neel records here some of his travels around this hinterland, beginning in northern Nevada, where the far right have begun a resurgence. They are less tied to the militia than used to be the case, and often reject white nationalist ideas. Some adopt so-called Third Positionist politics, claiming to be neither left nor right, while Patriot groups emphasise self-reliance rather than use of declining government services. Small capitalists, who often work in their mines or mills themselves, are the backbone of the Patriot movement. The election of Trump is likely to have a dampening effect, especially on the extremes of the far right.

On the California–Oregon border, wildland firefighters do extremely dangerous work. They usually earn less than $1,000 a week, and work for only a few months of the year. Neel refers to one firefighter in Idaho who was working to pay for chemo for his six-year-old daughter, who had leukaemia. As many as forty percent of firefighters are prisoners paid a pittance.

The near hinterland, Neel suggests, will be ‘the central theater in the coming class war’, as so many who have become surplus to the economy live there. Unfortunately, there is very little here on how the classes in this war are to be characterised, what it will involve or what the outcome might be. The book as a whole contains some useful material but rather little by way of concrete suggestions or conclusions.  

Paul Bennett

Anti-all nationalisms (2018)

Pamphlet Review from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Why Socialist Oppose Zionism and Anti-Semitism’. Socialist Party. (40 pages, £2. £3.50 p + p UK Inland)

It is common for people and organisations on the left of capitalist politics to express opposition to Jewish nationalism (i.e. Zionism) and support for Arab nationalism (i.e. Palestinian ‘self-determination’). The justification given for this is that the Zionists stole the Palestinians’ homeland, called it Israel and now oppress and intimidate them in their efforts to return to it or to achieve some kind of political status in the region. Others, conversely, support Zionism and the Jewish state and oppose the aspirations of the Palestinians on the grounds that Israel is a bulwark against forces that are opposed to Western values.

The position taken by the Socialist Party in its new pamphlet, ‘Why Socialists Oppose Zionism and Anti-Semitism’, is different from both of these. It is a position of opposition to all nationalism, whatever form it takes, which is summed up clearly in the pamphlet’s introduction:

  ‘Nations are not natural divisions of humanity: they are political constructs, “imagined nations” …..The notion that there are collectivities called nations with rights is a product of the capitalist era of human history. States – coercive institutions ruling over a given territory – existed before capitalism, but, once control over them had passed to the capitalist class and its representatives, the new rulers sought to legitimise their rule as that of representatives of “the nation”. Nearly everywhere those who ruled were not homogeneous in terms of languages or religion. They had to be moulded into a “nation” by having it drummed into them that they had a common history, interest and identity. As most states are of relatively recent origin, such “nation-building” is still going on today in many parts of the world.’

But even those sympathetic to this position may think that it applies less readily to Israel given the ‘extra’ ingredient in the mix – that of the centuries-long persecutions of Jews by those professing other religions, most notably Christianity, and hence the need for Jewish people to have a home of their own, a place to live in peace and without fear of anti-semitic persecution. This pamphlet chronicles the history, recent and otherwise, of this aspiration for a Jewish ‘homeland’ by reproducing a series of articles published on the subject in the Socialist Standard over the last hundred years. In recent times it is a history of the large capitalist powers pursuing their economic and strategic interests in the region and jumping from the Jewish to the Arab side and back again according to prevailing circumstances. The so-called Balfour Declaration of 1917 by the British government guaranteed the Jews a national home in Palestine but, when, after World War 2, this turned into the demand for an independent state, the British, initially at least, resisted this with force. But partition of Palestinian territory was finally accepted by the Western capitalist powers (and initially by Russia too), resulting in an ongoing conflict between Arabs and Jews that has lasted to this day. The words of the 1937 article reprinted in this pamphlet (‘Divide and Rule in Palestine’) have proved prescient: ‘This will give Arab and Jew (like the North and South of Ireland) something to quarrel over for years to come, to the hindrance of propaganda for working-class solidarity against the international capitalist class.’

As for a new era for Jews where they could live in peace and free from anti-semitism, this has clearly not happened as witnessed by the various wars which have taken place between Israel and neighbouring Arab states since the Jewish state was created and the perpetual tension caused by attacks on its territory and also by Israel becoming an object of hatred in the Arab world. Many Jews fled from anti-semitism in Europe but in so doing only succeeded in generating another anti-semitism in the Middle East.

The setting up of the new Jewish state in Palestine commanded a great deal of misplaced devotion, especially among the world’s Jewish population, with opposition to Israel or support for the displaced Arabs being seen as a form of anti-semitism itself. However the principled and consistent opposition of the Socialist Party to the nationalism inherent in the setting up and running of any new capitalist state, whether Jewish or otherwise, marks us off from everyone else on the political spectrum and makes it clear that our opposition to Zionism has absolutely nothing to do with anti-semitism. Evidence that we are entirely ‘even-handed’ in judging both Israeli nationalism (Zionism) and Arab nationalism is provided by the October 1993 article reproduced in this pamphlet (‘Peace in Palestine’):

  ‘Our opposition to Zionism does not mean that we support the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Unlike some, we don’t single out Jewish nationalism for special condemnation. We condemn all nationalisms equally. The “Palestinian nation” is just as much a myth as the “Jewish nation”, or any other nation. Nationalism is the ideology which seeks to justify the capitalist division of the world into separate “nation-states”, each competing to gain a place in the sun for its ruling class and each with killing machines at its disposal. We utterly reject this view of the way humanity should organise itself.’

Since nationalist movements the world over always turn out to be movements in favour of local capitalists wanting their own state in order to be able to pursue and defend their economic interests, it follows that any talk of ‘self-determination’ for a group of people inevitably results not in some kind of ‘liberation’ but in a change of masters. Given this context can it truly be said that Jewish wage and salary workers in Israel are in a fundamentally different position from Jewish wage and salary workers in other countries? The closing words of the introduction to the pamphlet make the socialist position absolutely clear: ‘Socialist opposition to Zionism is not anti-semitic; it is opposition not just to Zionism but is based on opposition to all nationalism and all nationalist movements.’ It flows from this that we resolutely oppose the conventional left-right politics of capitalism in which people support and encourage others to support one form of nationalism against another form of nationalism.

Howard Moss

Shoddy Scholarship (1969)

Book Review from the July 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy by Lewis S. Feuer (Fontana, 9s. 6d.)

Surely the market for Marx-Engels anthologies must be all but played out for a while? Feuer’s collection includes all the obvious choices such as the whole of the Communist Manifesto, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific and the Critique of the Gotha Programme plus part of the preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. In addition there are excerpts from many other works, including some of the early writings like the German Ideology and Toward the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. Some of the letters and essays included are not readily available elsewhere — such as the On Authority article.

The volume is marred by Feuer’s introduction which is facile when it is not down right ill-informed (“. . .  led Marx to abandon the theory he had held that ever society must go through the same sequence of stages"; “In Marx’s thought . . . the working class will found a socialist, then a communist society”, etc. etc.) This is rather shoddy scholarship, even for a sociology professor.

John Crump

How about some real progress? (1969)

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Man on the Moon
Perhaps it would be better if, after all, we left the moon alone. It is lovely to look at and does nobody any harm, and in any case there are plenty of problems to be tackled here on earth, before we start spreading out into space. Yet even the most fervent Luddite, the most obstinate flat-earther, much feel a chill of excitement at the thought of men out in black space, circling the moon, observing it, stepping out onto its surface.

There is near-unanimity of opinion that space flights, moon landings, and the rest are a 'good thing' and anyone who has doubts on the matter is immediately classified as a neurotic, reactionary crank. It is true that space vehicles can make a valuable contribution to weather forecasting, communications, and geology, if only because of their unique position for observation. Another result of that unique position is. of course, that space vehicles have distinct, and frightening, military uses — for both observation and combat. It is no coincidence that the world’s two space powers are also the world’s two greatest nuclear powers and that the other positions in the league table of space achievements roughly correspond to the positions in the nuclear power league table.

It might seem churlish to point this out, in face of the glamour of the moon shots. But is it so bad, to try to keep calm amid the hysteria and to wonder whether all technological advance is useful, why some of it happens, whether society has its priorities in order, and whether we should all fall flat on our faces in worship of the great god Progress which is supposed to feed and succur us, which we are supposed to rely on and to be unable to deny?

Sometimes, as communities all over the world have discovered to their cost, 'Progress’ means the destruction of what was once a comparatively peaceful environment. It means an airport setting down thundering jets into once tranquil countryside, a motorway or a pylon line slashing through downland, a nuclear power station on remote, rugged coastline. In other places, green and quiet streets are turned into car parks and road ‘improvements’ bring heavy traffic pulsing constantly past bedroom windows. These are examples of that ‘Progress' which, apparently, should not and cannot be stopped. Or should it?

Basis of morals
There can be no apology if the first thing we say in answer to that question is that ‘Progress’ can no more be considered in separation from its social background than can any other facet of society. And the social background for all of them is the same. The superficial aspects of society — its laws, morals, organisation, concepts, and so on — spring from its basis and conform in their nature to that basis. Capitalist society, which we live under today, is based on the private ownership of the means of production. It is bound, therefore, to have a legal and moral code based on the rights of private property. In the same way, concepts such as ‘Progress’ are influenced, indeed fashioned, by the needs and priorities springing from private property.

What this means is that, as capitalism is a society of commodity production — of wealth produced for sale and profit — ‘Progress’ will be encouraged only if it helps towards profitable production and sale. The organs of capitalist opinion are fond of presenting examples of 'Progress’ to us — like drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea — as adventures undertaken solely for the benefit of humanity. The truth is that in cases like this the capitalist class are hoping for cheap and profitable production and that is why they enthusiastically devote considerable resources to the project.

But it is a different story, when the prospects of making a profit are less rosy. A recent issue of The Guardian (July 3, 1969) stated that the Water Resources Board has turned down a project for the large-scale production of fresh water from sea water because it would cost about twice as much as the systems used at present. The Board docs not know when desalination is likely to become ‘economic' and therefore ‘acceptable'. The point is that, at a time when water is in seriously short supply, progress in its production is being held up, not by technical or productive obstacles. but by the same old bogey of capitalism — the economics of cost and profit.

In another way. this applies to the entire boom in ‘Progress' which has recently taken capitalism by storm — automation, computers, container traffic, and all the other things which are supposed to be part of a great effort to improve our living standards. In fact the boom has been promoted by the simple fact that for a long time, with certain temporary exceptions, the advanced nations of capitalism have had to face a shortage of labour and they have applied the classical remedy of trying to reduce their labour requirements. Again, profitability and not 'Progress’ has been the decisive incentive.

One of the more unfortunate aspects of this is that, in its obsessive haste for profits, capitalism will often launch out on a bit of 'Progress’ purely because at the time it seems the quickest and cheapest method of dealing with a problem. In the long run the results can be disastrous and even, if we are to worry about the interests of the capitalist class, dearer and less profitable.

A recent example of this was the poisoning of the Rhine with a pesticide effluent. This was a much-forecast backlash of the ‘Progress’ in agricultural methods which uproots hedgerows to create a near-prairie in which heavy machinery can operate more profitably and which saturates the land in a variety of pesticides and fertilisers which wreak havoc on the natural balance of the earth and which can turn fertile lands into a dustbowl. There are plenty of informed warnings about the consequences of these policies; but farming, just like any other productive operation of capitalism, is carried on for profit, which means that all other considerations, including speculations on the safety of the future, take a back seat.

In the same way, medical science often joins in the great rush for 'Progress’ by producing medicines which have the sole usefulness of propping up sick workers more quickly than they have ever been propped up before and delivering them back for work on the production line with unheard-of speed. It is not unknown for some of these medicines — for example some antibiotics — to be exposed, after vast amounts of them have been pumped into willing and grateful workers, as of limited usefulness and, in some cases, as actually dangerous. But at the time it seemed the cheapest and quickest method of ensuring uninterrupted production . . . 

Shoddy goods

Are we, then, against Progress? The simple, hoary answer to that is that Progress cannot be stopped; indeed it is clearly desirable that man should progress in the sense that he should always be seeking to control and improve his environment. The question is, how is this to be done?

The first useful step to take would be to realise that the present social system, for all its mouthings about ‘Progress’, is in fact a fetter upon it. Capitalism holds back advances in our productive powers because it demands production for a market. This usually means production at standards well below our capabilities; it means shoddy goods aimed at capturing the market and being produced as cheaply as possible. It can also mean restricting and holding back production or a new development for fear of overstocking a market and causing a price collapse. Capitalism’s incentives are wrong; it judges everything in terms of profit. It is, therefore, bound to misuse 'Progress’, even when it allows it. Anyone who is interested in 'Progress’, then, should also be interested in the fact that it is crippled by capitalism.

Social progress must come first, to create the conditions in which our abilities can be given their head to enrich human lives. In the new society Progress will be reality instead of a word calculated to make any sensitive man release the safety catch of his pistol. 

Ivan

Letter: Why bother with parliament? (1969)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sirs

[1] Your views on parliamentarism are based on the idea that capitalism, at least in England, rules through parliament, and that capitalism can hardly do without it. I disagree, because through the last decades it has become clearer and clearer that parliament has hardly any function at all. The most important decisions are taken in ‘advisory boards’ etc, and not in parliament. Parliament only acclaims what all kinds of boards and committees of experts decide, and capitalism can do very well without this acclaim.

[2] Moreover parliament has never had any power over important economic decisions like production (what is produced where) and investments. As the privileges of the capitalists lie in that field, you cannot force them to surrender their privileges by parliamentary action. The capitalists are not dependent on the state, the state is dependent on the capitalists.

[3] I agree ‘‘capitalism can only be overthrown by the determined struggle of a socialist working class”. This struggle must consist of more than the giving of a vote to the Socialist Party of Great Britain. To overthrow capitalism it is needed that they force capitalism into a situation of economic crisis which it cannot overcome. This can be done by strikes in key industries, or a general strike, in which the workers are convinced of the need of reforms that go beyond the scope of capitalism.

[4] On the other hand I believe that it is not necessary that the workers are convinced of this before the final struggle begins. In other words it is possible, in my opinion even probable, that the workers will only understand that Socialism is in their interest through hard experience, for instance in previous struggles for ideals which do not go as far as the immediate establishment of Socialism, but for instance just a big improvement of their living conditions (higher wages, shorter work times, longer holidays, etc.). If they succeed in reaching some of these short-time goals it is important that they see that after some time all the reforms that they won by struggle are taken away from them again, like happened in France after the May uprising, so that hardly anything is left of the original reforms. After the workers have experienced this once, or a few times, it will be possible to convince them that the reforms they want cannot be realised within the capitalist system, and that they will have to go beyond this system and construct Socialism.

[5] This means that we must not put aside a struggle for anything short of Socialism, but think of it as a stage in the process of growing consciousness in the working class, and aim at a quickening of this process. We can even try to start an action for a short-time goal of which we know it cannot be realised because of the favourable side-effect; this growing consciousness. For these struggles I do not reject the possibility of co-operation with neo-capitalists and social democrats.

[6] Another thing I still do not understand is how you want to use parliament in a socialist state, as it is an instrument of the capitalist state which cannot be just taken over to be used for socialist goals. Marx and Engels pointed this out in their foreword to the Communist Manifesto of 1872.

Johan Sevenhuijsen 

Delft, Holland.

Reply:

We have numbered for convenience the points our correspondent makes.

1—When we say a class rules We mean that it uses the state (the public power of coercion, with its armed forces, police, judges, and jailers) to further its interests. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does say that in many advanced countries—like Britain and Holland—the capitalist class controls the state, or rules, through parliament by persuading the working class to elect pro-capitalist candidates. It is parliament, composed of these people elected on a universal suffrage, that passes the laws (including those to raise the taxes to pay for the upkeep of the state machine) and to which is responsible the government which does indeed make the day-to-day decisions which parliament usually endorses, as Mr. Sevenhuijsen points out.

We don’t base our views on using parliament solely on the idea that the capitalists rule through parliament. Even in countries where the parliaments or national assemblies are obvious facades (the state capitalist countries, for example) and where real power does reside elsewhere (in the central committees of the ‘Communist’ parties) we still argue that workers must struggle for democratic rights and use their votes to elect socialist delegates to parliament or its equivalent. The Socialist Party maintains that it is vitally important that a socialist majority should demonstrate clearly that they are a majority—and not just take to the streets in a futile attempt to seize power. The advantage of this strategy is that any minority which tried to resist the socialist revolution would clearly expose itself as undemocratic and also as being responsible or any violence that might be needed to overcome such obstruction.

With a socialist majority in parliament the working class would control the state and could use its political power to carry through the conversion of the means of production into the common property of society. The working class will support the measures taken by a socialist majority in parliament not for any legalistic reasons but because, as conscious socialists, they will understand what steps are being taken and why because they will have sent the delegates to parliament to carry out their wishes. And the same argument applies to the armed forces and the police. They will be available to back up the decisions taken by the workers not because they have to obey the instructions of parliament but because a majority of them—as with the rest of the working class—will be socialists.

2—We have never claimed that parliament controls the economy. Indeed, that it does not and cannot is part of our case against parties that think they can plan capitalism to meet human needs. What we say is that parliament controls how political power is used—what taxes are levied, what laws are made, how the armed forces are used. Certainly the capitalists’ privileges are economic but these are protected by political means. If the capitalists had to rely on themselves and their moneybags to keep their privileges they would be in a very weak position. But their right to the surplus labour of the working class is endorsed, even granted, by the state. The means of production they own are not their personal possession; they cannot be locked away from the workers in a cupboard or a safe. Ownership of the means of production is a social institution enforced by political power. In the West (in state capitalist Russia the capitalists' privileges are more obviously dependent on their control of the state) ownership takes the form of pieces of paper, like stocks and shares, bills and bonds, and title deeds, which are enforceable by courts of law behind which in turn stands the armed might of the state. To end capitalist privilege, as Marx never ceased to emphasise, the workers must first win political power.

3 —Of course capitalism cannot be overthrown merely by voting. Behind the vote for Socialism must be socialist knowledge which will express itself as organisation on class lines ready to take over the running of the state and industry. The socialist election victory will be a gauge registering the fact that the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism has majority endorsement. The vote, too, can be the means of choosing the mandated socialist delegates who will go to parliament and the local councils and take them over in the name of the working class. When a majority of workers have become socialist, using the vote will be the simplest, most direct way of gaining political power for Socialism.

4—Mr Sevenhuijsen, however, does not accept that there need be a socialist majority before the attempt to overthrow capitalism is made. He suggests that a minority of socialists can somehow precipitate mass socialist understanding. But we know of no reason why socialist understanding should necessarily emerge under conditions of economic crisis. It has not happened in the many crises capitalism has had to date. There will only be a revolutionary situation when workers are revolution-minded. Anyway, any such attempt by a minority is most likely to be crushed by the state acting to protect capitalist privilege. It is dangerous nonsense to talk as if a minority could take on and defeat the well-equipped modern state, especially if it enjoys mass support or even apathy. It is quite true that workers will come to want Socialism through their experience that capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work for them but also through their experience of hearing the socialist case. There is ample evidence by now that capitalism cannot serve human needs so there is no further need for workers to experience, as Mr Sevenhuijsen suggests, a few more times the failure and futility of reformism. What is missing in their experience is hearing the socialist case that a world of common ownership and production solely for use is the immediate, practicable alternative society that will end their problems. Socialists should be trying to convince workers now of this, not trying to give them further practical demonstrations of the futility of reformism by themselves engaging in it

5—That is why we disagree fundamentally here with Mr Sevenhuijsen. Socialists should advocate Socialism alone and refuse to propose reforms of capitalism. As all other parties stand for capitalism and represent various sections of the capitalist class (and this includes 'neo-capitalists and social democrats’), the Socialist Party should oppose them at all times, rejecting deals with them even for reforms.

6—We do not know what a 'socialist state' might be. When Socialism has been set up, with the abolition of classes and private property in the means of production there will be no need for a public power of coercion, or state. Instead there will be the simple democratic management of social affairs. We cannot tell now the details of such a set-up but no doubt it will involve elected councils and assemblies at some stage. In their 1872 Preface Marx and Engels repeat Marx’s comment after the Paris Commune of 1871 that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes.” We agree. Before using the state machine to set up Socialism the workers will have to make certain changes in it. Marx mentioned breaking up the military-bureaucratic parts of it but certainly not abolishing parliament. Far from it, the Paris Commune extended the principle of accountability of public officials to the democratically elected assembly or commune. Talking of 1872 we recall another remark of Marx’s made that year, oddly enough at the Hague in Holland, that. political conditions in Britain, America, and perhaps Holland should allow the workers there to win power for Socialism by peaceful means, presumably by winning a socialist majority in an election. Since then those political conditions Marx had in mind—a majority of electors from the working class, parliamentary control of the government and armed forces, a civil service open to all—have been established in many other countries, thus allowing the working class to use them for the one revolutionary purpose of establishing Socialism.

Editorial Committee

Trotskyist vote in perspective (1969)

Alain Krivine, 1969.

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

“France — 200,000 vote for workers’ control”, declared Socialist Worker (June 5) reporting the presidential election results. "235,000 Say Revolution Now” was how Black Dwarf (June 14) put it.

Alain Krivine, the trotskyist candidate, had polled 236,263 votes in metropolitan France—a mere one per cent. Despite the fact that this confirmed our analysis of the May events—that a revolutionary situation did not exist because very few French workers really understood and wanted Socialism —the British trotskyist papers were exhilarated by the result:

. . .  the people who voted for Krivine can stand up and be counted for what they really are: men and women who have made a complete break with all the parliamentary parties, with their illusions of creeping socialism or bourgeois concepts of law and order. To vote for Krivine signifies an awareness of the necessity for revolution in France and a willingness to work for it. There are in Metropolitan France 235,000 revolutionaries who voted for a Trotskyist candidate and double that number if the disenfranchised foreigners, younger students, workers, and school children are included (Black Dwarf) 

Only Krivine stood for the abolition of the sham system of parliamentary democracy, for workers’ power as the alternative to capitalism . . . The campaign was a tremendous opportunity for using the machinery of the capitalist state in order to expose it. Krivine appeared on television with as much time as every other candidate—and hammered the need for revolution. His election address was delivered to every voter at the state’s expense (Socialist Worker)

We are sorry to dampen their ardour but let us put the whole thing in perspective. The vote for ‘workers’ control’ and for ‘revolution’ was minimal. Krivine polled about the same percentage as SPGB candidates have consistently done in national and local elections here. In addition, it has been our experience that on so low a percentage vote more than half our votes were cast by chance or in error so that the total vote cannot be regarded as an accurate measure of the real support for Socialism.

When in 1967 we contested four boroughs in the Greater London Council elections, putting up 14 candidates, the votes and percentages (taking those for the top candidate of each party) were:

Conservative             166,358     52.1
Labour                       120,735    37.7
Liberal                         18,033      5.6
Communist                    7,847      2.4
Socialist                         4,796      1.5
Others                            2,164      0.7

(At this time the trotskyist vote was included in that for the Labour Party.)

Unique New Zealand (1969)

From the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Zealand’s development has perhaps been unique in two fields. First, certain reforms were achieved in New Zealand at a very early stage. As early as 1879 men had the vote, and by 1893 women were also entitled to vote. But even today certain restrictions are placed upon Maori voting. By 1894 New Zealand was the first country in the world to have established the system of compulsory state arbitration for fixing wages and settling industrial disputes. This was a retrograde step as far as the workers were concerned, for as all class-conscious workers know, in practice, courts for fixing wages etc. are there purely to prevent workers from striking as further pressure for their claims. Arbitration courts are often long-winded and the capitalist knows that the majority of workers can be distracted from their original determination if things drag on too long.

These early reforms and others, like the eight-hour day in 1897, plus a restricted programme of immigration (thereby maintaining a fairly full state of employment) have tended to give the New Zealander a false sense of security.

As well as long hours of overtime and wives going to work, secondary employment has become to the New Zealander an accepted way of life. He has his house, car, and washing machine, but the price has been high, New Zealand being only second to America in the number of hours worked per head of population. The veneer of affluence, like that of any so-called affluent country, for the working class is very thin.

The second unique aspect of New Zealand’s development is that it has been a farming community from the start and has remained so ever since. This can be a very precarious situation since New Zealand’s exports, the greatest bulk of which go to Britain, are made up almost wholly of agricultural produce—meat, wool, tallow, butter, cheese, powdered milk, and some timber.

Reading an extract from The New Zealand Trades Alphabet, 1968 edition, we can see just how far New Zealand is committed to agriculture as a means of overseas earnings, and to Britain as the buyer.

  For more than a century, Britain and New Zealand have been trading partners. New Zealand, whose whole economy is based on our ability to produce cheap foodstuffs, has sold them to Britain in return for goods and services we cannot provide for ourselves. The money which changes hands in trade between New Zealand and Britain now exceeds $860 million a year.
  New Zealand’s farming industry has been developed primarily to suit British needs and tastes, and Britain now buys some 85 per cent of New Zealand’s butter exports, 92 per cent of the lamb, and 78 per cent of the cheese. Last year sales of these three products were worth $216 million, or 30 per cent of this country's total export earnings. Outside Britain there is simply no substantial market open for any of them.

It is no wonder then that the clouds of economic anxiety began to gather over New Zealand when in 1958 the European Economic Community or Common Market was formed.

Looking at New Zealand over the past few years, one can sense the air of change. Unemployment has crept into existence, something until recently almost unheard of, and while the government tries to tell us that today we are back to full employment it fails to take into consideration the 11,064 persons that constituted a population loss to New Zealand in 1968, (see Auckland Star, December 10, 1968). Industrial unrest has been greater than ever as workers are trying to maintain their standard of living. Big mergers are taking place with almost indecent haste to constitute a position of strength for the struggle that is almost inevitable. We see Mr Holyoake a very worried man, chasing around the world talking and almost pleading with prime ministers of various Common Market countries in a puny effort to try to avert the disaster that could come to New Zealand if Britain joins the Common Market. We can see a great need for trade union solidarity. But most of all, if there is a lesson to be learned from this, it is that we can see a greater than ever need for socialist organisation for the overthrow of capitalism.

Ernie Higdon, 

Socialist Party of New Zealand.

Luxemburg abridged (1969)

Book Review from the August 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rosa Luxemburg, Peter Nettl (OUP, 25s.)

Peter Nettl’s original two-volume study stood head and shoulders above all previous biographies of Rosa Luxemburg. Oxford Paperbacks have now published an abridged edition which still manages to remain the most detailed account of her life and the most penetrating analysis of her theories yet available.

John Crump

Revolution not reform (1969)

From the September 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

On all sides the corruption and futility of the capitalist social system is exposed. In Vietnam, Nigeria, and the Middle East there are wars which draw out in a consuming agony and defy all the efforts of politicians and diplomats to end them. On one hand we hear of wealth being destroyed because there is no immediate market for its sale, and of resources being lavished on moon flights. On the other we know that one half of the world’s people goes to bed hungry each night. Even in those countries which are under no present threat of war or starvation the people are oppressed by a constant grind of poverty; harassed by insecurity, by bad housing, by the ever-increasing pace and intensity of exploitation.

Plans and promises

In the United States, for example, which claims to be the most advanced of all capitalist states, there is desperate want and the running sores of ghetto life inevitably produce a crime rate which is mounting as fast as any rocket to the moon. In Russia, which claims to have undergone a revolution for Socialism, we know that there is a massive and oppressive police machine bolstering the position of a privileged class and a mighty military organisation which has it in its powers to wipe out much of civilised life on the earth.

Wherever we look, we see politicians of all parties struggling in the toils of their own impotence in face of the anarchy and conflicts of capitalism. When a party is out of power it produces a mass of plans and promises, all of them professing to lead to the solution of the problems of a country, if not indeed of the world. But if that same party wins power it is a different story. The plans are seen as puny flutterings against the almighty power of capitalism’s innate disorder, the promises exposed as meaningless mouthings designed to nurture ignorance and capture votes.

We have seen this happen in America, where the working class have turned, in revulsion at the enduring monuments of corruption and dispute left by the Johnson administration, to the Republicans — whose reputation for honesty and for keeping their promises is no better than that of the Democrats. We have seen it in Britain, where the latest experiment in Labour government bids fair to outdo all its predecessors for cynicism and disaster.

We are seeing this all over the world today and we have seen it many times, in many places, before. The lesson is clear. Reformism is reactionary and futile. Revolution alone provides the answer to society’s ailments. Only a revolutionary party can point the way to a freer, saner, more abundant society.

What, then, is a revolutionary to do? The first essential is that he should be aware; he must sharpen, and keep sharp, his revolutionary knowledge and conceptions of society. He must clearly understand that the problems of capitalism spring directly from the system’s basis and can be eliminated only by fundamentally changing that basis — in other words by ending capitalism and replacing it with Socialism. The revolutionary must aim, without wavering or compromise, at this fundamental social change. He must not opt for anything less than Socialism, nor accept any postponement of the revolution in favour of tinkering with capitalism now. His watchword must always be — Revolution, not reform.

Talents united

Next, the revolutionary must be organised. By himself he can do valuable work propagating the case for Socialism but in unity with other socialists his strength is disproportionately increased. his voice more powerful, the resources at his command more extensive. An organisation can hold propaganda meetings, prepare and publish literature, publicise the case for Socialism. It can unite many talents and experiences under a single banner and use them to maximum effect. It can perform the vital task of tangibly proclaim ing the existence of the revolutionary idea, the idea that there is a lasting alternative to the bestiality and degradation of capitalism.

But even more important, an organisation can aim at something beyond the scope of any individual, no matter how fervent and determined he may be. An organisation can be the political weapon which a socialist working class will wield to take power to refashion society in the interests of the entire human race.

The road to Socialism is political; if the working class aim at less than political power — if they aim at industrial takeover or armed insurrection or sabotage — then they will provoke the might of the capitalist state. That might must be controlled and this can be done only by taking away the capitalists’ political power. For this, socialists must be united in political organisation.

But of course it is not simply one nation’s state machine we must aim at. Socialism is worldwide, which means that the socialist party must be international. At present we exist in an organised fashion in Austria, America, Australasia, Great Britain and there are other groups of socialists in the West Indies, Scandinavia. and so on. We are all linked by our common political consciousness and our determination to work for the revolution. The international socialist parties can, by their exchange of ideas and experiences, continually confirm that the malaises of capitalism are international and cannot be cured in one country, or as long as the system lasts.

Workers of the world, unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains — and we have a world to win!

Man: Ape in Wolf’s Clothing? (1969)

Book Reviews from the September 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Naked Ape, by Desmond Morris. (Corgi, 5s.)
Violence, Monkeys and Man, by Claire and W. M. S. Russell. (Macmillan, 63s.)
Man and Monkey, by Leonard Williams. (Panther, 8s. 6d.)

Perhaps the most famous of scientific frauds was the fake Piltdown Skull of 1910, a “missing link” fabricated by a person unknown. That anonymous joker put together an ape’s jaw with a human skull. Desmond Morris has grafted the most ignorant fairy tales about human society onto a body of basically sound ideas about human biological evolution. The Naked Ape is a barefaced hoax.

As a gimmick, Morris pretends to describe the human animal just as it would be pictured by a zoologist if it were a newly-discovered species. “Naked ape” is a clinical term (like “black-footed squirrel”) which is supposed to denote men’s most noticeable characteristics: their lack of fur. But evidently, Morris has become a rich man because to millions of his readers, nudity is a novelty. It should be obvious that the most important thing about human animals is not that they are naked, but that they are clothed. In other words, they produce what they consume; they turn the artificial into the necessary, and (like Morris) sometimes confuse it with the natural.

His book is a hymn of praise to modern capitalism. All the current practices, preoccupations, superstitions, myths and manners are, according to Morris, highly admirable. Furthermore, they are natural because they stem from man’s past as a wolf-like, monogamous, predatory killer. Frequently this approach becomes so manifestly silly that we are tempted to suspect the author of perpetrating a spoof, a sarcastic attack on the ludicrous legends of human nature:

One of the essential features of the hunt is that it is a tremendous gamble and so it is not surprising that gambling, in the many stylised forms it takes today, should have such a strong appeal for us.

We can safely wager that not one of the fish-eyed zombies who stand for hours in front of a fruit machine has yet thought of defending his addiction with the excuse that it stems from the bloodthirsty excitement of his prehistoric past. Derision is the only intelligent response to this sort of foolishness, yet Morris seems to be serious. Anyone with a smattering of education knows that societies have changed historically, and that customs vary geographically. But according to Morris, only capitalist man is truly human:

The earlier anthropologists rushed of to all kinds of unlikely corners of the world in order to unravel the basic truth about our nature, scattering to remote cultural backwaters so atypical and unsuccessful that they are nearly extinct.  They then returned with startling facts about the bizarre mating customs, strange kinship systems, or weird ritual procedures of these tribes, and used this material as though it were of central importance to the behaviour of our species as a whole. The work done by these investigators was, of course, extremely interesting and most valuable in showing what can happen when a group of naked apes become sidetracked into a cultural blind alley. It revealed just how far from the normal our behaviour patterns can stray without a complete social collapse. What it did not tell us was anything about the typical behaviour of typical naked apes. This can only be done by examining the common behaviour patterns that are shared by all the ordinary, successful members of the major cultures – the mainstream specimens who together represent the vast majority.  Biologically this is the only sound approach.

In other words, don’t talk to me about filthy savages. Of course, biology has nothing to do with it. There is no evidence that different cultures are due to different biological endowments, and plenty of conclusive evidence against this. People from “all kinds of unlikely corners of the world” have been educated to be perfectly competent under advanced capitalism. Sometimes, even, the more backward the better: as in many parts of Africa, where people from stateless societies (such as the Ibo) have caught on to capitalist values much quicker than people from near-feudal societies at a more advanced stage of social evolution. For that matter, it is common knowledge that the peoples in the most advanced societies today (the Anglo-Saxons, Japanese, Russians, etc.) were for thousands of years scattered in “remote cultural backwaters” while highly successful empires sprouted in what are now wretched deserts. Morris would be very contemptuous about the “bizarre mating customs, strange kinship systems, or weird ritual procedures” of his European ancestors of 2000 years ago.

Tightly blinkered

Not that he is a racist. His point is that “the characteristics that the earlier anthropologists studied in these tribes may well be the very features that have interfered with the progress of the groups concerned”. But to say this is to gloss over the weak point in his argument. If the development of civilisation has been social and not biological, then why stop the clock at one point in time and say that this particular stage of society corresponds to an inborn pattern? Is it not clear, instead, that man is capable of a very wide range of cultural behaviour, and that the modern set of conventions in marriage and politics is just one of many, all equally compatible with any of man’s inborn characteristics?

Not to Morris. He constantly refers to his society as “mainstream”, “healthy”, “go-ahead”, “natural”, and “typical”. His reasons for this judgement are mainly two: that capitalism has the biggest population, and that “the naked ape is essentially an exploratory species.” Morris is thus a typical example of an individual tightly blinkered by the capitalist system, inside which he has been brought up. It never occurs to him that his own value judgement in placing a massive population and an exploratory drive above all other considerations is itself a result of social conditioning.  It would seem to him extremely “bizarre”, “strange”, “weird”, and “typical” to judge a society by (for instance) whether its population is happy, or whether its exploratory drives are harnessed to the satisfaction of human needs. He cannot avoid recognising the danger of capitalist war:

We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century.

And, as one whose mind is open to every myth and delusion in popular circulation, Morris believes that there is a danger of world “overpopulation”, so it might seem surprising that he should consider a large population the primary badge of success.  But he has an answer for this:

It looks very much as though, during the next century or so, we are going to have to change our sexual ways at last.  But if we do, it will not be because they failed, but because they succeeded too well.

Therefore, although the 20th-century predator is a marvelous piece of work (Morris claims his approach isn’t a moral one, but his strong approval shines through every page), the writer can have it both ways. We are a tremendous success because of our animal nature; our colossal failure is due to our animal nature. He has further room for manoeuvre in man’s twofold origin: that of a vegetarian primate which descended from the trees and became a hunter. Anything which cannot be “explained” by man’s predatory nature can of course be quietly slotted into his primate nature. Morris’s strategy is to assume that all modern man’s behaviour is caused by his “nature”, then to look into the current theories of man’s evolutionary origins for the most plausible tie-ups with his present-day activities. Naturally they can easily be found, and this approach then becomes circular, “proving” itself. Since Morris is quite good on biology, his obvious expertise in this field seems to give his elfin portrayal of society some authority. It is a widespread superstition that an expert in one field carries some weight in all fields, and Dr. Morris has exploited this to the full. Latter-day Original Sin merchant Robert Ardrey was overjoyed to find some apparently scientific support for his utterly discredited “Man the Killer” fantasies, and commented on The Naked Ape: “This spectacular book by a master scientist is what every naked ape has been waiting for.”

Dislike of facts

Actually Morris is more than just a specialist who imagines the universe is part of his speciality. He, along with Ardrey and Lorenz, is part of a very definite “backlash” against social science. The problem is that modern sociology and social anthropology, even though sponsored by the capitalist state, have proved up to the hilt what socialists have long insisted: that man’s most sacred institutions are not the product of his nature, but of his changing social environment. There is a very powerful and widespread dislike of this well-substantiated (and rather elementary) fact, which manifests itself in a strong appetite for the output of anyone who can undertake to “prove” the opposite.  Anthony Storr wrote in the Sunday Times recently:

"One quite certain principle of sociology is that very little, if any, human behaviour is inherited”. This extraordinary statement must arise from the idea that man is perfectible by altering his social institutions: a delusion to which only very old-fashioned Communists can now subscribe. We know very little about the fundamental patterns of human behaviour, but we know enough to be sure that man is not infinitely adaptable, and that we neglect biological factors at our peril.

This passage bristles with interesting details: Storr’s coy recognition of the apologetic political function his views serve, the meaningless but ominous-sounding “neglect biological factors at our peril”, the casual admission that “very little” is known about the subject of his heated denunciation, the unjustified use of the alarm-word “extraordinary”, and amid this wordy dust-storm, the one definite statement: that man is not “infinitely adaptable”, which no-one ever suggested.

Actions learned

At the risk of labouring the obvious, let us point out that all of man’s behaviour results from a combination of environmental and genetic factors; that man is the most adaptable of all animals all his deliberate actions are learned; that historically and geographically societies have varied very greatly in their systems of marriage, leadership (if any), property, religion (if any), and status, and that these diversities are not due to genetic differences; that to call any of these systems innate is exactly as ridiculous as to say that the grammar of the English language is innate.

The very fact that the whole human species has spent a very brief period of time (a few centuries) in Morris’s “mainstream”, while it spent the vast majority of its career (many tens of thousands of years) much closer to his “remote cultural backwaters”, should dispel any notion that capitalism’s conventions are inborn. But on one point we agree with Morris. Capitalism is the most advanced system the world has ever seen. For our part, however, this not a moral judgement.  On the contrary, capitalism appeared upon the scene drenched in blood from head to foot; it sent its hideous scourges, Jesus and VD, into all “remote cultural backwaters”, as the advance guard of murder, pillage, and profit. Under capitalism, genocide has become commonplace; misery the very air we breathe.

But when we say that capitalism is the most advanced social system, we mean that its potential for satisfying human needs is greater than that of any previous order.  Capitalism is still a tremendously dynamic society, a society of unparalleled achievement, but of unparalleled waste and destruction also. Only Socialism can put the “exploratory urge” of capitalism to the service of human happiness.

The Naked Ape does contain some well-established facts, and some reasonable speculations (though even the zoological data cannot be entirely relied upon. Some of Morris’s sweeping generalisations about sex in non-human primates are falsified by Leonard Williams’ observations of woolly monkeys). Furthermore, even in 1969, many workers still have a religious, sentimental view of man, refusing to believe that everything about human beings can be explained scientifically. The book may therefore do a good job here, in stripping away mystery and confusion.

Monkey myths

The Russells' volume explains itself at the outset:

First, we have tried to show that violence is not the result of an innate propensity to aggression irrespective of conditions, but a response to stress in societies. Second, we suggest that violence is part of a complex of responses evolved to achieve drastic reduction of a population that is in danger of outgrowing its resources.

Here we have the familiar Malthusian view of human violence, linked up with observations of the behaviour of overcrowded captive monkeys. The main error is the confusion of overpopulation with overcrowding. In the world today there is plenty of overcrowding but no overpopulation: the general trend is the depopulation of some areas, together with the cramming of large masses of people into gigantic cities. There is plenty of room in the world.

Overcrowding does place terrible strains on workers, leading to outbursts of violence, but these must be seen in association with all the other oppressive features of life inside capitalism.

Interesting is the summary of research into monkey violence. In 1932 Zuckerman published The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes, based on observations of baboons in Regent’s Park:

The notion of violent aggressiveness as an inherent quality of monkeys (or at least of baboons) was impressed upon a generation of scientists. By the fifties, when the crime returns from the affluent societies began to hit the headlines. the apparent results of Zuckerman’s work may well have influenced a wider public, and helped to bring about the resurgence of the unconditional view of aggression. Alike in monkeys and man, it seemed, the improvement of living conditions is no guarantee against violence; aggressiveness is human nature, monkey nature, a fact of nature in the most fundamental sense.

Only in recent years have researchers begun to study apes and monkeys in the wild, though they have done so with their heads full of prevailing capitalist myths about “human nature” and hence “monkey nature”. These scientists have been astonished at the peaceable behaviour of wild monkeys, and at first tried to write it off as exceptional or “unusual”, but they have finally had to face the unpalatable fact that healthy monkeys and apes in the wild hardly ever fight.

The author’s conclusion is that “all monkeys are peaceful in some conditions, and violently aggressive in others. Violence is a property of mammalian societies exposed to stress.” They apply this to human beings, and refute the theory (held by Morris) that man’s nature has been predominantly moulded bya wolf-like hunting experience. For by far the greater part of the evolution of man’s ancestors, after they came down from the trees, it would be truer to term them “scavengers” rather than “hunters”. In any case, adaptation to a hunting life would not necessarily make any creatures more aggressive within their own society,

Man and Monkey is a strange book: an idiosyncratic account of the author’s relations with woolly monkeys, combined with a theory of history and society which is a mish-mash of undigested bits of Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, Lorenz and, yes, Marx. Here we see again the naked ape syndrome, of mixing up half-baked, gossipy opinions with hard facts, in the hope that the latter will add some conviction to the former. A couple of samples: “We are all agreed that the fate of humanity depends on whether the strength of morality can cope with the instinctive drives of man.”  “History shows that aggressive races possessed more initiative and energy than their passive neighbours.” Williams generally does reach opposite conclusions to those of Morris: he finds modern life profoundly unnatural.

One very clear conclusion from both Violence, Monkeys and Man and Man and Monkey is the horribly cruel treatment of our cousins the apes and monkeys, both in zoos and in the pet trade, in the interests of profit.

Steele.