Answers to Correspondents (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several replies are held over owing to pressure on space.

Ed. Comm.

P.P.M. (W.1).

Our reply to your questions on value has again been crowded out.

We note that our replies to earlier questions on other subjects have had the result of evoking laughter from “literally a score (or more) educated Socialists." We notice, however, that you did not follow up by pointing out to us the supposed fallacies in our replies.

Incidentally, while you may be a good judge of what constitutes education, are you perhaps hardly competent to recognise what constitutes a Socialist? We have in mind an earlier letter (“S.S.,” February, 1937), in which you informed us that “Real Socialism never can or will be achieved in this country . . ."

If your “educated Socialists” did not laugh at that it can only be that they are not Socialists.

Ed. Comm.

Letter: Land Values and Socialism (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The correspondent whose letter was published in the March issue has written again, as follows: — 

To the Editor.

I dispute the statement of the Editor of The Socialist Standard that I favour half-strangled capitalism. I maintain that economic rent has absorbed the major part of production called wealth. I want to see a new form of capitalism, in which economic rent is socialised and the barriers to production by way of private land ownership and penal taxation is removed.

To-day, the worker is driven to wage slavery through the private ownership of the natural resources from which all mankind must get the means of life, and that is land. This private ownership has set up a competition between those who seek access to this natural resource, and so places them at the mercy of the owners thereof. If it is impossible for private interests to hold land out of cultivation owing to a heavy tax on its value, then land becomes more abundant and access to it easier. With easier access to land the power to enslave the worker would grow less, and I hope to zero. The boot would be on the other leg, for, instead of the worker competing to get work, capitalists would compete to get workers, with always the knowledge that easy access to land leaves the worker an alternative to owners’ terms. Capital itself would become much more abundant, setting up a great demand for its production, and to the advantage of those who did not wish to rent and use land. An early American settler would not stand a lot of nonsense from his employer, because soil and abundant land was available to him as an alternative. No one man was very rich, but there, too, need be no beggars or grovellers! Marx in his third volume of “Capital” deals at length with the enslavement of the worker by land enclosure.

By access to land, I do not necessarily mean land in the raw. A china clay soil brought into working gives access to the soil, and that access goes on throughout all processes up to the delivery of the cup and saucer to the hands of the consumer. A china clay soil held out of working by private interest, robs in purchasing power every process worker that might be engaged in producing articles of utility.

I will agree with the S.P.G.B. that nationalisation with or without compensation is not Socialism. Any Conservative can support the Labour Party policy and carry it further. I am advocating a “freed” capitalism with economic rent socialised. Tell me, too, do the S.P.G.B. propose abolition of money?

Yours,

Chas. E. Berry. 

P.S. The Black Hole of Calcutta was an example of air scarcity. We live in a system of land scarcity, freed from which we all shall be free.

Reply.

Our correspondent states that he seeks “a new form of capitalism," in which the advantage would be with the worker ("capitalists would compete to get workers”). In our earlier reply we stated that in effect our correspondent is proposing “a half-strangled capitalism." He rejects this description, but his explanation will not stand examination.

Under capitalism the propertied class exploits the working class. Receivers of rent, interest and profit are living on the unpaid labour of the workers. They are able to do this because they own and control the means of production and distribution, including the land. At the back of their ownership stands their control of the political machinery, including the armed forces. Our correspondent seeks a new form of this system, a form in which the “capitalists would compete to get workers.” But if that situation could be brought about the whole of the surplus value extorted by the propertied class would vanish. In other words, there would be no rent, interest or profit at all. The choice is, therefore, as we pointed out before, between capitalism and Socialism, between a continuance of exploitation and its abolition.

The attempt to modify drastically the relationship of the different sections of the propertied class (landlords and others), while continuing to prevent the working-class majority from ending exploitation, can rightly be described as an attempt to perpetuate a half-strangled capitalism.

Regarding money, it has repeatedly been pointed out in these columns that with the abolition of capitalism the function of money will disappear.

Ed. Comm.

Parliamentary Fund (1938)

Party News from the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

URGENT! For the past few months the Parliamentary Fund has shown an ominous tendency to fall. The reason may be that contributors have slackened off because the published figures of the Fund give the appearance of stability and suggest we have obtained nearly what we need. It is necessary to correct this view. The nett figure in our possession at the moment is considerably less than the published figures, and certainly low enough to embarrass us in going ahead, even with immediate plans.

Here is the position. Of the sum raised, £200 has been allocated for election agent’s expenses. The deposit is £150, so only the grossly inadequate sum of £50 is left for the agent’s running expenses. The agent’s allocation, naturally, has taken a large bite out of the sum collected. In addition, there has been the cost of increased propaganda, bill posting, handbills, and the circulation of an elaborately prepared leaflet, which has been distributed to the whole of the electorate in East Ham, N. There has been the purchase of 100,000 envelopes for preparation for the actual election. It can easily be appreciated, therefore, that the small nett sum of about £40, which we have at the moment, is dangerously inadequate for immediate working needs. Moreover, the agent’s allocation should — and must — be increased before the election.

The above may appear to be just a book-keeping record, but what must be remembered is that it expresses an account of (for us) intense activity. Remember, too, this activity must be increased tenfold during the next few months.

Records show that contributions to the fund are almost equally divided between Party members and sympathisers. We, therefore, appeal to all, particularly branches, to make it a routine business to send in contributions at least equal to those of 1937, and, where possible, to increase those figures by very wide margins.

We do not now appeal—nor do we argue—we expect it.

* * * *

Answers to three wise guys: —

Number One: The Socialist Party has not entered Parliamentary activity to test a cheap way of raising funds. We intend carrying out our obligations.

Number Two: We know that the £150 deposit is subject to forfeiture under certain conditions— our fund contributors know it, too. We do not know what the results of our new activity will be, but we have already collected sufficient material to hold a dozen or more inquests about it, which we shall—after the election. For the moment, the Parliamentary activity has widened our opportunities for all forms of our propaganda.

Number Three: Our new venture is not an indication that the Socialist Party is on the road of opportunism. The soundness of our membership precludes any such tendency. The example you give of a similar organisation, which applied for affiliation to the Labour Party, is evidence that that Party was essentially unsound, and that not because it had entered the Parliamentary fight. It is certainly no grounds for the impudent assumption or fear that we are travelling a similar road.

And let us be friendly and express the hope that we shall be in a position to thank you for a contribution in the May issue.

Parliamentary Committee.

Donations to Parliamentary Fund

The following donations to the Parliamentary Fund have been received: Previously acknowledged. £327 16s. 2d. (Donations to March 22nd, 1938); S.W., London. £2; W.E.B., 10s.; W.E.. 3s. 3d.; A.H., £1; D.L., 2s.; Chiswick Bch.. £1; Glasgow Bch., 10s.; W.L., 7d.; F.M., 7s.; W.R.. 9s.: M.G.. 5s.; W.T.H., 3s. 6d.; R.G.. 3s.; E G.. 2s. 6d.; Quartet, 5s.; Sympathiser. 1s.; North Wembley, 10s.; A.J.,2s.; Enderson, 2s.; Hackney, 5s. 6d.; Paddington, 5s.; P.R.H., 5s.; Dagenham, 8s.; A.Mc.P., Glasgow, £1; J.D., 2s. 6d.; G.F., 1s ; Neasden, 1s.; W.S., Leeds, 10s.; F.J.H., 10s.: W.A., Detroit, £1; F.W., Buxton, 2s. 6d.; M.P. Workers, £2 3s. 9d.; Eccles Bch., 5s.; A Friend, 6d.; R.L.O , 1s. 6d.; T.M., 7s.; Collins. Bexley, 2s.; Wade, 6d, ; E.C., 1s.; E.E.G., 1s.; E.L.D., 6s. 6d.; Tottenham and Wood Green, 15s.; Curtis, Putney. £1; W.J.B., 2s.; W.G.S., 5s.; H.D.. Cardiff. 17s 6d.: Guarantees, £3 9s. ; J.B., £1 5s.; G.. 10s.; Bloomsbur , £l; Total £352 15s. 0d.

Between the Lines: Letter from the BBC (1993)

The Between the Lines column from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter from the BBC

Last May, following the total exclusion of the Socialist Party's ideas and actions from the BBC's extensive election coverage, we published in this column an Open Letter to the Director General of the BBC. We pointed out that it was a principle of democracy to allow time for the expression of minority ideas; that it is inexcusable to refuse radio or TV coverage to a small party such as ourselves on the ground that we are small, not in small part as a result of media silence as to our existence. We made what we regard as the strong case that we are confident that if we advocated bombings and street violence — and, better still, acted upon such advocacy — we would doubtlessly obtain plenty of media exposure. The BBC is penalizing our party for being democratic, rational and peaceful. The BBC failed to assist in creating a democratic electoral atmosphere, but contributed to the undemocratic carve-up of TV and radio time by and in the interest of the existing ruling parties.

On 15 December 1992 a letter of reply was received, not from the Director General, but from one Douglas Evans who is described as Chief Assistant, Political and Parliamentary Affairs. He writes as follows:

  "I think I would find it helpful to know more about the campaign which you conducted at the time of the General Election. For example, how many seats did you contest and how did you make sure that your views and policies were communicated to media organisations? Were these prominently reported by other news media?
  I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the rules governing the allocation of Party Election Broadcasts, but I should point out that these rules are devised by the Committee on Political Broadcasting and are not the sole responsibility of the BBC."

We thank Mr Evans for his letter on behalf of the BBC and have published it because we intend to keep this correspondence open to the scrutiny of all our readers who will be free to judge whether the BBC is acting democratically or otherwise. We shall respond with some comments and some questions to Douglas Evans.

Firstly, we find it strange that the BBC, the largest news-gathering body in Britain, envied across the world for its professionalism, needs to ask the Socialist Party how many seats we contested in the last British election (a fact which was published in most quality newspapers). We contested one (Holborn and St Pancras), the main reason being that we are a small party and are restricted by the government-imposed deposit of £500 per candidate. It could be argued that a party contesting only one seat deserves to be ignored. If so, the BBC should let us know that this is their policy and tell us how many seats we should contest before they will stop ignoring us. We would remind the BBC that the Natural Law Party, with extremely rich backers and a few bizarre policies, paid to put up enough candidates to buy a Party election Broadcast. The Natural Law Party, formed in 1992 as an electoral stunt and now dissolved obtained that much BBC coverage, whereas the Socialist Party, formed in 1904 with eighty-eight years of principled and well-argued policies was worth no time.

Secondly, we can inform Mr Evans that the Socialist Party called a Press Conference, which was held in central London, within days of the election being announced. All media organizations, national and local, were invited to attend. We made it clear that if they could not attend they could contact our candidate, election agent or other speakers. They were sent copies of our official manifesto. No TV or radio station reported on these, "prominently" or otherwise. There was coverage in the local press. But our campaign was of national importance. We were the only political party standing in the 1992 election committed to the common ownership and democratic control of all social resources. We alone stood for the abolition of the money system; of the economy based upon buying and selling. We were the only leaderless party in the election, making it clear at all times that our candidate was not seeking followers and would refuse to lead anyone wishing to follow him or our party. We were the only party urging electors not to vote for us unless they agreed with what we stood for. Such policies might be rejected as absurd by controlling editors at the BBC. They are free to conclude that, but our concern is to allow the millions of people voting in the election, many of whom expressed the view that they were presented with little choice, with our revolutionary alternative. Let them judge what we say on its merits.

Thirdly, we note with disgust that the Committee on Political Broadcasting — a body appointed by and comprising those who have won previous elections — are free to determine the rules regarding media time for elections in which they intend to ensure that they will win again. In short, politicians who have deceived their way into power in the past set the rules for who may have public exposure in the future. We would be pleased to know when this Committee was elected, by whom, with whose authority and to whom it is accountable. We assume that this is not secret information.

Finally, some question. Would the BBC confirm or deny that any party, however newly-formed or lacking in policy, may have BBC exposure if it can afford to pay the £25,000 deposits entitling it to enough candidates to give it preference over the Socialist Party which has less funds? Is it the ease that an invitation to a press conference in which our party proposed to advocate acts of terrorism would have stirred more BBC interest than the total indifference which our democratic position resulted in? Is there a BBC policy to guarantee the right to be heard of minority political parties or does the BBC regard this aspect of democracy as unimportant? As the Socialist Party is refused a slot on the BBC "access" programmes on the ground that we are a political party, and we are refused electoral exposure on the ground that we are not a big enough political party, can we assume that the BBC expects us to either wind up as a political party so as to obtain half-an-hour of access TV or abandon our principles in order to be accepted as a winnable force by the BBC?

Steve Coleman

SPGB Summer School: Mental Freedom and Social Power (1993)

Party News from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer School 

10 & 11 July 1993

Fircroft College. Selly Oak. Birmingham 

Mental Freedom and Social Power

The theme of the summer school is the liberating and empowering of people through a better understanding of the society they live in and how it shapes their lives and thinking.

Discussions will go on to explore the possibilities for directing interests and activities so as to achieve mental assurance, the ability to exert power in today's society, and the opportunity to contribute to the achievement of a better world society.

We hope to have speakers, as well as participants, from outside as well as inside the Socialist Party.

Actually, we hope to start the rather full weekend of talks and discussion workshops with an evening meal on Friday. 9 July at about 6pm.

Please book early.

Details from Ron Cook. 11 Dagger Lane, West Bromwich, B71 4BT Phone 021 553 XXXX


See also this report of the Summer School from the September 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard.

50 Years Ago: The Common Market (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was no surprise when Harold Wilson described the British application to join the Common Market as a “great turning point in history.” Politicians, especially politicians like Wilson, are fond of such phrases; they know that while the working class have their attention focussed on the horizons of history they are not likely to be worrying so much about their immediate problems like frozen wages.

Of course Wilson is not interested in fundamental changes in history; a turning point from capitalism to Socialism would be altogether too great for him.

His business is to manage the affairs of the British capitalist class as a whole, and it necessary to sacrifice some industries in the interests of others.

This will probably be one result, if Britain joins Europe. Wilson expects British agriculture to suffer; “Undoubtedly,” he said, “the community’s policy will create problems for some of our smaller farmers.” But he also hopes for an “. . . enormous and growing market for our own more sophisticated and technological products . . .”

This rosy picture of Europe as an ever-expanding market takes no account of the fact that the countries already in the EEC are by no means free of economic troubles.

West Germany, for example, has just come through a sombre winter in which, although it was not as bad as many observers were expecting a few months back, unemployment rose from 216,000 in November last to 673,600 in February this year, falling to 501,303 in April.

The Common Market cannot solve capitalism’s built-in contradictions. Neither can it ease the problems of the working class. Whether it causes a rise in the cost of living, whether it is Wilson’s great occasion or Michael Foot’s disaster, the workers in this country will not need long to discover what their counterparts on the Continent have had to face. It will make no difference to them at all.

[from “Review”, Socialist Standard, June 1967]

Pathfinders: I’m Putting on my Black Hat . . . (2017)

The Pathfinders Column from the June 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s probably not the first question you need to ask about the practical workings of socialism, but given the recent panic about NHS trusts suffering ‘ransomware’ cyber-attacks you might be tempted to wonder what a future socialist society would do about a potential cyber-induced system shutdown. Leaving aside the fact that hopefully socialists wouldn’t be as daft as some of these trusts are alleged to have been in ignoring repeated warnings and not upgrading their obsolete operating systems, there is the question of why anyone in a free and cooperative non-market society would launch such an attack in the first place. In socialism there would be no money to extort from victims, and it seems difficult to envisage anyone being so zealously anti-social as to try to take out a hospital for the sheer hell of it.

But still we can’t be sure. On the face of it, socialism once established would be highly inclined to apply the same principle to its cyber systems as to any other of its systems, which is to say open and accessible, without locks, passwords, public or private keys, codes or captchas. Would this be asking for trouble? Maybe. Socialism in its infancy would be wise to take precautions against petty reactionary vandalism. But the way that mature socialism would work would tend to militate against vulnerability.

First, one of the reasons the Windows operating system is so hard to defend against attack is that its source code is kept secret, for business reasons, and therefore friendly ‘white hat’ hackers are kept out of the loop and unable to help spot flaws. Contrary to what Apple acolytes so often claim, the reason Apple rarely gets hit is not because it is superior but because it locks out all non-Apple software while Windows is an open platform, and because relatively few people use its desktop operating system so ‘black hatters’ are not so tempted to tinker with it.

Second, in socialism there would be no financial or other incentive to refuse or forget to update obsolete systems. If anti-virus software was deemed necessary, it would be state-of-the-art and automatically installed and updated. One of capitalism’s more minor stupidities is putting the financial onus on individuals to protect themselves and thereby society against digital or biological infections, where common sense would dictate making such protection free and universal.

Third, though it would make sense to standardise hardware to maximise repair and reuse, socialism could choose to adopt a diversity policy over software similar to agriculture, the idea being that monocrops spread plague whereas diversity diminishes their effectiveness. There isn’t just one way to write a program, there are potentially hundreds or even thousands, but capitalist competition tends to destroy all variants until only one is left. Socialism, to immunise itself, could in theory do the exact opposite and encourage as much cyber-diversity as possible, though such redundant complexity would not be without its own problems.

Lastly, there is the matter of widespread anonymity in the capitalist web, surely an affront to the socialist ethic of transparency. Hackers hide behind elaborate mazes of their own making, which socialism would have every reason to demolish. Such openness might make people nicer online too. An interesting study has shown that trolling behaviour is generated where two conditions are met: first, the online environment is hostile so that users feel antagonised, and second, the users are anonymous. Where there was no anonymity, the hostile environment still triggered some trolling but not as much, and where anonymity and hostility were both absent, a ‘virtuous circle’ resulted, where well-behaved peers encouraged good behaviour in turn (New Scientist, 13 May). There’s no reason to think that socialism wouldn’t do something similar.

************************************************************

It’s alive, it’s ALIVE!

Sex dolls that make small talk, recognise your face and get jealous of your Facebook friends? Yup, they’re now on sale at around $10,000 (BBC Online, 15 May). That’s great news for agalmatophiliacs everywhere. Pygmalion eat your heart out. Of course, the dolls don’t have much of an emotional range or even very sophisticated vocabulary, but then that probably suits the buyers very well. Many of them view their acquisition in terms of a ‘relationship’. One says ‘I can go out shopping for her and look for clothes – it is like having somebody in my life without having to deal with making mistakes. If I like a hat on her, she doesn’t say that she doesn’t like it.’ No indeed, because of course you can program their moods for them, even choosing to allow them to be moody, angry and jealous. Oh, and of course you can customise their bodies too, according to taste. But social acceptability is another matter and it may be a while before the happy hat-buyer is willing to go out shopping with his doll instead of for it.

Ethically it would be less accurate to say that the jury is out than that the jury has not been sworn in yet. Last time we mentioned this horizon tech (October 2015) things were still very much at the prototype stage, but already some academics were crying foul and calling for an outright ban. Now one of them has changed her mind, deciding that dolls aren’t really the problem, we humans are, in particular our ugly habit (that is to say capitalism’s ugly habit) of turning us into objectified and disposable machine tools. Meanwhile other academics guardedly suggest such developments might be a good thing if they help lonely and unhappy people with little chance of a real relationship. Maybe so, but the plot thickens when you start talking about child sex robots. If none are currently in secret development, one wonders how long it will take capitalism to pounce on the possibility.

Here’s a happier thought – what if they start designing politician sex robots? We could program them to be honest, truthful, incorruptible, selfless and competent. Silly idea, we know. But at least then we’d be screwing them instead of them always screwing us.

Paddy Shannon

Rear View: The Mosquito Knows (2017)

The Rear View Column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Mosquito Knows

‘Ambrosia: This Startup Will Give You Blood Transfusions From Young People to Reverse the Aging Process. It Only Costs $8,000’ [£6275] (newsweek.com, 9 June). Only rich over 35s seeking the elixir of youth need apply. But such developments come as no surprise to socialists who have long understood capitalism’s voracious nature and how it seeks ever new ways to drain what it can out of the working class. Marx noted in Capital volume 1, chapter 10, section 1: ‘Capital is dead labour which, vampire like, lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks’. Production for profit rather than need has resulted in the untimely deaths of millions through war and want, but for the system to continue it must avoid eradicating its source of unpaid surplus value. Indeed, the introduction of welfare payments and improvements in healthcare etc. are primarily in the interest of the parasite, not the host.

A rich reformist

Joining the parasitical 1 percent is difficult for those not belonging to families who have had our blood in the bank for generations. But one who has managed to climb the greasy pole recently is none other than Bernie Sanders. cnbc.com (6 June) reveals that he ‘had a surprisingly good financial year in 2016’ as he supplemented his annual income of $200,000 [£157,000] – a paltry sum, ‘making him one of the least wealthy senators’ – with $858,750 [£674,000] from book royalties . We reviewed Our Revolution in the April edition of this journal, and  berniesanders.com where he states ‘the issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time’. Our objection to him is not that he is rich, but that he is a reformist not a socialist.. The World Socialist Movement does not exclude capitalists from membership. Had Frederick Engels and William Morris lived long enough and demonstrated agreement with our Declaration of Principles, they would have been welcomed into our newly formed Party.

Here, there, everywhere

Capitalism exists throughout the world. We recently tweeted: Socialism has NOTHING to do with Venezuela, the Soviet Union, North Korea, China etc. That is a LIE capitalists and politicians want you to believe as it keeps them rich and powerful. Wherever there is a privileged elite in control of waged workers there is a capitalist economy. Socialism means a society with NO ruling class. Elites are found everywhere, including Angola. There the majority of our class exist on less than $2 (£1.60) a day and 90 percent of Luanda’s population must do so in slums. Yet the Angolan President’s son just spent £440,000 on a set of photographs. Daddy’s fortune ‘has been estimated at US $20 billion, which would put him among the world’s 50 richest people….José Eduardo dos Santos has not spared any effort in ensuring that his legacy continues through his family. The most famous of his children is businesswoman Isabel Dos Santos, 44, the only female billionaire in Africa. As well as being president of the Administrative Council of the state oil company Sonangol, she has investments in various multinationals, from banks to telecommunications, totalling a fortune of US $3 billion’ (globalvoices.org, 4 June).

Another old elitist

Socialists know that Simon Sebag Montefiore is a lousy historian (we reviewed his Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar in March 2006), so imagine the surprise when Catherine Merridale’s Lenin on the Train (2016), described by him as ‘the superb, funny, fascinating story of Lenin’s trans-European rail journey to power and how it shook the world ‘ (standard.co.uk, 17 November 2016), provides this gem. ‘But it was Lenin himself who made it clear that the Bolsheviks would reject democratic values.’ He ‘had not traveled back to join a coalition,’ Merridale writes according to the review of her book in the New York Times, but ‘to undermine the provisional government and establish a dictatorship in the name of the proletariat. It was Lenin who instituted severe censorship, established one-party rule and resorted to terror against his political enemies. Stalin took these measures to further extremes for his own sinister purposes.’  (nytimes.com, 9 June).

SPGB Summer School: The Environment (2017)

Party News from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Summer School 2017

21st - 23rd July

Fircroft College,

Birmingham 

These days, concerns about the environment tend to get pushed into the background by issues like Brexit, Trump’s presidency and ongoing austerity measures. But climate change, pollution and extinctions don’t go away just because the headlines are filled with other events. 2016 was the warmest year on record, with implications for sea levels and habitats; more and more waste is produced for future generations to deal with, and many hundreds of species continue to become extinct every year.

Legislation places some restrictions on the use of dangerous materials, hunting and waste disposal, for example. However, legislators can only work within a system which is structured to safeguard the interests of the wealthy elite, rather than everyone. And of course laws don’t always prevent environmentally-damaging methods from being used if they save or make money. Capitalism turns the natural world into a resource to be exploited for a profit.

The Socialist Party argues that the environment can only be managed responsibly if society as a whole is managed co-operatively and in everyone’s interests. If our industries and services were owned and run in common, then we would be able to produce what we need and want in the most reasonable, sustainable way.

Our weekend of talks and discussions looks at the current state of the environment, and its prospects for the future we make for it.

Talks and Events include:

• Glenn Morris: Destroying the Hand that Feed Us - Why Capitalism Cannot Solve Our Environmental Problems. A talk on the case for a new society which works alongside nature instead of destroying it.
• Janet Surman: World Military versus The Global Environment. War is one of the most profitable arms of capitalism. We investigate the negative impacts of militarism on the global environment.
• Paddy Shannon: The Vegans Are Coming! Attitudes to meat production and consumption are changing. This session explores the various arguments with a view to clarifying what our position as socialists ought to be.
• Carla Dee: One World, Our World - A Quiz. What do you know about climate change, the natural world and urban environments? Test your knowledge here.
• Brian Gardner: Socialism saves the World! How quickly could Socialised Production Resolve Climate Change? How will economic decisions be made in the absence of the market and will production for use save the planet in time?

The event will also include a bookstall, and exhibition about the SPGB's approach to environmental issues over the decades and an exclusive publication.

Don’t Read This Unless You Believe That Our World is in Need of Urgent Change (2017)

From the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Imagine this:

• A world without buying and selling.
• A world without classes.
• A world without borders.
• A world without money.
• A world where  ‘real’  democracy and mutual cooperation can flourish and grow.

These are the cornerstones of ‘real’ socialism.  Obviously, that doesn’t describe the pseudo-socialism of Corbyn, Sanders, Chavez, et al.  Or, to the disingenuous activities of the hotchpotch of  Trotskyist/Leninist groups who also masquerade as socialists. If you want to escape from dead-end politics then you will need to think outside of the miasma of capitalist thought and consider what the World Socialist Movement proposes.

You will have to overcome a psychological barrier.  A barrier constructed over many decades that has taught you that any change from the market system is not possible. Well, it is. Ours is a battle of Ideas. Once our ideas take root they will become unstoppable. All it takes is that the campaign for ‘real’ socialism generates enough momentum for us to begin to organise for the change that will become inevitable once a majority of people demand it.

So what is the World Socialist Movement?  It is the umbrella organisation of a number of Socialist Parties throughout the world dedicated to establishing ‘real’ socialism.  The Socialist Party of Great Britain [SPGB] is one of those parties. The SPGB held its inaugural meeting in June 1904. Uniquely, the founding members drew up a historical document that formed the basis of our movement—then and now.  ‘The Declaration of Principles’ unequivocally describes what we stand for. We have no leaders—only sheep need leaders. All decisions are arrived at democratically by the whole membership. Transparency is inbuilt.

It’s not just socialists that are repulsed by the hypocrisy, lies and self-seeking of capitalism’s elite. Poverty, hunger, wars and environmental destruction are intrinsic to the market system. As is the extreme wealth of the few at the expense of the many. Reforms, charity, and appeals to the gods have not, and cannot change its fundamental base. Sticking plasters don’t work. Only major surgery will. The World Socialist Movement exists to complete one task. And that is to abolish capitalism through democratic means. 

Human beings are unique. We can imagine something and make it a reality.  Socialism proposes a world for all and not just for the few. Where the present, and future generations, can live in peaceful, mutual cooperation. But, we need help to achieve it.

50 Years Ago: Middle East War – the Aftermath (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Middle East War must be seen in perspective. Firstly, it is only the latest in a long line of comparatively minor wars since the world was carved up anew by the victorious Allies in 1945. It has been a common feature of most of the so-called settlements which followed the Second World War, that they succeeded only in making new trouble spots, new tensions, new provocations. The creation of Israel is no exception to this.

A war in the Middle East is more, of course, than a number of minor powers in conflict. Always behind the scenes the big power blocs are operating, supporting one side or the other with arms and military advice, with aid and loans, as part of a larger and more menacing clash of interests. Thus the Egyptian army in the latest war was equipped largely with Russian weapons, the Israeli with British and French.

The reasons for this interest by the world powers in the Middle East is clear. The area is vital to them, for its oilfields and its strategic position astride the trade routes to Australia and the Far East. The complexities of the mass feudal sheikdoms which rule over a large part of the area, complicated  by  the  building  of modern  capitalism in Israel and Egypt, have made the task of keeping a diplo­matic balance there a very delicate one.

(….)

The Israeli working class were convinced that their interests lay in taking up arms against the Arabs, and in this they were supported by countless Jewish workers abroad. Some of them went even further, attaching great importance to the capture of the ancient shrines and religious symbols of Jerusalem. Here is evidence that the Israeli working class have all the delusions which are so necessary to the continuance of capitalism.

Experience, and a knowledge of capitalism, should have taught them differently. The wars of capitalism are fought to settle the disputes of its ruling classes; no working class interests are at stake in them. The problems of the Israeli workers are the same as those of workers all over the world, and they will not be solved in a war. Their interests are the same as those of the workers of Egypt, and of every other capitalist country—to unite for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.

[from Editorial on the ‘Six-Day War’, Socialist Standard, July 1967]

Cooking the Books: Back to Basic (2017)

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

In a speech at Harvard University, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called for everyone to be paid a basic income by the state, whether working or not (i paper, 27 May). This was one of the Green Party’s promises in the recent general election. The ‘Parti Socialiste’ candidate in the French presidential elections, Benoît Hamon, favoured it too. As has Italian Autonomist Toni Negri.

Its various advocates offer different reasons. Zuckerberg wants to give people some free time to think up new ideas. The Green Party wants a pilot scheme to see if it would be cheaper than current income support. Hamon saw it as an answer to the fall in paying demand caused by the growing unemployment which he anticipates robotisation will bring. Negri sees it as a demand around which all critics and victims of capitalism – the employed, the unemployed, women – can unite in a way they cannot around sectional trade union demands for higher wages.

All of them envisage it being introduced within the context of the capitalist economic system of production for sale on a market with a view to profit. And that’s the rub. It is all very well proposing reforms to capitalism involving the government spending more but, since governments produce nothing, where is the money to come from? In theory the government could simply print it but that would lead to Zimbabwe or Venezuela-style inflation. It would have to come from taxes, but even taxes on wages are ultimately passed on to employers. So the money would have to come out of their profits. But profits are what make the capitalist economic system go round. Less profit means less investment. There are limits to how much a government can increase taxes without provoking an economic slowdown or downturn.

As if to answer Zuckerberg, the OECD, an intergovernmental organisation of the richest capitalist countries, published at the same time a study of the effect of introducing a basic income in four countries (Britain, France, Italy and Finland) on the assumption that taxes are not increased and that the amount of cash payments currently going to all those below retirement age were evenly divided among them.

The OECD concluded that the basic income that everyone would receive would be well below the poverty line (as the minimum to which governments at the moment guarantee to make up the income of the poor) in each of the four countries. It added: ‘Any basic income at “a socially and politically meaningful level” would require additional spending on benefits and therefore higher taxes to finance this’ (Times, 29 May).

If everyone below retirement age was paid only a basic income equal to their country’s poverty line, the OECD found that in Italy and Finland the government would actually pay less in total on payments to those under retirement age than it now does; which means that some of them would receive a drastic cut in their payments, in particular those who have taken early retirement. So much, then, for Negri’s suggestion that UBI is a demand that could unite all victims of capitalism.

The OECD report neglected one other drawback – that a basic income paid to those in work would amount to a wage subsidy for their employers. Wages tend to gravitate around a level that is enough to enable the workers to buy the things they need to maintain their particular working skills. If the government provided them with some of the money in the form of a basic income then the employers would no longer have to; wages would tend to sink by an amount equal to the basic income.

So, all in all, not even a desirable, let alone a practicable, reform.

Road-map to Socialism (2017)

From the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

• ‘Win the battle of democracy’
• ‘Do away with private property’
• ‘Abolish the wages system altogether’
• Achieve abundance for all and inscribe on the banners:
• From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs!

Capture parliaments by electing majority socialist MPs (actually Socialist delegates) mandated to pronounce: Annulment of all property and territorial rights whereby all that is on and in the Earth becomes the common heritage of the whole humanity.

• Socialists are not against persons, but against capitalism.
• Socialism has never and nowhere been tried at all.
• When it will be done, it will have to be established worldwide.

World socialism can be established only in a peaceful and democratic way, by means of collective understanding, numbers and organization of the working class. However, if any minority group obstructs initiation of socialism, socialists will be entitled to use force to counter it. But force does not necessarily mean violence. Working class force, or power, is born out of the union of knowledge based on the materialist conception of history and an independent organization of the working class. It is numbers, understanding and solidarity that constitute its real force. The working class is the majority – 95 percent of the population. It is only the working class who perform all work in capitalism. Therefore its power is not violent.

Winning elections does not weaken the argument for using this power, applying force, in the event of obstruction; rather it strengthens it. On the other hand,  applying force against an elected government, without taking the first step of declaring the legal defeat of capitalism through its own constitution, is not only futile, but also undermines the fact that it is the class-conscious working class that is the majority. 

To win the battle of democracy, after understanding what we are going to do, where the danger lies, what and why socialism, has a double advantage: (a) we can show that there is a majority for socialism by sending a majority of delegates (not merely representatives) to the parliament, and (b) in case there be any attempt from any corner to block this mandate, the socialist majority has the legitimacy to use other means. This tactic of social change via democratic means is free from violence and certain.

Arriving at the majority and, with it, instead of reforming capitalism and running its administration socialists will get set about its abolition; they will not accept any administrative posts of capitalist society before arriving at the position of its abolition. The task of socialist delegates is not to help run the capitalist governing process, but to incapacitate the process itself, to facilitate the abolition of capitalism by the immense majority of socialists. Because, socialists neither support nor oppose the reforms of capitalism. Their only and immediate aim is to establish socialism.

Without informed majority participation in order to reach at a democratic decision in the interest of all the conception of vote and democracy is meaningless. We need participatory democracy.

Socialists do not place any trust political leaders, since the existence of leaders means the existence of followers and both remaining drowned in political ignorance. Leader/follower relation is anti-democratic. Organization and leadership are not the same thing; there can be organization without leadership. Leadership is not necessary when an organization is democratic. The immense majority of people of society can create socialism consciously in their own interest and with their own initiative.

A socialist party does not require a leader, socialists are all equals.

The World Socialist Party has organization, but no leadership. This organization is carrying on political class struggle as a vigilant guard of one most appropriate and pertinent explanation first put forward by the Socialist Party of Great Britain in 1904.

In Marxian conception ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ are synonymous. Marx and Engels  used the two terms alternatively to mean the same thing –  post-revolutionary participatory democratic socialist administration of things – affairs of life – in lieu of the   capitalist administration of men. In Marx’s view the principle of communism or socialism is: From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

• See: The World Socialist Party (India) INTRODUCTION.

Terrorism: What is the Truth? (2017)

From the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

It would be unfeeling not to be saddened and outraged by the Manchester and London terror attacks, or to have no sympathy for those who knew the victims. But what are we to make of the reaction to it? The traditional laying of flowers and paying of respect to the dead is one thing, and you would expect an expression of solidarity, but holding hands and singing does nothing of itself to dig down toward the causes of terrorism and the solutions to it. How can people find out the motivations and machinations behind war and terrorism? How can the public find out the truth about who is supporting, arming and supplying Islamic State, when there is little or no transparency between government and the public, and when the mainstream media hardly bothers to address these issues?

Trade Wars

‘We stand together’ said the Prime Minister; but if the public knew what she knows then they would likely refuse to stand with her. Not that we see the political parties standing together. After the expression of condolences, and the platitudes, they immediately break into open argument, live, and in public. What we see is division and factionalism. The establishment, either wilfully or through ignorance, would never go so far as to admit that the protection of trade and profit is what really drives war and military intervention in the Middle East. We socialists believe that capitalism is the root cause of war, terrorism, poverty, and all of the major social ills that plague mankind. That is why we want to get rid of it.

Radicalisation

It is clear that governments are attempting to deal with the terror situation by only addressing the symptoms. Radicalisation is not a cause of terrorism, but both a  symptom of it, and a method to inflict it. The insistence of focusing on de-radicalisation programmes won’t do much to help. Behind those that the government mistakenly describes as having ‘become radicalised’, are whole nations of people that have become ‘radicalised’ as they’ve watched their families being blown to smithereens and their countries destroyed by air strikes. People became ‘radicalised’ as soon as the first bombs fell on Iraq, on Afghanistan, on Syria. Of course, it isn’t just as simple as that. The conflicts in the Middle East have a long and complex history, but there is a kind of group denial by Western governments that the terror attacks here are in any way a result of Western foreign policy in the Middle East.

When the Leader of the Opposition suggests that British foreign policy may be playing a role in causing terrorism here in Britain, he (and anyone else who states a similar view), is slated by the government and the mainstream media. The Home Secretary’s reaction to this suggestion was to state categorically that there was no connection between British foreign policy and the Manchester bombing. And over at the BBC, the typical reaction from news correspondents to this kind of suggestion was, ‘cannot compute’. Perhaps the government’s view is that that the existence of  Islamic State is simply down to the Devil himself; and that they just happen to be particularly successful at persuading vulnerable people. Their line on this is, “Nothing to do with us, nothing to see here”.

Fake views, fake news

To kill the debate says everything about the government’s position, and given that the sale of arms has long been an important part of British foreign policy, they certainly wouldn’t compromise the relationship with, say, the Saudi Royal Family, by asking awkward questions about the alleged support and encouragement of terrorism by the Saudi government. These allegations are skirted around by the mainstream media; and if there is evidence out there which would prove the allegations, then the  Establishment will put up fierce opposition to those attempting to uncover it. But it is acceptable for western governments and mainstream media to turn allegation into fact, as with ‘Russian hacking’, but, of course, this cannot apply when it comes to their friends in the Middle East. The double standard sticks out like a sore thumb.

‘The Dove’

All wars are commercial wars. There is no humanitarian war, but governments do their best to persuade the public that we are fighting them, and for our own good. The record-breaking, corruption ridden Al-Yamamah (Arabic: the Dove) arms deal of 1985 between the UK and Saudi Arabia still has elements in it that are yet to be completed. The latest tragi-comedy is that the ‘deal-maker-in-chief’, President Trump, wants to bring peace to the Middle East by signing a new record-breaking, $350bn-over-10 years arms deal with the Saudis. Is it true that UK-made cluster bombs are currently being used by the Saudi-led coalition in the conflict in Yemen? Or are they just relics of old conflicts, as the Saudi government claims? We will probably never find out. The less that people know, the less chance of them questioning the present situation; and so it is that the reaction to the terrorist attacks here will probably remain the same, and the cycle will continue.

The truth is in there

The lack of transparency in government inevitably results in the degradation of democracy, and it is more than a little sickening to see the ‘leaders of the free world’ stand up after terrorist atrocities and state that we stand together to protect  democracy, or freedom of speech, or western values, or anything else that they can co-opt and misappropriate in order to  serve the purposes of capitalism and the capitalist class. This isn’t just social observation or commentary. War, poverty, misery, terrorism – as socialists we find it impossible to imagine that these would exist in a socialist society. We cannot state that there would never be conflicts, but these are most likely to be local, and easily and peaceably resolved.

If, by some fantastic occurrence, a truth serum was to become mixed into the water at the next G7 summit, then the revelations thereof from these renowned leaders of the free world might bring their democracy crashing down around them.

NM

Rear View: From cradle to grave (2017)

The Rear View Column from the August 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

From cradle to grave

Given that there is one preventable child death every four seconds, the current media obsession with Charlie Gard, an 11-month-old baby with a fatal genetic disorder, is odd but perhaps unsurprising. Offers of help have come from far and wide, even above: the Pope has been in contact with the god responsible for all our suffering. Returning to reality, we read ‘when doctors and nurses at the Vatican’s showcase children’s hospital complained in 2014 that corners were being cut and medical protocols ignored, the Vatican responded by ordering up a secret in-house investigation. The diagnosis: The original mission of “the pope’s hospital” had been lost and was “today more aimed at profit than on caring for children”’ (washingtonpost.com, 3 July).

The lot of workers towards the end of their adult lives is also bleak: ‘one in three nursing homes “not safe”. Inspectors failed more than a third of England’s 4,000 nursing homes on safety, says the Care Quality Commission watchdog, adding that the findings from its new, tougher inspection system were “completely unacceptable”. Failures included errors with medication, a lack of staff and patients not getting enough to eat and drink’ (theweek.co.uk, 6 July).

The reformist seesaw

‘As rallies across the country have demanded an increase in the minimum wage to $15 per hour, one state is reducing its legal lowest rate. Missouri is rolling back its minimum wage from $10 to $7.70. Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, in office since January, is allowing a bill passed by the Republican-controlled state legislature to become law on Aug. 28 without his signature’ (dailycaller.com, 6 July). Over 150 years ago Marx wrote: ”instead of the conservative motto, A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system’ (Value, Price, and Profit). Workers of the world wake up!

Zombies of the world unite!

The G20 summit took place recently in Hamburg alongside an imaginative protest by hundreds of zombies calling for us to ‘wake up!’ ‘The mud-crusted zombie figures were meant to be a symbol for “a society that has lost faith in solidarity and in which the individual struggles only for his own advance,” according to 1000 Gestalten’s official website. The act of shedding these costumes during the performance signified the idea that change can start with just one person. “We cannot wait for change to emerge from the world’s most powerful people, but we must now show all of us politically and socially responsible,” a speaker of the collective declared in an official statement’ (popsugar.com, 6 July). Correct. The revolutionary change that socialists strive for cannot come from above, from leaders, but only as a result of the majority understanding the need for and acting to bring about a world of free access and production for use.

Oh No…Not Again!

‘The long struggle for pro-independence groups to separate Biafra from Nigeria is gathering pace, 50 years after a brutal civil war over a successionist rebellion. Now, it’s mainly young activists from southeastern Nigeria, also known as Igboland, that are demanding separation’ (aljazerra.com, 5 July).

The war lasted over two and a half years and more than one million people lost their lives. The Socialist Party did not support either side, holding that the peasant farmers and workers had no interest in the capitalist rivalries within Nigeria over the control of oil production or the bloody intervention of France, the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, amongst others.

Pissing off patriots

‘Emily Lance received online threats of murder and rape after posting the video during Independence Day celebrations…Ms Lance is seen standing over a toilet on which a US flag is draped, and urinating on it with the aid of a device that allows women to do so standing up. She captioned it with: “F*** your nationalism. F*** your country. F*** your stupid f****** flag” ‘(bbc.com, 6 July) . This woman is correct. Nationalism and attendant flag waving/worship are barriers to the establishment of a stateless world commonwealth. Workers create all the wealth in the world, but do so for the benefit of a tiny class of parasites. In the USA, the top 0.1 percent of the population has as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Lance concludes: ‘What don’t you people understand? You’re celebrating freedom while damning me for doing the same. You can’t have it both ways.”