Running Commentary: It's the council (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most people are almost totally disinterested in local politics. Many people don't bother to vote in local elections; most probably couldn't tell you who their councillor is. or which tier of local government is responsible for which services, or which political party runs their local council.

The only exceptions are the London boroughs which attract sensational and distorted media coverage because of their so- called "loony left" policies. The tabloid newspapers are, in general, not the slightest bit interested in what councils do or don't do about council housing or social services, but let any council give a few pounds to a gay or lesbian group and it becomes front page news. It is little wonder, therefore, that Kin- nock is doing all that he can to dissociate himself from them since his overriding concern is the achievement of political power no matter what policies he has to ditch on the way to Number Ten.

In fact local authorities do affect our lives in important ways. They are responsible for providing education, social services, housing, home helps and day centres. They maintain the roads and remove the rubbish. They provide leisure and recreational facilities — parks, swimming pools, libraries and community centres. They regulate the environment in which we live by granting planning permission to builders.

But local authorities are important for another reason: they are the only other elected authority besides central government. This does not mean that they are especially democratic however. Most councils are out of touch with the needs of workers; they are dominated by representatives of the business community and operate in their interests. It is little wonder that most people are not interested in local politics, since it makes very little difference which party controls the council — life will go on pretty much as before.

In recent years local authorities have seen their powers diminished: a number of areas of responsibility have been removed from council control and have been given instead to non-elected, unaccountable administrative bodies. Councils have also been constrained by the financial limitations imposed on them by successive governments beginning with the cash limits instituted by the last Labour government in the 1970s. and continued by the Tories by means of rate-capping. The Tories carried the attack on local government a stage further when they abolished the GLC and the metropolitan authorities.

The Socialist Party has no illusions about local politics. Unlike the Labour Left or the Town Hall Trots, we do not believe that it is possible to bring about "municipal socialism". Council housing, day nurseries and non-sexist, non-racist educational policies are not socialism. Local authorities are a part of the state structure for administering capitalism, and must necessarily operate within the constraints laid down, not only by central government, but by the capitalist system itself. Any council which attempts to challenge the priorities of capitalism will find itself under attack.

But political participation, however limited and democracy, however flawed, are important. The attack, not just on the policies of certain councils, but on the very existence of elected bodies, is also an attack on our already very limited opportunities for political participation.

Janie Percy-Smith

Facing facts (1987

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

When certain words and phrases are used by politicians, they must be received with the greatest caution and suspicion, not to say alarm. For example the favourite phrase "every right-thinking person", which often precedes a statement of outrageous bigotry, actually means "everyone who agrees with me". Then there is "the national interest", which is used to describe some policy operating in the interests of a small but socially superior minority and against the interests of what might more properly be called "the nation" — the majority. And then there is the word "realism" which is at present being worked to death by Kinnock and Gould and their supporters in the Labour Party. Nobody should be deceived by this use of the word "reality"; it does not mean that Labour Party leaders, after all those years of dealing in the fallacies that they can control this social system, are suddenly facing up to the fact of their impotence. Neither does it mean they are about to tell the voters about the futility of trying to reform capitalism into amiability.

In fact the word has been in fashion for some time now-, workers should have taken fright before this. A few years ago Len Murray, before he was ennobled and was General Secretary of the TUC, warned the unions about something which he called the "new realism". His message was that these are hard times for the unions — that high unemployment tends to reduce union membership as it undermines their bargaining power. This is not an original insight into capitalism — socialists have been pointing this out for a very long time. Capitalism’s economy moves in cycles of boom and recession, good times and bad times for workers' ability to extract better wages and conditions from their employers. Murray's realism did not extend to this type of analysis, nor did he go on to the conclusion that this marks the limitations of trade union effectiveness, confined to the uphill task of defending workers' living standards under capitalism as distinct from the permanent solution to their problems resulting from the revolutionary social change from capitalism to socialism. He didn't say that — perhaps he didn't even realise it — because apart from being Britain's number one trade unionist he was — and is — a supporter of the Labour Party whose existence depends on the workers failing to grasp such vital realities.

Kinnock's concern for what he calls reality was expressed in his leader's speech at this year's conference, when he said that any serious party which did not, after three consecutive defeats, conduct a rigorous review of its policies would be betraying itself and its principles. This was yet another unoriginal thought, for Labour have been in this state before and have reacted in the same way, almost with the same words. At their 1959 conference, smarting from the widely unforeseen defeat which Macmillan's Tories inflicted on them, Labour delegates heard their leader Gaitskell tell them that

  . . . this is the third successive general election we have lost and the fourth in which we have lost seats. This is a grave development and we must take it seriously.

Gaitskell's response to this — like Kinnock's today — was that Labour should take a critical look at the programmes they put forward when they sustained their defeat, with a view to purging them of all vote-losing content. Another way of saying this is that what was realistic only a few months ago —what was claimed to be a policy to revive British industry. raise the people from poverty to prosperity, bring about a world safe for peace — is now unrealistic. What this says for Labour's manifesto writers hardly bears thinking about. When they wrote in the 1987 election pledge, guarded and veiled as it was, about British nuclear weapons, did they foresee that it would be so quickly transformed into something even more obscure, into the promise to ". . . work to ensure that we have policies that are capable of dealing with the changed conditions of the 1990s in a way that will enhance the prospects of removing reliance on nuclear weapons"? There are enough conditions and asides in that sentence of Kinnock's to satisfy the most hardened manifesto writer and to smokescreen the ardent eyes of any CND member who still believes that a Labour government would actually take any notice of conference decisions for a unilateral abandonment of the British bomb. Reality, for Kinnock, does not extend to clarity.

Kinnock denies now that he is trying to build a party in the image of the yuppie. In 1959 that word had not been coined, the big bang was not so much as an embryonic whimper and the London docklands were full of ships and cranes and warehouses. But Gaitskell was calling for new Labour policies because of

  . . . the changing character of labour, full employment, new housing, the new way of living based on the telly, the fridge, the car and the glossy magazines. All these have had their effect on our political strength.

Kinnock’s version of this same plea, sprinkled with references to poverty and homelessness. highlighted increasing home ownership, workers buying shares and the shift from large scale heavy industry towards high technology labour extensive manufacturing. Both these leaders might have put their case more simply, not to say more honestly. They might both have said that Labour will rearrange its policies to suit the prejudices and misconceptions of the voters. Whatever delusions the dockers of the 1950s lived and worked by, election promises had to be found to fit in with them. However misguidedly workers today view their lives, their employment, their prospects, must also dominate the content of Labour's future appeal for votes. Workers who think that buying a few shares and taking on a mortgage changes their class position are not concerned with reality but with a monstrous delusion and if the Labour Party courts their votes rather than tell them that they are deluded they are pandering to an insidious ignorance in the cause of winning power.

For the Labour Party reality is no constant thing; it is nothing to do with any political principles. It changes from one election to another, almost from one month to another. Their reality is fashioned by their need to grab votes; what attracts votes is realistic, what repels them is unrealistic, the produce of minds barred with a "Do Not Disturb" notice. This was expressed in Kinnock's ringing call for a discipline "ensuring that every word, every deed, every statement and action is related completely to the attaining of victory". Many Labour supporters will see nothing wrong in this — after all, what is the party in business for? And isn't a Labour government different from, more humane than, a Tory one? Well, what is the actual effect of this unprincipled scramble for votes? If the means are to be justified by the ends, what do the ends mean to us? History records that the differences between Labour governments and Tory ones were negligible to the point of being almost indistinguishable. For example, in October 1964 Harold Wilson announced the first of his government's many assaults on working-class conditions:

  We cannot afford attitudes anywhere, on either side of industry, which stand in the way of higher production or lower costs. The old fashioned restrictive practices have no place.

This dose of Labour Party 1960s realism was not unwelcome to the previous Tory Chancellor, Reginald Maudling, who, that very same day, rushed to reassure everyone that nothing was changed:

  Given a national determination to sweep away restrictions and accept change and an effective incomes policy the prospects are good. It is true the Labour Government have inherited our problems. They seem also to have inherited our solutions!

As the reality of that government became more and more apparent, there was dissatisfaction throughout the Labour Party. Some members seemed to believe that it should somehow be different from a Tory government. Some of the party leaders — like George Brown and Ray Gunter — had other reasons for their disillusionment. It all amounted to an inability to accept that any party which sets out to run capitalism cannot but disappoint those who regarded it as an organisation based on political principles. This was also the story with the next Labour administration, which went down in defeat in 1979 having laid the foundations of much of what has become known as Thatcherism. For the overwhelming, enduring reality is that there is nothing to choose between the parties which stand for capitalism and particularly between the two big parties, who are in immediate rivalry for power. Playing for votes from workers who do not accept the need to end capitalism and replace it with socialism means that an election-winning party has to run the capitalist system, whatever promises they have made on the road to power. This means that they must do a great many things which, in line with what they have claimed to be their principles, they should not do. It would be more accurate to say that capitalism runs its leaders rather than the other way round. And it is all justified in the name of reality, while those who point out the uselessness of it are derided as dreamers, subversives and worse.

This results in the continuation of the society which is essentially based on the interests of the minority who own the means of life — on the unequal, exploitative relationship between the owning class and those who need to be employed by them in order to live. This is the root of mass poverty and all that it means in terms of bad housing, sickness. repression and so on. Politicians make speeches which not only ignore these facts but often set out deliberately to obscure them. There is nothing of reality in this; it is all deception and distortion. But things do not have to be like this; we do not have to live in a society where political parties compete for support from the uninformed, the apathetic, the confused, the cynical. Facing reality would be a great step forward for the people of the world, which would mean we were about to see some important changes.

Ivan

Arguments about abortion (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

"A woman s right to choose; a child's right to life; pro-choice; pro-life” — the debate about abortion is too often conducted using slogans that set one group's "rights" against those of another. No doubt we will hear the same old arguments for and against abortion as David Alton's private member's Bill passes through Parliament. Alton, a devout Roman Catholic opposed to all abortion, wants to amend existing laws so that the time limit for legal abortions is reduced from 28 weeks to 18 weeks. Those in favour of the new time limit argue that recent advances in medical technology now mean it is possible, in some cases, for doctors to keep a baby alive that is born after just 23 weeks gestation. In other words at the moment abortions are permitted beyond the time at which a foetus could be said to be "viable".

The arguments for and against abortion should be re-examined in the light of the facts, not only about abortion but also about the circumstances in which women seek abortion.

Abortion on demand
Despite the anti-abortion lobby's propaganda and the pro-abortion lobby's demand, there is no "free abortion on demand" in this country. In order to obtain a legal abortion on the NHS a woman must first convince two doctors that there are good reasons why her pregnancy should be terminated. The most common reason given by doctors is that to continue with the pregnancy would be a "risk to the woman's physical or mental health". Some doctors who are anyway predisposed to be guided by the woman's wishes, use this as a convenient catch-all reason for agreeing to an abortion. But this is by no means the case in all parts of the country. There are huge disparities between regions in the proportion of abortions carried out by the NHS which is evidence of the extent of consultant gynaecologists' discretionary powers. Around 50 per cent of all abortions in Britain are carried out privately. Money can buy a way round NHS doctors' objections providing a substantial profit for those practitioners who are more enlightened or less principled depending on your point of view.

But to all intents and purposes the arguments this time around are not about whether abortion is ever justified but about whether abortion after 18 weeks pregnancy is justified. Given that "late" abortions are undoubtedly traumatic for both the pregnant woman and medical staff carrying out the operation — they often involve inducing labour and the "delivery" of the foetus — we need to ask why any woman would seek an abortion this far into the pregnancy.

“Late" abortions
Some "late" terminations occur precisely because abortion is not available "on demand". It may take some time to get an appointment with a consultant, to get him or her to agree to the abortion and then to be allocated a NHS bed. One survey discovered that as many as one in five women seeking "late" abortions had first sought medical advice before they were 12 weeks into the pregnancy. As a result, some who oppose the Alton amendment argue that if he is serious about eliminating "late" abortions then the way to do it is not to make them illegal but to make it then easier to obtain by removing delays in the NHS. This strategy would, no doubt, reduce the number of "late" abortions but would not eliminate the need for them altogether.

Of the 5,865 abortions carried out last year after 18 weeks, 550 were because tests had shown that the baby was likely to be born handicapped. If Alton's bill becomes law then there will be more handicapped children born because many of the tests for foetal abnormality cannot be carried out until after 18 weeks. For example, most pregnant women cannot be tested for Down's Syndrome until 17 weeks at the earliest. They then have to wait several weeks for the results of the test and if the decision is to terminate the pregnancy, they must wait again for a hospital bed to become available. There is a new test for Down's Syndrome which can be carried out earlier in the pregnancy but it is only available in a few well-equipped hospitals.

Most women seeking late abortion are from countries outside England and Wales where abortion is illegal. This figure is beginning to decrease as other countries liberalise their abortion laws, but there are still significant numbers of women arriving from Ireland, Spain and Portugal to seek abortions. Again there is an irony in the fact that the number of late abortions performed in this country which Alton is so anxious to reduce is largely made up of women from countries which impose the same Catholic morality that Alton believes in.

The final group of women likely to seek late abortions are very young or older women. In the latter case women who think they are past child-bearing age may not discover they are pregnant until they are more than 18 weeks into the pregnancy, having mistaken physiological changes for the menopause.

But perhaps the group most likely to be adversely affected by the proposed change are teenage girls. Again, they may not at first realise they are pregnant or if they do they may be too scared to tell anyone until they can no longer conceal the fact.

Teenagers reach sexual maturity at a young age and are encouraged by the persuasive glamorisation of sex by the media to engage in sexual activity. Unfortunately this glossy portrayal of sex tends to leave out (or at least did so prior to AIDS) the considerably less glamorous issue of contraception. A DHSS survey of pregnant schoolgirls in 1986 revealed that although 65 per cent of them had their first sexual experience before they were 16, 51 per cent had never been given any information about contraception. In 1985 the result of this ignorance was 38,000 babies born to single girls aged between 13 and 19 and 1.500 babies born to girls under the age of 14.

If the Alton bill becomes law then those people who. on any assessment are likely to be considered most in need of an abortion — very young girls, older women and those carrying an impaired foetus — are also the people most likely to be adversely affected.

Unwanted pregnancies

The arguments for and against abortion so often take on a high moral tone that they frequently fail to answer the most important question: why are there unwanted pregnancies?

As we have already seen, ignorance must be to blame in some cases. It is estimated that one in ten teenagers who reach the age of 15 this year will have an abortion before they are 20. Many of these unwanted pregnancies will be the result of an appalling lack of knowledge about sex and contraception among sexually active teenagers. So why is it that young people are not given the information they need to enable them to take responsibility for their own actions? Once again we are confronted with the fact that it is the morality of Alton and others like him who ignore the fact that teenagers do engage in sexual activity at a young age and insist instead that they should not. It is doubly perverse for the same moralists to then condemn abortion — an inevitable consequence of their own moralism. Clearly the first practical step that needs to be taken to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies by providing proper sex education and information about contraception and encouraging free discussion among teenagers in an atmosphere free from repressive moralism.

Unwanted pregnancies may also result from "accidents" — no method of contraception is 100 per cent effective. While in some cases an unplanned pregnancy will be accepted and the child welcomed, this is by no means always so. For some women another child will be a burden that they and their families cannot cope with for financial, social or psychological reasons. To go ahead with the pregnancy in such circumstances could cause tremendous damage to all concerned. In a society which is not concerned about meeting human needs such situations will continually arise.

Doubts about whether human needs will be met must be even greater in cases involving a handicapped child. No woman who is already 18 weeks or more into a pregnancy is going to take lightly the decision to go through the trauma of a late abortion even where there is evidence that the baby will be born handicapped. The fact that many women in such a situation do opt for abortion is evidence of the difficulties faced by parents trying to care for a handicapped child. Similarly in a 1983 survey conducted by the Journal of Medical Ethics, parents of Down's Syndrome children were asked what they would do if they knew that they were expecting a severely mentally handicapped child. 78 per cent said they would request a termination. No doubt these parents loved and cared for their own handicapped children but the difficulties they face are such that the majority would not willingly take on such a responsibility again. David Alton argues that the certainty of a baby being born handicapped should not be grounds for abortion and that if parents themselves do not want to keep the handicapped child then they should arrange for it to be adopted. This completely ignores the difficulties not only of finding adoptive parents for handicapped children but also of providing for their needs in a society that does not give any human needs priority let alone special needs.

David Alton's bill offers no answers to any of these questions and the arguments of most of his opponents also fail to address the most fundamental issues. Because until we face up to the fact that we live in a society which routinely fails to provide for the needs of a majority of its members — parents and children, handicapped or not — then there will continue to be a demand for abortion. Anyone who is seriously concerned to reduce or eliminate abortion might do well to consider what kind of society would first have to be created in order to achieve that objective. For pious sentiment about the sanctity of human life has a hollow ring when each and every day brings fresh evidence of the lack of respect for human life. And moralistic cant about “rights'' will do nothing to change the material circumstances that cause women to seek abortions. Only in a society in which human needs are paramount — the needs of women to control their own fertility, the needs of parents to have creative work besides looking after their children, the needs of children to grow up in a secure, loving environment free from want and deprivation. the needs of the handicapped to be respected and useful members of the community — is it possible to imagine a situation where all babies are wanted and abortion redundant.

Janie Percy-Smith

Season of Goodwill (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s that time of year again. The colour supplements are full of advice on how to avoid making a fool of yourself at the office party, while at the office party insecure, immature males attempt to take advantage of female colleagues whose only encouragement to these would-be Lotharios is being in the same building.

Normally friendly colleagues can be observed watching each other closely each time a visiting representative brings in his company’s bribes. Hell hath no fury like a recipient of a bottle of scotch last year who receives only a bottle of sherry this year.
Speaking of drink, the result of alcoholic over-indulgence can be induced without recourse to the spirit bottle. This state may be attained on December 25 by using your gift-wrapped calculator to add up the amount of money that the ’celebration" of some Palestinian's birthday has cost.

Another method of inducing nausea is to tune in to the annual broadcast by a London pensioner named Betty. Betty's recipe for a happy life is to have millions of pounds in the bank and to take lots of holidays during the year.

There is a 16th century saying that "Christmas comes but once a year but when it comes it brings good cheer". Christmas certainly brings good cheer to those capitalists who make those commodities considered so necessary for this time of year; plastic Christmas trees, artificial snow, inflatable reindeer and all the baubles that a gullible public buys in the mistaken belief that possession of these "festive" goods will in some way bring a little happiness into their lives. It’s all a bigger con trick than the virgin birth.

"Of course", s/he says, "I'm not bothered about Christmas myself, but it's so nice for the children". Take a walk around a toyshop and see children's confusion at all the attractive objects that they so badly want but are forbidden to them unless their parents can afford them. It might be Christmas but we're still living in a capitalist world.

Christmas is great for reinforcing sexual stereotypes. Do you want your daughter to be just like mummy? Wouldn't your little girl just love to wake up on Christmas Day and find her Wendy House fully fitted with a kitchen, microwave and ironing board? Let's not forget to strengthen her maternal instincts. There is a wide range of dolls to choose from. For the doll who wants everything there are prams, push-chairs, layettes and baby doll care sets. But who would want to buy their child that obnoxious capitalist product, a talking Cabbage Patch Kid?

Do you want your son to become an aggressive, competitive, insensitive person? The sort who sexually harasses women at office parties? If so, the shops have the ideal Christmas presents for him. There is the Laser Tank — "blow the tank into bits and pieces"! The Phaser Force Gun Set; practise shooting a friend. How about the "good and evil" Masters of the Universe type action figures — recommended for instilling respect for leaders, especially those with more brawn than brain.

Letters: Green debate (1987)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Green debate

Dear Comrades,

I think the Socialist Standard production committee and the other members concerned are to be congratulated on the interview with Jonathon Porritt which appeared in the August Socialist Standard. It was topical, interesting and, above all, reasonable in tone.

I agree entirely with the member of the Green Party who wrote to you the following month to say he was impressed by it for its lack of any "we have an answer to everything" boast. I have sometimes heard members boast that a Party speaker has "wiped the floor" with an opponent in debate. It doesn't seem to occur to them that if you want people to join you in a difficult task of creating revolutionary consciousness you probably won't have much success if you first wipe with the floor with them.

Socialist propaganda can be put without aggression, arrogance, condescension or abuse. The contents of most copies of the Socialist Standard these days prove that. More power to your (our) elbow.

Yours for socialism,

Keith Graham

Bristol

Does human nature exist?

Dear Editors.

I particularly enjoyed the September issue of the Socialist Standard but was astounded to read, in the very last column, the emphatic assertion "Human nature does not exist". Unquestionably it does exist, in both physical and psychological terms. To assume otherwise would surely imply that, uniquely in the animal kingdom, no human activity could ever be deemed natural. Including, of course, "our rational desire for comfort and welfare"

Obviously however, the way that human nature manifests itself through our behaviour is significantly affected by environmental, social and cultural conditioning. The relative influence of nature or nurture in this process remains a matter for legitimate debate but I have great respect for what I always considered to be the socialist position. Succinctly stated on the first page of the same issue.

Does Steve Colborn really believe that it is as unnatural to make love as it is to make war? And do other socialists agree with him?

Yours sincerely,

Richard Headicar

London, NW5

Reply
It is nice to know that Richard Headicar enjoyed the September Socialist Standard; we hope he will go along to his local branch of The Socialist Party to discuss his opinions about socialism.

As Richard Headicar points out, our behaviour varies under the influence of our conditions, yet human behaviour is what our opponents are really referring to when they say that "human nature" would make socialism unworkable The problem is in deciding what is natural to human beings; to begin with, whatever is natural must be fixed, which counts out human behaviour which changes with its conditioning.

This leaves us with very little which can be properly called human nature. As far as the case for socialism goes, it is so insignificant as to justify the phrase that it does not exist

Editors

Material needs

Dear Sir.

After reading your journal for a few months now, I find myself in broad agreement with most of your aims. However, there are one or two points.

In particular, you advocate a socialist society mainly for material reasons: for houses and general consumer goods. The criticisms you make of our present society are normally only ones of material deprivation. You do not seem to consider the point that man has inner, non-material, needs. I do not mean religious or spiritual needs, but man as a social animal needs to feel at one with his surroundings. his work and his fellow human beings. These yearnings come from inside man and need a harmonious society externally to be satisfied. By often ignoring these inner and social needs of men you seem to be denying that there is a psychological and emotional basis for socialism as well as a material basis. Or perhaps the SPGB claims that our present society has no effect on our inner stability?

One other point of criticism. The language of your paper is surely dated. Whether we like it or not. people today do not generally use terminology such as "capitalist class", "class struggles" and "surplus value". Instead of using language that you talk to yourselves in, shouldn't you choose words and terms that ordinary non-socialists use. They are, after all, the people whom you have to convince. Your Declaration of Principles uses terms that it needs a dictionary to make sense of

Yours for a non-market world,

Simon Pearson

Reply
The Socialist Party is most certainly a "materialist" party in the sense that we argue that to understand society fully we must look first at the ways in which people are organised to meet their material needs, how the goods and services that are necessary for life are produced. In capitalist society that production takes place only for profit and people are divided into two classes — the capitalist class which owns the means of producing and distributing goods and services, and the working class which owns nothing except their ability to work. These two classes have opposing interests which cannot be reconciled within the capitalist system. The effects of this class division — and the conflict which it entails — are both material, in the sense that workers never receive the full benefit of their labour, and non-material in the sense that capitalism also engenders insecurity, conflict and division.

We do indeed recognise that people have what Simon Pearson refers to as "inner needs" — to live in harmony and cooperation with each other — but would argue that the material conditions created by capitalism frustrate the meeting of those needs. Socialism, by contrast, will ensure not only that people's needs for a decent standard of material life are met. but will also create a society in which people can live in peace with each other.

On the question of the language used in the Socialist Standard, we accept that the language of the Declaration of Principles is dated — they were after all drawn up in 1904. Nevertheless, as a statement of what the Socialist Party stands for they are as relevant today as when they were drafted. The language may have changed but the basic features of capitalism still exist. And it is the ideas contained within the Declaration of Principles which are the basis for the analysis of society and contemporary events presented in the Standard. Although we do at all times try to use ordinary language in the articles we print, it is not always easy to find words and expressions which carry the same meaning as "capitalist class" and "class struggles".

Editors

Socialism and democracy

Comrades,

Let me commence by saying that I'm in broad agreement with your analysis of socialism; what it is. how it can be achieved and the absoluteness of its necessity.

However I do have one query. One of your prerequisites for socialism is that it must be on a worldwide basis. Does this infer that the development of a universal socialist consciousness will arise uniformly? If so, is this not an unrealistic assertion?

My point is that it is quite possible and even probable that a realisation of the need for socialism will gain uneven support between the various nations of the world. For instance how is it possible for socialist thought to take seed in the state capitalist regimes where dissension is not tolerated and a parliamentary process is non-existent. Ditto for right wing dictatorships. Thus it would seem inevitable that socialist thought is more likely to advance in the partially democratic nations of the West, over the aforementioned totalitarian regimes.

If a socialist majority should arise in these Western nations whilst socialist awareness remained hindered in other countries, what route then for socialism? Would such a problem be irretractable? I should hope not!

I await with interest your reply

Yours sincerely,

James Ryan 

London SW16

Reply
This is a vital question, which often bothers people who are in "broad agreement" with our case.

Socialism must be a worldwide social system because a stateless, moneyless, classless set-up could not exist, as a separate enclave, amid a capitalist world of nations, wars, class division, commodity production and so on. It follows that socialism must be established at pretty well the same time throughout the world but this does not imply that workers develop socialist consciousness at exactly the same rate everywhere. Inevitably, there is some unevenness but in terms of social movement this is so slight as to be insignificant.

Ideas mirror material conditions. At present workers all over the world support capitalism and this support takes just about the same form wherever we look. The same false ideas help to keep capitalism in being on both sides of the Atlantic, on both sides of the Iron Curtain . . .

The development of socialist ideas faces many problems and political dictatorship is one of them. An absence of democracy reflects a low state of development of workers' consciousness; its presence is one of the fruits of a flourishing consciousness. That is the direction in which society is moving, as workers' ideas react to capitalism's contradictions.

We hope James Ryan will feel able to assert his own political awareness by joining in the work for socialism.

Editors

Who runs the world?

Dear Editors.

I am not a member of the SPGB but I must say that the letter from Reg Otter in the October issue annoyed me immensely. Obviously he has contempt for the great mass of people forgetting that they run the world.

I have no doubt that when Mr Otter is in trouble he sends for the plumber or the doctor or seeks the attention of a dentist; when he travels he may well fly in an aircraft made, serviced and flown by working people. Every day "miracles" are happening throughout the world carried out by working people. These people are not socialists neither are they dumb or stupid, were Reg Otter not so cynical and bigoted he would see that there is a tremendous amount of goodwill and sacrifice in the community in spite of the pressures of capitalism.

I have lived for nearly 65 years and know that the main political parties have nothing to offer but division and delusion. Socialism appears to be the answer when people are prepared to listen and act.

Yours fraternally.

W. Cozens

London NW8

50 Years Ago: Russia was never socialist (1987)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Russian Revolution took place in 1917, the Socialist Party of Great Britain pointed out that it would not result in Socialism, but in a development of capitalism. We laid great emphasis on the fact that Russia, being still very backward, was not ripe for Socialism. The population of Russia was composed chiefly of peasants. How could they, illiterate and individualistic in outlook, have any understanding of Socialism, or any desire for it?

Whilst we were urging these views, other parties, claiming to represent the working class, asserted that the Bolsheviks had discovered a short cut to Socialism. They ignored the lessons of history, which show that there are no short cuts, that society passes through various phases and that none of these phases can be "jumped" in the course of society's evolution. They ignored the past failures of workers to establish Socialism by intelligent minorities. After claiming to be "Marxists", they paid little real attention to the theories of Marx and Engels.

Alas, thanks to these parties (chiefly the Communist Party and the Independent Labour Party) a legend was created, a legend that Russia was Socialist.

[From an article "Aspects of Russia" published in the Socialist Standard December 1937 ]

Soft Drink, Hard Labour (1987)

Book Review from the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Soft Drink Hard Labour: Guatemalan Workers Take on Coca Cola. Mike Gatehouse and Miguel Angel Reyes (Latin American Bureau London. 1987).

Guatemala is a country of violent repression. According to a British Parliamentary Delegation who visited the country in 1984 as many as 100,000 people had been killed and 38,000 had disappeared in the previous thirty years. Guatemala is also a country of poverty in which 63 per cent of the population live below the official poverty line and in which 2 per cent of the population own 65 per cent of the land. Against this background the study examines the industrial dispute that took place over a nine-year period involving Coca Cola workers and their union STEGAC and the owners of the Coca Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City.

Coca Cola does not directly own or manage local companies but allows franchise contracts to bottlers. In this particular case it was Embotelladora Guatemalteca SA (EGSA), owned originally by a Texan family, the Flemings of Houston. In 1975 the workers in the company attempted to re-establish a trade union which had been crushed after the military coup of 1954. The process is complex and involves legal registration of a union followed by recognition and granting of bargaining rights by an employer The factory manager, John C. Trotter, attempted various tactics to stop the union, including physical violence and intimidation. He hired members of the Mobile Military Police to act as armed guards, based on a fixed charge per day per guard payable to the army:

EGSA managers began to make explicit threats to Coke workers active in the union. On 10 February 1977 the personnel manager threatened Angel Villeda and Oscar Humberto Sarti. On 1 March, both were shot and wounded. The following day. the Coke workers' lawyers, the Torres, were seriously injured when their car was deliberately bumped and forced off the road by a jeep driven by a government employee, (p.8)

Worse was to follow. Manual López Balam, STEGAC General Secretary, was killed by a group armed with knives and iron bars while he was delivering crates of Coca Cola. The 16-year-old daughter of a union lawyer was arrested, beaten, raped, tortured and temporarily blinded. Further workers and union officials were killed or disappeared or were violently assaulted, as in the case of Amulfo Gómez Segura whose lips were slashed with a razor, his tongue cut out and placed in his shirt pocket.

Pressure was put on Coca Cola including that by the Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility, a group of shareholders from churches and religious orders. They were responsible for bringing Israel Márquez, a STEGAC General Secretary, to Coca Cola's AGM in 1979. It was Márquez who coined the phrase "in Guatemala, Coca Cola is a name for murder". There was also pressure from the Geneva based International Union of Food and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF). Coca Cola denied responsibility, maintaining that franchisees were independent operators. Nonetheless cooperation between Coca Cola and the licence holders was seen to constitute complicity. The IUF called on its affiliates to put pressure on Coca Cola which controls 44 per cent of the world's soft drinks sales. The effect of that pressure was to give bad publicity to the image of Coca Cola and it was this to which the company responded. The EGSA franchise was transferred to new owners and a new management team was brought in. The backlash for Coca Cola was that they were increasingly criticised by the business world for allowing "the dangerous precedent of multinational trade union intervention (the IUF) in multinational corporation affairs".

Meanwhile the new management at EGSA were gradually undermining the company, a policy which could not have gone unnoticed by Coca Cola as they held overall financial control. Under threatened closure the workers occupied the factory in February 1984. A new policy was adopted to deal with the dispute. Further bloodshed would have looked bad for Coca Cola who were that year major sponsors of the Olympic Games. The Government of General Mejia Victores was looking for foreign aid and loans and was promising elections for a Constituent Assembly so again bad publicity was not desired. The occupation of EGSA is a testimony to working-class self-organisation. There were some unusual elements. There is the ironic detail, quoted from Jim Wilson of the IUF. that "every day a sympathetic priest comes in from the outside to say mass before a makeshift altar surrounded by high stacks of Coca Cola crates". Yet the ability to maintain that occupation for a year in a land of poverty and violent repression cannot be underestimated. Nor should the ability to withstand the economic pressure brought to bear by EGSA/Coca Cola. Again there was multinational trade union support for the Guatemalan workers and finally Coca Cola re-negotiated with STEGAC, although insisting that the IUF must not be involved in any settlement.

There are lessons to be learned from this study. A multinational corporation was pressurised into allowing a victory, although limited, to the Guatemalan workers. The occupation testified to the resilience and persistence of a group of workers in establishing and maintaining a trade union against awesome odds. The discipline of those workers during the occupation ensured a majority support and a willingness to sustain the daily routine of maintenance, cleaning, guard duty, assemblies and education and leisure activity. Yet we ought not to forget that no victory guarantees the future while capitalism is maintained. Guatemala may have an elected government but the military bureaucracy still exists. With more than 50 per cent of Guatemala's workforce without permanent employment many fear that contact with a trade union can only take place at the expense of employment. It may be that the security forces are also biding their time. In the struggle for reforms it is the effects that are tackled and not their causes.

Philip Bentley

Party News (1987)

From the December 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dundee election campaign

In May, Dundee Branch of The Socialist Party will contest three district wards around the city in the local elections.

We are planning a wide range of activities, including:

• Public Meetings
• Leaflet distribution
• Selling literature
• Debates and Forums
• Canvassing
• Distributing a free sheet
• Literature stall in town centre.

All readers and sympathisers in the area should take this opportunity to get involved in the vital, rewarding work of putting socialism firmly on the political agenda.

Come to our informal weekly meetings in the lounge bar of the Tay Bridge pub (Perth Road) on Mondays at 8pm or see address in the Branch Directory (inside back page) under Dundee.

Socialist activity in Aberdeen

A wide range of activities will spread the ideas of world socialism in the Aberdeen area in the near future.

Sympathisers, readers of the Socialist Standard and anyone interested in the case for a sane socialist alternative should get in touch with The Socialist Party:

lan Ratcliffe 

5 Ellon Road.

Bridge of Don

Aberdeen

(Tel. 0224 822XXX)

We want your help in developing the growing interest in the ideas of socialism in North East Scotland.

Members of Eccles Branch manned a literature stall in Wythenshaw Park during the annual fair, organised by the Manchester City Council in September. Literature sales, and the useful contacts made, proved this event to be a worthwhile party activity.

Wally Preston sitting down. Andy Pitts in the foreground.

The General Election (1959)

Party News from the May 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party needs money urgently for the General Election.

In East London our members have already been working for months, preparing an all out campaign In the Bethnal Green constituency. Meetings are being held, canvassers are going from door to door, the local papers are advertising our activities.

This work is going on NOW. Every week we are spending more money in Bethnal Green—and this is only preliminary to the final attack in which the candidate’s deposit alone will cost us £150.

We have great hopes for this campaign. Last year’s L.C.C. elections in the same area gave the encouragement we needed. This time we believe we can achieve still more for the Socialist cause in this constituency.

But—we only have a fraction of the money we need. If you want to strike a blow against Capitalism with us, please send whatever you can to E. LAKE, S.P.G.B., 52, CLAPHAM HIGH STREET, S.W.4, and earmark it “Parliamentary Fund.”

Turmoil in Tibet (1959)

From the May 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rebellion in Tibet, its draconian suppression, and the escape of the Dalai Lama, have exploded like a star-shell to illuminate a world in the Iron Curtain's dark shadow. Events in Tibet have been compared with the recent suppression in Hungary and while there is a resemblance, both revolts and the backgrounds have been reported everywhere befogged with misunderstanding or misrepresentation by people who do not seem to have a clue as to what the factors are that make society tick.

A Britisher says his piece
Mr. Hugh Richardson, the last British representative as Officer-in-Charge of the British Mission in Lhasa from 1947-1950 writing in The Observer, 5th April, 1959, gave a sincere, emotional, but woolly-headed review of the happenings and the historical background there. He said that the benefits of science conferred by the Chinese were illusory to the Tibetans when compared with the freedom to retain their old customs. He also naively berated Mr. Nehru for the part he played, “There is still no word from him of condemnation of the use of force beyond anything that an internal affair could warrant. Is such circumspection necessary or honourable?” He also makes out a case against the Chinese invasion on grounds of pure illegality.

Because Tibet has been off the beaten track of world trade, surrounded by land and without any ports conveniently available, she has been left severely alone by the great Capitalist groupings of the world whose main basis of transport is the steamship. Trade with Tibet had to be carried on with the aid of caravans for moving the merchandise, and this obsolete method renders out of the question cash crops and mining ventures, two of the great standbys of this profit-making age.

But there is a certain amount of trade with the contiguous countries, and this is to a large extent in the hands of the Tibetan nobles who, unlike the British aristocrats of last century, do not consider indulging in trade to be beneath them.

Tibet entered the Twentieth Century committed by the leanings of its ruling theocracy towards isolationism, and straining to get rid of its vassalage to Peking. The nobles wish to keep all of the profits of exploitation. The Tibetan ruling class is closely supported by the princes of the Buddhist church, who co-operate to preserve a subject-class docile, and amenable to the demands of their masters. Marx was by no means the first to realise that religion is the opiate of the people! Both British and Russian governments at that time had ambitions which extended to Tibet. But Prime Minister Arthur J. Balfour stated the British case simply, “It would be a serious misfortune to the Indian Government and a danger to our northern frontier, should Tibet fall under any European influence other than our own ” (Eastern World, December, 1956).

Tibet, a weak country, was but a pawn in the game of power politics then, as in the present fracas.

Would the Chinese Nationalists act the same ?
Chiang Kai-shek, the discredited Nationalist from his retreat in Formosa, criticised the Chinese government for their part in the affair and promised the Tibetans his support. He also proposed to organise an airlift, but the Tibetans, though they have not studied the Bible, probably know better than to lean upon a broken reed. Both the “Communist” and the Nationalist governments of China act on behalf of Chinese Capitalism. The “Communist” government of China has taken over from the Nationalists the map of China showing Tibet as being included within the country's boundaries.

But the tongue-in-cheek protestations of Chiang Kai-shek ring hollow to those who remember his activities in 1950, when the Chinese “liberated” Tibet. Lhasa's appeal of November 7th, 1950, to the United Nations for help against “the armed invasion of Tibet for the incorporation of Tibet within the fold of Chinese Communism, was presented in the United Nations, as a resolution by El Salvador. The Chiang Kai-shek delegate from Formosa opposed entering the item on the agenda on the challengeable grounds that Tibet had been part of China for 700 years.” In fact, as hollow as the sympathy for Tibet expressed by the press both here and in America. Chiang Kai-shek was allowed to have his way: neither Britain nor the United States rose to make an issue of the Tibetan nobles' right to self-determination, i.e., the right of the Tibet ruling-class to exploit the subjugated and keep the loot all to themselves. Apparent good intentions on the part of ruling-classes, when probed in the light of Socialist knowledge, so frequently appear as having economic motives. Whenever principles conflict with self-interests it seems as though it is always the principles that are jettisoned. The right to self-determination becomes the right to exploit: a rose by another name! The Tibetan government, standing alone, was forced in May, 1951, to submit to "Peaceful Liberation,” otherwise known as invasion and subjugation.

“Liberations”
The “liberation” of Tibet by the so-called Communist government of China in 1950-1 was by no means the first time that the country has seen invaders. The first Gurkha invasion from the south was in 1788, but in 1792 the Chinese government despatched an army of both Tibetans and Chinese under Chinese leadership and in the arctic cold of winter forced the Gurkhas to retire. The Chinese closed the frontier, but in 1841 an invading force from Kashmir were almost exterminated by the Tibetans. A Gurkha invasion of 1855 opened the country up to trade with the Indian sub-continent which was then governed by the British.

But Tibet, long regarded romantically by Europeans as the Land of the Lamas, is of strategic importance in the virtually New World that is Asia, and the country can be compared there much in the same way as control of the Middle East is regarded as vital by Western interests. Fairly recent events surely underline the truth of this contention. But Tibet no longer acts as a buffer zone; instead, it constitutes a forward area for Chinese penetration into South Asia.

Missiles from the Roof of the World

The Chinese are constructing airfields in Tibet. The Tibetan plateau of 12,000 foot altitude provides, in this age of jet bombers, an air base unique in the world. Calcutta is only about 550 miles from Lhasa. According to a report in the Eastern World, December, 1956, north of Tibet, through Kansu and Sinkiang, work is progressing on the Lanchow-Urumchi Railway, scheduled for completion (with a link to the Soviet Turk-Siberian Railway) in 1960. In August, 1956, Georgi Pokrovsky, a Soviet natural scientist, in a magazine article, proposed the construction of a Trans-Hymalayan railway running from the Soviet Union across Sinkiang to Kashmir and on to Delhi, thus connecting the Soviet Union, China and India by rail.

Those are all tremendous undertakings, and some of them are only projects for the future. But it is to the future that Peking and Moscow are looking, and the blueprints fit together. And in that context Tibet is being developed as a base from which China would be enabled to manoeuvre. For land power, not sea power, dominates Asia. Tibet thus becomes a factor in world strategy.

China and Tibet

Most of the 4,500,000 Tibetans actually live within the confines of China in the areas bordering on Tibet. Only about 1,000,000 live in Tibet proper, under political allegiance to Lhasa. Their social classification is roughly: 50,000 nobles and merchants, 150,000 monks, 800,000 serfs. About one-seventh of the population is in the monastaries—more than one man in four. Those who are not in the church have mostly swallowed the religious bait, hook, line and sinker, and live in subjection to the nobles. They live, imprisoned by the ties of their religious convictions.

A Reuters report published in the Far Eastern Review (November 1952) on developments in Tibet describes how the Chinese, using the Tibetan ruling-class governmental control of the population, are developing the country. As a reprisal for the Chinese occupation, the U.S.A., who are the main buyers of the wool crop (the chief item of export to the outside world), stopped purchases, in conformity with their policy of no trade with Communist countries. This brought about a minor crisis among the Tibet traders, but the Chinese met it by buying about 4 million pounds of wool for the China home market. While the Tibetan ruling-class co-operate with the Chinese government and the latter rally to their aid in time of trouble, it is only those who believe the State Capitalism of China is really Communism, that would consider these two groups to be other than two of a kind.

Industrialisation goes on apace

  Many factories, including an automatic repair plant, an iron works, bricks and tiles plants, saw mills, and a chemical plant, are now in operation. Hydro-electric or steam power stations have been built in Lhasa, Shigatse and Chamdo. Many Tibetan homes which once used yak-butter lamps or had no illumination at night at all, are today using electric light. Over 4,000 miles of motor roads have been constructed and many bridges built; some of them are remarkable feats of engineering skill. These roads link up all the major cities and towns and the principal agricultural, pastoral and handicraft areas which seven years ago were solely dependent on yak, horse and donkey caravans for the transportation of goods. They also connect Tibet with Chinghai, Sinkiang. Szechwan and other parts of China. A passenger air service is now running between Lhasa and Peking. Several airfields have been constructed both for civil and military aviation. Many towns and settlements have sprung up along the newly built highways. Nagchuka, a point along the Chinghai-Tibet highway where there were only a few cottages and tents before, today has become a town with banking, postal and telegraph, trading and health services. A free primary school has also been opened. New dwellings in great numbers have been added in Lhasa, Shigatse, Chamdo and Gynagtse. Industrial activities have given Lhasa a modern look. Its uninhabited northern outskirts are now dotted with factories and living quarters.
  More than 500 species of farm crops and vegetables have been successfully cultivated by the three agricultural experimental farms located on the high Tibetan plateau. Corn has been grown in Shigatse, nearly 12,000 feet above the sea level. Tibetans are being helped by Chinese workers to develop agriculture and livestock breeding. There are now about 80 primary schools attended by more than 6,000 pupils. Last year the first secondary school was opened. Students are given free board, clothing and books. During their study period they get pocket money. There are now three well-equipped general hospitals and several smaller hospitals and clinics in Tibet. About 4.000 Tibetans are now studying in higher institutions in Peking and other cities of China. More Tibetans are being trained locally and in China as doctors, nurses, teachers, radio-operators, tractor drivers and skilled workers.
 The China-geared economic revolution is gradually creating a new social consciousness. Radio, newspapers and cinema are gradually breaking the long-standing barrier of backwardness.

But it must not be thought that China is acting from purely altruistic motives. Tibet is rich in a range of minerals, including uranium—the raw material of atomic power and atomic bombs—according to Chinese surveys.

  China is doing a very commendable job in improving the economic conditions of Tibet. Industries are being developed, agricultural reorganisation is being carried out, the transportation and communication system is being rapidly extended, illiteracy is being removed and health improved, and, above all, mineral surveys are being conducted to utilise vast untapped resources. So far the surveys have revealed that there are more than 30 kinds of mineral resources of industrial value in Tibet. Besides precious metals, coal and iron, Tibet is said to be rich in uranium. There is no doubt that preliminary exploitation of Tibetan mineral resources will be undertaken before 1962. When the envisaged industrial revolution takes place Tibet will become an important economic unit of China. Already it has been established that about two-thirds of the northern Tibetan plateau is very good cattle grazing ground. Hence plans are afoot to make the area China’s major livestock breeding zone in the future. Specially picked Chinese families are being settled in Tibet to help the projected industrialisation of the region and to render smooth the Sino-Tibetan racial unification. The region therefore has become a reservoir for Chinese settlers. Tibet, which has an area of about 12.3 per cent, of that of China, has a total population of only about 1,200,000.

—Eastern World, August, 1958.

Chinese in Mongolia—a foretaste of happenings in Tibet

Mongolia bordering China in the north has already experienced a full-dress rehearsal of what is now taking place in Tibet. The former country, also remote, with a lama dominated population, has already had a taste of "liberation,” Chinese style. Mongolia, a vast country dominated by its cattle baron aristocracy, who look askance at the teeming Chinese settlers. As in Tibet, some are engaged in mining. The coal deposits there, for instance, are estimated at 2,000 million tons. Chinese agriculturalists are swarming in, turning the ancient open pasture lands into farms. Mass trials of Mongolians and killing off the disaffected have been the order of the day, and make a mockery of Article 72 of the Constitution of the People's Republic of China dealing with the protection of minorities.

In Mongolia as in Tibet when economic motives beckon, all other considerations have to give way, and the Chinese government behave like any old-time colonial power, except that they falsely act in the name of Communism. 

Who are the transgressors in Tibet ?

The Chinese authorities, probably feeling more secure in their grip of Tibet, and therefore more independent of the services of the Tibetan ruling-clique, had begun clamping on taxes, especially on the monasteries, which have tremendous influence, and had never before been taxed. The Tibetan court, steeped in traditional ways of thought, probably found that a conversion of their feudal economy, almost overnight, into a colonial appendage of a Capitalist power, was a bit too much to stomach, and that they could no longer co-operate, and so they went whilst they still had the chance to get away.

The Dalai Lama and his retinue has been reported as having crossed the Indian frontier, no doubt with heavy hearts, but also with a caravan loaded with gold and jewels. Moreover, it appears that the contents of his palace, reported as having been looted, are insured in India for a vast sum. The Indian government are considering whether they will allow him to build a palace there. Whilst the Dalai Lama may feel miserable he will, apparently, at least be able to be miserable in comfort.

But what is the lot of those who have been left behind: Newspapers report that practically all the young able-bodied men in Lhasa have been separated from their families and driven off by the Chinese apparently to forced labour camps. The Chinese appear to be trying to close the frontier, when, liquidation, a euphemism for extermination, will become the order of the day. The sum total of human suffering there mounts up. Once again, there is a resemblance between the fairly recent events in Hungary, in the plight of the refugees, who, for the moment, are fleeing across the frontiers. Once again, there is a break-up of families and the horror of both young and old at being uprooted and driven out, but this is an almost continuous process in a class-dominated society. The Tibetan refugees now join the grim procession: before them the Dutch from Indonesia, the Hungarians, the 900,000 Arab refugees in the Middle East, the Muslims who fled from India, the Hindus from Pakistan and the continuous stream from East Germany. This column of spectres will go on, it seems, while Capitalism lasts.

The trouble in Tibet is a revolt of the feudal rulers against the imposed rule of State-Capitalist China—these are the transgressors in Tibet. Whichever side wins, the underprivileged on either side will still continue to be exploited, even though serfs become wage-slaves. Tibet compares with Hungary in that, once again, it is a quarrel between ruling-cliques and is not worth the shedding of one drop of workers' blood on either side.

Frank Offord

The All-Mine Osaurs (1947)

A Short Story from the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prior to the “Atomic Age" the earth was ruled by the All-Mine Osaurs. For many years these creatures' main habitat was in and around London, but they soon spread to other cities and lands. Eventually they also established themselves in very strong numbers on the American continent. They were chiefly to be found in large blocks of offices and flats, centrally heated, as well as in the dining-halls of exclusive clubs and hotels. In appearance they were not unlike human beings. Heavy jowls, protruding ears, bulbous noses and gimlet eyes hidden behind glasses often gave them a frightening quality, especially when pictured in the press of the day sitting behind large wooden desks. Their waistlines had the tendency to wander beyond their circumference and get lost.

Their nomenclature is still the cause of many arguments. In their day this group liked to be known as "Captains of Industry." Other names such as "Managing Directors," “Chairman of the Company," were also applied to them. In the United States they liked to be known as “Presidents" after the titular head of the country. But most scientists agree on the first classification because of their enormous acquisitive powers.

Their possessions were fabulous in size and variety; there was nothing on the earth, below or above it which they did not own once they perceived that the object had some value. Their appetites being insatiable they would kill off the weaker ones amongst them and devour their property. Periodically whole groups engaged in battle. Then the earth shook under the conflicts of the monsters.

To a certain extent their origin is shrouded in mystery. The folk-lore of their day speaks of many of them being found under the counters of shops when young. Also several pictures that have been preserved bear the caption: “From Office-boy to Managing Director." This metamorphosis must have been as startling, if not as colourful as that of the caterpillar to the butterfly.

Some data exist as to their life and habits. It makes strange reading. An abnormal extension of their biological functions enabled them to sit on numerous different "boards" at one and the same time, many sitting on sixty or even more. They also read reports to company meetings, made after dinner speeches and played golf. The last two functions appeared to have been their main occupation. Scrupulous in adhering to the customs of the group, they never missed eating their dinners before making their speeches and this gave them paunches, flatulence and acidity of the stomach and speech. Then they attempted to rid themselves of these complaints by means of golf, a game played with wooden sticks and a ball. So the two functions seemed to have been complementary.

They were continually harassing the other species to produce more. "More Production and Greater Speed in Travel." The records speak of fantastic achievements in these spheres and of innumerable thousands of the lesser species who died of overwork or fell victims to the beserk speed of travel by crashing from the air or being hit by moving objects on the ground.

Except in rare and notorious cases, the All-Mine-Osaurs were never observed in the actual act of hatching wealth. Consequently legends were told to explain their enormous wealth. The few who attempted to spread a rational explanation were scoffed at by the majority, although the evil effects of their rule was plain for all to see.

However, after many years of popular clamour the government of the day issued an edict ordering their gradual extinction. For a time hopes were high, but after a while the decree was seen to have achieved nothing. The All-Mine-Osanrs simply disguised themselves as "Chairmen of Public Utilities," "Directors on Government Boards" or as “Government Stockholders" and continued to pile up wealth as before.

Finally, during the Atomic Upheaval, they disappeared without a trace.

Sid Rubin

The Great "Work Harder" Mystery (1947)

From the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Great Britain we are told we must live austerely, work harder and forego claims for higher wages and shorter hours. If we ask why, the answer is that this is a poor country, dependent on the loan from America, and that we have to reduce our imports and avoid spending precious dollars except for absolute necessities. If, of course, we were in the happy position occupied by America how different would be the attitude towards demands for higher wages.

Well, just how different would it be? In America production and profits have been rising fast—“Corporation profits after taxes are running a third higher than a year ago” (Financial Times, 28/4/47). In the economists' fairy tales the American Government and the employers would hurry forward to press wage increases on the workers. In real life what they are doing is to preach just the same stuff as is plastered on the hoardings by the British Labour Government. 

  “To Labour, the President’s advice is that there should be restraint in asking for further wage increases, since substantial increases must lead inevitably to further price increases.” (An American Correspondent in Financial Times, 28/4/47.) 

And read what the Daily Mail (23/4/47) prints from Don Idden, its New York Correspondent:—

  “There are many exhortations to work harder, and both Bernard Baruch and Alfred Sloan, chairman of General Motors, proclaim that the only solution of current troubles is working a lot more for a lot less.”

We now have the whole thing in a nutshell.

Part I

  “In Britain not enough is being produced. If the workers will do a lot more work without more pay everything will come all right and we shall be like America where production has reached record heights.”

Part II

   “In U.S.A. too much has been produced and things are in a bad way. If the American workers will work a lot more for a lot lees pay everything will come all right."

In truth it is not so daft as it seems to be. The American and British capitalists are both out for the same thing, making as much profit as possible out of the exploitation of the workers, and they can always find some plausible propaganda to help on their aim.

The Capitalist Ethic: Don't be a racketeer in a small way (1947)

From the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The late Stephen Leacock wrote a humorous story on borrowing money. The man who wanted to borrow a trifling sum was rebuffed, with insults. At a few hundred dollars the insults disappeared. At the four-figure level it was possible to do a deal; but it was not until a loan for millions was asked for that the bankers obsequiously hailed the borrower as if he were a benefactor entitled to a royal reception. So it is also in the matter of running a capitalist racket.

A street hawker “who admitted overcharging for apples, oranges and lemons, was sent to prison for nine months at Manchester.” (News Chronicle, 30/4/47.)

Up the scale a little are the people who resold Cup Final tickets. These “ racketeers,” according to the Sunday Express (27/4/4,7), “made hundreds of pounds." “One seller boasted that he had made more than £100 profit in an hour.”

Higher still we reach the big money, but they are no longer described as racketeers. The Evening Standard (22/4/47) told of a house in Mayfair, sold in 1935 for £15,000 freehold. Slightly bomb-damaged it was sold as business premises in 1943 for £45,000; and resold in 1946 for £65,000. Nine months later it is sold again for £75,000. The Evening Standard gave publicity to the agent’s ingenious argument to show that the price “is not so extravagant as it sounds.” The argument is that it will be cheaper for the buyer to pay £75,000 for the freehold than to pay £7,000 a year as rent, at the market rate of £1 a square foot.

Higher still up the scale we read (Daily Mail, 26/4/47) of the Marquess of Bute who had just died. His fortune was “once reputed to be worth £60,000,000.” A lot of the family wealth came from the lucky possession of land in Glamorgan under which vast coal deposits were found. One of the astute deals of an earlier Marquess was to build Bute docks at a cost of £350,000. “When, in 1922, the family sold the docks to the Great Western Railway, the purchase price was £5,000,000.”

The man in jail will have nine months to ponder over the golden rule that if you want to plunder your fellow man you should take care to be born into the propertied class and consult the best lawyers to see that it is legal.

Party News Briefs (1947)

Party News from the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Overseas Secretary has been asked by the Executive Committee to co-operate with the Editorial Committee in preparing a short leaflet suitable for translation into foreign languages. Its purpose is to introduce the party to workers abroad. The Overseas Secretary wants to get in touch with members competent to translate the statement. Write to him, or contact him personally, at Head Office. It is urgent.

May-Day Meetings were successful both in London and Glasgow. Manchester report has not yet arrived. In London there were 400 at the Central Hall, Islington, on May 1st, and about 1,000 at the Metropolitan Theatre on Sunday, May 4th. Total collections were £54 and literature sales approximately £16. Bad weather and the action of the police in stopping all literature sales in Hyde Park on Sunday, kept our literature sales down for the day. Before 1939 the Hyde Park regulations which forbid the sale of literature were not so rigidly enforced on May Day, but the attitude of the police now is a very different one. As usual our outdoor meetings in Hyde Park on Sunday afternoon were better supported than the counter attractions provided by Labour and Communist “stars.” In Glasgow we had 400 in the Central Halls, Bath Street, and there was a bright meeting with a barrage of stimulating questions about the party. Literature sales were good. The traditional May Day procession during the afternoon was poorly supported and must have been uninspiring to its organisers. The workers can hardly be expected to respond enthusiastically to appeals to work harder.

The Treasurer reports a continually sinking amount of party funds in the bank. Our activities are increasing all the time and we need a lot more money. There are three funds open for contributions, the General, Parliamentary and Provincial Organisers’ Funds. If the party is to continue to progress you must provide the financial backing.

The Socialist Party of Canada is giving us the issues they have in stock of the Western Socialist for the period prior to the date of its transfer to the Workers’ Socialist Party of U.S.A. The Literature Secretary will have these for disposal when they arrive.

The Annual Conference was successful all round and showed a favourable financial balance of over £13.

A National Party Poster is being considered by the Executive Committee to act as a counter-blast to the Government's "Work or Want” poster. "We work sometimes but want always ” has been suggested.

Kingston-on-Thames group is now a branch, and is getting to work straight away with two outdoor meetings a week (Saturday evenings, Castle Street, Kingston, and Sunday afternoons at Hampton Court). An educational class is being run after branch business is completed on Wednesday evenings. Suitable branch premises have not been obtained yet, but the Co-operative Society’s rooms at Hampton Wick are being used once a fortnight, and on the alternate week the branch meets at 19, Spencer Road, East Molesey. Dates of meetings will be announced in the branch directory.

The Publicity Committee organised a sales drive for Socialist Standards of the January and February issues. A loud speaker van was used and sales made at a large public meeting. Surplus Standards of the two months were sent to Emergency Training Colleges and secondary schools throughout the country. The campaign is to continue with the March and April issues.

Hackney Branch invited local Labour Party officials and M.P.’s to their "We challenge the Labour Party” meeting on May 9th. Those who replied found themselves "unable”(?) to be there owing to other engagements.

Paddington Branch had the unusual and arresting title of "Workers and Labour Pains” for their meeting at Paddington Town Hall on May 8th.

Leyton Branch have started a Socialist Standard canvassing campaign in their area. Other branches had excellent results with these canvasses last summer.

Bloomsbury Branch are running outdoor meetings at Warren Street (a few yards from the Underground station) on Wednesday evenings and have C. Lestor talking to them on "The Materialist Conception of History and Music” at Head Office at 8.30 p.m. on Thursday, June 5th. He will illustrate his lecture with gramophone records.

(Branches, officials and sub-committees who have items for these notes must give them to the General Secretary by the 8th of the month preceding issue. Publication cannot be guaranteed owing to shortage of space).

C. C. Groves,

General Secretary.

Debate: Baxter backs out (1947)

Party News from the June 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Beverley Baxter agreed to represent the Tory Party in a debate with us and all details were arranged. We booked a hall, advertised the debate extensively, and now we are informed that “other engagements” prevent Mr. Baxter from carrying out his part of the contract. If we are to accept the plea put forward then we are at a loss to understand how Mr. Baxter came to agree to the debate without knowing that he already had an engagement the same evening, unless it is an example of Tory incompetence. We would remind Mr. Baxter that it is better to fight and run away than never to fight at all, because workers are bound to suspect that he who backs out after committing himself has no confidence in his ability to defend his case against the case put forward by the representative of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

We will still hold the meeting as arranged so as not to disappoint those who have been misled by Mr. Baxter, and we invite any representative of the Tory Party who, unlike Mr. Baxter, has the courage of his convictions, to come to the meeting and put his party’s case against ours. Failing a Tory, a representative of any other party will be gladly given the same privilege. We know our case is sound and, therefore, we are not afraid to defend it against all comers.