How to Oppose Religion (2016)

From the November 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The christian and the socialist put two radically different messages to workers. One is that this life ‘down here’ is only important as a preparation for the next life after death which, depending on whether or not you adhered to the precepts of Christianity, would either be eternal bliss or eternal hell-fire. The other is that this was the only life we are going to have and that workers should therefore concentrate on making it the best possible; which can only, be lastingly done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of living. This – socialism –  is what workers should be striving for rather than preparing themselves for some non-existent future life.

There are two ways of opposing religion. One is to refute it as untrue, to show that there are no rational grounds, because there is no convincing evidence, for believing either in the persistence of life after death or in the existence of supernatural beings. This is the approach of the secularists and freethinkers and of course what they say is true, but this leaves the impression that religion is merely an erroneous belief. It leads to concentrating on refuting religious beliefs as such in a purely ideological battle while leaving everything else, including class society and capitalist relations of production, unchanged.

The second way to oppose religion is to explain its origins, development and role in materialist terms as an ideological product of the changing material economic and social conditions under which people have lived. This approach reveals religion to be a reflection of people’s lack of control over the conditions governing the production of their material means of survival and that it survives precisely because people lack this control.

On this analysis, opposition to religion cannot be separated from opposition to the  economic and social conditions that give rise to it. Religion won’t disappear simply because secularists and freethinkers, or for that matter socialists, refute it as untrue. It will only disappear when people are in a position to control the production of their means of life. This requires the end of the class ownership of the means of production and the end of production for the market with a view to profit and their replacement  by common ownership and production directly and exclusively for use.

In other words, religion cannot disappear until the conditions of which it is an ideological reflection disappear. Criticism of religion leads, or ought logically to lead, to criticism of society. As Marx put it in the famous passage in the Introduction to his 1844 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: “Religion is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusions about its condition is the demand to  give up a condition which needs illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of the vale of woe, the halo of which is religion.”

Letters: A Workers’ Declaration (2016)

Letters to the Editors from the November 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Workers’ Declaration

Dear Editors

I hope one day there is a workers’ declaration that goes something like this: We the workers of the world declare all the raw-materials of Earth, the means of production and distribution, the means to a good life, to be ours.

The world is no longer owned by the non-producing class. The Earth no longer belongs to the one percent. Today the world belongs to all the human race. The fruits of the labours we the producers of goods produce are ours.

We the workers understand that capitalism doesn’t work for us. And all the reforms in the world are not going to make it work for us.

We the producing class, the workers of the world, the 99 percent, understand a World Without Money is the system that is best for us. And for all the animals, the oceans, the atmosphere, the earth.

We are now the owners of planet Earth. We are the masters of this world.

So much of our labour yesterday was wasted. We put a stop to that nonsense—in a non violent, peaceful, radical, intelligent way. We will never again waste our raw-materials. No more will we waste our labour, our lives, our time, our genius, our industry, our potential, our love.

In everything we produce for ourselves we will produce nothing but what our best endeavours can produce. Everyone of us will have the means to enjoy a good life.

We the workers of the world with the right ideas have conquered the capitalist system.

We have dismantled and abolished capitalism. And have established a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the best interest of the human race.

We the workers of the world build every building. Lay every railway track. Bake every pie. This world is ours by right. Because we make it.

We the workers of the world hereby declare that from this day forth our labour will turn the raw materials of Earth into the things we need and want for a civilized system of society. For all of us to enjoy. And our children to enjoy. And their children. And their children. And their children. Until Earth’s raw-materials—which belong to humankind—can sustain humankind no more. And we live on Earth no more.

Until that day comes, we, the workers of the world will make Earth if not paradise then as near as makes no difference.

Lee Heath, 

Manchester.

More Brexit

Dear Editors

Is your socialist idea different from that horrible globalisation Britain has courageously escaped from – can you imagine thousands and thousands of Brits turning up in, say, Poland, wanting jobs, housing, schooling, medical care, etc? Don’t you think they would say, how big do you think this country is . . ? You could fit Britain into one US State.

Have you read America Rules by Tom Hana? Then let me know if you think the EU has been good for any of the citizens of the 28 member states. I said citizens, not politicians. They are a different species.

Ireland is a member, and this numpty lot have refused a tax refund! I’d still like to know how the EU can make Ireland charge its citizens for water when they levied it on the car tax in 2003. They must not have told the EU.

I think a good percentage of Out voters did so instinctively. They knew it wasn’t fair.

Mrs L. McKenna, 

Co Donegal, Eire.

Reply

First of all, let’s be clear. The Socialist Party is opposed to all forms of capitalism whether it is organised according to a free enterprise or state capitalist model, whether it is nationally or globally structured or whether it is administered by left wing or right wing governments. But socialism will be a global society (of course with as much local devolution as people want) where people will be free to move from one part of the planet to another. This is clearly incompatible with capitalism but will be possible under socialism.

We have not read the book you mention although we tried to search for it on the internet. Whether the EU has been good for the citizens of the member states is obviously a matter of opinion. Europhiles in each country can point to many positives, Eurosceptics can do the opposite. It’s like having an argument as to which of Fianna Fail or Fine Gael in Ireland or the Conservative or Labour parties in Britain is better. In that sense it’s a political debate within capitalism and while we understand the importance such issues have to some people, we don’t adjudicate on these matters. The issues at stake – if they are really issues at all – are tiny.

Taxation is a contentious issue in most countries; what is taxed and who is taxed and who gets to decide these things and who enforces taxation. In many countries there is anger about the very low effective taxation rate levied on multinational companies who can use both their economic clout and employ legal trickery to get away with derisory levels of payments. Also, as in the case of water charges in Ireland, nobody likes fresh taxation especially on such a basic human resource such as drinkable water. However, most of these controversies miss the point about the fundamental nature of taxation within capitalism; that ultimately it is a charge on capital, and some sections of the owners of capital (the capitalist class) are keen to transfer the burden to other sections.

Only when we collectively realize that what are presented as contentious issues such as immigration, taxation, etc. are not the real defining issues of our lives, can we plan a much better society. 

Editorial Committee.

Trade or Environment? (2016)

From the November 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Everything is now monetised’. You often hear that expression nowadays. It amounts to the same as the old expression, ‘money makes the world go round’. In her speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October Andrea Leadsom’s re-iterated this idea, but the Environment Secretary had little else to offer.

The speech was dominated by income figures and ‘economic potential’, as she put it. ‘Grow, buy, sell’, she said.

There was nothing of any insight from her into the problems or solutions that confront us concerning environmental degradation. Of course, you may not have expected complex analysis and argument, but you would have been excused for thinking that you were listening to the Trade Secretary. You would expect the Environment Secretary to at least address some of those problems and solutions as if she did know something about them, other than how much money could be generated from them.

She announced a 25 year plan for the environment but, again, gave little detail, (probably because there isn’t any). The suspicion must be that any legislation to be introduced will give favour to commercial interests. Perhaps the recent handing out of the first fracking licence is stage one of that plan; and this from a government that wants to leave the environment in a better state than they found it. Well, we’ve heard that before: Cameron’s ‘greenest government ever’, (surely he meant meanest), has come to nothing.

The inherent problems in tackling the issues are difficult enough in themselves. The problem of having to fund the infrastructure projects necessary to rescue the environment, and the requirement to turn a profit demanded by private industry (effectively in charge of all infrastructure projects in Britain), only serve to make the solutions more difficult, or even impossible, to achieve. The curse of spiralling costs and contract re-negotiation reflect this very well, as we can see across all sectors – HS2, Crossrail. Thames Water Ring Main, Hinkley Point etc.

There never seems to be enough funding. But a lack of it isn’t the problem. The problem is the idea of funding itself. While the system of production for profit remains in place there will never be enough funding, and we will move further and further away from the kind of environment we should all want to live in.

The socialist point of view is quite clear. Remove money, remove funding from the equation, and you remove the main barrier to technological advancement and, as concerns the environment, to a safe, secure future. A system of production for use, a moneyless society, a socialist society, would provide a real opportunity to create a sustainable and secure environment.

NM

Tweedledum and Tweedledummer (2016)

Editorial from the November 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 8 November, American workers will be casting their votes for the next US President. Aside from the minor candidates, Jill Stein of the Green Party and Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party, the contest is between Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s Frankenstein Monster, and Hillary Clinton, the devotee of US corporations and Wall Street.

Donald Trump, the billionaire political conman who poses as the workers’ champion, has been preying on the anger, insecurities and, in some cases, the desperation of American workers, many of whom are still suffering from the effects of the 2008 financial crash. He claims he will bring jobs back to the US and scapegoats immigrant and Muslim workers for America’s social and economic ills. He appeals to the more conservative voters by supporting gun ownership and opposing abortion. With the release of a video produced in 2005, which reveals Trump boasting that his celebrity status allows him to grope any woman he wants, many high ranking Republicans have dumped him. Further allegations by women, who have come forward to accuse him of sexual assault, have added to the discomfort of the Republicans.

Many in the Republican Party hierarchy have never favoured his candidacy, regarding him as an aberration. Yet, his populist style of politics has, in some form or other, been pursued by Republican and Democrat politicians in the past. He follows in the footsteps of Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W Bush among others.

Hillary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders, the so called ‘Democratic Socialist’ from Vermont, to become the first woman Presidential nominee. She has positioned herself as the progressive candidate supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and is pro abortion and is in favour of gun control. As a New York Senator, she voted for the Iraq War. However, her candidacy has been dogged by question marks over her use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State and controversies over foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation. Despite this, her candidacy has received endorsements from high ranking members of the political and corporate establishments, including many Republicans. Her campaign has received donations from Wall Street interests.

Despite the animosity between Trump and Clinton that has been revealed in the election rallies and TV debates, there is one fundamental issue in which they both agree and that is in the need to support US capitalism. Whoever wins, the US government will continue to manage capitalism as before, promoting the interests of the US capitalist class at home and abroad. American workers will continue to work for their bosses, and if a profit cannot be made, then unemployment looms. Workers will still be sent to fight wars on behalf of the capitalist class. Sadly for the American working class, it will be business as usual when the new President takes office in January 2017.

Yet it need not be this way. American workers have another choice. They can unite with workers worldwide to gain political power and wrest control of the Earth’s resources from the capitalist class and convert them from private property used for the production of profit to the common heritage of all humankind.

50 Years Ago: Railway shareholders support nationalisation (1988)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr William Whitelaw, Chairman of the London & North Eastern Railway, wants the railways nationalised. He stated this in an interview reported in the News-Chronicle (December 29th, 1937). He thinks that it would eliminate competition, reduce costs, and be good for the shareholders. He says that if fair terms were offered there would be no opposition from the people with money invested in railway companies, and adds: "As a large stockholder myself 1 should have no hesitation whatever in taking Government stock instead of company stock."

In view of the fact that several classes of railway stocks have paid little or no dividend for years, and future prospects for many other classes look none too bright, the idea of State purchase will perhaps commend itself to those who own the railways. But what of the workers? What have they to gain? — in spite of the Daily Herald's joy that Mr Whitelaw had been "compelled by the logic of events to accept the full policy that the Labour Party has advocated for 15 years and more." (Daily Herald, January 6th. 1938.)

Labour Party schemes for State ownership perpetuate the parasitism of a propertied class living by owning. Until that has been got rid of the working class will continue to be barred from the big improvement in the standard of living which Socialism will make possible.

[From an article " 'Socialism' to Please the Railway Shareholders" Socialist Standard February 1938.]

Designed for living? (1988)

From the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the many intractable problems that face workers in their day-to-day existence under capitalism takes place within the area of housing production. Unable and incapable of meeting workers' housing needs capitalism forces them to either sink or swim according to the private or government dictates of housing provision. So not only do workers have to cope with the very real problems of lack of space, of repair and maintenance, of housing obsolescence and unfit habitation, they also have to cope with the constant financial pressures of mortgage and rent demands where the inability to meet the often high amounts involved means repossession and subsequent homelessness.

Similarly, since the end of the nineteenth century, workers have seen every housing reform supposedly enacted in their interests fail. The state has not been able to end the housing shortage, provide the wide and different housing workers require throughout their lives, nor alleviate the dangers to health and overcrowding within the decaying inner cities. In fact, the state's interference has more often than not contributed to the worsening of the problem.

If workers want a constant reminder of the futility of reforms as such then they could do no worse than study the history of housing reforms both before and after they were enacted by Parliament. A similar lesson could well be learnt by the reformers themselves. The high number of often well-meaning individuals who attempt to alleviate the housing problem under capitalism have taken on a job for life; one that will result in regular frustration and hopelessness. In fact, taken globally, and bearing in mind all the various housing reform bodies now in existence. the housing problem as it affects the world's working class could hardly be worse.

So what of the latest reform popularly known as "Community Architecture”? In their writings this new set of reformists regard community architecture as a major contribution to working-class housing. Through government grants, charitable organisations and the involvement of "investment and development" capitalists, the proponents of community architecture claim that they will simultaneously alleviate the entrenched urban blight under which most of the working class have to exist as well as engineer, through the process of worker participation, some mythical sense of "community spirit" which, we are told by one of its strongest advocates, Prince Charles, existed before the Second World War.

But then Prince Charles and the class he represents did not have to live in pre-war working-class housing. Were not high-rise, high density housing of the first three decades after the war held up as models of community architecture in their own day? Did not the reformers then point to the utopian towers of glass and concrete as the solution to the TB. damp and insanitary filth and grime of workers' housing of the 1930s? So placed in its historic context the community architecture of today is largely the result of the failure of the last set of housing reforms which ushered in the pre-fabricated housing that councils are now blowing up.

And what of the phrase "community architecture"? It is as though it had been coined by an advertising agency trying to brighten up the tarnished image of the businessmen and women who masquerade as architects at the Royal Institute of British Architects. For does not the word "community" imply some strong notion of of classlessness? Does it not also imply that there is a strong and active democratic control by that community over what is built, where it is built and for whose social needs it is meant? Are the supposed recipients of community architecture in control over their own lives; are they able to live in the best environment society can currently produce? Is the technical advice freely available to them? Are the materials and craft skills (the latter reified under capitalism to the degrading tag of "operatives") directly and freely accessible? The answer is, of course, no to all these questions — because "community” and "community architecture" under capitalism are illusions.

The reality for workers is that there is no direct access to land, materials and technical advice. The capitalist class monopolises it for themselves. Workers' access is governed by their ability to pay and at the end of the day, architectural awards or no architectural awards, the standard and quality of accommodation is little different from that provided by the likes of Wimpeys or Barretts: workers get the housing that befits their class position.

And what of the word "architecture"? Does — or has ever — the working class lived in housing that could be described as architecture? Are workers' housing the sort of houses architectural historians waste their time writing about or are lavishly illustrated in magazines like Country Life? The answer is, again, no. Workers live instead in buildings. It is the capitalist class who can afford to live in "architecture". Workers' houses are only studied by a few eccentric social historians while the workers themselves are out visiting Blenheim Palace and the thousands of other architectural gems that make up “Our National Architectural Heritage".

We should not, after 80 years, in a world that has the potential to house the world's population adequately and with dignity, have to again and again re-quote Engels' solution to the Housing Question and why all reforms have and will fail:

  The so-called housing shortage which plays such a great role in the press nowadays, does not consist in the fact that the working class generally lives in bad. overcrowded and unhealthy dwellings. This shortage is not something peculiar to the present; it is not even one of the sufferings peculiar to the modern proletariat in contradistinction to all earlier oppressed classes. On the contrary all oppressed classes in all periods suffered rather uniformly from it. In order to put an end to this housing shortage there is only one means: to abolish altogether the exploitation and oppression of the working class by the ruling class.

(The Housing Problem)

William Morris envisaged a socialist society that produced buildings based on craft skills and natural materials. Whether this or other forms of building techniques will be used by a future socialist society will be for them to decide, as they set about building a society fit for human beings to live in. But what generally can be said is that in a society freed from the utter absurdity of buying and selling, of commodity production and of classes, people will be in control of their lives and the society in which they live. It is only within this form of society that any real meaning for the term community architecture can be contemplated or sanctioned.

Richard Lloyd

From crisis to complacency (1988)

1987 Edition

Book Review from the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Energy Question. Gerald Foley (Pelican £4.95)

When the review copy of this book arrived I took my old one down from the shelf to compare them. The latter was published in 1976 and must have been written not long after the 1973 Arab-Zionist War and the quadrupling of oil prices in world markets.

The conclusion of most experts then was that there was too little oil and too many customers. Commodity markets — tin. coffee, copper, palm oil — boomed because the scarcity was believed to extend to everything except people; there were, it seemed, too many of us. Catholics rejected this view because God would not bring people into the world without means for them to exist.

Colin Clark, an adviser to the Pope on economic demography, had concluded that the world could feed ten times its current population to American standards and thirty times to Japanese standards.

But the majority of experts inclined to the view that scarcity was coming to haunt us. Oil and other sources of energy, along with most minerals and fertile soil, were in short supply and getting shorter Interested parties joined the chorus: producers of oil and minerals used the scare to jack up prices. Vegetarians argued that if we gave up meat there would be plenty of nut-cutlets for us all. Even Gerald Foley wrote in the early edition: “It is inevitable that the future will be more vegetarian than the past".

Twelve years on we are assured that there is too much of everything. Primary commodity prices have crashed: copper producers like Zambia and tin producers like Malaya are in economic difficulties. Europe is drowning in wine and olive oil lakes and there are mountains of meat and fruit and grain.

And energy, whose input equals half a ton of coal-equivalent for every man, woman and child in Britain for food-production alone:

  The energy picture is very different from that of 1976. when the first edition of this book was published. The atmosphere at that time was one of crisis. Now the anxiety seems to have completely disappeared. A decade ago there were worries about whether industrial society would reach the year 2000 without a major upheaval in its ways of obtaining and using energy; now the consensus is that the turn of the century will see business very much as usual.

Now why should all that be? Had some new element come onto the scene to change all the equations about energy? Nuclear energy had promised, or rather its PR officers had promised a future of free or nearly free energy. But that dream had already gone sour by 1976. The American nuclear industry, operating on a purely commercial basis, had already stopped ordering nuclear power stations and many of the utilities who had ordered or who were operating them were facing bankruptcy. Countries like Britain and France who continued to order or operate them were doing so for political reasons, like obtaining war supplies of plutonium from the Magnox stations, or as a counter to the power of the mining unions in the British government's case, or to the power of the Arab oil producers in the French case. Gerald Foley has no doubt as to the real reason:

  When the oil crisis arrived in 1973, there was a widespread misapprehension that it was connected with resource depletion. In fact, it was almost entirely a matter of economics and world politics, [ibid]

A couple of pages later he puts it even more bluntly: "In retrospect, it is clear that the energy crisis was to a large extent a creation of the major energy interests".

1976 Edition

So all that tizzy of excitement over self-sufficiency in the late sixties and early seventies was based on a false premise. All those flat-plate solar collectors on every roof and Cretan windmills in every backyard, methane digesters and Pelton Wheels and hand mills for grinding your own corn. Still, this book deals kindly with them and is careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Houses are still being built with big picture-windows facing north — the planning laws and building regulations say nothing about orientation; the heating requirements of most houses could be cut by three quarters for a modest expenditure on insulation and of most factories by an even bigger factor.

The "energy crisis"' did, nevertheless, produce substantial economies in the use of fuel, particularly in the US. American motorists spurned the gas-guzzler cars in favour of the Volkswagen Beetle in sufficient numbers to bankrupt Chrysler and force General Motors and Ford to redesign their products. In Britain the small ads columns were full of oil fired boilers that hard-pressed householders could not afford to run. Alternative and sometimes desperate measures: paraffin stoves, electric storage radiators, log stoves, rarely offered a real solution.

Now it is: as you were, and oil is once more among the cheapest of fuels. The chapter: "Planning for Scarcity" in the 1976 edition has been changed to: "From Crisis to Complacency". The point is still there but the emphasis is different. Gerald Foley comes up to the jump but refuses it. If he had only questioned the Market Economy itself. But if my aunt had wheels she would be a bicycle. The author is not in the business of political/economic analysis or he would have written a different book.

What he has written, and rewritten, is a compendious trip, historical and geographical, around the subject and provides a massive amount of material for us non-specialists to analyse. The tables and graphs are particularly comprehensive.

Ken Smith

Sad History (1988)

Book Review from the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Since 1945. T. E. Vadney (Penguin £4.95)

One day we shall be able to look back at books like this and the events they describe and wonder why people put up with capitalism for so long. For this history of wars and coups and massacres shows a society based on conflict and competition, where governments and ruling classes try to outmanoeuvre each other. Satisfying the needs of the earth's population is not one of capitalism's priorities.

Vadney focusses on political events, by which he means primarily the various aspects of great power rivalry, so that the lives of ordinary men and women rarely enter the narrative — except, of course, when they form cannon fodder for the rulers. Thus at least a million civilians were killed in South Vietnam between 1965 and 1974. In the period covered in the book, about 25 million people have been killed in war and other conflict in the Third World, to say nothing of the millions who have died in artificially-created famines.

Time and again Vadney shows how economic and strategic motives underlie political actions. The American Marshall Plan of 1947, for instance, was intended to boost the economies of the Western European states, with the ulterior aim of enabling them to afford American imports and to compete with the Russian-bloc countries. In 1954, the US staged a coup against the government of Guatemala, which was nationalising land much of which was owned by American companies. The truly global nature of capitalism is evident too: for example, the Jamaican economy in the 1970s was very much at the mercy of the global recession, in spite of the government's efforts to control things.

A couple of points which Vadney treats as if they were virtually obvious show how some things which socialists have been saying for years eventually become commonplace. Firstly. China after 1949 practised 'national capitalism' (read 'state capitalism'). Secondly, the countries of Eastern Europe have ruling classes with far greater power and material rewards than ordinary workers.

Rather than the author's pessimistic closing remarks that vested interests which benefit from the status quo will block any attempt to change and improve things, the appropriate conclusion to draw is that any social system whose history is to be told in these terms must be abolished as soon as possible.

Paul Bennett

Letters: More about “human nature” (1988)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

More about “human nature”

Dear Editors.

I was very interested to read in the December 1987 Standard, Richard Headicar's letter containing his criticism of an article appearing in the September issue of the Standard, with the title "Society Without Exchange", which I regard as being very fair comment. However. I must say that I find your reply to his criticism most unsatisfactory with regard to the question of the human nature-human behaviour syndrome.

It is, I think, as important for us to make separation, for the purpose of analysis, between these two terms, and to define exactly what we mean by both, as it is in the field of political economy to make a separation and a clear definition, between the terms labour and labour power. The terms human nature and human behaviour are not interchangeable terms because they mean and connote different things.

They are not, however, mutually exclusive. The one (human nature), cannot exist without the existence of the other (the phenomenon of human behaviour) and vice versa. They are complementary. In complete contrast are the terms socialism and capitalism which not only mean different things but the phenomenon which each term connotes is mutually exclusive. The one can only exist in the complete absence of the other.

In the short paragraph at the end of your reply you say: "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”. May I point out what can only properly be called human nature (in contrast to human behaviour) is the sum total of the biological attributes common to all members of the human species. Far from being insignificant this unique combination of biological attributes is not only not insignificant, it is the most amazing and important biological event (apart from the emergence of organic matter itself) that has ever taken place.

After three thousand million years of biological evolution by natural selection a species has emerged which has the biological potentiality of determining the future course of the evolutionary process, conceptually thinking matter had arrived, making it possible for all kinds of human behaviour the prerogative of the human species, instead of being the prisoner of natural selection for the first and only time in the history of the solar system. It is quite true that "human behaviour is what our opponents are really referring to when they say that 'human nature" would make socialism unworkable". But that is because they are in a state of confusion about the whole question of the human nature-human behaviour syndrome.

May I add that I use the term human nature as I have defined it on the basis that there is only one human nature applicable to all members of the human species. And this I claim is a concrete fact verifiable from all the evidence from all branches of natural and related sciences. On the other hand there is no such thing as one simple human behaviour which is applicable to all members of humanity. Animals, including homo sapiens, do not and in fact cannot inherit behaviour genetically. Behaviour is learned and developed by the organism as it grows and inter-relates with its environment. Therefore it is much nearer the truth to say, that whilst there is only one human nature, there are many human behaviours.

Yours fraternally.

H D Walters 

London

Nailing males?

In our otherwise excellent journal, occasional lapses are the more remarkable. Why do we attack "insecure, immature males" for attempting to take advantage of female colleagues at office parties (Season of Goodwill, December 1987) and not passive, compliant females who are far greater in number?

Nailing the working class on their acceptance of capitalism is our priority, the destructive behaviour of individuals within it is effectively dealt with by Ben Elton.

Yours for socialism,

Janet Carter 

Walthamstow. London

About Socialism (1988)

From the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

1. What is the Socialist Party of Great Britain?

It is a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. It stands for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed in this introductory leaflet were adopted by the Socialist Party in 1904 and have been maintained without compromise since then. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles, and they too remain independent from all other political parties.

2. What is capitalism?

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world. Under this system, the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, transport, media, etc.) are monopolised by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us, the majority working class, who sell our mental and physical energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of wealth production is to create goods and services which can be sold on the market at a profit. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but, as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.

3. Can capitalism be reformed in our interests?

No: as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers, but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle.

4. Is nationalisation an alternative to capitalism?

No: nationalised industries simply mean that workers are exploited by the state, acting on behalf of the capitalists of one country, rather than by an individual capitalist or company. The workers in nationalised British Leyland are no less the servants of profit than workers in privately-owned Ford. The mines no more belong to "the public" or the miners now than they did before 1947 when they were nationalised. Nationalisation is state capitalism.

5. Are there any “socialist countries”?

No: the so-called socialist countries are systems of state capitalism. In Russia and its empire, in China, Cuba, Albania, Yugoslavia and the other countries which call themselves socialist, social power is monopolised by privileged Party bureaucrats. The features of capitalism, as outlined above, are all present. An examination of international commerce shows that the bogus socialist states are part of the world capitalist market and cannot detach themselves from the requirements of profit.

6. What Is the meaning of socialism?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self- defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary co-operation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying or selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet earth.

7. How will socialism solve the problems of society?

Capitalism, with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future; almost one in four families with children living below the official government poverty line; many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation — tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more: yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses; yet it is not "economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.

8. What about human nature?

Human behaviour is not fixed, but determined by the kind of society people are conditioned to live in. The capitalist jungle produces vicious, competitive ways of thinking and acting. But we humans are able to adapt our behaviour and there is no reason why our rational desire for comfort and human welfare should not allow us to co-operate. Even under capitalism people often obtain pleasure from doing a good turn for others; few people enjoy participating in the "civilised" warfare of the daily rat-race. Think how much better it would be if society was based on co-operation.

9. Are socialists democrats?

Yes: the Socialist Party has no leaders. It is a democratic organisation controlled by its members. It understands that Socialism can only be established by a conscious majority of workers — that workers must liberate themselves and will not be liberated by leaders or parties. Socialism will not be brought about by a dedicated minority "smashing the state", as some left-wingers would have it. Nor do the activities of paid, professional politicians have anything to do with Socialism — the experience of seven Labour governments has shown this. Once a majority of the working class understand and want Socialism, they will take the necessary step to organise consciously for the democratic conquest of political power. There will be no Socialism without a socialist majority.

10. What is the next step?

Many workers know that there is something wrong and want to change society. Some join reform groups in the hope that capitalism can be patched up, but such efforts are futile because you cannot run a system of class exploitation in the interests of the exploited majority. People who fear a nuclear war may join CND. but as long as nation states exist, economic rivalry means that the world will never be safe from the threat of war. There are countless dedicated campaigns and good causes which many sincere people are caught up in, but there is only one solution to the problems of capitalism and that is to get rid of it, and establish Socialism. Before we can do that we need socialists; winning workers to that cause requires knowledge, principles and an enthusiasm for change. These qualities can be developed by anyone — and are essential for anyone who is serious about changing society. Capitalism in the 1980s is still a system of waste, deprivation and frightening insecurity. You owe it to yourself to find out about the one movement which stands for the alternative.


If you have read this set of principles and agree with some or all of them, contact the Socialist Party with your questions and ideas about what you can do to help speed the progress towards Socialism.

Editorial: In Place of Wishes (1988)

Editorial from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Each year at this time an arbitrary line is drawn across our lives. It has as much mysticism about it as any religion. On one side of the line lies the Old Year with its mistakes, its problems, its inadequacies. On the other the New Year beckons us, with its pristine sanity, enlightenment, happiness. It is a time to make resolutions that the next twelve months will be innocent of the disfigurements of the past twelve. Some people mark the occasion by getting drunk, to lubricate the process of acting towards others with warmth and respect. Others may rely on the collective hysteria of the occasion to intoxicate them. Happy New Year, they wish each other. It’s probably not all insincere, either.

But powerful as alcoholic poisoning and popular delusions can be there is an amnesiac scale about the event which is positively staggering. For does life really get better from year to year for the millions of people who wish to each other that it should? The millions who snatch the short holiday to pretend that they are something other than the social class which, although productive and useful, is exploited, repressed and deceived?

That question was what actually dominated the election last June. Thatcher and her crew energetically told us that things were not only getting better but would carry on like that, as if the Tories will never rest until they have drenched us all in prosperity. Enough workers were impressed by this campaign, shrewdly aimed as it was, to send the Iron Lady back to Number Ten.

It is likely that the Tories won a lot of votes through their schemes to enable workers to buy shares in the privatised industries. This whole idea, with its elaborately buoyant publicity, rested on the assumption that the Stock Market is a casino where share prices always go up, so that workers who borrowed a little money to buy a few shares could then sell them quickly and so make a small profit. This illusion — that the class structure of capitalism had been radically changed by Norman Tebbit was badly damaged by the stock market crash, which catapulted distraught yuppies into a position of media-dominance. In fact, a falling stock market also offers the possibility of making money — but in a way not usually open to penurious workers.

It is worth mentioning this if only because a popular response to any criticism of Thatcherite Britain is that the critics are motivated by a septic envy. There is, apparently, an opulent gravy train on the move for those who are economically nimble enough to climb aboard. The economically disabled have only themselves to blame. But is this society, which we labour under, really so carefree an arrangement? Are its critics really so devoid of material to support their arguments?

Well what, apart from the events on the Stock Exchange, happened last year? What effect did all those salutations, last January, have for us?

It was, in fact, a year of disasters in a very material sense. The crazy massacre of Hungerford cannot be explained away as an isolated mental breakdown. Michael Ryan was a man who could not answer, to his own satisfaction, the sexual, social and familial expectations of capitalism. So instead he loved his guns, his cars and his terrible fantasies. The capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise was not an accident for the ship was being sailed just as the company's balance sheet thought appropriate. At the time of writing the immediate cause of the King's Cross fire has not been made public, but emerging facts have shown up the reductions in vital staff and the tardiness in replacing dangerously outdated equipment, in the cause of reducing costs and so maximising profit.

Although as a disaster it is rather less dramatic, the problem of the homeless grew worse, with the numbers of families with nowhere to live increasing as their chances of finding anywhere within a reasonable time decreased. Young workers have been coerced into accepting government approved work or courses under pain of being cut off from state benefit. The government's discovery that state benefits can be cut by changing their name and the conditions under which they can be claimed brings memories of the special indignities heaped on the unemployed during the 1930s. Finally, in face of the official statistics which tell us that it is not happening, the waiting lists of workers who need treatment in hospital grew longer so that some die while they are waiting and babies are prevented from having desperately needed operations through a lack of specialised nurses who have been driven out of the work through their paltry wages. Even the consultants, contemplating the beds kept empty by the priority of conforming to a budget, have been moved to make their unequivocal protests.

There was no happier prospect abroad. At the end of the year Bob Geldof was flying back to Ethiopia to ask why, after all that effort and expenditure, millions have to suffer an agonising, degrading death by starvation. Those sickening pictures of dying babies, too sick even to take their mother's milk, are condemnation enough of capitalism in themselves. The Gulf War continued to consume its fearsome human diet, there is slaughter in Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan and the brutality of South Africa's racist regime does not lessen. The cold cynicism of capitalist politics has been exposed by the Irangate affair, which cannot be hushed over by even Reagan's consummate acting skills. He may yet be saved by the diversion of a treaty to abolish medium-range nuclear missiles which, even if it should ever be fully implemented, would still leave us living in a world with more than enough destructive power to kill us all several times over.

No, it was not a Happy New Year. Neither was 1986, 1985, 1984 . . . We shall need to do more than wish that things will get better. We have the power to change the world and the ability to run it in the interests of the human race. And the reasons for that are all too obvious.

Running Commentary: Common assault (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1669, a petition was presented to Parliament by a "lively boy" on behalf of schoolchildren, to protest at "the severities of the school discipline of this nation", calling schools "not merely houses of correction but of prostitution". In 1889, one of the four demands of the London schoolboys' strike was an end to caning. This has now finally been instituted in Parliament by a vote of 231 to 230, nearly a hundred years later (so much for the speed of the reform process). But beating children in schools is still legal and widespread in countries like the USA, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. And in Britain, parents and those having "lawful control or charge" of children are still allowed to administer "moderate and reasonable" physical punishment with impunity. How a physical assault on someone who is smaller and weaker can be moderate and reasonable is one of the mysteries which only the great Law Lords in their wisdom can fathom.

Corporal punishment in schools was banned in Poland as early as 1783, in France in 1881 and in every other European country by 1982. One of the main reasons it was not banned sooner in Britain was the teachers' trade unions' passionate defence of the right to beat schoolchildren. The NUT became committed to opposing corporal punishment, through Conference Resolution, only in 1982 and the NAS/UWT has remained in favour up to its inevitable acceptance of the new Act. Figures taken from school "Punishment Books" in the early 1980s by the Society of Teachers Opposed to Physical Punishment showed approximately 250,000 school beatings a year in England — one every 19 seconds. In 1979, Buckinghamshire celebrated the International Year Of The Child by reintroducing corporal punishment for infants. And a 1974 survey in Edinburgh found over 10,000 instances of use of the tawse (leather strap) on just 70,000 children in two terms.

In the USA, corporal punishment is legal in 42 states, especially in the Southern Bible Belt where the inane and barbaric dictum "if you spare the rod. you spoil the child" is popular. The traditional weapon for this purpose in the States is the wooden "paddle". It has been officially estimated that there are about three million such beatings there each year, mostly at the primary level and disproportionately carried out on black children (Times Educational Supplement, 31 July 1987). In Georgia, state law gives immunity from civil or criminal action if the punishment is given "in good faith" and is not "unduly severe". Last year one Georgia 13-year-old who had been "paddled" returned and stabbed the principal to death and an Alabama mother is being charged with assault after hitting a teacher over the head with the paddle he used to hit her seven-year-old son. The comment of John Sikes, the Georgian School Superintendent, once again acknowledges the inevitable problem of setting up up compulsory conditioning centres, like prisons, and calling them places of learning:

We've been using paddling here since schools began, and to be honest with you, I don't know what we'd do without it. The only alternative is to send unruly kids home, and they won't learn anything there.

Recent reports from both Malaysia and Swaziland have also exposed widespread sadistic treatment of schoolchildren (TES, 14 August 1987). The Malaysian NUTP union has documented 200 cases including savage beatings, locking children in cupboards for long periods, making children lick urine from the floor and one teacher who habitually punishes boys by squeezing their testicles; one of his pupils recently had to have one testicle surgically removed; the head reassured the union that this teacher was being "transferred to another school ". All of the other documented cases have also led only to the teachers concerned being reprimanded or transferred.

With all of the recent press coverage of assaults on children, it should not be forgotten that this vast number of legal assaults is taking place across the world. Such 'sanctions' are a common part of the compulsory conditioning of capitalism's schools.

Clifford Slapper

Running Commentary: Abortion debate (1988)

The Running Commentary Column from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Abortion debate

David Alton's Bill seeks an 18-week time limit on abortions — to make it illegal for any woman to have an abortion after the 18th week of her pregnancy. Alton is fully aware that many of the tests for handicap and hereditary disease cannot be performed until after the 18th week but he thinks it is wrong to seek an abortion on those grounds. There will be an exclusion clause in the Bill allowing mothers the “right" to an abortion after 18 weeks. If the mother's own life is at risk her pregnancy may be terminated.

Alton's Bill has the support of some women who object to abortion on religious grounds. Many of the other supporters are churchmen or priests who argue their moral case from the authoritative position of perhaps never having had a sexual relationship. much less risked the anguish of an unwanted pregnancy. All of these people are convinced that a pregnant woman who waits more than 18 weeks before deciding whether to have an abortion should, in future, be forced to bear the child, regardless of the economic or emotional consequences.

Speaking in opposition to the proposals on a TV programme were two women who had chosen to have their pregnancies terminated. Neither enjoyed the experience, did it for "selfish" reasons or came out of it psychologically unscathed. Also opposing the Bill was a representative of a major charity-run abortion clinic who witnesses the human misery of unwanted pregnancies every day of the week. Ultimately, though, the Bill will stand or fall on the say-so of the majority of men in Parliament.

But the issues are not the time limit or the moral correctness of abortion. It is the present economic and social system that turns the birth of a human being into a nightmare of poverty, lost freedom and missed opportunity. So before becoming involved in what Alton claims is a "human rights" issue, consider instead a society where women and men are free to make their own decisions and shape their own lives on equal terms.


Read all about it

"Workshy costing firms £5bn a year", shrieked the headline. I couldn't believe it. Here was a reactionary newspaper finally telling the truth about the ruling class. A full and frank expose of the idle rich and the nature of capitalism. I read on. "Industry chiefs are planning a crackdown on absenteeism after a survey showed days off work are costing British business £5 billion a year . . . The survey puts the UK in a bad light compared with major trading competitors". The truth was revealed. It was not fearless revelations about how capitalism exploits the working class but just another attempt to make workers feel guilty because they weren't producing enough surplus value for their benevolent bosses. The final paragraph said it all. "It is not a comforting record, particularly when there are so many on the dole who would work conscientiously at any job they were fortunate enough to have".

Muttering "Victorian values" I turned the page. "Royal pair back to work after brief reunion" met my gaze. Concern for my blood pressure prompted me to quickly pass on. As I did so 1 thought of all those on the dole who would consider themselves fortunate to have a "job" like Charlie and Di and how much better it would be if their watchword was "Abolition of the wages system!"

Adjacent to the Royal story was one headlined. "Part-time workers getting raw deal". A report by the Low Pay Unit showed that nearly four million British part-timers earn less than the "decency threshold" of £3.25 an hour and many more miss out on redundancy payments and maternity benefits. The low paid include 98 per cent of shop checkout workers. 96 per cent of bar staff and 89 per cent of receptionists. It's not reading these things in newspapers that's bad for your health, it's capitalism that's bad for your life. Let s get rid of capitalism.

Dave Coggan

Less can mean more (1988)

From the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

While all the razzmatazz, media hype and self-congratulation has been going on in Washington over the INF agreement, a group of NATO nuclear experts have quietly been engaged in discussion over what are euphemistically called ‘'compensatory measures", or in other words, how to fill the gaps left in the western alliance's war machine by the scrapping of missiles under the terms of the INF treaty. The end result could be more, not less, nuclear weapons in Europe.

You could be forgiven for thinking that the INF agreement marked the dawning of a new age heralded by those two saintly peace-makers Reagan and Gorbachev. In fact the INF treaty is a paltry little agreement that at best will get rid of just 3-4 per cent of nuclear weapons on both sides — there will still be plenty more left to blow up the world several times over. Under the terms of the agreement (if it is ratified by a two-thirds majority in the US Senate — Gorbachev can be confident that the Supreme Soviet will obediently endorse their leader s decision) all Cruise and Pershing II missiles already deployed in Western Europe will be destroyed over a three year period. In return Russia will scrap its SS20s, and shorter range SSI2 and SS23 missiles.

But meanwhile, in NATO, strategists are proposing ways of plugging the gaps left behind — like through the deployment of new air- and sea-launched nuclear weapons or moving more US F-l 11 nuclear bombers to bases in Europe so that they are within easy reach of Russian targets. No doubt Russia's military supremos have been engaged in similar planning of "compensatory measures”.

The determinedly optimistic will probably argue that the INF treaty is only the beginning and that it is likely to be followed by the cutting of strategic weapons by 50 per cent within a year or so as a result of START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks). Fifty per cent certainly sounds like a big cut until you realise that what they are arguing about is an agreement which aims to achieve a common ceiling of six thousand warheads on both sides. It's hard to feel optimistic about that.

Once all the euphoria has evaporated and the media circus has left Washington for the next location on the non-stop leadership-promotion tour, perhaps people will reflect in the cold light of reason, on what has really been achieved by this treaty.

Firstly, it is an agreement whose main purpose must be seen as economic and political rather than the removal of the threat of nuclear annihilation. Gorbachev needed an arms reduction treaty — and the worldwide publicity which accompanied it — in order to bolster his political position and enable him to pursue his programme of domestic economic and political reform from a position of greater strength within the Russian political elite. Reagan badly wanted to be remembered for something other than the shabby deals connected with the Irangate scandal, the enormous budget deficit, his penchant for jelly beans and his inability to string together a coherent sentence unless he had a script in front of him.

Secondly, the treaty does not address the problem of how to dispose of nuclear weapons. Even when the plutonium has been removed from the warheads, the remaining rockets — packed full of highly flammable fuel — will be extremely dangerous to destroy. Nuclear missiles are designed to explode causing the maximum possible damage, not to be dismantled with minimum damage.

Finally, and most seriously, the INF agreement does not even begin to tackle the real problem of nuclear weapons. Not only does it propose to scrap only a tiny proportion of the total nuclear stockpile but also it raises no questions at all about why we have nuclear weapons, or indeed any other kinds of weapons. In fact to the extent that arms treaties of this kind reinforce the position of political leaders (and hence the capitalist class which they represent) and present them as basically reasonable, benevolent people, then they could be said to also reinforce the capitalist system and all its attendant problems — including war.

Janie Percy-Smith

Socialist activity in Ireland (1988)

Party News from the January 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The World Socialist Movement continues to make its presence felt in Ireland. Recently, the World Socialist Party (WSP) has run very successful public meetings on the case for world socialism in Belfast. Dublin and the place which has acquired the name of "Stroke City" as a result of being referred to as Derry-Stroke-Londonderry for fear of offending either side in the sectarian dispute over its name. New members continue to be attracted to the WSP including those who, in becoming socialists, have overcome the bigotry and prejudice of either side in that sectarian dispute. It is clearer than ever, that the only real basis on which Protestant and Catholic workers there will unite is that of class consciousness and the principled movement for a socialist alternative. The local journal, the Socialist View, produced in alternate months at 20p, has recently doubled its print run to 1000 and is selling well on the streets of Belfast in particular. Out of the violent conflicts of capitalism, workers are increasingly looking for a sane and practical answer, and they are finding it in the form of the World Socialist Party.

CS