Letter: Left is not right (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

I am interested in the view of the Socialist Party on violence as a means of achieving socialism. The SWP supports numerous violent groups and says "socialists ought to support them". The PLO, the ANC and the IRA are the usual groups which use violence and the SWP advocate "fighting back" against Israeli oppression. British occupation of Ulster, and white apartheid.

When the PLO claimed responsibility for the massacres in Rome and Vienna airports in December, the SWP published an article (9 January) on the PLO and the IRA. It was an apologist article for terrorism, and argued that Palestinians resolved to fight back after the massacres at Sabra and Chetila, and some chose terrorism. I could not see how the massacres of innocent people, and injuring many more, can undo all the tragedies that have happened at Sabra and Chatila.

I am concerned that even a world socialist revolution would become a dictatorship if established by violence. In all countries that have experienced socialist revolutions there has ended up being a one-party state that allows no independent trade unions, imprisons people because of their views, and does not have fair trial procedures. The logic behind this is that opposition parties and organisations must not be allowed, to safeguard against counter-revolution. These countries justify this on the grounds that the workers run things—examples are USSR, China, Cuba, Libya, Vietnam,, Laos, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Mongolia, Afghanistan, etc. I have a suspicion that even a world socialist revolution, where foreign aggression would not be a threat, would still be a repressive dictatorship in order to prevent counter-revolution.

If a majority supported socialism then it would be possible to bring it about, but there is still the risk of disappropriated big businessmen trying to reverse the revolution by violent means and a world wide civil war would result. I therefore don't think socialism would end wars. Later on the system might degenerate into state capitalism — a world state capitalist system.

Various sci-fi novels, such as A. E. van Vogt's Future Glitter depict world dictatorships founded on socialist ideas.

If the system is to be democratic and everyone takes what they need and works voluntarily, I don't know what would happen if people didn't do the unpleasant but necessary work such as mining or working on oil rigs — the goods would not be produced and people would not be able to take what they needed because resources are not being used.

It would take at least thirty years for a majority in rich as well as poor countries to develop the necessary consciousness to want socialism, and in the meantime we have got to keep our fingers crossed that the bomb isn't used for all those decades. Once it is dropped, there'll be no socialism because everyone will be burnt, irradiated, starved or frozen to death in the war or the nuclear winter. But you say only socialism will avert the nuclear threat.

In the 19th century when workers lived in appalling misery there was no socialist revolution in Britain, Germany, France or the USA. What chance is there now of a socialist revolution when workers have social security, free health care, television, videos, records, radio, holidays . . . They feel that they have too much to lose and may gain a repressive Soviet-type society, and may lose their lives, their loved ones or their freedom in the state repression of a revolutionary movement, or be tortured and maimed by the forces of the state.

How can there be a revolution when the revolutionary Left is all in splinter groups: Militant, SWP, Revolutionary Communist Party, Workers' Revolutionary Party, the Communist Party — with many of these putting workers off by advocating hideous policies such as supporting the IRA, PLO or ANC when these people often kill innocent people with pub bombings (Ireland) or attacks on airports (PLO) or burning alive (South Africa)? Other groups advocate supporting the Soviet Union and its satellites — in the USSR prisoners are almost starved — and workers are forced to work for inadequate rewards due to lack of union power, and when the Soviet Union finances wars and kills women and children in Afghanistan, and in most of these countries women work sixteen hours a day and there is no creche provision when children are sick, but no paid leave for mothers either. Some socialists think this is the pinnacle of socialist achievement.

The SWP has asked teachers to strike for one day every week — this means a loss of 20 per cent of pay! My boyfriend is a teacher and we spend about two-thirds of our income as rent, debts and electricity. This also affects children, with no-one at home, who will be wandering the streets in the cold. The SWP and the other revolutionaries also support DHSS strikes which could cause unemployed people, pensioners and single mothers to be hungry, cold and even evicted from their private rented hovels. Apparently the end justifies the means! Socialists subscribing to this maxim have put me off socialism.

The end result of endless suffering for socialism (if we are not all incinerated by H- bombs first!) could be a society like the Soviet Union on a world scale, with enforced "modernisation", abolishing the extended family but with no welfare state pension to replace it, as has happened in the Soviet Union after 1917. Socialism seems to offer no hope, just like all the other dreary religions and capitalism. We are still born to suffer and die and wonder why.

Lynn Stabler

London N22

Reply
The criticisms Lynn Stabler makes of left-wing parties like the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) are both clear and correct. We do not think, though, that the understandable rejection by many workers of these bogus ideas has discredited the idea of real socialism permanently. Labels like "socialist" and phrases like "the class struggle" are used by a variety of organisations whose opposition to the profit system ranges from the incredibly modest and futile (the aims, for instance, of the Campaign Against Plastic Bullets) to the violent and futile (like the Red Brigade and the IRA). It is true that socialists who are advocating a social revolution are often faced with obstacles of prejudice which have arisen in society because of the repressive and misnamed "socialist states" and because of the great frustrations which have come from the predictable failure of organisations like the Labour Party to make capitalism run in the interests of the majority. But experience is stronger than words. The idea of a classless society with production exclusively for human use arises from its opposite: class-divided society based on production for profit and all its consequent misery. Socialism neither originated from the writings of Karl Marx nor from the columns of the Socialist Standard and it cannot be extinguished by the misleading double-talk of people like Paul Foot. Neil Kinnock, Mikael Gorbachev or their right-wing opponents. The wages-system breeds discontent and workers cannot be persuaded indefinitely that we should not organise to establish production for use.

To consider Lynn Stabler's points in more detail:

Violence
The Socialist Party is completely opposed to the use of violence to achieve socialism. The women and men who between them own and control the means of life across the world, taken together with all of their police, judges, prison warders, armed forces and senior civil servants number only a tiny fraction of the world's population. They occupy their positions of social parasitism with the general consent of the majority. They are high and mighty because their subjects are kneeling.

Capitalism is not kept in business because the minority threaten the majority with violence. Isolated acts of legal violence are, of course, used against workers or groups of workers who refuse to conform to the dictates of the profit system. But this use of occasional force relies on it being generally endorsed by the majority, otherwise they would never get away with it. The capitalist class relies on the support of something much more powerful than rifles or tanks to keep them where they are — opinion. They are more secure on top of conventional wisdom than they are on top of a conventional weapon. Socialists realise that it is this prejudice about the need for a ruling class and a wages system which needs to be attacked, and not other workers. The only way to establish a reasonable society is to use reason to convince people. The debris and shrapnel of terrorist bombs will never leave a peaceful society in their wake. The rifle is an inadequate substitute for reason and workers who think that killing their fellow workers in pub bombings or machine-gun attacks will solve any of their poverty-caused problems are tragically mistaken.

Counter revolutions
Will socialism need to use the state machine to combat a counter-revolution, begun perhaps, by former members of the ruling class? The answer, in a word, is "no." But how can we be confident of this? If a majority of women and men has decided to abolish the social relations of capitalism and establish a classless society (and the only way that it can be established is by the democratic action of the majority), then a bloody-minded contingent of financiers, aristocrats or factory owners who refused to yield up to society what they once jealously guarded as theirs could be very easily immobilised without violence. In order to be effective, any counter-revolutionary force would need a variety of resources which the majority of us would have to make sure it did not get. It would need electricity, petrol, food, drink and most essentially workers who are soldiers. Is it a reasonably foreseeable prospect that after the factories, offices, media, transport systems and so forth have been taken by the community, a significantly large number of soldiers will still be willing to turn their backs on their fellow workers and engage in violence to wrest the factories from the community and put them back into the hands of a minority? When a "revolution" is nothing more than a change of president or regime (because some murderous bandit or junta of professional killers has violently ousted the last lot in a coup) then you can see why, from the point of view of the would-be leaders, a counter-revolution would make sense. Counter-revolutions can be enacted in this way without the majority of workers even getting the chance to discover the original revolution. In socialism, anyone who seriously entertained the idea of dissuading the majority from operating the means of life in the interests of all and giving back the farms, factories. offices and media to a minority to operate for profit would certainly have their work cut out, probably for the first time in their life.

The dirty work

A discussion about this very often depends on what you mean by "dirty work". It could mean the dirty work of capitalism: the highly trained professional murderers in the armed forces, people who are expert in killing others they have never met; the policemen and women who have to spend some of their time arresting their fellows for stealing and protecting the tycoon thieves who employ them; prison warders, bailiffs, lawyers, debt collectors. social security snoopers and others. Clearly there will be no need for any of these unpleasant contributions in a socialist society. On the other hand there will undoubtedly be the need for the performance of some work which many people would not find agreeable. Surgery, for instance. is a service not renowned for its pleasant sights and smells. Similarly, work on oil rigs, in sewers and down mines would need to be continued. Why should anyone want to do these jobs in a socialist society? There are a number of points to consider. First, they will not be jobs that the same people have to do indefinitely or "for life" as now. Secondly, they will not be conducted in conditions which have been determined more by profitability than welfare and safety. Thirdly, some workers are, of course, genuinely interested in the sort of work that is carried out on oil rigs or the civil engineering involved in the sewer system but hate the pressure and routine of work under the profit system. Motivation in a socialist society — having your skills and social usefulness appreciated by the community — will be of the highest kind, the sort which has been the inspiration behind the greatest inventions, discoveries and developments in all fields of endeavour. The responsibility required to establish socialism is not compatible with the situation where no-one is prepared to work on an oil-rig and we have to reintroduce the wages-system to impel people to work under the threat of going hungry.

Thirty years and the bomb

Why speculate on the need for at least thirty years to pass before social consciousness is developed enough for a social revolution? Lenin once estimated that, left to their own devices, workers would take at least 500 years to establish socialism (from which he concluded that they would therefore need a leadership vanguard to do all the important thinking and acting for them). The Socialist Party considers that socialism is immediately practicable — we are aiming, along with our companion parties in other parts of the world, at getting socialism today and not in three decades from now. With the means of communication and transport being as highly-developed as they are today ideas, if they are in tune with people's experience and in their interests, spread very rapidly. The rate at which socialist ideas will spread will be greatly accelerated after they have reached a certain level of social acceptance and popularity: like the snowball rolling down the snow-covered mountain. The only way to eliminate the danger of the nuclear bomb is to remove the root causes of war — economic rivalry between competing owning-class interests. If we retain a society which is prone to erupt periodically into war then workers will be powerless to instruct the governments of nations what weapons they may and may not use, even if this sort of refinement to the machinery of mass murder was realistic. It is also worth considering that the disaster many CND supporters are so desperate to avoid (even at the expense of an indefinite postponement of working for socialism) is, in many ways, here today: millions of people starving to death, millions of homeless people and rootless refugees, widespread civil disturbances, riots and rebellions and thousands of people dying in military conflict every month.

Too much to lose?

Today many workers have televisions or personal stereos whereas their ancestors did not. But that is not really the point. If it was you could say that the monstrous conditions of early capitalism were beneficial to those early wage-slaves because they could enjoy better access to pubs and pianos than their forefathers. The telling contrast is not what we've got now set against what we had fifty years ago, but what we've got now compared to what we could have. For the tens of millions of workers with boring dead-end jobs and relentless debts or the millions of people without work, for the millions of workers neglected because they are old or disabled, or picked on as scapegoats because they have the wrong colour skin or religion; and for everyone who is insecure or scared about the likelihood of nuclear war; for all of these people, it is improbable that the pleasures of a Ford Escort and a 22-inch colour television will forever forestall the creation of a society which can produce abundant wealth for all to share.

The splintered Left

It is right to say that there are many organisations, described generally as "the left-wing parties", which are at odds with each other and which are propounding policies which many workers treat with disdain. Eamonn McCann, a spokesman for the Socialist Workers' Party, said in a recent television programme:

  Labour is incapable of bringing about fundamental social change and Labour's pursuit of election victory is a trap for socialists committed to changing the system. They should leave the Labour Party now and build a radical alternative  (Diverse Reports, C4. January 1986)

Curious then that it is SWP policy to urge their supporters to vote for the Labour Party at election times in constituencies where there is no SWP candidate.

The various other groups who support the totalitarian state-capitalist nations like the Russian empire are no better. Another consequence of not opposing capitalism as a social system is that groups may often get bogged down in arguing about the best way for workers, like teachers or DHSS staff, to deal with industrial disputes created by the wages system. The only solution to the problem, as many painful decades of industrial conflict have demonstrated, is the abolition of the employer-employee relationship.

One final point: Lynn Stabler rather pessimistically concludes that "we are still born to suffer and die, and wonder why . . ." Think what state we would be in now if the pioneers of working class organisation in the early trade unions had concurred with that view. Our world is not predestined. Tomorrow is what we make it and we've got a world to win . . .

Editors

GLC: working for capitalism (1986)

From the April 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1963 the Local Government Act set up the Greater London Council. At the time the Labour Party opposed the creation of the GLC, arguing that it widened the boundaries of the old London County Council too far and would lead to a built-in Tory majority. In fact, Labour won the GLC election in 1964 and that put an end to their campaign against the GLC. Twenty years after the 1963 Act the Tory manifesto for the 1983 General Election proposed the abolition of the GLC on the grounds that it was "wasteful and unnecessary". This contrasts with earlier Tory attitudes to local government:

  There are plenty of people who feel that local administration is wasteful and extravagant and hold that there should be a much tighter degree of Treasury control over spending. I pray you will never lend substance and ammunition to that charge.
(Earl of Home, quoted in Local Government Campaign Notes. 15 April 1954. p.8)

Again, in a document entitled Background Material for Election Address, issued by the Conservative Party Central Office in 1953 it is stated that

  Conservatives believe that local government should be local and that decisions on local matters should be made with reference to local conditions, not in obedience to the rigid direction of a central . . . machine.

So. why the change in positions: why in 1983 did we see the Tories advocating the elimination of the GLC as a local government and the Labour Party fighting to keep it? The immediate answer is party-political. The fact is that the Tories lost control of the GLC, as well as the Metropolitan Counties which it also sought to abolish, and. rather than having a local government marching in the opposite direction of a powerful central government, it decided to abolish the former. This political distaste for the GLC was admitted in a speech by the Tory Opposition leader on the GLC, Richard Brew:

  Leaving aside the ideologically committed, he (Livingstone) is seeking out the feminists and the gay activists. He is topping up these with the ethnic groups and the Irish. He is mobilising the anti-police brigade and he is seeking out the pressure groups CND. Babies Against the Bomb and so on. In other words he is going for the nutters.

(Quoted in Citizen Ken by John Carvel, p.208)

And when "the nutters" are in a majority you abolish elections. They have psychiatric hospitals for such "nutters" in Russia and Brew shows that the Tory reasoning in abolishing the GLC was not very different from any other centralised state which refuses to hold elections because the electors cannot be trusted to vote properly.

The Labour-led "Save the GLC Campaign" has been a popular reformist movement in London and, as Edward Heath pointed out in the House of Commons, the Tory decision to abolish the GLC has had the totally unintended effect of making Ken Livingstone one of the most popular politicians in London. If the polls are to be trusted, it seems that abolition is sufficiently unpopular to result in serious Tory losses in London constituencies in the next General Election. Patrick Jenkin, the Minister responsible for pushing the abolition Bill through the Commons, is now politically ruined and the government appears to have handed the Labour Party a gift.

As the GLC is buried a myth is in danger of being born: the myth of “GLC socialism". It is a common belief amongst many leftists that the GLC under Livingstone was responsible for making moves towards socialism in one city, and the further we drift away from the period in which this is supposed to have happened the more elaborate the legend will become. Let us look at what these so- called socialist measures were which the GLC implemented.

Firstly, they lowered the fares on London Transport, only to have this action ruled illegal by the capitalist Judges. As we pointed out at the time of the so-called Fair Fares campaign, socialists want no fares, not low fares. The trains, the buses and the rest of the transport system should belong to the community as a whole and when they do we will not have to pay to use them. Such free access, and nothing less, will be socialism. The GLC move to lower fares by rate subsidy was an understandably popular reform and was in line with transport policies in other European capital cities. But it was not compatible with the profit system and was thus ended by the central state. This is the inevitable fate of any city government which attempts to impose rules upon capitalism which are unacceptable to the capitalists on a national level.

Secondly, the GLC gave grants to several organisations of workers seeking facilities which would not be granted by central government. We are not denying that many of these facilities were put to good use (we refer to those which were not politically reformist causes) and that the GLC won many friends that way. But, as GLC defenders were at pains to point out throughout the anti-abolition campaign, these grants to radical groups amounted to only 0.6 per cent of their annual budget. In a socialist society women would not need to fill in numerous forms and negotiate politically with leaders before they can have a centre to meet in; if Irish people living in London require a cultural centre they shall have free access to the space and buildings available and will not have to be beholden to some government body in a socialist society.

Thirdly, the GLC has acted controversially in declaring London a nuclear-free zone. What exactly does such a declaration mean? Are we to expect that London will no longer be a target for nuclear missiles because of this absurd nominal gesture? In fact, if the GLC had wasted less time upon such pious nonsense and a little thought on considering the cause of war (namely, the capitalist system) workers could now be organising to abolish the cause of war rather than wasting time pretending to be free from its effects.

Fourthly, the GLC set up the Greater London Enterprise Board (GLEB), the "socialist" function of which was to persuade capitalists to invest more money in exploiting London's workers and to convince unemployed and other workers that by setting up capitalist co-ops they could succeed in business. This is hardly the action of any movement intending to replace capitalism with socialism.

In fact, there have been some positive changes in London in the early 1980s. but these have not happened because politicians have legislated for them. Workers in London are taking a more conscious attitude to racism and to the problems of women; after many years gay men and lesbian women are less afraid to come out in the open than they used to be; community groups, such as tenants' organisations, are trying to take more social responsibility over their areas — although they still do not own or control their areas and their efforts are all too often hijacked by Labour opportunists who use workers' organisations for purposes of vote-catching. There are some positive developments, but that is because workers are in certain respects becoming more socially conscious and there is little doubt that such consciousness will continue to develop with or without the GLC.

The myth that the GLC somehow humanised capitalism in London must be resisted, for if it wins workers' minds we will see yet another political diversion of workers organising to return to "the good old days'' of the GLC. The fact is that in those "good old days" the GLC was evicting council tenants who could not afford to pay their rents, NALGO and NUPE workers employed by the GLC had to fight hard to exist as wage slaves, there was widespread deprivation within London and the GLC, like any other capitalist government, was impotent to tackle it.

It is a major waste of energy for workers claiming to want socialism to be fighting to retain a level of government. Socialists are opposed to all government, because the state, both local and national, is but the executive committee of the capitalist class. Why should workers campaign for the right to be governed? Of course, we must see through the sordid political opportunism which led the central government to abolish the GLC and we must recognise the contempt which the capitalists have for democracy when they are losing the elections. But it should be remembered that there is no government or ruling class which could abolish democratic facilities once workers have a class-conscious interest in democracy. It is the workers who elected the capitalist national government, just as it was workers who elected the capitalist local government of London. As soon as workers are socialist-minded we shall democratically conquer both local and national governments and these will be used to dispossess the capitalist class of their wealth and power. There will be no socialist state: local and national government will not wither away in a socialist society, but will be abolished because in socialism there will be no propertyless class to be governed and coerced.

Socialists possess no blueprint as to how administration will be conducted within a system of common ownership and democratic control, but two points are quite clear. Firstly, socialism will not be a centralised society. After all, we are talking about a world society (socialism cannot be established in one country or city) and it is inconceivable that there will be a single global administration. Secondly, it is very likely that there will be plenty of opportunities for local community involvement in decision-making in a socialist society, with local bodies and global bodies feeding ideas and initiatives into one another on the basis of dynamic democracy. But not until society and everything in it belongs to the people who inhabit it can we speak of genuine democracy, so instead of shedding any tears over the passing of the GLC and the Metropolitan Counties workers should think enthusiastically about a society in which democracy means a lot more than the right of Ken Livingstone to sit and make decisions in County Hall.

Steve Coleman

The Future of Sir Stafford Cripps (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

If it be the aim of a politician to have all men speak well of him, Sir Stafford Cripps must be feeling proud of himself on his entry into the War Cabinet. This step was proposed by the Times and others early last year, was duly taken up by newspapers of all political complexions—if, that is, the reader can now distinguish between one complexion and another—and is hailed by Moscow and the Communists. Apart from some hundreds of millions of people in the Axis nations all the world appears to love Sir Stafford.

After early scientific training he was Assistant Superintendent of a large Government explosives factory during the last war, then became a very successful lawyer, and was reputed to earn £25,000 a year. Joining the Labour Party in 1928 he was Solicitor-General in the Labour Government in 1931. During the Abyssinian War he resigned from the Labour Party Executive because he opposed the policy of “sanctions” by the League of Nations against Italy. Later on he was expelled by the Labour Party for running a “Popular Front” campaign against Labour Party policy. 

Born into a strongly Conservative family, he had the support of the Liberal News-Chronicle in his quarrels with the Labour Party over the “Popular Front” early in 1939. At that time he was denouncing a short-lived Churchill group called the “Hundred Thousand” movement on the ground that its object, though nominally democratic, was really “to capture the youth for reactionary imperialism.” It might, he feared, be leading youth “ into what are substantially Fascist paths." He has often had the approval of the Communists and is now much favoured by the Russian Government following his work as Ambassador to Moscow. 

During an earlier campaign for “Socialism in our Time,” he urged that it might become necessary to suspend ordinary Parliamentary procedure. At the Labour Party Conference in May, 1939, he strongly opposed the idea of a National Government, though four years before he had said that the Baldwin National Government had “done quite well for a capitalist Government. . . . There is really very little case at all for an alternative Government within the capitalist system.” He has claimed at times that Socialism must be the paramount aim of the Labour Party, though when he launched his “Popular Front” campaign he frankly stated that it meant putting Socialism “into cold storage.” The idea of the Cripps Popular Front was that all the “genuine friends of democracy,” Liberal, Labour, Communist and Conservative (but excluding the Churchill group) should get together on a limited programme of reforms in order to save democracy at home and abroad; yet not long before Sir Stafford had argued that it would be fatal to do “as the Social-Democrats did in Germany; that is combine with any anti-Fascist forces for the sake of saving democracy.” “That way,” he said, “lies disaster.” “We must, then, firmly and definitely abandon any idea of working in association with any other political group or party that denies the absolute necessity of Socialism.” (Quoted in Daily Herald, 2nd March, 1939.) At one time he distinguished himself as a critic of the Monarchy.

It will be seen that he has been everything in turn and nothing long, and his much-praised brilliant legal mind seems to be chiefly effective in persuading him that his sincerely held but shallow notions of any given moment are the last word in political wisdom for the human race.

It is not easy to discern exactly where he stands at present. Perhaps he does not know himself, hence his remark, “I want to sit on a back bench in the House of Commons for a while and think.” (This was, of course, just prior to his appointment to the War Cabinet.)

On February 8th, 1942, he delivered a speech at Bristol. He dealt with many things, but according to the published reports the one thing he did not deal with was Socialism and his attitude to it. He showed that he is not overmuch enamoured of Russian State Capitalism (which he called "Communism”) and went out of his way to dissociate himself from much that he saw in Russia.

  There is in Communism a great deal to be admired. There is a great deal which one would not wish to see in one’s own country.—"Daily Mail,” February 10th, 1942.

When he dealt with the future that he wishes to see he appears to envisage in this country some kind of State capitalism allied with democratic parliamentary methods.

  Shall we be able to face up to the new conditions after the war? Shall we be able to recognise the need which has been taught us for a planned economy side by side with a liberal culture? Can we try to combine the best of the systems that are to-day fighting for world survival?—“Manchester Guardian," February 9th, 1942.

It may be gathered from this that he admires Russian State planning and wants it combined with the political system existing here. He never was a Socialist though he regarded his reformist and State capitalist notions as Socialism, and it may be taken that at the moment he is not particularly anxious even to claim that he is a Socialist.

Some twelve years ago Lord Baldwin tipped him as "a future Conservative Prime Minister,” His present appointment certainly brings the forecast nearer to fulfilment and the uncertainties of war-time and post-war politics may yet land him in that august position; to the eventual deep disgust of his "left wing” Labour Party admirers, among whom the S.P.G.B. has never been numbered.

Edgar Hardcastle

The New, Old Capitalism (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many attempts have been made by propagandists to explain the dictatorships of Germany, Russia and Italy, and all manage to find some central theme upon which to build their case.

Some say it is the work of evil men (although Stalin is getting a good press now). Some argue a case for a Capitalist anti-labour conspiracy, instancing Italian and German suppression of democrats and socialists.

The Trotskyists formulate a case in which they allege that Russia had her “Socialist” revolution betrayed by Stalin and his bureaucrats, who have turned Lenin’s "dictatorship of the proletariat” into the dictatorship over the proletariat.

Enough has been said to illustrate the diversity of opinion regarding this vexed subject.

The Socialist views Capitalism as one whole cloth which, although woven into different patterns, and sometimes of mixed materials, nevertheless has one basic texture—the exploitation of the workers by a class that lives on the surplus, over and above that which the worker receives as his wages.

Now whether this class is organised as a bureaucracy as in the dictator countries and adopts such nomenclatures as Communists, Fascists, or National-Socialists, it does not detract from the fact that they are eaters of surplus value, and that the system which they have erected is nothing but collective or State Capitalism. The fact that in the dictator countries the population have had no long democratic experience has made it fairly easy for "great leaders” to be swept into power, and to declare a dictatorship. Moreover, it is no mere accident that some 300 million people have been cajoled to accept the Totalitarian method of running capitalism, for implicit in the cry "away with Democracy” has been the imperative drive for war and the "liquidation” of recalcitrant minorities or independent groups, these being described in Russia as wreckers and Trotskyists, and in Italy and Germany as Jews or Communists. Trade unions are merged into the State set-up—one party rules, the party organising the country for "Total War.”

The setting up of State or collective Capitalism has spelt the end of Liberal or laissez-faire doctrine (the right to do what you will with your own), because private property must fall in line with the needs of the State.

The worker under dictatorship finds that whereas he was dismissed, say, for lateness, by a private capitalist, that now a State ordinance decrees that he shall be fined or imprisoned; his "Trade Union” officials are party bosses, and he has lost the legal right to strike or bargain for the sale price of his labour power. He must listen to State propaganda only, and his power to elect representatives of his own choice is limited to a panel put forward by the ruling clique, which allows of no opposition. Such is the necessarily brief sketch of a regimenting capitalism which the workers will one day break with surprising results; the fight will be more for independence and freedom of speech than for mere bread.

The curtain may go up on a stage set for a real leap forward in human endeavour to solve this age old problem of class ownership of the means of producing wealth, with its privileged position for the few, and social inferiority for the many. The workers will see that this jungle we call capitalism can be organised into different forms going under various titles, with appropriate "ideologies” to match, with its protagonists all proclaiming the virtues of their respective set-up using such euphemisms as "A new social order,” "A new civilisation,” or even "The workers’ state,” which only result in a new set of bosses. There are now indeed few more mistakes that the workers can possibly make.

And now, probably, Socialism—the real democracy which has the common ownership of the means of production and distribution as its basis—will become a real live issue.

Frank Dawe

Socialism and Anarchism - Part 1 (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many workers whose active interest in politics goes back a generation or more would, until recently, have said that Anarchism had passed away for ever from English working class politics. In the years after the last war, Anarchism, never a large movement in this country, appeared to have all but died. The flickering life of a small monthly journal, “Freedom” (when it appeared) was the only evidence that Anarchist ideas anywhere survived. Maybe the ideas of the Third International and its appeal to certain sections of the workers left little elbow room for Anarchist doctrines and groups in which to grow. Maybe, also, the re-appearance in recent years of Anarchist doctrines and groups is in some part due to the disappearance of much of the original Bolshevik doctrines and theories from the shop windows of the parties affiliated to the Third International, in favour of more expedient policies. In any event, for whatever reason, Anarchist ideas are experiencing a new appearance of life, and whilst the influence is not considerable, and perhaps non-existent among organised workers, there is evidence of a well supported movement, publishing a monthly journal and other literature.

It is insufficient to say that Anarchism is anti-authoritarian, and is as old as mankind. So far as Anarchism has any relationship with working class problems or aspirations, it, like Socialism, has its roots in Capitalism. It is not accidental that some of the best known founders of Anarchist doctrines were contemporaries of Marx and Engels. As an attempt to deal with the social problems of capitalism and provide a solution for them, both Anarchism and Socialism grew directly out of capitalism. An examination of the ideas and methods of both, therefore, would assist in throwing them into contrast. The scientific approach of Marx and Engels to these problems took certain fundamental propositions as a starting point. These were: That the first conditions imposed by nature upon man is that he should work; that before he could evolve ideas and social institutions he must be able to live: that the manner society gets living is the basis upon which is built the superstructure of society. Before, therefore, there could be sound judgment of social and governmental institutions it was necessary to understand their relationship with the basis of society. In his examination Marx revealed the workings of the capitalist form of society. The solution, he pointed out, for the contradictions of capitalism was simple, though profound: it was social ownership of the means and instruments of production. In a society where the means and instruments of production were social in character but were privately owned no other solution was possible which would abolish the contradictions arising out of that private ownership. Socialism, therefore, was a new social order which would involve a complete and revolutionary transformation in social relations and institutions. The essence of the Marxist position (the scientific Socialist position) is that social institutions cannot be transformed, nor social problems solved, without first of all altering the basis upon which these institutions rest and with which social problems are bound up. Poverty and insecurity could not be abolished whilst private ownership in the means and instruments of production remained. The State, as a social institution and organ of coercion, could not disappear whilst private property in the means of living, the interests of which it existed to defend and conserve, remained. Social problems had their roots in capitalism as a social system. They could not be solved separately and apart from the revolutionary transformation involved in the change from private ownership to social ownership. Any attempt to solve the effects of Capitalism leads to reformism and failure so far as concerns the fundamental problems of capitalism and their solution.

What are the basic ideas of Anarchism? Can it be said that they grasp the fact of the interrelation of all social problems and their dependence on the basic fact of the private ownership of the means and instruments of production? It can be said that not one Anarchist of the 19th century, or contemporary of Marx, grasped this simple truth. Neither Kropotkin, Bakunin or Proudhon advocated the common ownership of the means and instruments of production. Rather than abolish private ownership they advocated more private ownership, an increase in the number of small holders. Kropotkin in his writings repeatedly held up the craft guilds of the Middle Ages as an example of workers owning their own means of production and being organised in small, independent communities, which could exist without the necessity of State interference, and which could exist independently of the State. The picture that Kropotkin drew was very pretty, but as a solution to the problems of a working class organised on a basis of social production, the majority of whom are not handicraftsmen, it was pure romanticism. The workers in capitalist society are organised nationally and internationally in their millions by the very nature of the production forces. The workers are a class carrying out social productive functions as a class and not as independent producers. To attempt to organise such workers as independent producers would involve not the conversion of the social productive forces—the means and instruments of production—into the common property of society, but the destruction of the productive forces themselves. Instead of society having to face the problems it does to-day it would have to face problems similar to those of earlier phases of industrial development. The idea that society could reverse historical development and create independent producers out of its proletarians is fantastic. Such ideas can only arise out of failure to appreciate the nature of capitalist production. That lack of understanding prevailed among the Anarchists yesterday and still does to-day. Nowhere does current Anarchist literature refute the immaturity of the ideas of its earlier founders. Rather does it endorse them and hold them up for approval. One difference is perhaps the conception of Syndicalism which attempts to adapt Anarchist ideas to modern industry. The following is a quotation from an Anarcho-Syndicalist Declaration of Principles quoted by Rudolf Rocker in his book, “Anarcho-Syndicalism, Theory and Practice” (page 142):

  Revolutionary Syndicalism is the confirmed enemy of economic and social monopoly, and aims at its abolition by economic communes and administrative organs of field and factory workers on the basis of a free system of councils entirely liberated from any subordination to any government or political party. Against the politics of the State and of parties, it erects the economic organisation of labour; against the government of men it sets up the management of things. Consequently, it has for its object not the conquest of political power, but the abolition of every State function in social life. It considers that, along with the monopoly of property, should disappear also the monopoly of domination, and that any form of the State, including the dictatorship of the Proletariat, will always be the creator of new monopolies and new privileges; it could never be an instrument of liberation.

Here again can be seen that the emphasis is against “monopoly” and “domination” and the “State.” There is no understanding that social ownership is the logical sequence to the development of the productive forces and the only solution to working class problems, leading incidentally to the “withering away” of the State. It is the modern version of Kropotkin’s mediaeval conception of small producers organised into communes.

It is a reactionary proposal which would lead to disaster and despair.

Harry Waite

(To be continued.)

Link to Part 2

Socialism For The Newcomer (1942)

From the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

You told me, Mr. Newcomer, that you were fed up. Something was wrong. You worked hard, and studied your master’s interest. Seldom drank, didn’t bet or waste your money. But you never seemed to get on. The wife wasn’t the same now, either. Always dissatisfied. Seemed to think that it was your fault, that you were a failure. So you took to going to our meetings. You said you couldn’t always understand. The speaker didn’t get down to the language of the man in the street. Well, don’t blame the speaker. He has enough to contend with, and he cannot please everyone. Why not buy The Socialist Standard regularly each month, and read the articles? You see, they are written for you and your pals. I don’t think you will find scientific Socialism so hard to understand. Anyway, isn’t it worth it. A few minutes’ study, once a month, in order to understand and to gain the knowledge required to sweep away the troubles and evils which are ruining your life, and the life of your wife too.

There is an old song, Mr. Newcomer, the people sometimes sing. It goes, “Britons never, never shall be slaves.” Most of the people have a queer distorted idea of what slavery is. Usually, they think of coloured men being driven on by the overseer with a long whip. Others think of “enslaved peoples” under Hitler. Then again, sometimes one hears of miners being referred to as “slaves of the lamp,” and so on. It’s rather amusing that the average worker would be very much on his dignity if this epithet of “slave” was applied to himself. So, Mr. Newcomer, if you really wish to understand the implications of Socialism, you must expect some shocks. Truth is not always palatable.

When you left school, the first thing you did was to look for a job, because you had to start and earn your living. You had to obtain the wherewithal to provide yourself with food, clothing and shelter. Whatever happens, you must pay your rent. But we are going too fast, Mr. Newcomer. Before you began work you either wrote a letter in answer to an advertisement, or you just called in and enquired if a boy was wanted. If you wrote a letter, you started off with "Sir,” and after anxiously informing the employer that you were strong, healthy and honest, you probably pleaded for an interview at his convenience, and finished up by signing yourself “Your humble servant.” On the other hand, if you called at a shop or factory where you knew “hands” were being taken on, you carefully brushed your clothes first, polished your boots, and donned a clean collar. In fact, you made yourself as smart and presentable as possible. You see, you cannot sell dirty goods usually, and you were selling something, although you didn’t know it. Later on, perhaps, you wished to change your job, in order to better yourself, or perhaps your services were dispensed with. So you went through the same performance again. No doubt you have repeated the process many times since, not now in order to better yourself, but just in order to go on living. Why have you had to do this? Here, Mr. Newcomer, is where you come up against one of those unpalatable truths the Socialists warn you about. Also we reach the point where you learn your first lesson in the science of Socialism.

You see, you are a member of the working class, and before you can earn your living you must apply humbly to the employing or master class, and beg for a job. If they think you are a suitable man, that is, strong and capable, they may allow you to work for them. If you leave your master, you must apply to another, as you know now by past bitter experience. So, in order to live, you cannot escape applying to the master class for permission to work. There are, of course, a few workers who avoid this to some extent by various means, but their numbers are so small in proportion to the rest that they can be ignored for the time being. It takes very little mental effort, therefore, to realise that you belong to a class which must always go, cap in hand, to another class in order to obtain permission to work. So you see, then, that there are two classes in society. The majority, who possess nothing but their labour power, and who are forced to sell their labour power to a smaller class who own the means of production. The larger class, who possess nothing worth while and who live by working, we call the working class. That small class, who own the land, the mines, railways and factories, etc., and who force us by sheer starvation to come and work for them, we designate the master or capitalist class. So you see, Mr. Newcomer, you cannot do anything, except sell your health and strength; your capacity to labour, for a small wage, in order to live. Therefore you must recognise that the workers are in a slave position, Always at the beck and call of the masters. So now you know why the Socialist smiles when he hears his fellow workers singing “Britons never, never shall be slaves.”

Of course, there is more than this to be said about it, and I trust, Mr. Newcomer, that you will continue with the next chat. In the meanwhile—think it over.

Comrade Mac.

The Socialist Archbishop (1942)

Editorial from the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

When Dr. Temple was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury the Daily Express informed its readers that “Dr. Temple is the first Socialist to become Primate ” (February 23rd, 1942).

Lord Elton, in the Daily Mail of the same date, was not so sure. He would not go beyond a statement that “Temple was said to be a Socialist"; and both agreed in fact that he is “a keen social reformer,” ”has a passion for social reform.”

Lord Elton and the Daily Express do not understand that a social reformer is not a Socialist. True, Dr. Temple has advocated better housing for the workers, regular holidays, and education, and other reforms. “He will hammer away year after year . . . at some public scandal such as road accidents.” He advocates State control of the Bank of England and the joint stock banks. Therefore he is not a Socialist, for whatever success he and others have at reforming the capitalist system he is not in favour of its abolition. He has, in effect, said so.

  There is nothing wrong with profits as such. Producer and trader are entitled to a profit as a means of livelihood which they have earned by service to the community.—“Daily Mail,” February 23rd, 1942.

In the above passage he shows that he is incapable of describing the capitalist system as it really is. That a "producer” should have a livelihood for the service he renders may seem reasonable, but the typical capitalist owner (mostly by inheritance) is not a producer but only an employer of producers. He does not render service but merely permits workers to produce. He lives by owning.

Marx and Engels, in the "Communist Manifesto” (written in 1847) summed up such social reformers under the satirical description, “the Socialistic bourgeois.” What they want is 

  “all the advantages of modern social conditions without the struggles and dangers necessarily resulting therefrom. They desire the existing state of society minus its revolutionary and disintegrating elements.”

They desire that 

  ‘‘the proletariat should remain within the bounds of existing society, but should cast away all its hateful ideas concerning the bourgeoisie.”
  “To this section belong economists, philanthropists, humanitarians, improvers of the condition of the working class, organisers of charity, members of societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals, temperance fanatics, hole and corner reformers of every imaginable kind.”

In short, 

  "a part of the bourgeoisie is desirous of redressing social grievances, in order to secure the continued existence of bourgeois society.”

Incentives Under Socialism (1942)

Editorial from the March 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Joseph E. Davies, formerly American Ambassador in Moscow, has placed on record a conversation he had with the Ambassador from Afghanistan on the interesting question of incentives. Here are the views of the latter:—

   He thought that the Soviets were doing a great deal of good in many ways. But the wisdom of the centuries, he said, disclosed that there was very little progress without the incentive of personal interest. Human nature had not yet arrived at, and probably would not for a long time reach, a point where men would simply work for the joy of the working.
  The incentive for work and progress was personal interest and would be for a long time to come. This wise and fine man impressed me with his sincerity and his philosophy. It may be, he said, that this experiment might work out and evolve successfully by making allowances for and being modified by these fundamental facts in human nature. It might be one of the steps in the evolution of progress. Time would tell, said he.

Here we have the representatives of the slumbering East and the wideawake West able to find common ground in their views on human nature. That in itself is a curious and significant circumstance, for have we not been told by a very conservative observer that there is not one human race but two races, an East and a West, and that “never the twain shall meet”? But meet they did and summarily disposed of Socialism in a brief discussion.

Next, if it be permitted to apply their conclusion to themselves, may we ask what was their own little game? Seeing that men (including Ambassadors) do not work for the joy of working or for any other motive except the incentive of personal interest, what was the personal interest that caused them to leave Washington and' Kabul for the voyage to Moscow? It could not have been a desire to serve their respective nations or the human race as a whole, or a liking for the work, for by definition men simply do not do that sort of thing. Was it nothing but the salary, or the ambition to wear a cocked hat and knee breeches and gain coveted decorations, or some even less reputable private racket? And one of them fine and wise and sincere with it all! It would be interesting to ask them a number of questions, but as that is impossible we must take our examination elsewhere.

As it happens, the newspaper in which the above conversation is recorded (the Sunday Express, February 22nd, 1942) publishes several items which may help us. The editorial denounces the British Civil Service as a "dead and numbing hand stretched over all our national life." It concedes that Civil Servants ate "impeccably honest, scrupulous, hard-working and efficient," and that they are "often idealists," yet they are vigorously condemned because they are said to resent and resist every measure which threatens to disturb the even tenor of their lives and their ponderous and unprogressive ways of doing business.

Elsewhere in the same newspaper is a bitter attack on amateur pilferers, men and women who were honest before the war, but are now stealing to the extent of £2,000,000 in the past two years.

Then the editor has a slashing article on the men and women, in and out of the Forces, who are half-hearted in their efforts, or are seeking to make big profits or slack at their work. He mentions, for example, the soldier in the tank who says, "Half a crown a day for me, while it lasts; 30s. a week and starvation for my wife if I don’t come through,” and the civilian worker whose attitude to the war is: “I’ve got a soft job out of it." He compares them with the Germans, Japanese, Russians and Chinese, who, he says, work and fight superbly because they are inspired visionaries, "To each this war is a holy war."

From all of which we perceive that there seems to be something amiss with the simple doctrine of the two Ambassadors. If personal interest is and must be the only incentive why shouldn’t the Civil Servant further his personal interest in his allegedly sheltered life and career? Why shouldn’t the worker on docks or railways pilfer? Why shouldn’t every individual prove his normal human nature by looking no further than what appears to be his own immediate personal benefit?

The answer is that the supposed obstacle placed by unchanging human nature in the way of work and progress is a myth. Human knowledge and understanding and with them human conduct have changed, are changing, and will continue to change. With the development, through human agency, of mankind's control of natural forces and the power of producing wealth in greater abundance the potentialities of human co-operation have been more and more understood and consciously fostered. Co-operation was never entirely absent, though in the past much of the work of human beings was individual and it was possible to think and act in terms of individual effort and personally benefit from it. Now that the productive powers of co-operative effort have reached gigantic new levels it has become a possibility for each individual to benefit enormously from the conscious reorganisation of society on a Socialist basis. Where then will be the difficulty about incentive? All that will be needed is that the individual shall intelligently appreciate the place he will occupy in the life and work of society as a whole. The worker to-day who understood nothing of political organisation might refuse to take part in an election on the plea that one vote counts for nothing in an electorate of tens of millions. So also under Socialism he might lack incentive to work if he knew nothing of the part he plays in co-operative production and the benefit he and every other person will derive therefrom. Yet the understanding voter uses his vote and the understanding worker will gladly and enthusiastically play his part under Socialism.

This presupposes, of course, that before we can have Socialism there must be a Socialist majority to make Socialism a working system—but Socialists have never supposed otherwise.

To achieve that end it will be necessary to change the worker’s understanding, but it will not be necessary to change his human nature; though under Socialism we may anticipate a little difficulty at first with heads-in-the-air ex-Ambassadors and tough ex-editors of newspapers whose understanding of the favourable potentialities of human nature is not profound.

Homelessness For Sale (2012)

From the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The extent of homelessness is often used as a gauge for the state of the economy as a whole. In an economic downturn, people are less able to hold down jobs, keep up with payments on rent or other bills, or have savings they can fall back on. Often, a combination of factors like these will push people towards losing their homes. Figures released in early March show 12,830 new cases of homelessness being accepted by local councils between October and December 2011 – a rise of 18% since the same time the previous year. In London, there was an average 36% increase over the same period, with the biggest rise in Hounslow at 245% (1). Predictably, sleeping rough has also increased. According to government figures, the number of people rough sleeping rose 23% between Autumn 2010 and Autumn 2011 (2). Undoubtedly it’s no coincidence that the increase in homelessness is one consequence of the economic crisis.

When someone loses their home, if they are unable to stay with family or friends, they will often end up in temporary hostel accommodation. Most of these places are funded and regulated by the government’s Supporting People programme, which is run by local councils. According to Homeless Link, there are around 9,000 bed spaces in English direct access hostels, those which provide emergency accommodation on the day someone becomes homeless (3). The economic crisis has not only led to increased demand for these services, but also to greater restrictions on who can receive help from them. Councils are now more choosy about who they agree to spend their funding on. In particular, they are more likely to enforce ‘local connection’ policies. These allow only those with a connection to an area to receive certain services, such as hostel accommodation. This means that if someone becomes homeless in an area they have only recently moved to, or where they have no close relatives, then they won’t receive help through that area’s council and will have to try elsewhere.

Another restriction which is increasingly affecting services is the length of time someone can live in a hostel. Over the last ten years, the maximum length of stay in many hostels has reduced from indefinitely to two years, to six months, to 28 days, sometimes less. One reason for this is to prevent people from becoming institutionalised. The longer someone stays in a hostel, the more they become acclimatised to being stuck-in-a-rut. Another reason is to increase the turnover at hostels to free up bed spaces for other people who become homeless. And because of the housing shortage, when someone’s time in a hostel runs out, they are more likely to move to other temporary accommodation than to their own new flat. There are around 33,000 bed spaces in this kind of second-stage accommodation (3).

The services offered in hostels will vary. Most provide a small, sparsely furnished bedroom, with shared bathrooms. Some hostels will have a canteen, while others are self-catering. Some will have strict rules on, for example, visitors or alcohol use, or when residents can come and go. Most direct access hostels will be staffed 24 hours a day, while others may only have staff working nine-to-five.

As there’s a wide variation in the services available, the quality of hostels will also differ. The worst places – bed-and-breakfast accommodation – don’t offer enough help to residents to qualify for Supporting People funding or monitoring. Instead, they only receive funding through Housing Benefit claims, which brings in less money. As well as lacking in support, these places are often run-down, overcrowded and intimidating, making it much harder for anyone living there to improve their lives. Often, criminal behaviour becomes a coping strategy for people living with fewer opportunities. Some people cope with the pressures of homelessness by drinking alcohol or using drugs heavily. According to Homeless Link, around half of those living in direct access hostels are affected by problematic drug use (4). Presumably a greater proportion of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation will have histories of substance misuse or criminal behaviour.

Most people who move into hostels adjust to the environment fairly quickly, although this means sacrificing a lot of independence and privacy, and coping as best they can. Even the better hostels can be noisy, unclean and frightening places to be. They can also be sociable and positive. Moving in to a hostel can be an opportunity to access support which might be difficult to find without the contacts and experience of hostel staff. And all hostel residents have been forced into the position of needing help. Virtually everyone living in a hostel will be reliant on state benefits for their income. Many will be refugees learning to manage in an unfamiliar country. Hostel residents are also likely to need advice or guidance about debt issues, mental health problems, training or employment, as well as help with finding long-term housing.

Despite the best efforts of both staff and residents, people can become trapped in hostel accommodation. If someone has rent arrears from a previous council or housing association flat, then they are unlikely to be rehoused until those arrears have been paid off. People who lack basic skills or who have health problems may find themselves stuck in hostel accommodation because there is a shortage of suitable supported accommodation. The longer someone stays in hostel accommodation, the more they end up relying on it. The economic situation has created an increase in demand for hostels and other homeless services, but it’s also cutting them back.

Since April 2011, councils have reduced spending on Supporting People funded projects by an average of 10.3%. Homeless services were hit hardest by the cuts with 47 local authorities deciding to decommission some services (5). This has led to increased competition between hostel and other housing projects wanting to qualify for dwindling Supporting People funding. To qualify for this money, the organisation which runs each project must show in detail what support it provides. If there isn’t enough evidence on paper, then funding will be withdrawn. The service would then either close or have to survive with only the same limited funding as bed-and-breakfast accommodation. To avoid this, staff are swamped by paperwork used to justify their existences. In some hostels, staff are required to account for how they spend every minute on shift, under the threat of funding being withheld for any time not spent productively. And, of course, those projects which can offer to run the service cheapest are more likely to win funding. Supporting People requirements have also made hostels and supported housing projects more target-driven. Hostels risk funding cuts if particular percentages of those leaving the service don’t improve their ‘economic wellbeing’, physical or mental health, or substance misuse. The effect of this on hostel staff is that the needs of individual homeless people become less important than making sure that the paperwork and statistics are in order. To use Marxist terminology, the paperwork is fetishised.

The increasing regulation of hostels, and the competition between providers for funding, mean that homeless services are now more corporate and businesslike than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Then, hostels and advice agencies were seen more as an embarrassment, as somewhere shameful to send those who have been failed by society. Now, the emphasis is different. The upside of this is that many hostels are more comfortable and relaxed than they may have been in the past, and those who have been homeless are stigmatised less by society as a whole. But, is it a good thing that homelessness has become almost acceptable?

Capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, of winners and losers. Homeless people are at the unlucky end of the social scale. Many other people are only one wage packet away from being drawn towards homelessness. So, to accept that homelessness is just a part of life is to accept the capitalist system which traps us all.

Hostels, supported housing and other homeless services may help some people to progress, but they can’t solve the problem of homelessness itself. And nor do they aspire to. Instead, homelessness is a business opportunity for capitalist organisations to feed from. Every problem created by capitalism – debt, lack of opportunity, lack of skills, addiction, crime – has become a consumer demand for a service. Homeless people are customers, who staff are supposed to think of as targets and outcomes to be recorded and collated. And in the cut-throat competition for funding, homeless services are integrating further with the market-driven dynamics of the economy. Homelessness for sale.

Clive Hendry

 References:

(1)   http://england.shelter.org.uk/news/march_2012/homelessness_up_18

(2)   http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/roughsleepingautumn2011

(3)   http://homeless.org.uk/hostels#.T4qJydniKfs

(4)   http://homeless.org.uk/sites/defaultfiles/SNAP%202011%20final.pdf, page 45

(5)   http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/care/services-cut-for-46000-vulnerable-people/6521072.article

Britain Enters The Common Market (1973)

From the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the beginning of this month Britain has been part of the “European Economic Community", to give the Common Market its official name. This means that the British government is pledged to pursue, along with eight other West European governments, common policies in such fields as foreign trade, transport and agriculture. By 1978 all trade barriers between Britain and the other eight countries should have been removed and all nine should have erected a uniform tariff against goods coming from outside their “common market”.

For the capitalists of Britain, or most of them, this will open up a vast new market in which to try to sell their goods at a profit. But what about the workers? How will the Common Market affect the ordinary wage- or salary-earner in the factories and offices of Britain?

First, and this has already begun to happen, there'll be a rise in food prices as a result of the British government having to change its method of subsidising agriculture. Till now Britain has followed a “cheap food” policy of letting food in at lower, world prices and paying farmers the difference between this and a previously-agreed higher, notional price. The Common Market agriculture policy, on the other hand, is based on subsidising farmers and peasants by fixing selling prices, with the help of tariffs and levies, above world market level.

Rising food prices of course mean, without a compensating rise in wages, a cut in living standards. It is this that has made the Common Market so unpopular amongst workers in Britain and why the Tory government was afraid to hold a referendum on the issue: they knew it would have been seen as a vote not about the abstract question of “Britain’s destiny in Europe” Heath likes to specify about, but as a vote for or against rising food prices, with the result a foregone conclusion. The Labour Party has cynically exploited this ordinary working-class reaction and has used it, with the help of the so-called Communist Party, to stir up latent anti-foreign prejudices. Rising food prices do represent a threat to living standards, but the way to fight back is on the industrial field by pressing for higher wages not by sterile and dangerous jingoism.

The second change the ordinary wage-earner will notice is in the way the goods he buys are taxed. From 1 April this year purchase tax and SET will be abolished and replaced by a Value Added Tax (VAT). This probably won’t make much difference to the overall price level but, being something new, will (like decimilization) tend to be blamed for inflation. In any event, tax changes are insignificant from a working-class point of view.

Thirdly, workers from Britain will be free to move to the other countries in search of a job and will be able to carry social security rights with them. And workers from the other countries will be free to come here on the same terms, of course.

Within ten years, however, we could be using a common European currency and voting in elections for the European Parliament at Strasbourg. And after that, perhaps, there’ll be progress towards a “United States of Europe” as another Great Power challenging the current world hegemony of America and Russia — on condition, that is, that the various nation-States can agree to give up a great deal of the power they now have to protect their national capitalist interests even against the other members of the EEC. Which must remain very much open to doubt, since up to now the EEC has been a permanent inter-governmental conference rather than a embryo super-State.

But, in any event, the emergence of such a new capitalist super-State, or the creation of a single European capitalist economy, is of no concern to the working class. Though it will affect them nevertheless. To try to mitigate these effects they will have to start thinking in terms of united action with their fellow workers in Europe. Already some trade unions, and trade unionists, have — wisely — been making contact with their opposite numbers in the other countries.

But such actions, though necessarily, are only defensive of working-class interests under capitalism. The need will remain to go beyond them and build up a political movement on a world-scale aimed at establishing a united Socialist world making frontiers a thing of the past.

Encouraging election news from New Zealand (1973)

Party News from the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Comrades,

Well at long last the New Zealand election is over, and you will have seen the not entirely surprising result. Incidentally, the October Standard’s cover Labour’s Programme for Capitalism couldn’t be more appropriate. With the shipping delay August & September’s issues came in reverse order, and it’s only now that we can get the August issue in the bookshops. However, in a couple of weeks when we put the October issue out, we rather think that it will go like a bomb!

We are all very satisfied with the results of our own efforts in this election. As you know we put up one candidate in the Tamaki electorate, this is the scat held in Auckland by the former Minister of Finance, Robert Muldoon. We have done some national advertising (a very expensive business), weekly local advertising, and distributed two leaflets to each household in the electorate, a total of 27,000, plus some meetings including one lunchtime meeting with the Watersiders (dockers). Despite all this, I must confess not one of us anticipated more than say a dozen votes. Socialist-minded people do not just happen as we all know too well. However, the grand total was 80 which we are all delighted with, particularly when you consider that the vast bulk of the work was done by only seven members, many meetings had to be cancelled because of the weather, adverts (deliberately?) put in obscure sections of newspapers and so on. The full result in Tamaki was as follows:

We have had some marvellous financial support from sympathisers, which made the advertising and printing of so many leaflets possible, and I don’t know what we’d have done without it. We feel we have achieved the main thing we had in mind, and that was to put the party on the map. There arc considerably less people who, when told the name of the party say “Who?”

I’m very happy to say that the members mainly involved in this election campaign were so elated at the result, and with the number of written and telephoned enquiries as a result of the leaflets, that they have already forgotten blistered feet and weary bones (those leaflets took some distributing, believe me), and are already tossing around ideas for the next one in three years. We made a lot of mistakes of course, but a full diary of our activities has been kept, and we intend learning by them. We are also hoping of course that present members who did not take part this time will be encouraged to in the future. (Not to mention all the new members we hope to make in the meantime!)

Fraternally,

Jean Higdon, 

Secretary, Auckland.

50 Years Ago: Is It Work We Want? (1973)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is work we want, not charity,” said a spokesman of the unemployed at a street comer meeting. This sums up the outlook of the average worker of today. He can see no other method of life than toiling or existing on charity. The fear of having to beg for bread, or go into the workhouse, spurs him on to find a job though the conditions of work become ever more degrading.

How strange that such a view should find general acceptance among people already worn out with work; and at a time when wealth can be produced with such ease and abundance! It is stranger still that some must work hard and spend niggardly, whilst others work not and yet spend lavishly. If the former cease work for a while they come suddenly to the end of their resources; the latter buy palaces and furnish them brilliantly, live in magnificence, and yet at the end of their days they are more wealthy than at the commencement.

It is leisure and idleness the worker needs (leisure to enjoy and idleness to recuperate), and yet he pursues work like a hound on the trail.

In the past conditions were such that could not promise ease and comfort for the many, except where nature was particularly liberal and the population comparatively small. The needful things were produced by simple tools with much labour. Now all is changed. The needful things are produced by complicated tools with little labour. The conditions are such that they promise ease and comfort, leisure and luxury, to the many. But this promise can only be fulfilled when the many own the product of their energy.

(From an article by G. L. McClatchie in the Socialist Standard for January 1923.)

Preventing Abundance (1973)

From the January 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are told that hunger and malnutrition exist in the world today because there is not enough food to go around; that there are, in short, more people than can adequately be fed. Socialists emphatically repudiate this. The evidence points to the fact that man has developed the means of production to a level where it is now technically possible to abolish hunger. Technically possible, but not socially possible within the present relations of production. Capitalism is a system of commodity production, of buying and selling, where the profit motive dominates the productive activity of men and women. Market considerations take precedence over human need. The production of wealth takes place only where the owners of the means of life — the capitalist class — hope to sell their products at a profit on the world markets. The market economy bears no relation to the needs of human beings. Human priorities are sacrificed to the priorities of the profit motive.

The present state of the horticultural industry, both in this country and in Europe, is an object lesson in the restrictive nature of the market economy. For the past five or ten years the viability (ability to make a profit) of parts of the industry has been threatened by the “overproduction” of apples and pears. Increased orchard planting since the Second World War in places such as North Italy (with the help of Marshall Aid) and the Rhone valley in France (where low interest government loans were given to repatriates from Algeria) has vastly increased output. Average apple crops amount to 6m. tons and reached 7.2m. tons in 1969/70. In the following season a record pear crop of 3.2m. tons was recorded. Such large crops had not been planned for; markets were unable to absorb the produce and farmers, looking for some way to vent their frustration, dumped apples in the streets. Seventy-five per cent only of the 1967-68 apple crop was consumed in any shape or form. In other words, a quarter was left to rot — it was not worth while even using it as animal fodder or for industrial alcohol.

Aiding Industry
In Britain too investments have been made in orchards in order to stimulate production. It could hardly be otherwise. Each group of capitalists hope to maximise their profits by capturing as large a slice of the market for themselves as possible. In this they have been backed up by both the major parties of capitalism. The Horticulture Act of 1960 provided grants of up to £7.5m. spread over five years, to be paid out under a Horticultural Improvement Scheme aimed at improving efficiency among growers. The grants were increased in 1964 to £24m.; and again by the Agriculture Act 1970, this time to a maximum of £47m.

Of course these sums were not simply largesse. They were expected to benefit the capitalist class as a whole. As Christopher Soames, Minister of Agriculture at the time, pointed out, it was the intention of the government to “bring our horticultural production and marketing to a higher state of competitive efficiency”. He also hoped the industry would then be in a better position to ward off foreign competition so that the promise of possible reductions in tariffs could be used as a bargaining device in future trade negotiations.

  This is a sensible and realistic policy to adopt with regard to the industry in modern times, and is not being done because the industry is in a parlous state. It is being done to make it more competitive.

(Hansard 27 November 1963 cols. 276 & 280)

This has always been the yardstick by which governments measure the usefulness or otherwise of aiding industry. The 1968 Report of the Economic Development Council for Agriculture, Agriculture's Import Saving Role, pointed out that it might be possible for British capitalism to save itself the sum of £220m. a year by the mid-1970s through import substitution. One item suggested for saving was the annual £25m. spent on top fruit. Moreover, “there was scope for expansion of production and import substitution on a significant scale and at comparatively small cost” (Agriculture — Report etc. from the Select Committee 1968-69 H.C. 137 HMSO p.xxviii). However there appeared one small snag — only half the proposed increase in output could be expected to be absorbed by greater demand due to increasing population and income per head. The EDC report skated over the difficulty by hoping that the remainder might be exported.

Potential Abundance
This growing potential for abundance did cause some comment. In his statement to the House of Commons on 27 November 1963 Soames declared that imports at “unrealistically low prices” did arise from surpluses of varying degrees and that

  It is likely that such surpluses will reappear from time to time, so means to prevent them from undermining our market will continue to be necessary . . . We appreciate that measures must be taken to ensure that dumped produce does not undermine the market.

(Hansard 27 November 1963 cols. 277-179)

The Fruit Production Council were of the opinion that

 Apple and pear production is increasing throughout the world and particularly on the Continent of Europe, at an alarming rate.
(Horticulture — Report etc. from the Select Committee on Agriculture’s Sub-Committee 1967-68 H.C.445 HMSO p.292 (emphasis added).

When faced with this kind of "problem” capitalism can react in a number of ways. It can attempt to stimulate demand; it can try to eliminate competition; or it can cut back production and deliberately reduce productive capacity by destroying resources.

Attempts at stimulating demand have met with only limited success. It had been hoped that the Apple and Pear Development Council, established in 1966, would increase sales through an advertising campaign designed to promote British apples and pears. Its efforts were something less than a raving success. Who now remembers their slogan “Finish your meal with an English apple”? They had to report in July 1968 that “despite the efforts of both importing organisations and the UK growers to increase consumption levels there is a danger of supply outstripping demand”. Then, admitting defeat in the face of the inability to plan rationally under capitalism, they went on to say

  The Council must make it quite clear that publicity is no panacea for oversupply . . . The industry can only operate in conditions of reasonable stability. Glut conditions, uneconomic returns and violent swings in supplies are of no use to the home grower . . .  In the Council’s view, the only way to maintain reasonable conditions is by physical means such as a quota system based on quantity ... no amount of marketing skill, publicity or anything else can compete against a glutted market.

(Horticulture Report p. 184-5)

Left to Rot
In 1969 British markets shuddered under a gigantic flow of apples. Prices hit rock bottom for the producers; some were only getting 2d or 3d a pound for best quality produce. Anything other than grade one was being thrown away and farmers were leaving fruit to rot on the trees. Gerald Nabarro complained to the House of Commons that in his own constituency

   250 tons of Lord Lambourn and Laxton’s Fortune were left unpicked at Leighsinton, near Malvern . . . [and that] . . . 1,200 boxes of Melba — a very early variety — were put into store but lay unsold and are now rotting in their boxes, utterly wasted.

(Hansard 13 December 1969 col. 1665)

The gravity with which MPs treated the problem can be gauged from the fact that they found time (about 4½ hours) to have two debates on this in under two weeks. The debates concentrated on the financial implications for capitalism of the advent of this abundance. Not one of the speakers in the debates expressed any emotion remotely approaching joy that human ingenuity had resulted in plenty. Rather the opposite. Most were concerned that growers would suffer financially.

“Naturally, we must see that our growers have a viable position” said Alfred Morris, Labour MP for Wythenshaw, on 10 November (col. 139) assuring his Party’s concern for the continued prosperity of the industry. David Crouch, representing Canterbury, (somewhat nearer to the problem) after a bit of useless jingoistic nonsense to the effect that “The English apple is in my opinion second to none in the world” continued:

  I am not seeking to raise the price for the British housewife at a time of severe increase in the price of foodstuffs. It would be irresponsible to suggest that, but I have a duty to be concerned not only with the price the consumer pays but that the price should be a fair one for the British farmer, a fair and reasonable price to keep the British grower in being.
(Hansard 10 November 1969 col. 126)

But all the demands that the quota be decreased were to no avail. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, Gwyneth Dunwoody, was satisfied that “the decision reached is the best in the widest national interest” (Hansard 3 November 1969 col. 1670).

Resources Destroyed
For this capitalist “problem” the government have found a suitable capitalist “solution”. Productive resources are to be destroyed. This monstrous decision was taken after a total of less than half an hour’s debate in both Houses of Parliament.

Such action had been common policy on the Continent for a number of years and had been suggested as a way out for British growers in 1964. During the detailed debates on the Agriculture and Horticulture Bill of that year MPs representing constituencies where fruit-growing interests were strong had urged that the Improvement Grants be increased from one third to one half of the cost of grubbing up old orchards. They hoped that the increase might encourage farmers with only a few trees to dig them up. This would remove the poorer quality fruit which in glut conditions tended to spoil the market for the big growers. As it was, of the £8m. made available in 1960, only £2½m had been taken up because the scheme benefitted only the contractors who removed the trees and not the farmer who had to borrow the other two thirds of the money needed. Maxwell Hyslop, MP for Tiverton, put it this way:

  The point I was endeavouring to make was that, as productive capacity is demonstrably in excess of what is required, there is considerable merit in giving further incentive to reduce that capacity.
(Official Report Standing Committee “B” Agriculture and Horticulture Bill 30 January 1964 (emphasis added).

In his call for more “effective” action he was only reflecting the view of Liberal MP for Montgomery, Emlyn Hooson, who had stated that “obsolete” orchards should have been grubbed out years ago.

  I ask the Minister, why not a 100 per cent grant for grubbing out orchards. This would be of great benefit to the country.

(Hansard 12 December 1963 col. 632)

What distinguishes these grants from the Farm Capital Grant (Variation) Scheme of last year is that they did not preclude replanting. As such they might have something to recommend them in that a greater output may be achieved from heavier cropping varieties developed since the orchard was planted, often up to fifty years ago. The 1971 Scheme however specifically provides that if the grant is paid the grower must undertake not to replant his orchard for at least five years. When asked to elaborate on the precise meaning of the words “restricting planting” in this latest Order, Earl Ferrers explained:

  The aim is to encourage something of a crash programme of grubbing. It is no part of the purpose of these schemes for orchards which are grubbed up with their assistance to be replanted with new apple and pear trees.

(Lords Hansard 3 August 1971 col. 1088)

In addition the grant was to be at the full rate of standard grubbing costs. Again it was seen to be in the interests of capitalism as a whole that these grants should be made as the orchards, said Junior Minister Anthony Stodart,

  are a source of quite considerable weakness to the rest of the industry. We cannot afford a weakness of this kind.

(Hansard 30 July 1971 col. 1024) (emphasis added)

Profit the Aim

These grants, it is hoped, will steady the market enough to encourage further investment in the industry and thus make it more profitable. For that is really the whole object of the exercise. The primary function of farmers is not the growing of food that will satisfy a basic human need; their main aim in business is the accumulation of profit. In a memorandum to the House of Commons Select Committee’s Sub-committee on Horticulture, the National Farmers’ Union reminded them that:

  When all is said and done, what counts is whether at the end of the day the producer has sufficient profit to reward his employees and himself . . . and to provide as good a return on the capital he has invested as he would have received had it been invested elsewhere. Generally speaking a new attitude requires to be engendered on horticultural prices which would acknowledge that the grower is entitled to a fair return.

(Horticulture Report p.161)

In hot pursuit of this “fair return” growers had, with the aid of government grants amounting to £140,000, cleared 10,000 acres (about ten per cent) of British orchards. It then became clear that this was not enough; the clearance of another 5,000 acres would be necessary. But even this did not satisfy the present Minister of Agriculture, James Prior, who is reported to have said “I want to see an expanded grubbing-up programme for apples whether we are in the Common Market or outside . . . I must tell you outright to look very carefully at your investment” (The Times 8 January 1971). This will entail the grubbing-up of old but pretty orchards, and their replacement by vast plantations of uniform varieties of fruit. Already one contractor alone has bulldozed over 700 acres in Kent, and this year another 875 farmers have taken up grants worth £300,000 to destroy 6,150 acres of apples and pears. Before the grant scheme runs out in March of next year Prior hopes to have persuaded growers to clear a further 9,000 acres.

How successful all this will be in restoring scarcity to its dominant place in the capitalist way of life remains doubtful. It has been reliably reported (Sunday Times 8 July 1971) that mini-trees have been planted at a density of 50,000 to the acre compared to the normal 120 to the acre. These would give an output, not of the normal 8 tons to the acre, but a massive 100 tons of apples per acre every two years. It may not be long before we see the whole sad spectacle repeating itself. Capitalism cannot bring together the plenty and the poor so that the former eliminates the latter.

Gwynn Thomas