What about the law of value? (1995)

Book Reviews from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Marx’s Theory of Crisis’. By Simon Clarke. Macmillan 1994, £14.99.

‘What About The Workers? Workers and the Transition to Capitalism in Russia’. By Simon Clarke. Macmillan 1994, £12.95.

Clarke argues that Marx gave a number of different explanations for the economic crises of capitalism. First, disproportionality between different branches of production so that one industry over-accumulates relative to the others and then faces a crisis of profitability which spreads to other industries. Second, underconsumption as workers cannot buy back what has been produced and a general crisis of profitability ensues as a result. Third, a tendency for the rate of profit to fall as a consequence of new technology and its greater cost relative to human labour power. Clarke’s view is that at one time or another Marx accepted and then rejected all three theories, and this ambiguity and inconsistency has been inherited by many of those in the Marxist tradition.

He argues that the three theories may describe contingent events in crises, but crises can actually occur for all manner of reasons. What all economic crises have in common is profitability – or rather, the lack of it. Crises are necessary and inevitable: they are a way of “purging” the economy of unprofitable businesses and raising the general rate of profit (largely at the expense of the working class, in terms of more work and less job security). This is perfectly normal for capitalism and does not mean that something has “gone wrong” with the economy. Indeed, capitalism will continue to lurch from crisis to crisis until the working class consciously organise for socialism.

Clarke is quite clear that the alleged failure of Marxism following the collapse of the Russian Empire is a myth, and that what has really failed is Leninism. This accurate insight is made all the more puzzling with the recent publication of another of his books.

As the subtitle of Clarke’s second book indicates, he labours under the illusion that Russia was something other than capitalist before the fall. His contention rests on the claim that Marx’s law of value did not apply in Russia before but does now. That the workers’ lot in Russia, as Clarke convincingly demonstrates, has gone from bad to worse in recent years does not show that bad is preferable to worse. In fact the collapse of the Russian Empire is a striking confirmation of the law of value, and it brings out a peculiar feature of his book on crises in that it ignores Marx’s theory of value. This time it is Clarke who is inconsistent.

Under the old system, the law of value (basically, the social compulsion to accumulate capital out of monetary profits) operated but was modified by state action. In Marxist terminology, the state redistributed surplus value from the profitable sector of the economy to non-profitable ends (the military in particular). But by the 1980s the “purging” effect on unprofitable businesses induced by the law of value, and delayed by state action, meant that most of the economy had become inefficient in terms of profitability and was, literally, in a state of crisis. This, together with popular opposition, is the main reason for the collapse of Russian state capitalism.

Lew Higgins

The World in your hand (1995)

CD-Rom Review from the February 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Encarta '95 CD-ROM - The Complete Interactive Multimedia Encyclopedia (Microsoft £85.)

Technology — don't you just love it? Whatever, this is the baby that’s currently putting thousands of encyclopedia salesmen out of a job. A compact disc packed with 26,000 articles, it may not look as glorious as those bound volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica, but it’s a damn sight easier to use — providing. that is, that you have access to a CD-ROM facility on a PC. It also has the advantage of colour pictures, video film and stereo sound. It will talk and sing to you if provoked.

Without doubt, it is a quite excellent reference guide with some stunning features, and even gives you the facility to print out text and pictures. The sections on social science, history and philosophy are voluminous, although the quality of the information varies according to the contributors. Even so. it is nice to see a reference under the term “socialism" to the fact that this word was initially used as a synonym for communism, a society of social or common ownership of wealth. This may be considered surprising as the entry was partly written by the late Norman Thomas, former leader of the reformist US Socialist Party.

The entries on Marx. Engels, Kautsky, Luxemburg et al are generally well written and informative and there is relatively little to complain about. As befits a US publication, the references to Daniel De Leon and Eugene Debs are also good, although the statement that De Leon was an “authoritarian socialist" will annoy some.

Much of the usual mumbo-jumbo is regurgitated in the economics section, though not more so than in other encyclopedias. In fact there is a reasonable outline of most bourgeois economic theories, and there is also a small section on Marxian economics, which is a definite advance.

Microsoft originally designed this product mainly for the US market, and this often shows, with truly huge sections on American history, politics and geography, but for 1996 a version specifically for use in Britain is promised. If such a tiny, insignificant groups as the American Labor Party can rate an entry in the US version, we can hopefully assume that a distinctive organisation like the Socialist Party of Great Britain should be assured a place on merit for the version over here.

Dave Perrin

The Class Struggle On Board The "Titanic." (1912)

From the May 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again humanity has been staggered by an appalling catastrophe, in which hundreds of human lives have been thrown away, and hundreds of homes plunged into grief and despair. Once again the wild cry of horror has vibrated through the world, and the multitude have been not only shocked, but astounded, as if the unexpected had happened. Once again the newspapers have been slobbering sentimental platitudes and unctuous hypocrisy as though this were not the best thing that has happened for them for many a long day. Once again the machinery of bogus inquiries and sanctimonious “charity” has been set in motion in order to hide awkward and incriminating facts. And finally, once again have the flouted working class, on whom the brunt of this stupendous sacrifice to Mammon has fallen, begun to forget all about it.

Well, there is nothing at all unusual in that. The workers have proverbially short memories. They have forgotten Featherstone; they have forgotten Whitehaven, they have forgotten Bolton, and in a few short days they will have forgotten the “Titanic”. Murder of workers is so common; the workers are so used to it, that they cannot even recognise it for what it is. When the murderous rifles of the soldiery shoot unarmed workers down, it is only the operation of the Law, and there’s and end on’t. When mine-owners neglect to keep their mines ventilated, and blow hundreds of miners into eternity, or brick them up in the pit to be burnt alive, it’s a lamentable occurrence but quite an accident, and again there’s an end on’t. And now that the vast “unsinkable,” the floating city, has carried its full living cargo to the bottom of the Atlantic, the workers arouse themselves in horror of it for a day or two, note with approval that the Royal Family have donated about one day’s income to the relief fund, and then slip quietly back into their sleeping sickness.

And, of course, they are to be helped to do this by a sham enquiry which will start out with the set purpose of fixing the blame on the iceberg, or at most on the dead officers who were supposed to have control of the ship. But this enquiry is a mere blind, a cunning attempt to cloak the real position and to screen from blame the real culprit.

The enquiry in America, for all its seeming fierce determination to get to the bottom of the matter, and for all the awkward evidence it has elicited, was only embarked on for the purpose of skating on the surface. If they could fix the blame on the White Star people, then so much the better for the American shipping interests. But beyond this they did not go; beyond this they never intended to go; beyond this they dared not go. All their virtuous indignation is of a piece with the “patriotism” of their grandfathers, who poisoned Washington’s soldiers with villainous provisions with an unscrupulousness even modern Chicago fails to beat.

To those who understand modern conditions no enquiry is necessary in order to apportion the blame. The starting point of this enquiry will, of course, be the hour immediately preceding the collision. They will go on the worn-out assumption that the captain had the command of the ship. No one will ask why was the “Titanic” built. No one will dream of making the designing of the ship the starting-point of the enquiry. No one will dare to suggest that the captain and his officers had not the command of the vessel.

Yet this way lies the truth. In the very designing of the “Titanic” is the first word of the tragic story, in keeping with which is every jot and tittle of evidence to the end. In the luxurious furnishings—the swimming baths, the flower gardens, the racquets courts—read the secret of the catastrophe. The ship was built to carry rich passengers across the herring-pond.

Almost the first comment that was made by the newspapers when the fatal news came to hand was that among the first class passengers aboard the vessel were millionaires who were collectively worth £30,000,000. This in itself is significant.

The fares of those six hundred first and second class passengers must have totalled an enormous sum, compared with which the passage money of the steerage was a negligible quantity. The “Titanic,” then, was essentially built for rich passengers upon whom the White Star Company depended to enable their vessel to “earn” a dividend.

The course is clear from this. The ship was on her maiden voyage; it was necessary to convince the wealthy, whose time is so extremely valuable, that she was a fast boat. So, as it is admitted, there was a general order to “smash all records”—which was duly done.

This explains why the look-out men had glasses until they reached Queenstown, but not afterwards-record smashing on the Western voyage commences at Queenstown. When records are to be smashed it is very inconvenient to have the look-out seeing too much—especially when the ship is an “unsinkable” and well-insured. It also explains why the vessel was on a wrong course at a wrong speed, and why no notice was taken of the look-out’s warning.

Much will be made of these latter facts, no doubt, and the dead officers will be blamed. It must not be forgotten, however, that capitalist companies invariably choose for responsible positions those men to do what they are paid to do. It  is all moonshine to talk of the captain being in command. They command who hold is livelihood in their hands. If we will not take risks and get the speed they want, then he must give place to one who will.

So at the bottom it is the greed for profit and the insatiable desire for speed on the part of the rich that is responsible for the disaster, whatever conclusion the Committee of Enquiry may come to. Of course, they will not give any such verdict as that, for that would be to indict the capitalist system.

The actual details of the wreck afford a further opportunity of pressing home a lesson. The evidence of the survivors and the evidence of the official figures of the saved, show that even on the decks of the sinking liner, and to the very end, the class struggle was on. Those who had clamoured for speed were the first to monopolise the boats, and the way was kept open for them by the officers’ revolvers. Even the capitalist newspapers are compelled to admit the significance of the figures. Of the first class men 34 per cent. were saved: of the steerage men only 12 per cent. Figures like those are eloquent enough without the evidence of the officer who admitted that he kept steerage passengers from a half-filled boat with shots from his revolver.

Much has been made of the fact that the cry “Women and children first” was raised, and it is not necessary to cast aspersions on the courage of any man who survives. The salient fact is that it was not a question of courage but of class. “Women and children” meant women and children of the wealthy class. Of first class women and children practically all were saved, some even with their pet dogs. Of the steerage women and children more than half perished. The “chivalry” of the ruling class does not, save in very rare instances, extend itself to the class beneath them.

We are not of those who expect any great results from this ocean tragedy. Working-class lives are very cheap, and the age that abolishes the Plimsol Line at the demand of those greedy for profit is hardly likely to insist upon the provision of proper means of life-saving or the careful navigation of passenger vessels. Murder by wholesale may be committed without doing violence to “law and order,” so long as it is committed by the capitalist class in the “legitimate” scramble for profits. The law only moves against the Crippens and the Seddons, but the murders quite commonly committed by the capitalist class are not one whit less foul, for all nobody is hanged for them.

A. E. Jacomb

Maritime Disasters (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The movie, Titanic, was a big money-maker for Hollywood. Its plot was an unlikely melodrama between a seemingly rich girl and a poor boy. The Titanic itself was simply the backdrop to their romance. The movie grossed over $600 million dollars, placing it at number two on the all time box office lists. Here’s another list.

The sinking of the Titanic was number three in the all time list of non-military maritime disasters. At number one, with a death toll reckoned to be 4,375 people was the Philippine’s ferry MV Doña Paz. Originally it ferried passengers in Japanese waters, when its passenger capacity was 608 people.  The MV Doña Paz sank after a collision with the oil tanker MT Vector. It took eight hours before the Philippine authorities learned of the accident, because the Doña Paz had no radio. And eight more before any rescue attempt. The owners, Sulpicio Lines, claimed that 1,499 people were aboard. Later inquiries alleged that a further 2000 were not on the ship’s manifest. This was reinforced by the recovery of 21 bodies, and only one was to be found on the official manifest.

The Doña Paz was insured for a million dollars. The owners offered an indemnity for those on the official manifest of $472 each. The Vector was later revealed to be operating without a licence, with no properly qualified master, and without a lookout. The victims’ families pursued claims against both companies, but both were cleared of financial liability.

At number two is the Senegalese government-owned ferry MV Le Joola which sank off of the coast of The Gambia in September 2002. At least 1,863 people died on a ship built to carry a maximum of 580. It also had a long history of being poorly maintained. The Le Joola was built only to navigate in coastal waters but was sailing beyond its coastal limit when high winds and rough seas struck – the probable cause of the ferry’s capsizing. It’s believed that many people would have survived the sinking, but official rescue teams didn’t arrive until the following morning. 

Once again compensation was offered to the victims’ families.  In contrast to the owners of The Doña Paz, the Senegalese government decided that a human life was worth around $22,000. Several officials were dismissed including officers of the Senegal Armed Forces who it was deemed failed to respond quickly enough to the sinking. No criminal charges were ever brought against anyone for the gross overcrowding and poor maintenance of the MV Le Joola.

There’s not much in these two disasters to spark the mind of the Hollywood capitalist. What about calling it Murder on the High Seas: a story of profit, greed and inhumanity? But there’s no glamour in a movie about thousands of piss poor people drowning on vastly overcrowded, hulking ferries. That’s simply a reality of life under capitalism.

___________________________________________

For those who’ve come across the seas

‘For those who’ve come across the seas/We’ve boundless plains to share’. These words come from the Australian national anthem. But a rider needs to be added – unless the state has decided that you’re an illegal immigrant.

In August 2001 the Australian state, headed by the Howard administration, refused permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa to enter Australian waters. The Tampa had rescued 438 Afghan refugees from a distressed fishing boat. The boat was only designed for a crew of 27, and lacked any form of safety equipment. When the captain of the Tampa, Arne Rinnan, attempted to enter Australian waters he was threatened with prosecution as a people smuggler by the Australian state. The refugees were eventually transported by naval ship to the Island of Nauru to newly built detention camps. Consequentially, a new policy that sought to prevent illegal immigration by sea was to be enacted.  Polls taken by Australian Television suggested that 90% of the anthem singing population supported Howard. 

Two months later a suspected illegal entry vessel, SIEV X, entered Australian waters without permission. Over 400 asylum seekers were on board this nameless, ramshackle Indonesian fishing vessel.  On 19 October it sank in international waters; 353 human beings drowned. One of the claims the Howard administration made for its new policy was that, through the efficiency and dedicated work of the Royal Australian Navy, it would prevent people smuggling.  The Royal Australian Navy had been issued with stringent orders to monitor and intercept all SIEVs.

Three non-Australian vessels went to the aid of the SIEV X over a period of two days. There must have been considerable radio activity during this period between the rescue ships. But the Australian State claims that it was unaware of the sinking until three days after the event when the 45 survivors, including an eight-year-old boy who lost 21 members of his family, disembarked in Jakarta. 

A 2002 Australian Senate Select Committee investigation concluded that: ‘While no government department was found to be to blame for the tragedy, the Committee was surprised that there had been no internal investigations into any systemic problems which could have allowed the Australian government to prevent it from occurring’.

In 2006 the Australian Education Minister, Julie Bishop, attacked a PhD student’s study on the drowning of SIEVX’s human cargo, which was due to be taught in Australian high schools. Ms Bishop said the study “promoted a political agenda”. On the same day the government decided that a permanent memorial to the 353 drowned was not appropriate.

So for some, ‘who’ve come across the seas/We’ve boundless plains to share’.  But those without the permission of the state might find that they’re sharing a watery grave with 353 people who simply wanted a better life. The Australian national anthem, like all national anthems, is designed for the consumption of the gullible and docile wage slave and is a paradigm of the hypocrisy and bullshit that is intrinsic to capitalism.

What About the Deckchairs? (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Everybody has heard the saying about “re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic”. It has become a stock phrase to describe some futile or pointless activity, especially in the face of some impending disaster.

Online dictionaries offer various interpretations, ranging from, “[to] illustrate the futility of concentrating on the trivial details of some enterprise that is ultimately doomed or in the midst of some serious crisis that can not be overcome,” through, “when someone tries to futilely reform the ways things are done in a failing system,” to “to do something pointless or insignificant that will soon be overtaken by events, or that contributes nothing to the solution of a current problem.”

It’s a neat way of describing what all governments of capitalism do, not just in the present economic crisis but generally. Not that capitalism is sinking –it’s not going to collapse of its own accord, even if it is no longer sea-worthy –but it is failing in that it is not properly meeting the needs of the vast majority of people. It cannot but fail to do this.

Because capitalism is a system based on profit-making on the backs of those who actually produce wealth by their work, it can only ever function in the way it does –as a profit-making system in the interests of those who live off profits. It can never be made to function in the interest of those obliged by economic necessity to work for a wage or a salary for a living.

Anyone who thinks that it can and proposes some measure to achieve this –and this includes opposition parties, single-issue groups and campaigning charities as well as governments in office –is just re-arranging the deckchairs. Much better, socialists say, to steer away from the icebergs of economic crisis, war and global pollution and head for socialism where we can lastingly arrange the deckchairs for the benefit of all.

The Titanic: A Member Writes . . . (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Titanic was a family theme in my wife’s family – her mother’s grandfather (that is, my wife’s great-grandfather) went off in 1912, having booked his passage on this marvellous new apparently unsinkable ship, to visit a daughter who had emigrated to Canada, and nothing was heard (no mobile phones then) till the news came of the sinking. So my mother-in-law went down (aged 3) with her father several days running to see the lists of the drowned and the saved in the local Post Office window. Then they found out – my wife’s great-grandfather had missed the boat, and went over safely on a later ship. So it’s not always a good idea to be punctual.

Here are some figures for numbers of people saved –

• First class ….. 202 out of 325 62%
• Second class ….. 118 out of 285 41%
• Third class ….. 178 out of 706 25%
• Crew ….. 212 out of 908 23%
• Whole ship ….. 710 out of 2224 32%

Apparently they had iron grille doors to keep the third class passengers in their own part of the ship, and in the panic following the collision with the iceberg the stewards didn’t get round to unlocking them all. So some third-class passengers found it difficult to get to the lifeboats. Apart from that the designer had had to reduce the number of lifeboats in order to make room for more first-class cabins and their private  promenade decks. J. Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star line, was aboard, and though five other ships warned the Titanic of icebergs in the area, apparently he insisted on full steam ahead, so as to make a fast (and profitable) crossing.

But luckily Ismay found a place on the lifeboats, and was saved.

So the usual moral – don’t be poor.

AE

The Titanic: Who Was To Blame? (2012)

From the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Seven days after the Titanic settled at the bottom of the Atlantic the first of the enquiries charged with answering questions, exposing negligence and apportioning blame, got under way in New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel. Central to the enquiry would be the questioning of Bruce Ismay, Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line, who had been on the Titanic throughout its first and last voyage. In the chair was William Alden Smith United States Senator for the state of Michigan, whose opposition to alcohol drove him to try to prove that the Titanic’s captain and other officers had been drinking when the ship hit the iceberg. Smith’s questioning was resented by the officers for its ignorant bluster; for example his asking Fifth Officer Lowe what an iceberg was made of (“Ice, I suppose, sir” was Lowe’s answer). And again when he asked Second Officer Lightoller about the possibility of some passengers taking refuge in Titanic’s watertight compartments to be rescued later.

But in spite of what has been called his ‘raucous scapegoating,’ Smith carried on, matching his persistent pressure against Ismay’s stonewalling. Smith was, after all, a politician who had to have regard for his votes and for the “Yellow Press” of the tycoon William Randolph Hearst who nursed a long-standing personal antipathy to Ismay. For his part, Ismay had influenced the design of the Titanic in its early stages, reducing the number of lifeboats, for example, partly because the “practically unsinkable” liner was safer than any lifeboat. And when on the day of the collision the Captain, Edward Smith, gave him a vital telegram warning of ice directly ahead Ismay simply put it in his pocket instead of passing it on to the ship’s officers.

But in the chaos after the collision Ismay stayed on board to help other passengers into the boats until there were no others left there and an officer more or less ordered him to jump in. He then sat in the boat’s stern apparently in a coma until he was taken aboard the rescue ship Carpathia, when he demanded, and was given, food and a stateroom apart from the other survivors. He spent the rest of the voyage under sedation. And what of other wealthy passengers? There was Lord Duff Gordon who took over a lifeboat with just his wife and her maid, and seven crewmen to row. While Lady Duff Gordon commiserated with her maid on the loss of her “beautiful nightdress” he was giving each of the crewmen five pounds, seemingly as a bribe to either row away from the drowning people or to keep silent about the entire incident.

The given history of the Titanic is concerned largely with scapegoats, from Captain Edward Smith to the seven crewmen in the boat with Duff Gordon and the assertively influential Bruce Ismay. But there is more to it than individual culpability which takes no account of the chaos and waste endemic to capitalism with its privilege and exploitation which we still have to live with. After all, only a couple of years after the Titanic the world launched another tragedy which cost the lives of millions of its people.

RC

The new 'New Colossus' (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

These fine words, as I’m sure you are aware, are inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty, the New Colossus. The millions of hopes that must have flickered into existence on reading or hearing these philanthropic words were, alas, soon dampened and in many cases, completely extinguished. The greater majority of the American population, as with the majority of the world’s population, are still oppressed and exploited. Such is the nature of this exploitation that many people cannot discern it or its source, and even spring to the defence of the very system that exploits them and condemns them to a lifetime of deprivation and enslavement.

It is high time that the world turned all its resources towards the building of a “New” New Colossus, in the form of Socialism. Socialism is the only way in which the oppressed majority (which constitutes the working class or proletariat of the world) can be freed from their exploitation and enslavement.

Through Socialism, the source of this oppression and exploitation has been discovered, and subsequently the method of removing it. The source is to be found in the present class divisions within society, based upon private property or ownership. On this basis the classes are divided into: the capitalist class, which owns the means of production and distribution and therefore does not have to work to earn the means of subsistence; and the working class or proletariat which, owning none or not enough of the means of production necessary for subsistence, is forced to sell its labour power to the capitalist class for wages. Obviously, it is in the interest of the worker to obtain the highest possible remuneration (in the form of wages) in return for his labour power, but it is in the interest of the capitalist to get the maximum profit from his (i.e. the workers’) produce, which necessarily entails his keeping wages and other costs to a minimum. There is, therefore, a clash of interests between the capitalist and the worker, between the buyer of labour power and the seller. This is the crux of the matter this clash of interests or mutual antagonism at present within society is the cause of all oppression and deprivation.

To remove this antagonism of classes it is necessary to remove the cause of the antagonism, the private property based division of society.

This removal, and the establishment of a society where the means of production and distribution are owned and controlled by and in the interest of the whole world community, are the objectives of Socialism. By abolishing private property the antagonism between classes will disappear, because the division of classes will no longer exist.

Everyone then should strive to erect this “New” New Colossus, the Colossus of Socialism. Not indeed like “the brazen giant of Greek fame”, and not indeed like the mass of metal and empty platitudes erected in New York Harbour, but a Colossus of human endeavour and love for fellow man.

J.T.S.

Capitalism did not collapse (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Forty years ago, world capitalism was descending into one of its worst ever slumps. So severe and persistent was the depression that the idea grew up, particularly among the "left wing", that the system was about to collapse. Not for the first time the Socialist Party of Great Britain stood aside from a popular clamour. At the depths of the crisis, in February 1932, we published our pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse. This is too long to reproduce here in full but we are publishing in the Socialist Standard an abridged version, the first part of which appears this month.

1. Our view of the crisis

Foreward

We are in the midst of a crisis that is world-wide. Every country feels its ravages. Millions and millions of workers are unemployed and in acute poverty. Everywhere there is discontent and a feeling of insecurity, and the prestige of even the strongest governments has been shaken. All sorts of emergency measures have been hastily adopted, but the depression still continues. Working men and women who usually ignore such questions, are now asking why the crisis occurred, what will be its outcome, and whether it could have been avoided. In some minds there is a fear, and in others a hope, that the industrial crisis may bring the present system of society down in ruins, and make way for another.

I. Fears that capitalism will collapse

The purpose of the Socialist Party is to show the working class the need for a complete alteration in the organisation of society. But our work has been made more difficult by the idea that Capitalism may collapse of its own accord. It is clear that if Capitalism were going to collapse under the weight of its own problems then it would be a waste of time and energy to carry on socialist propaganda and to build up a real socialist party aiming at political power. If it were true, as is claimed, that Capitalism will have broken down long before it will be possible for us to win over a majority for the capture of political power, then, indeed, it would be necessary to seek Socialism by some other means. Workers who have accepted the wrong and lazy idea of collapse have neglected many activities that are absolutely essential. They have taken up the fatalistic attitude of waiting for the system to end itself. But the system is not so obliging!

At first sight there seems to be a ground for this idea. Capitalism from time to time develops acute industrial and financial crises; and at the depth of these it does appear to many observers that there is no way out, and that society cannot continue at all unless some way out is found. Men of very different social position and political convictions have been driven to this conclusion—reactionaries and revoluionaries, bankers and merchants, employers and wage-earners.

Let us go over some of the statements made by those who have foretold collapse, and notice how much alike they are. Notice, too, how each one falsifies the preceding ones. The fact of another crisis taking place is proof enough that the earlier crises did not turn out to be insoluble—the patient cannot have more than one fatal attack.

During the 19th century there were about ten well-marked crises. One commenced in England in 1825. William Huskisson, a former President of the Board of Trade, wrote about it in a letter dated 30th December, 1839:

  I consider the country to be in a most unsatisfactory state, that some great convulsion must soon take place. . . . I hear of the distress of the agricultural, the manufactural, the commercial, the West Indian, and all trading interests. . . . I am told land can neither pay rent nor taxes nor rates, that no merchant has any legitimate business. . . . I am also told that the whole race of London shopkeepers are nearly ruined. (“Huskisson Papers.” Pub., Constable, 1931. Page 310.)

Another crisis occurred in the eighteen-eighties, and was dealt with by Lord Randolph Churchill in a speech at Blackpool, in 1884:

  We are suffering from a depression of trade extending as far back as 1874, ten years of trade depression, and the most hopeful either among our capitalists or our artisans can discover no signs of a revival. Your iron industry is dead, dead as mutton; your coal industries, which depend greatly on the iron industries, are languishing. Your silk industry is dead, assassinated by the foreigner. Your woollen industry is in articulo mortis, gasping, struggling. Your cotton industry is seriously sick. The shipbuilding industry, which held out longest of all, is come to a standstill. Turn your eyes where you will, survey any branch of British industry you like, you will find signs of mortal disease. (“Lord Randolph Churchill,” By Winston Churchill, M.P. Pub., MacMillan & Co., Ltd., London, 1906. Vol. I, page 291.)

There is one important thing to notice about the two statements quoted above. Huskisson wrote at a time when England was a protectionist country. He was an advocate of free-trade. Lord Randolph Churchill spoke at a time when England had long been a free-trade country. He was an advocate of protection. It is clear that neither free-trade nor protection offers a solution for trade depressions, and that the return to protection in March, 1932, will not prevent further crises.

Of late we have been asked to take a very serious view of the alleged “adverse balance of trade,” by which is meant that this country has had more imports than exports, with the consequence that debts have been incurred abroad to the extent of the excess of imports. The facts are still the subject of argument, but it is not necessary to go into that question. All that we need to remember is that the fears about the “adverse balance of trade” are not new.

In a paper read to the Royal Statistical Society on December 19th, 1876 (see “Trade, Population and Food,” by S. Bourne, pub. G. Bell and Sons), Mr. Sidney Bourne, who for many years was in the Government Service, engaged in the compilation of trade statistics, painted an alarming picture of Great Britain’s trade. He argued that serious consequences would follow if the adverse balance (which he pointed out was then in evidence) was allowed to continue. He mentioned, too, the considerable and influential body of political and public men who shared his views.

After making the adjustments he considered necessary on account of income from investments owned abroad by British subjects, and the so-called “invisible exports" (i.e., the services, such as shipping and financial services, that are paid for by foreigners, but which do not take the form of actual articles passing through British ports), he declared that there was an “adverse balance" in the years after 1872.

He said:

  In 1872 the true excess would seem to have been on the side of exports rather than imports, to the extent of nearly £4,000,000; but in the following year the imports again predominated, and have continued to do so with increasing weight up to the present moment. (Page 69.)

Mr. Bourne, like many modern observers of the course of trade, was apprehensive about the future:

   I firmly believe that Britain now stands tottering on the eminence to which she has attained, and that it rests entirely with her sons whether a further rise or a rapid fall is to mark her future history. (Page 75.)

II. The Idea of a Blind Revolt of the Workers.

The defenders of Capitalism who have been panic-stricken in times of crisis, have sought for ways to save the social system, which they believed to be in danger. On the other hand, many who desired Socialism have looked at industrial crises not with fear but with hope. They have though that in a time of great unemployment and distress the majority of workers, although not socialists would be forced by their sufferings to revolt against the capitalists and their government, and that they would place in power a government which would try to remould society on a socialist basis.

Similar ideas are held by members of the Labour Party and Independent labour Party, and they were handed down from the Social Democratic Federation to the parties that in 1920 became the Communist Party of Great Britain. It is indeed probable that the Russian Bolshevist leaders, many of whom hold these views, learned them during their exile in England round about the beginning of the century.

In the October, 1931, “Labour Monthly" (just before the General Election), Mr. Dutt, the editor, wrote in a manner indicating the utmost excitement at the likelihood of a decisive crash: “The fight is here," “the crisis marches on relentlessly,” “it is the whole basis of British Imperialism that is now beginning to crack,” “the whole system is faced with collapse,” “the hour of desperate crisis begins”; and much more to die same effect.

Mr. James Maxton, MP., putting the I.L.P. point of view, has been as confident as the communists. He made a speech at Cowcaddens on 21st August, 1931, reported as follows in the columns of the Daily Record,” 22nd August, 1931 (reprinted in “Forward” 12th September):

  I am perfectly satisfied that the great capitalist system that has endured for 150 years in its modern form, is now at the stage of final collapse, and not all the devices of the statesmen, not all the three party conferences, not all the collaboration between the leaders, can prevent the system from coming down with one unholy crash.

(to be concluded)

Link to Part 2

What Northern Ireland least needs (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Northern Ireland today we have the following political organisations:

• The Ulster Unionist Party 
• The Nationalist Party 
• The N.I. Labour Party 
• The Socialist-Republican Party 
• The Republican Party 
• The Peoples’ Democracy 
• The Civil Rights Association 
• The National Democratic Party 
• The Communist Party 
• The Protestant Unionist Party

Apart from these organisations there are a variety of Labour groups, usually the product of some “personality” split and the various political apparitions that occur fairly regularly at election times. There are the physical force organisations like the I.R.A., the U.V.F., as well as a number of others which keep their guns behind their backs and whom the authorities are pleased to see from the front only. For good measure there is also the New Ulster Movement, a “moderate” organisation which came into being before the last Northern Ireland general election to assist O’Neillite candidates and which, before its recently-claimed “avalanche” of new members, following on the troubles, boasted a loosely-knit membership of 5,000.

There is also the tiny World Socialist Party of Ireland—the Irish section of the World Socialist movement.

Certainly the people of Northern Ireland would appear to have a specious political menu. But according to some people who have progressed letters to the press to the stage of informal meetings, the crying need for the Province is a new political party. What they want is a party of “moderate” opinion that can unite a cross-section of public opinion and banish the religious polarisation which, the exponents of the new party affirm, is at the root of Northern Ireland’s problems.

The point is worth making in passing that there already exists among the list of organisations quoted above a number who can justly claim to make such an appeal. The Labour, Liberal and National Democratic parties appeal across the class and religious board and accept the present economic system and the constitutional position of the Province within the United Kingdom. The New Ulster Movement, while allegedly to the so-called “right” of these organisations similarly appeals to “all classes and creeds” and offers itself as a political laboratory for the formation of what they believe will be policies aimed at speeding the progress of peace and prosperity in Ulster.

The point of all this discussion around the creation of yet another political party is based on the old failed notion that the problem in Northern Ireland is a political pot-pourri of religious bigotry and political prejudice, corrupt and incompetent government, uncooperative opposition, etc. Certainly all these factors exist but they can only exist within the framework of a social system that creates the material conditions—unemployment, slums, insecurity—on which they feed.

In other words, if the economic system under which we live, the capitalist system, in which wealth is produced for sale and profit and not for the satisfaction of human needs, could provide plenty for all in the form of jobs, homes and security the religious issue in Northern Ireland would be confined to the academic abstractions of the theological boffins. There would be no basis for discrimination real and imagined.

But capitalism has failed to provide a full and happy life for all, not only in Northern Ireland but everywhere else throughout the world. Politicians of all shades of political opinion have tried to control capitalism; they have used all kinds of political and economic devices to try and iron out its contradictions and make it function smoothly; they have founded new parties and concepts — they have even tried calling it “socialism” and “Communism” — but the system defeats their efforts. We don’t have to call on economic theory to prove capitalism’s innate contradictions and inability to function in the interests of all. The evidence of our contention stands blatantly forth throughout the entire world of capitalism: nowhere has capitalism, despite the fantastic development of its wealth producing techniques, solved any of the basic social problems that afflict humanity and, often, when some slight amelioration of these problems is effected by some puny scheme of social reform new problems are created, often greater than those at which the reform was aimed. The fact is that capitalism is a social system based on the exploitation of the overwhelming majority, the majority in fact that produces all wealth, the working class. This is the nature of the system and no form of political management can make the system run contrary to its nature.

Throughout the rest of the capitalist world, as in Northern Ireland, the competition among the working class for their needs in a system of organised scarcity becomes a weapon in the hands of politicians anxious to secure the support of the workers. Group features like religion, colour and ethnic origin are conveniently related to this competition by some politicians who accuse “them” of being responsible for “our” problems while other politicians disguise the real source of the problem by blaming it on the tensions, bigotries and prejudices induced by these bigots or racialists. The violence and bigotry we are witnessing in Ulster is not peculiar to the Provinces. Like the capitalist conditions that allow these features, they exist in one form or another where capitalism exists.

Having said this, if we now return to our list of political organisations we will note that with one exception they claim the ability to run, or contribute to the running of, capitalism’s system of buying and selling to the satisfaction of all. As, however, we have also noted that no political party anywhere in the world has proved equal to the task of solving even one of capitalism's basic problems, the claims of these organisations—and any new contenders in the field—amount to nothing more than an arrogant hope based on class interest or blind utopian stupidity.

The exception? Yes, there is one organisation on our list that does not make the claim that it has the ability, sincerity, wisdom and all the other qualities—claimed, by implication, to be the monopoly of the various contenders for political office—to run capitalism in such a way as to eradicate poverty, slums, unemployment, violence, etc. That organisation is the World Socialist Party.

On the contrary, the W.S.P. and its companion parties overseas, claim that, no more than all the other political parties could they run the present system to the satisfaction of all. Hence our struggle is not to win a mandate to run capitalism’s production for profit scheme, with or without amendments. Our struggle is to bring to our fellow members of the working class an understanding of the only alternative to capitalism, Socialism, and provide a revolutionary party for the use of that knowledge. We do not ask the working class to vote for us to reform capitalism; we ask them to vote with us to abolish it!

Richard Montague

New Pamphlet: Questions of the Day — A Socialist Analysis (1969)

Party News from the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The new revised edition of this basic Socialist pamphlet is now available.

It explains how capitalism is the cause of the problems wage and salary workers face today and how only Socialism will provide the framework within which they can be solved for good. It points out how, in modern political conditions, the way to Socialism is through the democratic political action of a majority of convinced socialists using the ballot box and parliament to win political control. It exposes as futile the policy of trying to deal with social problems by means of reforms of capitalism and shows that nationalisation is merely state capitalism. The role and record of the Conservative, Liberal, Labour and so-called Communist parties are examined and all of them are seen to serve capitalist interests.

The last three chapters deal with a number of frequent objections to Socialism. Overpopulation is shown to be a myth, the real problem being the chronic underproduction caused by the restrictions of capitalism’s profit motive. The relatively backward countries present no barrier to the immediate establishment of Socialism throughout the world, the pamphlet explains, because the modern industrial system that now covers the world is quite capable of turning out an abundance of wealth for all the world’s population, wherever they live, to enjoy. And what about human nature? This too is answered by showing that the view that man is born lazy, greedy and aggressive is nonsense. Human behaviour depends on the society human beings live in and nothing anthropologists and other social scientists have found shows that human beings are incapable of co-operating on the basis of common ownership to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

Questions of the Day, since the publication of the first edition in 1932, has been the pamphlet which gives in handy form the policy of the Socialist Party of Great Britain on current political topics. Those who wish to know more about us are urged to get a copy. It is priced at 2s. (postage extra) and can be had from:

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

All that glitters . . . (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most workers find it hard to imagine how man could possibly live without money. Money holds so much power only because in capitalism, for the first time in man’s social evolution, the worker is completely divorced from the product of his labour. It is true that he still produces indirectly for his own needs, but in order to get hold of these needs, he must first have money.

Some argue that we must have money because we have always had money. But by looking at man’s social development we see that in primitive tribal society he had not yet developed an extensive means of exchange. Because the means of life were not substantial enough to support a difference of class within the tribe, that is rich and poor, all property was held in common by the tribe. In the case of the North American Indian, the hunters took what beef was needed for them and their families from the large herds of bison in the hunting grounds. Clothes and shelter were made from the skins of the animals. Little exchange was necessary and money was of no use when all requirements were to be had in the immediate vicinity of the tribe.

In the chattel slave system, the majority of the population owned nothing and indeed were themselves owned by the slaveowners. Because of the increased size of the population, and as the owners were partly divorced from the means of life, a small means of exchange was developed, based on gold, silver and bronze coinage. The great mass of exchange was by barter, although much of what was produced was consumed by the original producer, the surplus going to the slave owner.

Under the feudal system, which reached its peak in Britain after the Norman conquest, the barter method was still the main type of exchange, money only being of any use to the knights and barons who required a greater variety of goods than did the serf. The serf-family was usually almost completely self-sufficient, producing all the necessaries of life, and consuming part of what it produced, the surplus going to the landowner on whose property the serf toiled. Taxation ensured that the serf had little gold to play with.

In the later stages of feudalism, the rising merchant class used the newly discovered lands and routes to make large profits by trading cheap trinkets to the natives in exchange for valuable textiles from the East and precious metals from the West. Often, as in the conquest of Central America, no exchange was needed and the wealth of the peoples there was taken forcibly.

Some of those acts of piracy and plunder conjure up a picture which differs vastly from a quiet game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe, or of a contented old gentleman sitting in front of his fire smoking a pipe, and soaked to the skin by a bucket of water thrown at him by his servant.

These wealthy merchants formed the revolutionary bourgeoisie which became the modern capitalist class. The exceptionally complicated capitalist system required a means of exchange which would be internationally acceptable, and all currencies were based on gold.

Men have therefore become obsessed with money, which has attained the position of a god, since it is money which, in the capitalist system, becomes the real life power. Without it men must starve. It then becomes the power of humanity divorced from man, and therefore what men in themselves are unable to do is made possible by the use of money; Shakespeare realised some of these points. In his Timon of Athens he wrote:

Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold?
No, Gods,
I am no idle votarist: roots, you clear heavens!
Thus much of this will make black white; foul fair;
Wrong right; base noble; old young; coward valiant.
. . . Why this
Will lug your priests and servants from your sides;
Pluck stout mens pillows from below their heads:
This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless the accursed
Make the hoar leprosy adored; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation,
With senators on the bench: this is it
That makes the wappened widow wed again
She whom the spittal house and ulcerous sores
Would cast the gorge at, this embalms and spices To the April day again. Come, damned earth, '
Thou common whore of mankind, that putt’st odds
Among the rout of nations, I will make thee
Do thy right nature.

But what of money in the next stage of human evolution — Socialism? Why should it not still be required? When men produce for their own needs, and not for the benefit of a handful of exploiters as they have done since primitive times, when national boundaries disappear and the world’s wealth is owned in common, when competition gives way to cooperation, then exchange relationships disappear. And so, as money can only exist in a private society, it must vanish with private property.

G.C.

Russian Capitalism: A Correction (1969)

From the November 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

On page 107 of the July Socialist Standard we stated:

 There are signs that private investment does take place, but if we lived in Russia we should call it ‘fiddling’ for it is not legal and there is no stock exchange. The legal right of the Russian ruling class to appropriate surplus value is a collective right. This ‘right’ ceases if they resign from their administrative work.

Some of these statements are not strictly true and we now correct them. Certain forms of private investment, such as bank accounts, are not illegal in Russia. Nor does the monopoly the Russian rulers exercise over the means of production have formal legal backing. It is a de facto monopoly resting on their control of state power. Finally, members of the Russian ruling class do not of course resign, though they may be cut off from getting their share of the exploitation of the Russian workers through losing their job in a purge.

Editorial Committee

Greater London Assembly Elections (2012)

Party News from the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the elections for the Greater London Assembly on 3 May the Socialist Party will be contesting two of the 14 constituency seats, giving the chance for those in four London boroughs with a total population of over one million who want socialism to vote for it.
Here is the manifesto we will be distributing. If you would like further information or are offering help or contributions to the election fund, contact us at spgb@worldsocialism.org or at 52 Clapham High Street, SW4 7UN. You can also follow the campaign on our election blog at: http://spgb.blogspot.com/

It’s up to you

No politician can help you. They all say they are going to have to make you worse off because of the crisis.  In other words, to make you poorer to protect the wealth of the 1% who own the world.  It’s their system of making goods and services to sell for profit that led directly to the crisis.  So long as we have this production for profit, we’ll have periodic crises and politicians wringing their hands over them.

The only way out is to change the rules of the game:  to change the system by putting an end to minority ownership by replacing it with the democracy of common ownership by and for everybody. Enough resources, know-how and skills exist already to provide comfortably for everyone.  It’s the profit system that prevents this. We need to do away with it and instead produce and access goods for needs.

At the moment so many people think that there’s no alternative that they are shrugging their shoulders and hoping for the best.  If a few of us stand up and say “we will not put up with this, we want something better” then the idea that resources should be owned in common and used to satisfy people’s needs can get on the agenda as the only genuine alternative to capitalism and austerity.

We need to organise to bring about a world where the Earth’s resources have become the common heritage of all and where every man, woman and child on the planet can have free access to what they need to lead a decent and satisfying life.

If you want this, vote for the Socialist Party candidate in this election, to let people know where you stand, and then come and join us in campaigning for socialism.

The Socialist Party candidates are:

Lambeth & Southwark: Daniel Lambert

Merton & Wandsworth: William Martin

Election Activities:

Saturday 14 April, 12 noon

Literature stall outside Socialist Party premises: 52 Clapham High St, SW4 7UN

Leaflet distribution: Clapham Junction.

Saturday 21 April, 12 noon

Literature stall: 52 Clapham High St

Leaflet distribution: Tooting (meet at tube station)

Saturday 28 April, 12 noon

Literature stall: 52 Clapham High St

Election Meeting: 52 Clapham High St, 4pm (see Events page)

Blogger's Note:
The results at the following link.

Greasy Pole: All in what together? (2012)

The Greasy Pole column from the April 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Such is the glut of material it is not necessary to drill too deeply into political history to excavate an impressive sample of pledges, slogans, phrases deposited by our leaders which they came to regret. For example during the devastating slump of the 1930s a few million unemployed who had returned from the war bitterly questioned the meaning of Lloyd George and his “Land Fit For Heroes”. In the 1960s there was Harold Macmillan dreamily talking of a time when a customarily struggling people “never had it so good”. Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan never lived down “Crisis? What Crisis?” when he was asked, as he returned from an economic summit in the West Indies in 1979, about his plans to deal with British capitalism’s turmoil. The fact that he did not say this (it was no more than a reporters’ version of what he had said) did not lessen the impression of a flippant dismissal of a serious problem and led to the loss of Labour votes. And recently, as the present recession (of a kind widely assumed by the economic experts to be a thing of the past) rumbled into its stride, David Cameron attempted to rally us with the assurance that: “We are all in this together”.

Ancestry

What right has Cameron to speak to us in this way? Well, in this social system with its historically characteristic class structure there is all he needs to give him that right. His background is rich in antecedent; through his paternal grandmother he is a direct, if illegitimate, descendant of King William IV and, through tortuous lineage, a fifth cousin of the present queen Elizabeth. Apart from being blue-blooded, he is (possibly to his own relief) a son of a family with a long and lucrative history of high standing in banking and trade. His late father benefited from a family tradition of being a senior partner in one of London’s richest, most powerful stockbrokers. If this is not enough to secure his superior place in the social hierarchy, Cameron is married to a step-daughter of Viscountess Astor who, apart from being a descendant of Charles II was the owner and designer of an exclusive jewellery business and is now the CEO of a home furnishing design company. In other words, Cameron has all he needs to assert his place in the class structure of capitalism, which encourages him to lay down the laws governing our lives in the interests of his class. And which includes swamping us with repression and manipulation, at times denying the reality of it all with specious claims to have common interests with us. This is, put simply, another aspect of the class struggle.

Divided

David Cameron can be relied on to tell us every now and again that he is “passionate” about all sorts of plans, chances and prospects. So we might ask how he judges his government’s response to his widely publicised call for national unity to deal with the recession – as we are all in the mess together. There are many examples in opposition to this, of an emphasis on people being officially divided between hard workers and dole-scroungers, between genuine invalids and fraudulent incapacity benefit claimants. Some time ago we had to endure government spokespeople relating how “decent, hard-working” people can be seen at five o’clock in the morning trekking to work through dark and silent streets where, behind curtains, benefit fraudsters slept blissfully on. We heard about Boris Johnson complaining that in a sandwich bar he is often served by someone from abroad – because the English are too lazy to compete with diligent foreign workers for such jobs. And a particular victim of this kind of demonising has been, and is increasingly, the disabled.

Disabled

In this cause, the gutter media have joyfully joined the campaign to support the government propaganda that the benefits system is being bankrupted, publishing photographs of incapacity benefit claimants refereeing football games or running in races. This has stimulated an upsurge in discrimination – sometimes abuse or violence – against disabled people commonly assumed to be cheating for their benefits. Charities like Scope, Mencap, Leonard Cheshire, Royal National Institute for the Blind, report regularly receiving calls about this and believe it to be officially encouraged. The head of campaigns at the National Autistic Society has stated that The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) where Iain Duncan Smith is secretary “is certainly guilty of helping to drive this media narrative around benefits, portraying those who receive benefits as work-shy scroungers or abusing the system that’s really easy to cheat”. The Head of Policy at the Disability Alliance said his organisation is hearing of higher levels of verbal abuse: “It seems to be growing as a result of a misperception of much more widespread abuse of benefits than actually exists. That’s being fed by the DWP in their attempts to justify massive reductions in welfare expenditure.” (The intention is to reduce total Disabled Living Allowance payments by 20 per cent by 2015/6.)

So what does Cameron think about his call for unity being used to divide people? That catchphrase of his has passed with the others into a disreputable history, leaving us with two questions. What is the “it” which we are urged to be “in”? And do we want to be there with him? Do we want a society typified by people existing, in this country apart from elsewhere, in such peril that a cut in state benefit reduces them to desperation, needing to choose between buying food and heating their home? Are we impressed by politicians’ transparent efforts to justify this? There is a simple answer: we can do better and as a start we can expose the likes of Cameron and their insidious defence of the indefensible.

Ivan