These Foolish Things: Progress (1996)

The Scavenger column from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Progress

In 1886, the bottom 10 percent of manual workers earned 69 percent of the median manual wage, while the top 10 percent earned 143 percent. Despite the huge shifts in manufacturing over the next 90 years—the growth of new' industries, the rise of trade unionism, the impact of two world wars—the relative position remained virtually unchanged. But since 1977 the relative position has worsened for the bottom 10 percent of manual workers who now get just 61 percent of the median against 161 percent for the top 10 percent. 

Guardian, 10 October.

Oh God!

The Reverend Stanley Mast, of the LaGrave Avenue Christian Reform Church, offered an invocation that should become the official fund-raising prayer of both parties. “O God. as we gather together tonight to honour important people in our country', we pause to acknowledge that you are master of the universe and Lord of the nations.” the Reverend prayed. “As we focus on finances and politics, we give you thanks for the gift of wealth, we thank you for the privilege of living in America, this great land of freedom, a land that not only allows but even encourages the individual pursuit of wealth. We thank you, O God, for the success so many of us have had in that pursuit. . . . Bless our guests of honour. May their generosity and faith inspire us all. Bless these upcoming elections. May the right people be elected. And God bless America. Amen.” 

New Yorker, 5 August.

The City Editor says . . .

Much more hot air, and some acute cases of handwringing have been prompted by a United Nations report that the combined wealth of the world’s 358 billionaires equals the combined incomes of the world population’s poorest 45 percent, or 2.3 billion. Leaving aside the mismatch between wealth and income in that comparison, so what? It is not ownership that is important so much as what the owners or controllers of wealth do with it.

William Kay, Financial Mail on Sunday, 28 July.

Twice kicked

A Midland care assistant was unceremoniously sacked by health chiefs after being injured in an attack at work, it was claimed today. Jenny Jennings, of Solihull Lodge, said she was so badly kicked in the knee by a resident at a Chemsley Wood home that she was unable to do her job . . . Mrs Jennings said it was the second time a member of staff had been badly injured by the resident but the trust management had not acted to prevent it happening again . . .  Solihull’s Healthcare’s director of personnel Mr Nick Gillard said the resident’s care would have been addressed following the first attack. “Having gone through channels and followed policy to the letter Mrs Jennings’ employment was terminated due to ill health,” he said. 

Evening Mail, 16 August.

Now you see it . . .

The Saudi government has tightened its controls on satellite TV, forcing viewers to dismantle dishes and subscribe to its own TV network. On offer is a mixture of Arabic and international programming selected by the Ministry of Information. A five-minute delay has been introduced on foreign channels so that “unsuitable material” can be censored.

           What Satellite TV, 13 October.

      The Scavenger

Miracle in Mornington Crescent (1996)

The A Word in Your Ear column from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

The number 24 bus is not known in the records of classical legend as the site of miracles. Nobody on the number 24 bus route has ever turned water into wine (although later at night cans of4X have been seen to turn to urine) and rarely have moving statues been seen occupying the seats reserved for the elderly and pregnant women. No, it was certainly no miracle which happened last Monday morning; teams of Vatican investigators will not be treading their way from Rome to Mornington Crescent (for it was there that it happened) to record the mysterious happening. There are no miracles; it was no miracle. It was simply a slightly extraordinary event. When I say extraordinary I am not alluding to those strange and semi-credible happenings so frequently found within the dull, unwanted pages of Readers Digest (publisher: the CIA). There you will find stories of women who didn’t know they were pregnant and then one day, while enjoying a casual game of beach volleyball, gave birth to triplets, each of a different ethnic background. Or men who fell from fifty-storey skyscrapers on to a passing bus in which was sitting their long-lost twin. Extraordinary! Incredible is the concept which springs to mind. Presumably the CIA use Readers Digest as a sort of testing ground for human gullibility. The theory must be that if they believe it in the Readers Digest, why not try it out on the suckers in the rigged Latin American election? So let’s be clear about this: we are talking neither of miracles nor stories of the strange and mysterious. All that happened on the 24 bus last Monday was a mildly noteworthy set of circumstances.

I had just returned from a weekend speaking trip to Glasgow. The exhaustion of overnight travel and the joyful memory of a fraternal visit fought in my mind as I made my weary way to the job. Robotically, from shower to letterbox, right shoe on and then left shoe, up the street to the bus stop, the drill was performed and the miserable queue of job-seekers who had sought, found and were fed up was waiting as usual. The bus came. And then . . . 

It began when a woman in the bus queue, carrying a particularly bulky suitcase, stooped to lift it only to find herself pounced upon by two men who insisted upon helping her carry it on. That was kind. Then came a boy who discovered that he was ten pence short on the fare. The woman with the case took out ten pence and paid it. “I’ll pay you back, missus,’’ said the boy. “Pay me when you win the lottery, love,” she replied. The boy’s fumbling for his coin had made the bus a few seconds late and, as it moved off, along ran a man clearly anxious to get on. The driver stopped, opened the doors and smiled at the latecomer. “That was decent of you,” said the man. “You’re more than welcome, mate,’’ said the driver. “I hope you’d do the same for me.” It was at that point that the blind man asked the best stop to get off for University College Hospital. A debate occurred. Passengers vied with one another to be more helpful. “Look,” said the girl in a leather jacket who had recently been reading the Sun, “don’t you worry about the best stop; I work only a few streets from there and it won’t take me five minutes to walk you to exactly where you want to go.” The passengers approved. The woman with the suitcase passed around wine gums. We only took as many as we needed. (I took none.) A couple of Dutch tourists got on and discovered they were going the wrong way for Camden market. But an old man suggested another market where things were cheaper and you could get musical Christmas cards at half price. Whatever musical Christmas cards are, the Dutch couple seemed happy and were soon sharing in the wine gums. The boy offered to show them round his school (they were teachers it turned out) and the blind man told a story of how he had once taken the day off school to go to a Beatles concert. At which point the bus driver asked if anyone would mind if he played an old Beatles tape which his friend had made for him. We all assented. Quite a few sang. It felt like a trip to the seaside. It felt like every day and every journey and every destination should be like this, or, at least, less like it usually is. It felt as if we were a convoy of travelling pups having a lick at our own humanity. It tasted good.

So no miracle occurred. It was probably hardly worthy of note. But it happened and probably it happens much more often than is recorded. People were decent. For the few minutes of that journey on that bus we all overcame the tremendous temptations of this system to push and shove and trample upon one another and act inhumanly, all of which happens daily in the name of “healthy competition”. And then that competitive indecency is paraded before us in the name of “human nature”, as if we are not pups but rotweilers. And so humans are taught to hate themselves—to put muzzles upon themselves lest they bite. But in truth we are happier co-operating than biting or fighting. It was co-operation which allowed the species to survive, after all. And alienated as the profit system makes us from the reality of our species, there are moments which are not miracles—moments when mothers feed their babies and children play in the park and the elderly are crossed over busy roads and one person simply smiles at another without a sinister motive—when humanity triumphs over capitalism. These are not miracles or incredible events. They are merely spectres of what could be if we were to live as we might live.

Steve Coleman

Letters: Just dealing with one of the effects (1996)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just dealing with one of the effects

Dear Editors,

In his recent article ("Class, Micropolitics and Solidarity", October Socialist Standard), Jonathan Clay talks about the action in which four of us disarmed a Hawk attack plane destined for Indonesia. He states that this action was "inspired, but ultimately doomed”, and says that no doubt we realised this all along. I object most strongly to what was one of the most successful anti-arms trade actions ever being dismissed as "doomed”. Nine months after we disarmed that particular plane, it is still in England. It was due to be sent months ago to a counter-insurgency squadron in Indonesia from where it would have been used against civilians in East Timor. The many East Timorese who have written to thank us for our action certainly don’t think it was doomed.

Jonathan Clay goes on to say that our action was undertaken to publicise the situation in East Timor, and that the jury ignored the law in acquitting us. Had he taken the slighted trouble to get his facts right, he would have found that we had a defence in law—that of using reasonable force to prevent crime, a defence under the Criminal Law Act 1967. We did not undertake this action as a publicity stunt—who would risk ten years in prison for publicity? The judge allowed our defence to be put to the jury, who acquitted us on that basis. To suggest that the jury ignored the law is insulting to them and does nothing to help people understand that this kind of action can in certain circumstances be legal. I wonder what actions Jonathan Clay has undertaken to uphold justice and international law—or is he just an armchair activist whose only contribution is to make ill-founded criticisms of other people’s actions?

Andrea Needham, 

Seeds of Hope—East Timor Ploughshares

Reply:

When we said that your action was “ultimately doomed" we meant that it would fail to prevent the Indonesian military getting their attack planes in the end (that's what ultimately means). The most that you could achieve was what you did achieve—to delay delivery and to gain publicity for your cause. We assumed you realised this but if you really expected to stop delivery altogether we misjudged your level of understanding of existing political realities.

Are you holier than us? Probably, but then we don’t share your belief in the efficacy of the law to improve things. In fact, for us, the law is a reflection of private property and profit-motivated society and exists to uphold it. But it is precisely this society—capitalism—with its built-in competitive struggle between states for sources of raw materials, investment outlets, trade routes, markets and strategic positions to control these, which is the root cause of situations like that in East Timor.

Such situations will go on occurring, in some part of the world, as long as capitalism continues to exist. What are you doing to speed the end of capitalism? Or are you just a single-issue activist concentrating exclusively on trying to deal with just one of its many nefarious effects?

Editors

A good thing

Dear Editors,

Jonathan Clay’s article. "Class, Micropolitics and Solidarity" in October’s Socialist Standard was a very welcome and timely one in that it warned against taking a dismissive attitude to defensive class struggle.

Only working class solidarity can get rid of capitalism and achieve world socialism and any expression of such solidarity is a good thing, whether at work, in communities fighting to protect their local environment, or in the various getting-togethers to resist the bosses' latest laws. At least it shows that people will never roll over and die, as the ruling class so dearly wants us to. Obviously none of the above will do much at present to bring about a free society because the required mass class consciousness isn’t there.

However, now more than ever, people involved in defensive struggles are likely to approach the only conclusion there is: that the money system as a whole is the problem. Attacks on the working class are getting more savage by the day, every way of running capitalism has been tried and discredited and there is widespread rejection of the parties of capitalism (including the lefties and their sorry antics). Life itself is an education and the Socialist Party exists to spread the socialist case as widely as possible.

Socialists are all for working class solidarity, but are "under no illusions" that it is mass solidarity for the abolition of capitalism that is so desperately needed.

Ben Malcolm, 

Cardiff

Merciless capitalist class (1996)

Edward Bond

Theatre Review from the December 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Company of Men by Edward Bond 
The Pit Theatre
, Barbican.

The playwright Edward Bond has a formidable reputation as a critic of capitalism. But is it a deserved reputation?

In his latest play In the Company of Men he re-visits some familiar territory. He is concerned to document the merciless competitiveness which is at the heart of big business; to examine the way in which the search for economic power, with its seemingly inevitable deviousness and deception, bullying and lying, spills over into the rest of life and corrupts human relationships; and to catalogue the connections between competitiveness, power, bullying and physical violence.

Adopted son, Leonard, tries to displace his bullying father as the head of an arms manufacturing company. He is aided and abetted in his endeavours by the company secretary, only to discover that he has put himself in the thrall of a rival entrepreneur, Hammond, who is in cahoots with the devious company secretary. What should Leonard do? Hand over the controlling interest in his father's business, or kill his bullying father before Hammond can gain advantage?

Bond is very good when characterising the inanity, the madness and the malevolence which lie at the heart of corporate capitalism, and the hypocrisies which its apologists mouth in its, and their, defence. Hammond is intent on amalgamations which will allow him to sell not butter or guns to the nations of the world, but rather both butter and guns. He says he trusts no none "not even myself'. And Leonard's father rejects the charge that he is ambitious, claiming only to be "a leader wanting to serve".

In the Company of Men is a wordy, verbose play. On its first night it ran for nearly four hours, but when I saw the production some days later it had been trimmed to a mere three-and-a-half hours. Probably Bond shouldn't have directed the play himself. A more objective director would, even now, likely demand more cuts. The play's dense language is often compelling but occasionally it gets in the way of meaning and impact; no matter that it is delivered with conviction and gusto by a talented cast.

A friend remarked as we came out of the theatre that "somewhere in all that there is a play waiting to get out." I know what he meant, but l don't think it’s just a matter of deletions. revisions and amendments. Bond's insights may have been compelling but, to my ears, they were incomplete. Certainly capitalists behave like monsters but Bond never asks why. Is it a matter of choice or does entrepreneurial activity attract those who, for whatever reasons, are inclined to be thrustful, competitive and merciless? Or is it, as the socialist would claim, principally that the mechanics of capitalism demand ruthless, merciless competition because that’s the way the system works?

Bond’s account of the mordant, merciless world of corporate capitalism is powerful and revealing, and it certainly makes for an enjoyable evening. But finally it is an unsatisfactory account, because it is incomplete. Bond describes the behaviour of those caught up in capitalist enterprises very well, but he doesn't help us to understand why his characters behave in the way that they do. And descriptions of the world are not enough. If we want to change things we must engage in more analytical activity. We need to know not only "how" the economic system works and the way it brutalises its combatants, but also "why" it works in the way that it does. In the Company of Men doesn’t really consider such matters.

Michael Gill

News in Review: Rhodesian colour bar (1960)

The News in Review column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rhodesian colour bar
The business interests of the Rhodesian Federation are making slow but steady progress in their attempt to build up a system free from colour bars, and from the inconveniences these cause in trade and industry. In the Northern Rhodesian copper mines, for example, the owners have long wanted to be able to call on the great reserve of local African labour for all the jobs in the mines, instead of having many of them reserved for Europeans. The resistance of the white miners to these proposals led to a long strike by the Europeans in 1958. But after a year's negotiation between the European miners’ union and six of the mining companies, the latter have at last persuaded the whites to allow at least all the unskilled jobs to be done by Africans. It is significant that the African mineworkers' union, although it gave a modified welcome to the agreement, took no part in the discussions: it was the owners who argued the case against the colour bar.


Monckton and Tredgold
In the political field, the. industrial interests are also forging ahead in their struggle with the planters' government under Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Edgar Whitehead. The recent Monckton commission recommended that secession from the Federation should be permitted, even though Welensky only allowed the commission into Rhodesia on Macmillan's promise that they would not be allowed to judge on the question of secession. But clearly the capitalists of Rhodesia feel that they could count on more co-operation from African governments in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia than from the present settlers' government which controls the whole Federation. As they feel their position crumbling, the planters try to bolster their control of the government. Sir Edgar Whitehead has brought in a Law and Order Bill to give himself sweeping powers “to maintain order” (i.e., to silence any opposition which gets out of hand). This has led to the resignation of Sir Robert Tredgold, the Chief Justice of the Federation, in protest. He is to lead a new movement to get rid of Sir Edgar Whitehead. All of which emphasizes the fact that those who support capitalism in Rhodesia are more and more turning on the pressure to over throw the former ruling class, the planters.


Labour controversy
When one considers the issues involved in the recent Labour Party controversy one can only wonder just what all the fuss was about. We were told that if Mr. Gaitskell continues as leader of the Labour Party it may mean the disintegration of that party. Mr. Wilson on the other hand was said to have been of a more conciliatory nature and because of this was more likely to have kept the party united. We are not concerned here with the personalities of the individuals involved except to point out that on the question of what started the controversy, namely, conference decisions on Defence, they differed only in their respective views on how best to maintain some appearance of solidarity in the labour movement. It had been said that should the issue have been settled either way it could possibly have meant the end of the Labour Party “as an effective opposition.” Socialists would have had no such illusions. Since the Labour Party’s inception the S.P.G.B. have been pointing out that the Party in question is not so much a party of opposition as an alternative government, having an occasional term of office in an endeavour to solve the same inevitable capitalist problems which the outgoing party have failed to solve. Socialists would be the last to shed any tears should the present controversy bring about the disintegration of the Labour Party.


Breakdown ?
Unhappy days seem to be here again in the car industry, as heavy redundancies develop in France, Germany and Great Britain. The Canadians have a similar problem and have responded by persuading their government to impose stricter conditions of dumping duty on car imports.

Unemployment is an old working class problem; it is especially ironical that it should reappear in an industry whose product has been the sacred symbol of post-war “prosperity.”

Capitalism, with or without full employment, is a system in which cars, like other commodities, are made only if they can be sold. This—not the policies of parsimonious governments or perfidious car companies—is the root of the troubles in the car industry.

Many workers, with a hire-purchase heap shrouded in balloon fabric at the kerbside, thought that what they called prosperity would last for ever. For these, the redundancies must come as a shock.

Sadly, there is no reason to suppose that unemployed workers are more receptive to the lessons of capitalist society than those who are working. Boom or slump, capitalism is an insecure system and must remain so.


“News Chronicle”
The News Chronicle stuck to what it chose to call its liberal principles like a prim old Auntie watching her hemline. Whatever sordid facts capitalism produced for it to comment upon, the Chronicle’s attitude was always impeccably virtuous.

An innocent could have been forgiven for believing that the newspaper existed only to expound lofty morality.

But the end of the News Chronicle and The Star had nothing to do with principles. Simply, they sold out because they could not balance their accounts: their revenue from sales, advertising and so on did not cover their costs of wages, materials and the like.

The people who sink money into newspapers like to receive a return on their investment, which means that the Chronicle, like any other commodity, was produced for profitable sale. They stopped producing the paper when it became obvious that it had little hope of ever making a profit.

This is the sort of event about which the high-minded Chronicle often had sad and stern words to say. It is ironical that it should have fallen foul of the same commercial necessities of capitalist society.

Head Office (1960)

Party News from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain need a Head Office in Central London comprising a large room, suitable for Executive Committee and other meetings; plus a number of other rooms, for literature distribution. sub-committee meetings, etc. The location must be within reasonable walking distance of an Underground station, in the Kings Cross, Euston, or Camden Town areas; or could be a little further North, or further West. The market for business properties is very lively nowadays. and our approaches to agents have not led to any success. Therefore we ask readers who may be able to help, to send their suggestions to: The New Premises Committee. 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

The King of Nepal (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several weeks ago the King and Queen of Nepal paid a state visit to London. You may recall the event, particularly if you were a Londoner caught up in the traffic chaos that day and were not mollified by the background of pageantry.

The City of London, however, showed pleasure unalloyed. The Crown Prince Birinda of Nepal watched the Guildhall luncheon in honour of his father, King Mahendra. Four hundred guests tackled lobster soup; sole and pheasant.

The king wore the same gorgeous uniform. as he did for his reception by the Royal Family on his arrival, with the addition of the baton of a British field-marshal, newly presented to him by the Queen. In his speech he said:—

  London is especially attractive to us because here was begun the battle of liberty and freedom, centuries ago, and here it was won during the latest—and let us hope, the last—challenge in war.
  The task is now to press on with the Battle of Peace—and we in Nepal unshakeably believe that London is going to be our greatest friend in this struggle, too.

Why do the Nepalese King and Queen hob-nob with “our” Queen, and what is the significance of Nepal to the British ruling class? What meaning lay behind the King's speech at the Guildhall? Such suspicious questions seem to come naturally to Socialists, for we have learned by experience in capitalism not to take too much notice of the description on the label.

May we now proceed to attempt to unravel the little mystery of the royal visit even though it may rather take some of the glitter off the tinsel.

Nepal is a border state between India and Tibet. It is 525 miles long and up to 140 miles wide, with a population of 5½ million. The family of the present ruler has been in power for decades and the history of Nepal is a long story of royal ruthlessness, trickery and bloody outrages.

Nepal invaded Tibet in 1855 and received annual tribute until 1952, when Tibet was colonised by “Socialist” China. Since then China has reversed the process and has become in turn the aggressor. The Chinese last June invaded Nepal's border, killed a Nepalese army officer and took prisoners back. It naturally gave a severe jolt to relations between them and makes it understandable that the Nepalese ruling-class should now wish to lean on the U.K. And with India on its other border Nepal is between two dangerous giants.

But the so-called Socialist Government of Nepal is good at playing one off against the other and in the process doing well for the ruling-class. To date the economic and technical aid from India amounts to about 100 million rupees (£8 million). Besides, India has been helping Nepal build up her vital lines of transportation and supply. A 972 mile highway linking Katmandu, the capital, with the Indian border was constructed by Indian engineers. In 1958 an agreement with India was signed for the laying of nearly 900 miles of roads. India has also agreed to contribute R's 500,000 for irrigation and waterworks.

From China, too, Nepal has received R'S 10 million in economic aid as part of a R's 60 million aid programme. Russia, too, has agreed to set up a hydro-electric power plant, a sugar factory with a diesel power plant, and to prepare a road survey costing three million roubles.

Whilst Nepalese capitalism is expanding, the Nepalese working-class is suffering heavy unemployment and is embarrassing the so-called Socialist government of the country. They, however, hold out hope in the start of the second five-year Plan now beginning, which has made provision to absorb about half a million working people during the Plan period. Social services cannot do much to tackle this thorny problem and the population is growing at the rate of 1.5 per cent. per year.

Amongst the Nepalese underprivileged, so great is the struggle for existence that normally children over 10 work and some even below that age. But unemployment means cheap labour, and cheap labour can give rise to good profits. No wonder the City of London are interested. The dinner at the Guildhall was bread cast upon the water, to be returned with interest.

The recently elected “Socialist” government of Nepal serves to mark that country's entry into the world of capitalism. The Sino-Indian dispute and its repercussions loom large on the Nepalese political horizon, but as a way out the Nepalese ruling class is developing a world consciousness.

When the King of Nepal referred to liberty and freedom, he was no doubt referring to the liberty and freedom for the ruling class to make money with as little in the way of restrictions and hindrances as possible. Those who remember the journeys and activities of the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales will realise that the King of Nepal is not the first royal commercial traveller.

Frank Offord

Peace a Profession? (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Peace Is Our Profession. Headquarters Strategic. Air Command," states the giant notice board outside the U.S. Strategic Air Command H.Q. at Omaha, Nebraska. From this base, under the command of General Power, are directed the activities of 250,000 personnel in seventy bases throughout the world, over 2,000 bombers and jet-tankers, and 90 per cent. of the Western Alliance's nuclear striking power.

In the event of war over 1,000 bombers, each one capable of more destruction than all the bombers involved in the whole of the last war, would be sent aloft. The crews of these bombers have pre-arranged targets and are constantly on the alert; at least once every twenty-four hours the alarm is sounded. The entire fleet of aircraft can be airborne within a quarter of an hour—the first within three and a half minutes.

Under a system of warnings and controls the crews are able to fly to predetermined points on their target routes; if they have a final go-ahead, on the express orders of the American President, they would continue on their routes and press home their attack. (If this final order is not given the bombers are instructed to return to their bases). Simultaneously intercontinental ballistic missiles—the long range rockets with H- bomb war-heads—would be released.

And so it goes on, this melancholy tale of potential destruction on a scale hitherto undreamt of.

These facts and figures apply more or less equally to the Soviet bloc and, of course, to Britain's R.A.F. and the air forces of other powers, all of which are on a permanent war footing. It’s all for peace and for the defence of righteous principles—they all say.

The American ruling class and their allies allege that it's a case of safeguarding freedom, democracy, “a way of life," a heritage; and, to help things along, they are never shy of enlisting the Almighty. Krushchev and company's tale is a little different. Apparently they have to offer defence against imperialism (particularly the American variety) to keep safe the “People's State" and “Socialism." So in order that people should remain “free" (both sides having their own peculiar definitions of this term), opposing capitalist powers are prepared if necessary to take part in the possible wholesale destruction of mankind.

What can be done to end this terrible state of affairs? Capitalist politicians can only talk on terms of a third world war and local conflicts (which may or may not remain localised) as long as they have the unquestioning support of the world's workers. Without this they would be impotent.

Modern wars are caused by property conflicts between rival teams of big business, arrayed on a national level, the private bosses of America and the state bosses of Russia being at present the major contestants. The stakes are high: vast resources, natural and man made, markets for an ever increasing volume of goods, to protect or capture these, capitalist states need strategic bases and political spheres of influence.

With these real, material, profitable bones of contention the alleged principles are clearly demonstrated to be something less than principles. Former enemies who were never, never to be re-armed, become military allies, and personal association with the previous regime is no impediment in this unsavoury process. Franco Spain and Salazar Portugal help to protect “democracy," as does Chiang Kai Shek and as did Syngmann Rhee. Dubious Latin American regimes are supported, so as to ensure stability; that is, the status quo on investments. The Soviet hierarchy with their commercial, and therefore, military commitments, are not at a loss in the game; in fact, they are racing neck and neck, if not leading by a short head.

Fidel Castro seems to be a friend in need at the moment; strategy and oil are more than remarkable coincidences (Batista, his more sadistic predecessor, was a stabiliser of Uncle Sam's). Nasser was the lad sometime ago, and new faces representing new aspiring ruling classes are constantly arising from the colonial struggles.

And so this dirty game of power politics goes on, over issues which are not worth the shedding of one drop of working class blood. It is now 21 years since the beginning of World War II. It began with Allied indignation at German bombing of “open cities," like Warsaw, went on with indiscriminate aerial bombardment by both sides, and concluded with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Are you going to allow an even greater catastrophe, or are you going to wake up NOW!

Frank Simkins

The Passing Show: Freedom of the Press (1960)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom of the Press
In recent years many newspapers have been forced to cease publication or to sell out and merge with their competitors. No longer are only small papers involved: in the past few months papers as well known as the Sunday Empire News, the News Chronicle and the Star, have gone the way of the rest. It is a cliche that the Freedom of the Press is in practice the freedom of rich men to spread their views through the newspapers they own. Those of us in the Socialist Party know only too well that without vast amounts of capital the Socialist Standard has been able to reach only a small minority of the working class. But the conditions of entry in the newspaper stakes are becoming even more stringent than ever before. The News Chronicle lost money (and therefore, in a capitalist society, had in due course to close down) even though it had a daily readership of over one million. People other than millionaires have not been able to produce a healthy daily paper for many years: now, even the lesser millionaires must be getting worried. Once any millionaire with a taste for it could partake of the Freedom of the Press: now, apparently, only multi-millionaires are allowed to join the club.

Harmony
The news that the Archbishop of Canterbury is going to visit the Pope makes one wonder what they will talk about. At any rate, we can be sure it won't do the working class any good. For the Pope agrees with the Archbishop that capitalism is a fine system. This is from the Sunday Press (18/10/59):

  The Holy Father yesterday contrasted the appalling exploitation of workers at the beginning of the century with their present-day pleasant working conditions. Management and labour, working together in harmony, had created a new situation where the workers had never had it so well.

The reader may think that at least it is something that the Pope realises that things were bad sixty years ago. But, of course, everyone will agree that things were bad sixty years ago. The ruling class and its allies are prepared to admit anything except that the present system is bad. In the early years of the century, when the Socialist Party was already working, speaking and writing about "the appalling exploitation of workers," the then Popes were supporting the capitalist system, just as the present Pope supports the capitalist system now. In fifty years' time, no doubt, the Pope (if there still is one) will be talking about “the appalling exploitation of the workers in I960." But it does no good to attack the evils of half a century ago: they can't be altered now. What must be done is to attack the evils of today—i.e., the evils which are inseparable from the capitalist system.

Pray and work

And what has the Pope to say about the present? He gave, apparently, a “rousing warning against those who trampled the sacrosanct rights of the human person’’—but had no word to say of the Catholic-supported Fascist government of Spain, which denies the workers the most elementary democratic rights. And he rounded off with some advice which must have had every capitalist in the audience standing and cheering:

  The Pope recommended the workers to practise Christian virtues and follow the motto of St. Benedict, “Ora et Labora” (pray and work). In so doing, you will earn the treasures of heaven, he said. 

Believe that if you like. One thing is certain: you won't earn treasures anywhere else.


Monkey business
At a furniture factory in Houston, Texas, three chimpanzees have begun work sealing cushions and doing other simple jobs. The factory-owner plans to replace one employee each week with a chimp. To the factory's workers, this means the threat of the sack, the threat of unemployment. But there is more to it than that. Surely this news item underlines our present predicament. These human beings—members of the human race, which produced Michaelangelo, Beethoven, Shakespeare—are now reduced to spending their working lives doing monotonous, repetitive jobs which could be done as well by chimpanzees. This is not a question of spending a couple of hours a day, or ten hours a week, tending machines, which people may well decide to do under Socialism, in order to produce enough of the necessaries of life and at the same time free themselves for the rest of the time to develop their personalities as they think best. This is a question of workers spending their entire working lives on stultifying tasks.

The Daily Herald (12/11/60) printed an article which said this should be stopped because of the harm it would do to the human ego. “. . . There are things that the human ego rejects, out of hand, without another thought. And one of those things is the realisation that one's occupation, one’s life work, could be done equally well by a chimpanzee.”

This must typify the difference in political thought between reformers and Socialists. The writer of the Herald article would stop the chimpanzees doing "these jobs, because it makes obvious the degradation of human beings involved— this, of course, would do nothing to stop the degradation. Socialists, on the other hand, want to abolish the system which leads to men spending their lives in this way.

No trivialities

From an advert, in The Times (19/10/60):

  The owner of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II has his sights firmly on fundamentals and is never decoyed by passing trivialities. A philosophy reflected in his choice of motor car. . . .

So that’s how you get a Rolls. Next time you see anyone driving a broken-down old jalopy tied together with string, don’t assume rashly that it’s because he can’t afford anything better: no, it was his philosophy which led him to choose that model. If you feel that you have your “sights firmly on fundamentals” and the rest of it—well, your philosophy clearly entitles you to a Rolls. Better apply direct.

Alwyn Edgar

Finance and Industry: Making Money from Armaments (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making Money from Armaments

A generation or more ago, when most of the world's armaments were made by private companies, it seemed plausible to many people that if the armament-making came under government control and private profit was taken away there would be no deliberate encouragement of armament competition and the risk of war would be less. It was always a mistaken hope because the economic rivalries that make for war come from all the profit-seeking interests in all the countries, not just some sections or some countries. And in our own day armaments moving openly or secretly across the world are mostly despatched by governments not by private companies. These in any event could not operate without the consent of their own government.

The popular way of looking at the armament trade has changed too, and “merchants of death” has gone out of fashion as a term of abuse. This is not surprising, because the governments supplying the arms now present themselves as public benefactors, only concerned to help “good causes.” Anyway, all the governments are in the business—from the last Labour Government in Britain, which sold military aircraft abroad, to America, Israel and Russia.

Russia's latest business deal in its growing invasion of world markets is the reported sale to India of £11 million worth of equipment, including heavy transport aircraft, helicopters and road building machinery. (Guardian, 7/10/60). The India Government wanted to buy in America but the Russians offered the stuff at lower prices. The significant aspect is that the purpose of the purchase is to enable India “to defend its border with China.”

Of course, China may or may not continue to be Russia's ally, but business is business, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and who can object if Russia helps both sides.

It recalls the attitude of the Russian Government (and of the Communist Party) during the war, before Russia became involved. The Russian Government was selling oil and other materials to Germany and some simple-minded people here complained about it. Which brought from the Secretary of the Russia Today Society a letter to the Manchester Guardian assuring its readers that the Russian Government was quite willing to sell to both sides.

The "Alternative" Society

The people who refer to present-day capitalism as the affluent society make much of the greater variety of articles that are available to be bought by the mass of the population. They quote aggregate figures of washing machines, motor cars, refrigerators, etc., and the figures look impressive. But Mr. Mark Abrams, writing in the Observer (23/10/60) provides an analysis which puts the matter in better perspective. He divides families into two groups, those in “which the chief earner is in a white-collar post and earning at least £800 a year,” and those not in this group. About a third of families fall into the first group, and two-thirds into the second group, which he calls “working-class.”

He includes receivers of property incomes in this group as well as wage and salary earners. He shows that “only one item—the television set—is to be found in the majority of British homes.’' The rest are the possessions of minorities.

His list showing the percentage who own various items, among his “working-class” group is as follows:—

Television set            79 per cent.
Lawn mower             34 „ „
Washing machine ...  37 „ „
Car                            22 „ „
Refrigerator              13 „ „
House                         29 „ „

He does not make the important point that the percentage who own all of these items is, on his figures, at most 13 per cent. He does not include a telephone in this list; had he done so the percentage owning the lot would probably be under 10 per cent.

And he does not stress the point that “own” is an ambiguous term since millions of the houses and the rest are only “owned” by the user in the sense that he has them while paying off the mortgage or hire purchase instalments. And “car” includes all the barely roadworthy crocks.

Another enquiry (also referred to in the Observer) brings out that “many families when furnishing a home, prefer to leave some rooms bare rather than incur a small millstone of debt.” For the majority of workers it is not a question of moving all the things on the list but of owning one or two because they cannot afford them all—the alternative society. You can have full choice as long as you can afford what you buy.

A description of life in Stepney by Godfrey Hodgson (Observer, 21/8/60.) had the following which should further dampen the optimists.

  The Rev. Joseph Williamson, of St. Paul's, Dock Street, said that the best living quarters in his parish were the Peabody Buildings. They had no baths. The lavatories and sinks were outside the flats themselves, and were shared. “In illness, in winter especially, this is bad.” But all the other blocks of old flats were far worse.
  “Apart from the flats,” Father Williamson went on, “we have squalor beyond belief. Let me say in all seriousness that on a modern farm the accommodation provided for pigs is far superior.”

Canada’s Unemployment

The myth still receives wide acceptance that all the countries have for a decade had the low level of unemployment ruling in Britain. This ignores the years of massive unemployment that afflicted the workers in Germany and Italy until comparatively recently. And it ignores Canada. The Financial Times (28/10/60) printed a graph of unemployment in the past four years since January, 1957. It shows unemployment in Canada reaching 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. in each winter and never falling below 4 per cent. except early in 1957 and for a short period in 1959.

The Canadian Government has been calling special conferences to deal with the situation and admits that it threatens to get worse. Many British immigrants are coming back. The Canadian motor industry has been asking for tariff protection against the import of British cars.

Canadian workers out of a job or threatened with dismissal because of falling sales can derive what comfort they can from their Prime Minister’s remark that “the situation would get worse if action were not taken, and he promised that it would be taken before Parliament met.” Times (24th September, 1960.)

Russian Trade Policy

The oil industry has been worried by big Russian sales of oil at below the prices ruling in the rest of the world, but the Times (11/10/60) hopefully interprets some remarks made by Krushchev at a lunch in New York when he was asked: —

  Whether Russia would extend to other commodities the same sort of agreement on quotas that it had accepted already for tin, aluminium and diamonds.” According to Pravda “Mr. Krushchev replied that there was no reason why this principle should not be extended to other goods.”

The Times interprets this as meaning that “Russia is willing to join international commodity agreements provided that Western countries are prepared to allow the U.S.S.R. what it regards as a fair share of the market.” In the diamond industry it will be remembered that Russia now sells all its diamonds through the South African Diamond Group. A correspondent writing in Reynolds News (16/10/60) went further and suggested that Western oil interests are trying to do a deal with Russia.

   The leading capitalists in the world, the mammoth international oil companies, are planning to break through the Cold War barriers that have throttled top-level political contact between East and West since the Paris Summit fiasco. They are determined to make a vast oil deal with the Russians. In effect, they want to set up a cartel agreement that would span all the world's oil supplies . . . though the first news leaks, planned to test the temperature, refer to the scheme as a “ live and let live arrangement.”
   The Plan: Russia should be allowed to move immediately and extensively into the huge European oil market. With a one-fifth increase in consumption in 1959, this is still the world’s biggest market despite mounting African and Asian demands.
   In return, the Russians would offer the big international companies no oil challenge in the rest of the Western Zone and among the neutral nations.

Business Morality

Children may still be taught that honesty is the best policy and crime does not pay, but once they enter the adult world of business these notions fade away, not by “brainwashing” but simply by disuse; to be replaced by the practical rule that what is profitable is right, but when in doubt you should consult a good lawyer. In a successful take-over bid those who lose may set up an outcry about “shady methods,” but the business world really sees nothing wrong in taking over a concern at a fraction of its value, throwing out or buying out sitting directors, and getting rid of redundant workers. And when the takeover assumes the form of a government seizing foreign investments at dictated rates of compensation or none at all, the rest of the world sheds no tears over the “business immorality” of it but hurries in to trade with the new owners.

Cuba is a case in point. Fidel Castro’s government seized American-owned sugar plantations and factories and went on handling and selling the sugar on its own account. From the standout of capitalist morality these are "stolen goods.” So the American ex-owners started action to obstruct the sale of Cuban sugar by Castro’s government. At this point we turn to the Daily Telegraph (22/10/60), a correspondent of which had been making enquiries about the Americans’ chances.

The one thing entirely missing from the article was a nice upstanding declaration that of course they would not touch stolen goods, because that would be dishonest. The attitude rather was the purely legalistic one that the American companies do not stand a chance of proving their case. Not a denial that the Sugar is “stolen” but a near certainty that no American company can prove that a particular lot of unmarked Cuban sugar came from a particular factory which used to belong to the company.

The article quoted “a spokesman of a City firm” who said: “It is impossible to make any forecast. But if you have a cargo of, say 9,000 tons of sugar it would be very difficult for a person on the other side of the Atlantic to say: ‘These grains came from our factory'. "

Tate and Lyle’s are going on buying Cuban sugar and told the Daily Telegraph “We have not allowed our buying policy to change as a result of the dispute between the Cubans and the Americans.”

Edgar Hardcastle

The Hidden Persuaders (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard. (Penguin Books. 2/6d.)

This interesting, and in part entertaining, critique of a now not so new approach to advertising has recently been added to the Penguin catalogue. Although this one short book obviously cannot, and indeed does not attempt to, deal more than very superficially with the subject (as well as revealing Mr. Packard's obvious bias) it contains much useful information and some pertinent comments.

Motivation research invented and pioneered by people like Dr. Ernest Dichter (President of Motivation Research Inc.) and Louis Cheskin (Director of the Colour Research Institute of America) as early as the 1930's, has been developed since the second World War, and really became established in the early I950‘s. Even today those who are most enthusiastic admit that “M.R.” is only in its early stages.

What is M.R., and how does it help in advertising? Briefly, it could be explained as “selling to the subconscious that is, finding people’s hidden weaknesses, wishes and frustrations, and exploiting these in order that, to meet expanding production, they can be persuaded to buy more.

Different experts favour different methods of M.R., the best known of these is the “depth interview." For this individuals or groups of people taken from a cross section of the population are led in discussion by experts, having first been put in a relaxed state of mind either by hypnosis or the administration of a special drug. It is claimed by advocates of this method that. "when their defences are down,” people reveal secrets to which they would not admit under normal circumstances.

M.R. is used not only in persuading the consumer to buy more. Public relations experts can be found advising churchmen on how they can become more effective manipulators of their congregation, business concerns of their employees and politicians of their voters.

By the mid-fifties both major United States Parties had become deeply involved in the use of professional persuaders. In early 1956 “Nation's Business,” published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, proclaimed: “Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods. These include scientific selection of appeals, planned repetition. . . . Candidates need, in addition to rich voices and good diction, to be able to look ‘sincerely' at the TV camera." This method of ‘selling’ was used to such an extent at the last but one Presidential Election that Mr. Adlai Stevenson said: “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal . . . is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."

As Socialists are not surprised that those in control under the present system are constantly trying to think of new ways to persuade us (quoting Christianity and Crisis, an American Protestant publication) ‘‘to consume, consume and consume, whether we need or even desire the product almost forced upon us . . . to consume to meet the needs of the productive process,” to accept their ideas, religion and leaders.

Although at present the use of M.R. in the United Kingdom is negligible, it will certainly increase. The Observer may have had this in mind when featuring Dr. Dichter in their “Profile" a few weeks ago.

Mr. Packard in his final chapter quotes Clyde Miller in his book The Process of Persuasion: “When we learn to recognise the devices of the persuaders, we build a ‘recognition reflex.' Such a recognition reflex can protect us, not only against the petty trickery of small time persuaders operating in the commonplace affairs of everyday life, but also against the mistaken or false persuasions of powerful leaders. . . That, surely, is a good thing for all of us to bear in mind when listening to the utterances of those who “lead" us today.

E. C.

Clear Thinking (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thinking to Some Purpose, by L. Susan Stebbing. Penguin Books (2/6).

Do you know what special pleading is? Would you recognise a syllogism if you saw one? Do you realise the fallacies that may lie behind an “average” figure?

If you are a Socialist—reading, discussing, arguing about Socialism—you will know how necessary it is to be able to detect fallacies in your opponent’s arguments. And, for that matter, in your own. Thinking to Some Purpose will enable you to recognise immediately all the most common fallacies. It gives the groundwork of logic, put in simple, straightforward terms.

Special pleading, for example. This arises when someone makes an assertion that apparently applies to everyone, and yet clearly it is never intended to apply to the speaker. The speaker, in other words, makes an implied “special plea” in his own favour.

  You may hear a person who lives on a large inherited income complaining that the “dole” given to the unemployed “pauperizes” them by giving them the means of subsistence without working for it. Or, again, wealthy people sometimes argue that, if higher wages were paid to bricklayers and miners, for instance, they will only spend the extra money on amusements, such as the cinema and football pools; yet these same people may defend their own expenditure on amusements and luxuries on the ground that they are giving employment.

Miss Stebbing also quotes the well-known example of special pleading from Archdeacon Paley’s Reasons for Contentment addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public, part of which runs:

  But no man can rest who has not worked. Rest is the cessation of labour. It cannot, therefore, be enjoyed, or tasted, except by those who have known fatigue. The rich see, and not without envy, the refreshment and pleasure which rest affords to the poor, and choose to wonder that they cannot find the same enjoyment in being free from the necessity of working at all.

Archdeacon Paley is saying here, in effect, that a poor labouring life is (for various reasons) a good thing; but at the same time he enters an implied “special plea” on behalf of the rich, since obviously these arguments are not intended to apply to them. As Miss Stebbing says, the poor “may have found it difficult to believe that the rich, who showed no eagerness to become poor, were in fact envious of the conditions imposed by poverty.”

To come to the second of the questions at the beginning of the article, a syllogism is a group of three statements, of such a kind that if the first two (the premises) are true, then the third (the conclusion) must also be true. For example:

All grass is green.This plant is grass.Therefore—This plant is green.

One of the reasons why one should be able to recognise a syllogism is that it enables one to see what isn’t a syllogism. We have all heard arguments like this:

I read in the paper that John Jones had knocked down an old woman and stolen her money.John Jones is a negro.Therefore all Negroes knock down old women and steal their money.

When written out in this way, the argument is obviously absurd. But it is on this level that very much political argument is carried on, and one has to be prepared to see it for what is is, and to counter it.

As for averages, it has to be remembered that while they are useful in summarizing information in some cases, in others they may well mislead. Suppose, for example, that in one group of eleven people, ten received £500 a year, and one £5,000 a year. It could be concluded that they all had enough to live on, because the average income of these eleven people is over £900. But, of course, that would be totally misleading. The average used here is what is called the “arithmetic mean”—that is, the figure obtained by adding up all the items in the group and dividing by the total number of items. A much better idea of the realities of the situation could be obtained by taking the mode, that is the item in the group that occurs most frequently, or the typical representative of the group. In the above group, the mode income is £500 a year, since ten of the eleven people in the group receive it. But very often the newspapers or political speakers use the arithmetic mean where the mode would be more appropriate, to try to prove, for example, that we “all” spend fantastic sums per week on tobacco, or drink, or gambling, and that therefore we must “all” be very well off.

Miss Stebbing covers all these and many other points of logic. She was not a Socialist. But she wrote a book which will be read with profit by anyone who wishes to train himself to think clearly.

Alwyn Edgar

Organisation Man (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are you fond of literature and music? Would you put your wife and children before your work? Do you feel unhappy about the way society is organised?

Yes? Then it’s unlikely you’ve the makings of a good Organisation Man—one of the fast-expanding army of junior and middle managements men in American Big Business.

William H. Whyte, an American journalist with an interest in sociology, puts him under the microscope in The Organization Man, published by Penguin Books in a 3s. 6d. edition. He reveals a picture of co-operation with conformity.

The typical O.M., a college graduate with a strong technical bias, sinks his individual identity into the group. He thinks, talks and acts like the collective. “Don't question or query things, accept them; be technically efficient, co-operate with the Company, and you’ll be looked after” is the philosophy peddled by his “benevolent” boss.

At work, he trains as a “dedicated” specialist in a team of “ dedicated ” specialists, toes the Company line, and wins promotion through personality tests—"Do yon agree foreigners are dirtier than Americans”?—designed to determine his ability to integrate himself in the Organisation.

At home, a mortgaged-to-the-hilt house in a “model” suburb, he and his wife participate actively in local affairs and just about make ends meet on a perpetual overdraft.

Whyte is worried about the O.M.’s loss of individuality; he calls it “a surrender to dehumanised values.” He’s worried, too, about the growing emphasis on specialisation at the expense of a broad, liberal education.

But both factors are not peculiar to American capitalism, or, for that matter, to Big Business.

First, unorthodox thought which questions the social system has never been popular with capitalists anywhere, be they large or small. And today the bigger capitalists in Western Europe, as well as America, strive to sidetrack criticism of the system among their executives with the carrot of Company cars, expense accounts, special allowances and top-hat pension schemes.

Second, scientific and technological skills are of vital importance to the advanced industrial nations in their cut-throat competitive struggles. A knowledge of higher mathematics produces more profits than a knowledge of Greek mythology.

Whyte urges the O.M. to fight back, but “not selfishly or stupidly,” and certainly not with the aim of changing society. Like every reformer, he has no real quarrel with capitalism which breeds conformity and an education system shackled to the profit motive.

He has yet to understand that only in a society liberated from the profit motive can man develop his individuality and knowledge to serve the common good.

Peter Jenner

Sting in the Tail: So What’s New? (1992)

The Sting in the Tail column from the May 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

So What’s New?

America is determined to remain the world's sole unrivalled superpower and is ready to guard against any Western European challenger, It is claimed.

The New York Times, quoting a Defence Department document, said the US must convince potential competitors "that they need not aspire to a greater role".

Instead, a single superpower will use its military might and "benevolent domination" to deter any challenger.

The US would "selectively address" those wrongs which threatened America and its allies' interests.

ITN's Oracle 8 March

Breaking into Jail or Militant Martyrdom

Tommy Sheridan, the leading light in Scottish Militant's anti-poll tax campaign, contested Glasgow Pollok from his cell where he is spending a six month sentence for defying an interim interdict.

According to his election leaflet Tommy is, as every good Trotskyist aspires to be, a "hero” and a "martyr": He runs in charity marathons and if he spots any local laden with shopping bags he will stop and say "c'mon, jump in". Mother Teresa isn't in it.

In case all this wasn't enough to impress the voters then much was made of his "university education” but Tommy's trump card was to be his list of reforms which he would pursue "when elected”. These included a Scottish Parliament, the re-nationalisation of privatised Industries, mortgage-to-rent conversion, and many other measures which would leave capitalism untouched. Incidentally, the word "socialism" didn't appear once.

And what was the result of all the martyrdom and goodies offered to the workers of Pollok? Tommy still lost by nearly 8,000 votes.

Jumping the Queue

In a report in The Herald (6 April) the medical correspondent reported that nearly 2,000 staff, most of them nurses, stand to lose their jobs in Glasgow's psychiatric hospitals over the next four years. This would cut nursing staff by half.

The unit general manager, Mr Tim Davison, said of these cuts that they would serve to increase further the "relative efficiency and competitiveness" of the unit.

Competitiveness in treating mentally-ill workers? This is the economics of the mad house indeed!

So while mentally-ill people roam the streets lacking even the minimum of health care, patients are being turned away from psychiatric hospitals. As the waiting list grows there is always one way to beat the system. According to a psychiatrist working in Glasgow:

  "They have to be placed somewhere else. Occasionally, you get the situation where there isn't a bed available in Glasgow at all. You have a suicidal patient you want to admit, and you have to leave him to turn up at out-patients next day, hoping he hasn't killed himself In the meantime."

Empty Slogans

"My Vote", "It's Time For Labour", "The Best Future For Britain". These were the election slogans of the three big parties, and the Socialist Workers Party had to have one too.

Remember some of their past slogans, gems like "Labour To Power Minus The Bomb" and "Vote Labour But Without Illusions"7 This time it was "Vote Labour And Build A Socialist Alternative”.

The one constant factor here is their urging workers to vote Labour, but with such a talent for slogans surely the SWP ought to be in advertising — just think of the mountains of soap powder and the rivers of lager they could be selling!

Well, maybe, but we can be sure that one slogan we'll never get from the SWP is "Abolish The Wages System".

A Deeper Slump

Capitalism's long-promised economic recovery will eventually come but things may get worse before they get better.

This would be due to the international nature of capital and in particular to the recent plunge in share prices on the Tokyo stock market. From a peak of 39,000 in 1989 the Nikkei share index has fallen to below 17,000.

These falling share prices mean falling profits for Japanese banks which own vast amounts of shares, and it is these banks which are responsible for providing much investment worldwide — 24% of British financial assets are held by Japanese banks and they provide 14% of the ECs direct inward investment (The Guardian 8 April). They also fund America's huge budget deficit and we all know that when America's economy sneezes then the world economy catches cold.

If these falling share prices mean that Japanese banks severely reduce their lending then the recession will deepen. Of course all of this may not happen; the Nikkei climbed by over 1,200 points in one day (9 April), but it shows that events in one part of the world influence events elsewhere and it also shows that the economic plans made by businesses and governments are — well, just plans.

Rich Pickings

The popular press never tire of telling us about working class scroungers. Those workers who actually have the effrontery to claim social security payments while working part-time in a public house, or doing a spot of gardening on the side.

Little or nothing is ever reported about the gigantic legal frauds carried out by members of the ruling class. The Observer Magazine (5 April) did however carry a report about a group of well-heeled landowners who have a nice little earner.

Under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act many of them are coining it in. This was an Act intended to keep some land free from the overdevelopment that is the norm of capitalism. All the owner had to do was threaten to develop the land and the Act would provide him with lavish compensation for doing nothing.

John Grant of Rothiemurchus owns 25,000 acres of Scottish wilderness. The government are about to give him a payment of £670,000 for not developing it and he is claiming an annual payment of £92,000 on top of that!

What about pension rights? (1992)

From the May 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we looked at figures provided by the Inland Revenue and concluded that although the distribution of all forms of wealth was unequal enough—the top 1 percent own 18 percent, the top 10 percent own 53 percent while the bottom 50 percent own a mere 6 percent—the distribution of capital, as forms of wealth yielding an unearned income, was even more unequal. The top 1.5 percent of wealth-owners with £200,000 or more owned 36 percent while the bottom 65 percent owned virtually none.

Others have used a different set of figures to reach a different conclusion: those for the ownership of shares traded on the London Stock Exchange which show that only about 17 percent are now owned by private individuals (see graph). The rest are owned by commercial and financial institutions of one kind or another, in particular by insurance companies, pension funds, unit trusts and investment trusts or “institutional investors” as they are collectively known as. Since a large part of the funds of these institutions comes from small investors, the claim is made that these figures mean that the capitalist class now own only 17 percent of capital in Britain and even that the remaining 83 percent is owned by the working class.

Whatever may be the significance of the decline of the private Stock Exchange investor—what it means is that the person of the capitalist has become even more redundant, not only to organising production but now also to the specifically capitalist function of finance, making it clear that what we are up against is an impersonal system—it does not alter the figures for the distribution of capital given in last month's article.

Just because the rich no longer invest directly on the Stock Exchange to the extent that they used to does not mean that they don't do so indirectly. They too have bank accounts. They too have insurance policies (Maxwell was reportedly insured for £20 million). They too resort to investment trusts. According to the Inland Revenue figures, those with £100,000 or more (not enough at the lower end, it is true, to be a real capitalist but still only 7 percent of the population) own not only 85 percent of company shares (not just the 17 percent mentioned above but also of those held via unit trusts and investment trusts), but also 47 percent of bank accounts and 47 percent of insurance policies as well as 81 percent of other financial assets (mainly government and local authority bonds) (see Table 1).

Money invested in insurance policies, personal pensions, unit trusts, banks and building societies is taken into account in the Inland Revenue statistics—and they show that those with £100,000 or more own 61 percent of all capital. The one exception is the money in pensions funds, but would this alter the figures and who does it belong to anyway?

The Inland Revenue in fact publishes three sets of figures for the distribution of wealth. The first covers the distribution of "marketable wealth”. The second adds in occupational pension rights. The third adds in both occupational and state pension rights. The results of these additions, for what they are worth, for 1989 are given in Table 2.

Non-existent billions

The third set of figures—that incorporating state pension rights—is completely worthless. The government actuary has estimated the total value of state pension rights in 1988 to be £573 billion (Economic Trends, November 1991). As anybody who works or has worked acquires state pension rights this amount is assumed to be evenly divided amongst the adult population. So half, or £286.5 billion, is attributed to the bottom 50 percent. This is three times the total “marketable wealth” owned by this category and an average of £13.000 a person, so, by this simple device, increasing their average holding from £4000 to £17,000! Since only 1 percent of the total, or £5.73 billion, is added to the total wealth held by the top 1 percent, the overall effect is to considerably reduce the degree of inequality in the figures for the distribution of wealth. The share of the top 1 percent falls to 11 percent and that of the top 10 percent to 38 percent while that of the bottom 50 percent rises to 17 percent.

But this exercise is quite fraudulent. This figure of £573 billion—equal to more than a third of “marketable wealth”, which is wealth that really exists and is recorded in the first set of figures in Table 1—is purely fictitious. It has no real existence. There are no real assets “owned by the working class” and invested on the Stock Exchange that correspond to it. The figure is obtained by converting the flow of income represented by present and future state pensions into a notional lump sum. This is legitimate for some accounting purposes, but what is not legitimate is to go on to assume that this sum actually exists and to attribute it to individuals, in the event mostly workers, as part of their wealth.

State pensions in Britain are paid out of taxation. They are what the National Accounts statisticians call a “transfer payment”; someone else’s income is taxed and then transferred to state pensioners as their income. As taxes ultimately fall only on property incomes there are real capital assets somewhere which, through the exploitation of productive labour, yield the income out of which state pensions are paid. But these assets belong not to workers with state pension rights but to the rich property-owners on whom the taxes to pay the pensions fall.

The absurdity of converting a transfer payment into a notional capital sum and counting this as part of the wealth of the recipient can be seen when other transfer payments are given the same treatment. Income Support, for instance. It, too, could be converted into “wealth" and used to show that the poor are not really poor at all. In fact, since in many instances Income Support is higher than the basic state pension and since, being paid to people below pension age, it is payable over a longer period, the “wealth” which would be attributed to many on Income Support would be much greater than the extra £13,000 state pensioners are supposed to possess. Because attributing wealth of, say, £20,000 to someone on Income Support would be dismissed as absurd, the government's statisticians have not dared to do this calculation. They’d be laughed to scorn, as they should be for doing the same thing with state pensions.

But what about occupational pensions, those paid by employers? Most occupational pensions are not transfer payments since they are paid out of a fund that really does exist and which really is invested, among other places, on the Stock Exchange. The government actuary estimated the value of occupational pension rights in 1988 to be £441.6 billion, or on average £21,800 for each of the 20 million people in occupational pension schemes (Economic Trends, November 1991). But the total value of all pension funds is only £330 billion. It is the inclusion of civil service pensions, which are transfer payments, that is the main explanation for this discrepancy. So these must be taken out before we can even begin to take the figures seriously.

Once this has been done, there still remains £330 billions worth of real capital. Who does it belongs to? Legally it is the property of the trustees of the pension fund, who are required by law to manage it in the best financial interests of the scheme's existing and future pensioners. But this is not the whole story.

Employers are not obliged to set up a pension scheme for their employees, so those that do can be assumed to have done so in what they perceive to be their own best interest; in other words, with a view to enhancing their profits and profitability. Such factors as winning the loyalty of white collar staff, attracting and keeping skilled labour, and having a generally contented, and so more productive, workforce enter into the calculation.

If an employer wants to set up a pension scheme the law lays down that the money to pay present and future pensions must be kept quite separate from the rest of the firm's capital. Otherwise of course the temptation would be there for the employers, when they needed more capital or when they get into financial difficulties, to raid the money in the pension scheme. In most schemes the trustees are employer representatives wearing another hat and, although few go as far as the late great Robert Maxwell, they sail as close to the wind as they can. The law permits up to 5 percent of a pension fund to be invested in the employer's business. Employers can also quite legally appropriate a part of any surplus in their pension scheme:

  Companies throughout the country are wondering if they can. or should, follow Lucas by siphoning cash from their own pension funds.
 The group, based in Birmingham, has swelled its coffers by £150m. using a new rule giving companies access to what has been an untouchable source. The money came at a useful time for Lucas, whose automotive arm has been hard hit by the recession: it reduces the ratio of shareholders’ funds to company debt from 39 to 16 per cent.
 Attempted raids on the pension fund are a favourite tactic by finance directors looking to shore up balance sheets and are usually the catalyst for heart-rending schemes in which pensioners, having given the company the best years of their lives, feel distraught. insecure and betrayed . . .
 The freeing of the Lucas pension fund surplus results from a change to tax legislation governing occupational—that is, funds linked to employers’—pension schemes. (Independent, 26 November 1991).

There have also been cases where firms have been taken over by rivals hoping to get their hands on the surplus in their pension fund.

So, who do pension funds belong to? As can be seen, a strong case can be made for saying that they belong to the employers who set them up. The existence of the scheme benefits them; they have the final say in how the scheme is run and what benefits it provides; they pay most of the money into the scheme and, as the Lucas case shows, they can get some of it back when there is a surplus. On this view, the funds belong to the employers but are kept, by a legal device, in a fund separate from the rest of the capital of the business.

That there are serious difficulties in saying that pension funds are owned by the workers who receive or are due to receive payments from them is in part recognised by the Inland Revenue itself which excludes them from the figures it issues for the amount and distribution of “marketable wealth”. Their grounds for doing so are that, although in their view the capital in pension funds can be attributed to individuals and then counted as part of their wealth in the same way that they do for state pensions, these individuals don't exercise full ownership rights over it— they can't sell it or bequeath it to their inheritors; in short, they can't “market” it. To get round this the Inland Revenue has invented the strange concept of “non-marketable wealth” as wealth owned by individuals but over which they cannot exercise the basic right of ownership, namely, to sell it!

Workers have a more sensible conception of what occupational pensions are, seeing them, not as part of their “wealth”, but as deferred wages paid by their former employers.

Adam Buick

Next month: Do the rich get richer?