Victory and then what? (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another preventable tragedy is drawing to a close. The War that has spread death and destruction over a great part of the earth has come to an end in the western countries, and men and women in the fighting forces are anxiously awaiting the signal to go home. Home! Back to the old monotonous life in the office, the shop and the factory, toiling like beasts of burden for the enrichment of those who own the means of production, and with the constant dread of unemployment and penurious old age.

Europe is strewn with cities of the dead, the demented, the hungry and the homeless. Wonderful products of man's age long ingenuity, constructed by the labour of slaves, ancient, mediaeval and modern, have been reduced to shapeless heaps of rubble in a wild orgy of destruction unparalleled in any other period of human history. The unbridled savagery of the uncivilized Vandals and Huns of Antique and Mediaeval times has been surpassed by the calculated savagery of the highly civilized nations of to-day. War is always brutal and when the result of decades of scientific discoveries are centred upon means and methods of carrying on warfare, the brutality and cynical destruction is correspondingly colossal. And even so the last year of the War has shown us that we have only had a taste of things to come if the cause of war is left untouched by the only people who can abolish it—the working class.

The tragic aspect of the last six years is the fact that war solves no working class problem; it even throws up more problems and makes old problems more pressing On the one hand it gives an impetus to methods for reducing the amount of labour required to produce a given amount of wealth, on the other hand it converts thousands of ordinary workers into highly skilled technicians to compete with each other for a relatively reducing number of jobs. Many a trained specialist in different fields of industry will be walking the streets looking for a job in the not far distant future, just as their lesser skilled brethren did a year or two after the last War. And yet it is just the working class that bears the overwhelming burden of War, does nearly all the fighting and makes the principal sacrifices.

We now learn that the new world for which so many were called upon to struggle, and for which so many laid down their lives, is not yet. Food in the world is short, transport is ruined, the destruction of bomb and gun must first be made good before any improvement can be expected. We are exhorted to forgo the alleged fruits of “victory", tighten our belts and produce as voluminously as possible so that industry may get on its feet again.

The glowing promises of the early days of the War have gradually dimmed and in place of them we are urged to think of the starving peoples, of the vanished trade, and of anything else that can fob the workers off demanding the beautiful world of dreams by which they were seduced to the battlefields and the bomb devastated workshops. Not for them the type of dinner given by Mr Eden to a select party of diplomats at San Francisco which, according to the Daily Express (3/5/45) consisted of: Martini cocktails or tomato juice; oysters; sirloin steak; new peas, asparagus, potatoes au gratin; ice-cream ring with chopped fresh strawberries, small cakes, champagne. Yes, we must think of starving Europe, deny ourselves and work, but the exalted emissaries of our masters are permitted to forget—and eat.

In the meantime the capitalists of the different nations are completing their plans to fight each other in an economic war for markets, sources of supply and lines of traffic. Already British and American interests have fallen foul of each other over oil and airlines, shipping and island bases. And the scramble is only beginning.

In spite of the curtain of exalted sentiments behind them the Yalta Conference, the Frisco Conference, and all the other conferences past and future, have only one fundamental object—the enrichment of groups of capitalists out of the labour of the international working class. What we are witnessing now is simply a jockeying for place in this race for enrichment. The capitalists of each nation are asking themselves: “What point of vantage can we get out of the spoils of victory. Hurry or the other fellow will get there first.” Thus among the “United” nations and their friends, the late-comers, there is seething distrust. France tries to hang on to Stuttgart and growls; Yugo-slavia does the same at Trieste; Russia adopts an amenable Polish and Viennese government and the others do the growling; Turkey licks its lips and pounces in for a share; and so on and so forth. Hence another “War to end all wars” with still greater catastrophic results is already in the making, even before the present battlefields have been cleared of their broken human debris.

Working class memories are short and the spokesmen for the capitalists are cunning. The horrors of Buchenwald are trumpeted around the world because it suits the present interests of our masters whilst other misdeeds of capitalist civilization, equal in fiendish cruelty, are overlooked. It was not only Germans who transported hundreds of thousands of negroes in coffin ships from tropical Africa to work as chattel slaves under appalling conditions in the United States; who forced thousands of children of tender age to work in the factory hells of this country and America; who suppressed with ruthless ferocity the French Communards of 1871; who brutally exploited the native populations in every part of the world for personal enrichment. Capitalism drips with blood and tears wherever it raises its ugly head and flaming youth treads the ghastly path to the grave in defence of it. It is not only dictatorships, but capitalism itself that represents the spirit of ruthless unbridled domination.

In these days of “Victory” we remember what capitalism was and is. The relief at the lifting of the war clouds is apt to inspire in many an understandable desire to get back to work and forget, like a bad dream, the horrors they have been through. But the workers must not forget. They must remember, and remembering search for and apply the only remedy for wars and other social ills from which they suffer. The real enemy of the working class is, and always has been, at home. That is the capitalist class of every country and the system of wage-slavery it represents.

The workers must grasp the real meaning of the facts presented to them, and find and apply the only remedy or once again pay the penalty for allowing a privileged class to direct the course of events. They must recognise that they are the producers and distributors of the wealth of the world, but an idle class lives on the results of their toil because the workers allow that class to retain the ownership and control of the means of wealth production although constitutional means are at their disposable to dispossess that class.

Modern wars are not caused by human frailty, but by the greed of capitalists for profit out of the labour of the workers. When the population of the earth owns in common the means of production the product of human labour will be distributed to each according to the needs of each. Then no one will make profit out of another’s labour and the scramble for markets will disappear. This is Socialism, and it is for this alone that Socialists are struggling. When the workers have made up their minds to build a Socialist society, and have set about doing so, war and its causes will disappear from the earth.

Gilmac.

A Glance at San Francisco (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Allies meet at San Francisco as 26 years ago they met at Versailles. In 1914 they said that they went to war, not for any “territorial aims” or “aggrandisement," but for the purpose of making the world democratic and peaceful. As they had met at Versailles to discuss and arrange peace, it was disquieting to read Keynes' “Economic Consequences of the Peace” of the disputes that raged between the Allies during the Conference. Within nine months of the Armistice the myth of a democratic and peaceful world was shattered). Clemenceau, the French Premier, referred to some of the other diplomats as “jackals.” They met in the Hall of Mirrors—Clemenceau was old, perhaps blind. The “jackals” have met again, different men, but with the same principle and policy to guide them—the retention of the present social order. Workers hoped that Versailles spelled peace. It was a tragedy that they pinned their hopes to their muster’s activities then—it will be a farce if they hope for peace from the ramshackle conference at San Francisco.

This conference starts where the Versailles conference finished. Already there are disputes between the victorious powers. Germany is not merely defeated; her cities are heaps of rubble, her factories and workshops destroyed and millions of her capable workers slaughtered. The German capitalists cannot regain their strength for many years. Who stands therefore in the path of peaceful settlement? We remember Mr. A. Greenwood broadcasting the evening war was declared (3/9/39): “But with clear consciences, we shall know that we are fighting the last war for final peace and liberty.” Does Mr. Greenwood think that this promise will be realised? What are the views of other observers on this question? General Smuts has stated that “If San Francisco fails then I see nothing but stark disaster before mankind."—(Manchester Guardian Weekly, April 13th, '45). Later in San Francisco he said: "Our race has reached the limit of human endurance: If we fail here the world may be psychologically shocked beyond repair."—(Daily Herald, April 23rd, 1945). Mr. Emrys Hughes after examining the League of Nations and asking if this Conference will take steps to end imperialist rivalries, declares that: “If it does not it will just be the beginning of the Old Geneva farce all over in an American setting with the peoples of the world being betrayed again.”—(Forward, April 21st, 1945). Have we to accept these conclusions as correct? Here we have two persons, both well-informed on political matters, speaking from different political viewpoints, but both emphatic that a San Francisco failure spells disaster or betrayal for the human race. Both are making an error, although Hughes' error is largely confined to his conclusion. It is an error that arises from an inability to understand the causes of war and their removal.

The world is divided into two classes—those who own, the capitalist class, and those who are property-less, the working-class. The capitalist live on income derived from ownership and the workers live on wages obtained by selling their energies. The income of the capitalists arises from unpaid labour of the workers and exists in the form of rent, interest and profit. This income cannot be obtained until the goods produced by the workers are sold. Control of markets, sources of raw materials,, spheres of influence and control of strategic military areas are among the factors essential in the competitive struggle between capitalist powers. The struggle is fierce and although disputes are settled sometimes by diplomatic means, ultimately the decision rests on the weight of the armed forces of the rival powers. Force is the final arbiter. Where do workers stand in this trade struggle? America, a “creditor” nation, a victor in the last War had 25,000,000 workers existing on relief in 1932/33. Victory or defeat will leave the working class in poverty so they have no fundamental concern in the. decisions at this conference. The conference is to settle capitalist differences and its failures and successes alike will leave working-class problems unsolved. It will fail to ensure peace as it will not remove the cause of war —capitalism. It is useless for the purpose of uniting mankind. Does this mean that we accept the despairing attitude of Smuts and Hughes? Before dealing with that let us touch on the immediate post-war period of 1919.

When the last war ended widespread discontent with war existed amongst workers in the Army and in industry. After the efforts they had made to win the war they were condemned to poverty and unemployment. Here was the time for a clear statement of the Socialist case and concentrated propaganda for Socialism. But the Labour and Communist Parties scorned the idea of Socialist propaganda and jeered at our insistence on the need for Socialist understanding. They guided the healthy discontent of workers into political activities harmless to the capitalist system, but dangerous to the working-class. Little did the speakers of these organisations, who said that the immediate problems of 1932 onwards was to prevent war by supporting the League of Nations and collective security, think that within a few years they would have helped thousands of workers into an early grave in a world war. Their policies led inevitably to that result. Their efforts made workers easy prey to the war propaganda of capitalism. Now, having learned nothing from the dismal failure of their pre-war policies, they are repeating those efforts by boosting new “peace” machinery that will fail in its avowed object. Have they any guarantee that the incorrect policies of 1919-39 can become the correct policies for 1945? Of course not; the truth is that they can no longer separate themselves from the policies of the capitalist parties.

Workers need not accept the blind and stupid policies of the Labour leaders; they can hammer out a policy independent of the capitalist parties. That is why we do not accept the conclusions of either Smuts or Hughes that the failure of a few capitalist diplomats spells disaster for mankind or betrayal for the workers. The strength of the capitalists rests on the political ignorance of the working-class. Growing socialist knowledge amongst workers will rob the capitalists of their strength. When large numbers of workers understand that whether they are British, German, American, Japanese, they have a common interest in the abolition of capitalism, the capitalist diplomats will be unable to threaten war in the defence of capitalist interests.

The immediate task is to make Socialists and the conditions for propaganda have never been more favourable. After the most devastating war in history, capitalism is still torn with dissension and struggle. It is as useful to write in dust as to work for peace on a capitalist basis. The way to prevent war is to establish Socialism. Let us not bow our heads and complain of betrayal; let us organise together for the establishment of an International society—Socialism.

Lew Jones

The “Victory” Election & Our Parliamentary Campaign (1945)

Party News from the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a very short time Parliament will be dissolved and the country thrown into the excitement of a general election for the first time for nearly ten years. The first shots have been fired. The leaders of the Parties forming the National Government have made their opening speeches. Each of the Parties is manoeuvring for position and advantage. Each warns the voter of the dire consequences for the country should either of the other Parties succeed in becoming the government of the day. Before the election is over it might well seem, if the accusations and mutual recriminations be believed that the menace they have been fighting for nearly six years is the lesser evil. Licence takes giant strides, and what in other spheres would be considered libel, is accepted as part of the game. That is the way of English politics, and for that matter, the way of politics in many other parts of the world.

The Old Sad Story.

Whichever of the Parties win and becomes the government the affairs of the country will be administered in much the same way as in the past. There will be no fundamental changes. The workers will work for small wages when in work and receive smaller doles when out of work. True there will be the insurance scheme which all Parties seem to be supporting. Under the scheme a meagre unemployment benefit is allowed, though Sir William Beveridge, the author of the scheme, points out that its success depends upon full employment!

It is quite certain that there will be no fundamental changes. There will be, and must be, aggravation of all the old problems of capitalism. Competition between the capitalist both at home and abroad will be fiercer, competition for jobs between the workers will be keener and insecurity more threatening. The Party in control of the machinery of Government will attempt to meet these problems in the same way that they have been dealt with for the past 150 years, by doles and social reforms.

Failure to Remove the Cause of Poverty.

As surely as these means have failed to remove working-class poverty and insecurity for a century and more so they will fail again. They must fail because they do not get at the basic cause of poverty and insecurity—the private ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth, the mines, factories, railways, and etc.

We Challenge Private Ownership.

The Socialist Party is entering the contest and will nominate a candidate in a London constituency. Paddington North. This is the beginning of a wider electoral activity to be pursued in the years after the war is over. We shall challenge private ownership of the means of production. and proclaim the indisputable case that only by its abolition and the establishment of Socialism can working-class problems be solved and the world freed from future wars.

Our Case is Indisputable—Socialism will Emancipate all Mankind.

The issue for us is simple. We stand for Socialism. All others, under whatever label they fight, stand for capitalism and the retention of the present order of things.

Now is The Time.

Time is short. We need your help and assistance. Members branches and supporters should send offers of help and donations without delay. Any odd hour or so which can be given in assisting in routine election work at the committee rooms will be welcome.

SEND YOUR DONATIONS NOW.—E. Lake, S.P.G.B.. Rugby Chambers, Rugby Street, W.C.l.

P.O.s, cheques, etc. must be crossed and made payable to S.P.O.B. Send Your offers of help now.

The Parliamentary Committee.

Further meanderings of G. B. Shaw (1945)

Book Review from the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Shaw insists periodically on exhibiting his lack of knowledge of socialism and his poverty of ideas regarding it. He is at it again in “Everybody’s Political What’s What.”

Much of what he says may best be described as sheer waste of paper; the tragedy is, however, that although it got very poor notices from the critics the Shaw fans, i.e., admirers of his excellent and witty plays, carry their adoration of him into his other fields. It is apparently hard to conceive that an individual capable at his particular job albeit a difficult one may be a hopeless duffer at others; Oliver Lodge, a scientist, believed avidly in spiritualism!

He devotes whole chapters to how money should be paid under “socialism” (as he calls it) stating what is recognised under the present system, that it costs more to produce an admiral, doctor, lawyer, etc., not even admitting the possibility that the world could go round without money and would not therefore require either lawyers or admirals. Mr, Shaw's socialism is a thinly disguised nationalization in which compensation though not so called would be administered to the erstwhile possessors of capital, land, etc..

He is an admirer of Soviet Russia and hopes to model other countries on similar lines and comments naively “Although the Country (Britain) is up to the waist in Communism because there are so many vitally necessary public services out of which the capitalists can make no profit. . . .” Mr. Shaw should enquire a little more deeply into where the interest comes from paid on Government Bonds, with an eye on the Post Office. How Lord Ashfield lives, with an eye on the L.P.T.B., and also enquire if sewers, etc., are supplied to local authorities on a non-profit basis. Incidentally he does our case a service in pointing out the differences of income in the U.S.S.R., the varying types of workers and bureaucrats, and the recent changes in the educational system. To Mr. Shaw it is all in order, he explains it away as a cognisance of things as they are, not perceiving them as retrograde and necessary to modern capitalism albeit a state variety.

He ranks the works of Stanley Jevons and Ferdinand Lassalle as more correct than Marx, without however, one real word of proof. Stanley Jevons' followers it may be remembered were challenged to debate on Marx by Hyndman, and did not accept the challenge! He also talks of “Post Marxism” coupled with the wisdom of the Fabians and recommends that his other works should be read: as a consumer of royalties this may perhaps be justifiable, not however to those who value their spare time.

It would be better for Mr. Shaw’s reputation with coming generations, if he would now quietly die; his plays will keep his name alive for many years, but not his so-called political writings as they serve to illustrate bow foolish a “practical socialist ” can be.

W. P.

Editorial: The Misreporters of the Capitalist Press. (1945)

Editorial from the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our January issue we drew attention to the way in which the “Daily Express" under the guise of reporting textually the words used by Mr. Eden in a speech, carefully doctored it by altering “Labour" to “Socialist." This is an old custom of the Beaverbrook Press and shortly afterwards they were caught doing it again in an alleged report of a speech by Mr. Bevin. This time the Manchester Guardian took it up. In an editorial “Hard of Hearing" the Guardian (April 10th), pointed out how the Sunday Express (and also the Daily Telegraph), altered the words, so that where Mr. Bevin actually said “Labour" they altered it to “Socialism." Doubting whether the reporters were to blame the Guardian said one must suspect “the existence of some of those 'directives' of which our ‘press Lords' are fond. . . . It would be a pity to have to conclude that we have lost that old principle in journalism of reporting what was said, not what the newspaper owners would like to have had said."

The Daily Express, on April 12th, published what was supposed to be a reply to the Guardian’s charge of deliberate faking. This is how they did it. Carefully refraining from mentioning what the charge was, the Express lightly and obscurely referred to it as "a mistake in one of the provincial editions of the “Sunday Express."

Of course it was astute—and characteristic—of the Express not to let its readers know the nature of the charge; the way is thus left open for the “mistake" to go on being made without the readers suspecting it.

We are entitled to wonder how much other falsification goes on in the columns of the Express and Telegraph under the guise of reporting.

In a rather different category is the habit of most newspapers of using the terms Socialist Party and Socialism to describe the Labour Party and its programme, but without actually falsifying reports of speeches. On April 11th, 1945, “Candidus" in the Daily Sketch devoted the whole of his column to the claim made by the S.P.G.B. that the Labour Party is not a Socialist Party. He admitted that he habitually refers to the Labour Party as the Socialist Party and to its spokesmen as Socialists and put forward the naive (or was it disingenous?) explanation that he “thought it was correct.”

As the Labour Party has existed for 40 years under that title it can hardly have escaped the notice of “Candidus," so his explanation is as unconvincing as it would be if we said we “thought we were correct" in describing him as “Uncandidus."

Although he wrote at considerable length he made no attempt to justify his belief that the hotch-potch and ever-changing Labour Party programme of reforms, and its state capitalist schemes for regulating capitalism can be correctly described as socialism. Perhaps it would be uncharitable to say that busy journalists whose job it is to promote the circulation (and profits) of their employers' papers while at the same time keeping the readers’ minds away from dangerous thoughts about the evils of capitalism have no need and little time to find out what Socialism is all about. 

We can, however, place it on record that the Daily Sketch (May 3rd), published a reply sent by the S.P.G.B.

Atrocities—Cynical Ruling Class Attitude (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

For weeks on end the British Press carried horrifying accounts and pictures of atrocities committed in Nazi concentration camps; mass starvation, brutality, sadistic cruelties perpetrated by degenerate guards on helpless men, women and children, prisoners buried alive, tortured by solitary confinement and so on. Some of the worsened conditions of recent months may have been due, as one of the German guards said, to transport difficulties—the stupendous Allied bombing of roads and railways can hardly have failed to produce disorganisation—but this does not affect the main facts of appalling brutalities over a long period. But if the facts are substantially agreed this is certainly not true of the conclusions that can be drawn from them. Far from accepting the views of many newspapers and capitalist politicians we deny their right to raise hands in holy horror; or to attempt to fasten the responsibility on the German workers. On several counts the British ruling class and their spokesmen have not the slightest justification for the attitude they adopt.

Mr. John Gordon in the Sunday Express (April 22nd). recalls that this is not a new story. “It has been going on in Germany for something like 15 years," and the Sunday Times correspondent who visited the Belsen camp writes: “It is a thing you read about and refused to believe in from 1933 onwards."—(Sunday Times, April 22nd). A News-Chronicle correspondent, under the heading “Guilty Germans" makes a specific charge against the German workers that their guilt was that of “supine surrender" to the Nazis and that their slavishness was brought on themselves “when they failed to seize their chance in 1918." (News-Chronicle, April 24th). It is all very well for these charges to be made, but what were the newspapers and politicians (with a very few exceptions) saying and doing in 1933 when Nazi atrocities began, or to go further back, in the years from 1922 when Italian Fascist atrocities began? Some, like the late Lord Rothermere were carrying on active propaganda in support of the Nazis and Fascists. They knew all the facts about atrocities (at that time perpetrated against German and Italian workers), but they either denied the truth or glossed it over, or maintained that it was a purely internal affair of the German and Italian Governments. Here was the late Lord Rothermere's declaration : — 

  These ranters . . .  have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against what they call 'Nazi atrocities' which, as anyone who visits Germany quickly discovers for himself, consist merely of a few isolated acts of violence, such as are inevitable among a nation half as big again as ours, but which have been generalised, multiplied, and exaggerated to give the impression that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny. If one turns to the English newspapers of the years 1921 and 1922, one finds that the old women of both sexes in our country were just as hysterical then about alleged Fascist ‘outrages' in Italy. . . . the minor misdeeds of individual Nazis will be submerged by the immense benefits that the new regime is already bestowing upon Germany."—(Daily Mail,  July 10th, 1933).

It suited British capitalist policy in those years to give support to Mussolini and Hitler so there was no protest about concentration camp horrors and no attempt to hold those two individuals responsible. Instead we had stuff like Mr. Churchill's account of his interview with Mussolini, reported in the Times (January 21st, 1927):—

 "I could not help being charmed, like so many other people have been by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers." 

Lord Rothermere was similarly affected by Hitler :

  "He exudes good fellowship. He is simple, unaffected, and obviously sincere. . . . His courtesy is beyond words, and men and woman alike are captivated by his ready and disarming smile. He is a man of rare culture:.”—(Daily Mail, May, 1938, quoted In “Socialism Can Defeat Nazism."—I.L.P.).

Others, like the Beaverbrook Press, and many Conservative politicians, were preaching for British capitalism the line of cutting off from all Continental entanglements (meaning in effect let Germany and Russia fight it out), so they were against any interference in Germany's internal affairs, and German concentration camps were an internal affair. It was only when capitalist interests were involved in the struggle with German capitalism that these gentlemen discovered that Nazi brutalities were horrifying. When it was only working class organisations that were being crushed in Italy and Germany, British capitalism did nothing, made no protest, and was utterly indifferent; in some quarters actively approving.

Russia, too, was following the same line, just after the Nazis came to power Russia renewed her agreements, with Germany, and Litvinov for the Russiau Government had this to say in shamefaced defence of Russian policy :—

  ‘‘We, of course, are sensitive to the sufferings of our German comrades, but we Marxists can be reproached least of all for permitting our feelings to dominate our policy. . . . We do not interfere in the internal affairs of Germany, just as in those of other countries, and our relations with her are determined not by her internal, but her foreign policy. We want to have the best relations with Germany, as with other states."—(Moscow News, January 6, 1934).

As for the charge that the German workers were supine and that they ought to have seized their chance in 1918, does the News-Chronicle recall the attitude of the British ruling class towards those German workers who were not supine? The Daily Mail was urging that Karl Liebknecht should be shot “like a mad dog,” and the Allied authorities, put pressure on Germany by threatening to withhold essential supplies of food and other materials unless the authorities suppressed the insurgent German workers.

Ruling class sensitiveness to atrocities is not based on sentiments of humanity, but is merely a weapon in the struggle to protect capitalist interests against rival capitalist States. Their horror consequently changes direction along with foreign policy, it is worked up or allowed to subside according to the needs of the moment. At one period it is directed against Turkey or the Boers, at another against Russia or France. It is always on tap, ready to be turned on or off as interests dictate.

It was, of course, not the British Government, but mainly working class organisations that protested against the sufferings of Boer women and children in the Concentration camps established by the British authorities in South Africa during the War with the Boer Republics.

A British historian: G. M. Trevelyan has this smug account of it. “Finally, to catch the farmers in these vast spaces where the scattered population was on their side, it was found that no method would answer but to destroy their farms and concentrate their families in camps. Unfortunately many of the children died there." (British History in the Nineteenth Century," 1922 (p. 422).

Michael Davitt in his “Boer Fight for Freedom," (1902, p. 587), says that there were 45,000 women and 50.000 children “inside of barbed wire fences surrounded by British soldiers, arms in hand," and that “14,000 of these children have died already of sickness induced by the cold and the privations inflicted upon them in one year.”

In the first World War much was made of German atrocities, including the fictitious, but very effective propaganda story of the Corpse Factories in which German dead were supposed to he boiled down for oils and fats, etc. It was not until 1925, when British policy had veered against France and towards Germany, that the story was dropped. Only then did Sir Austin Chamberlain announce in the House of Commons that “The Chancellor of the German Reich has authorised me to say, on the authority of the German Government, that there never was any foundation for it. I need scarcely add, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, I accept this denial, and I trust that this false report will not again he revived.’’ (Hansard, 2nd December. 1925). The German Government, by the way. had been denying the story for eight years and it was the British Government in the first place which had circulated the false report

Memories are short or the use made by the capitalists of atrocities would be realised. In 1927 when Mr. Churchill found Mussolini such a charming man, Russia was still a main worry of the British Foreign Office, and Churchill was therefore not concerned to denounce the “bestial appetites and passion” of Italian Fascism, but applied those words to what he called “Leninism.”

In 1919 Mr. Churchill, as Minister for War, had told the House of Commons that he had been looking at photographs of Bolshevik atrocities and found them “of a very painful nature."—(Hansard, November 20th, 1919). That year the Foreign Office published a White Book dealing with alleged Bolshevik atrocities and some of the contents of the book were recounted by Mr. Clement Edwards, M.P., in the House of Commons, on April 2nd, 1919. In Mr. Edwards' view they showed that the Lenin regime was synonymous with “mad anarchy” and “wicked cruelty beyond any possible conception of any British mind at least.” Among the cases cited was that of 12 labourers who were alleged to have been cast alive into a hole in which were hot slag deposits; naval officers burnt alive on planks which were slowly pushed into furnaces inches at a time; others tortured with jets of scalding steam followed by exposure to freezing air; men bound, put into barges and the barges sunk.

Another alleged Bolshevik atrocity was the employment of Chinese executioners, “who were sawing prisoners into pieces.”—(Hansard, April 16th, 1919 (col. 2,978). About this last story Colonel Wedgwood pointed out that it was based on what an anonymous Englishman was told at Stockholm by an anonymous Estonian—nevertheless it was good enough for our Foreign Office. He also pointed out that the stories about the Bolsheviks were “worse than any atrocity stories we have seen during the war against Germany." He should not have been surprised. Capitalist Governments are not concerned with atrocities as such, but with the use that may be made of reports, true or false, proved or merely rumoured, against the enemy of the moment.

In “The Russian Soviet Republic,” by E. A. Ross, Professor of Sociology, Wisconsin University (Allen & Unwin, 1923), there are further particulars of alleged atrocities reported in the British and American press, including such incidents as 38,000 Russian soldiers, returned from imprisonment in Germany being starved to death in a Russian Concentration Camp (New York Times, 24th February, 1919). The newspaper's correspondent passed on the statement of his informant who “saw train load after train load of corpses being transferred from the camp to the municipal refuse destruction furnaces." (p. 280).

In the same issue was a report of “impalement on wooden stakes, torture by flame, and mutilations too hideous to relate."

Just as Germany was the target from 1914 for many years until it was finally dropped in 1925, and is again the target now, so also Russia was alleged to be the worst offender for many years after 1919. All attacks on Russia stopped in 1941, but does any one doubt that with some future change of policy that tap may be turned on again in full force. Then we shall be told about existing concentration camps in Russia, not to mention the material already used only a few months ago against the Greek E.LA.S., and its Communist supporters.

Those with long memories will recall how, for a space in the early nineteen twenties, France was singled out on account of the French occupation of the German Ruhr by black troops: British foreign policy had by then diverged from close association with France.

An important aspect of the recent German atrocities is the conclusion drawn by many people that they prove the brutality and degeneracy of the German people as a whole. If they do then the world is peopled with degenerates—no nation escapes the indictment. Who invented concentration camps? The British in South Africa; and many foreign countries affected to be horrified. Were Churchill and the British Government, in 1919, right about Bolshevist atrocities? are then the Russians, as a Nation also brutal and degenerate? What of the Belgians in the Congo slaughtering or maiming native men, women and children by the thousand because they failed to bring in sufficient tribute of rubber? Or the French in their neighbouring African colony, with a like brutal record. What of the atrocities alleged against the Boers in the Boer War; against the British Black and Tans in Ireland; the Chinese in the Boxer rising and their counter charges against the occupying white troops?

The charge against whole nations will not hold. Every nation can show u certain number of people brutalised by the conditions under which they live, but the responsibility rests in every case with the authorities who deliberately train and use such people as part of the state machinery of suppression.

During the last War the British Government appointed a committee to consider and report on the evidence of outrages committed by German troops. It was presided over by the late Lord Bryce and among its members was the late H. A. L. Fisher. Mr. Francis Hirst writing to the Times (May 3, 1945), quotes from Fisher’s life of Bryce the following observation:—

  “Bryce knew far too much to draw an indictment against the whole German nation. He knew that in every country there are a certain proportion of savage natures, in some countries more than in others, and that in the excitement and demoralization of war such temperaments find a free vent."

As far as the recent Nazi atrocities are concerned we should remember that when there were in existence working class organisations opposed to the Nazi regime (and eventually suppressed by it), the ruling class in countries outside Germany who could have helped did nothing to protect them or aid them. Later on individual Germans opposed to Nazi brutalities were helpless. As a contributor writing to the Times reminds its readers (April 23rd), the large majority of the prisoners in the Nazi camp at Buchenwald, Belsen and elsewhere were Germans, and the Observer's correspondent who interviewed a German Pastor in a village near Belsen received from him a convincing answer to his question why did the Pastor not make a protest.

  “But what could they do said the little man. Preach against it? If he preached against it once his wife and children would be taken to a concentration camp."—(Observer, April 22).

   The Pastor went on to remind the correspondent that he had himself just seen what the camp was like, and asked the correspondent if he would have done anything to send his own wife and children to such a fate.

Of course the German people were responsible for voting, in large numbers, to put the Nazis into power, but the Germans can hardly be distinguished from voters of other nations in respect of credulously swallowing the extravagant and high sounding promises made by vote-catching politicians and discovering their mistake only by experience.

Moreover, there is evidence that at least some German workers were opposed to the Nazis and their methods and did what little they could. The News-Chronicle (April 21st), reports an interview with a French Army Officer who had been a prisoner in Germany. He said:—

  “There was considerable anti-Nazi sentiment in the Ruhr among the workers. They have been opposed to the War I think since the start, and many of them have been cruelly punished by the Nazi for their views." The News-Chronicle correspondent adds this;—

    “I came across concrete instances of how some German workers helped the victims of the Nazis.

    One working-class family in a Duesseldorf suburb has for two years hidden two Jews, feeding them out of their own rations, to save them from the Nazis.

    A Polish slave worker hunted by the Gestapo for his underground activity was sheltered by a German girl who helped him in his work.”

By all means we protest against atrocities and brutality, but we do so not as an expedient according to circumstances but against atrocities and brutality wherever and whenever they occur.

It is for the working class of the whole world to see as it really is the cynical and hypocritical use made, by the capitalist class of atrocities, and not to let themselves be divided by capitalist propaganda directed against first one and then another foreign nation. It is capitalism itself that produces the worst atrocity of all—war, and which everywhere has a record of brutality towards the working class and colonial peoples in peace or in war.

Only Socialism can end it and only world working class unity can achieve that end.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Dennis O’Neill case (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the country was outraged by the story of the death of a fourteen-year old boy, Dennis O’Neill, at the hands of a Shropshire farmer.

The facts are widely known. We give the barest outline here.

In the summer of 1918 John and Mabel O’Neill were married in Newport, Monmouthshire. He was 22, she 21. Both had served in France, he was lightweight boxing champion of the South Wales Borderers, she was a nurse. On the dole, the O’Neills had eleven children. One died at birth. They tried to bring up the remaining ten on £2 a week—in one room.

In 1923 O'Neill served one month's imprisonment for neglecting one of his children.

In December, 1939, Inspector Jones summoned the O’Neills before the Newport magistrates for neglect of their four youngest children.

The Inspector (N.S.P.C.C.), said their conditions were “indescribable,” though the children were fairly well nourished. Mrs. O’Neill stated that she often went without food for days that they might eat.

The magistrates fined each parent £3 with the alternative of a month in jail. They could not pay: while they served their sentence, the children were cared for at the Newport Poor Law Hospital.

Coming out of jail, John O'Neill at once joined the Army (December, 1939). While he was away in France, Inspector Jones got an order by the Newport magistrates for the removal of the four youngest children.

The O'Neills were ordered to pay 2s. a week for each child. They often defaulted.

Reginald Gongh, was the son of an agricultural worker who had a very hard life on the land.

In 1942 he was managing a farm in Shropshire. After marrying in 1942, he took Bank Farm (where young Dennis died) on borrowed money. His sole income was his monthly cheque for the sale of milk. Life on the farm was “bleak with poverty."

The Newport Educational Committee paid Gough £1 weekly for Dennis’s upkeep.

The rest of the story is well known. For a socialist the whole business is an epitome in miniature of the evils of the capitalist system. Almost every publication in the country has demanded investigations into the boarding-out system. Paradoxically enough, the Home Office, after years of agitation for the establishment of suitable institutions, issued a circular a year ago urging local authorities not to keep children in institutions, but to send them to foster-parents.

To those who might claim that the O'Neills should have “ known better” than bring eleven children into the world on the dole, we would point out that all the Governmental Authorities from Mr. Churchill downwards (or. up), have insisted on the need for more children—and have adopted a family allowance scheme to get them.

O'Neill could not have been the worst of workers— his boxing prowess shows considerable mental and physical ability. Nevertheless he remained permanently unemployed from 1919 to 1930—the period of “peace.” They could not have been the worst of parents, the wife often went without food to feed her children.

Small wonder that, harassed and persecuted by Inspectors and officials, the O’Neills dumbly and helplessly suffered the removal of their unfortunate children.

Everything that needs to be said has already been indicated by the circumstances of Farmer Gough’s life. Obviously, only a struggling poverty-stricken farmer would be interested in boarding poor town children at £1 weekly in the hope of getting some work out of them. Equally, the rapidly growing, and learning, children would resent having to work—for nothing.

Actually, it amounts to State connivance at juvenile slavery, through the local authorities.

The whole evidence at the trial of Gough for manslaughter, showed this to be the cause of the friction. In a certain sense, Gough has done a service in exposing one of the crying scandals of the age. Thousands of children suffer in misery, unknown and unheard.

Over a hundred years after Dickens’ searing and harrowing exposures of vicious inhumanity to children, “Oliver Twist,” “Martin Chuzzlewit,” “Little Dorrit,” etc., after a century of all sorts of “Waifs and Strays,” “Societies for Protecting Children,” and public philanthropy and charity, we find the treatment of very poor working men’s children very little different to-day from then. O'Neill’s crime, like Gough’s—and young Dennis’s, was that he was poor, in a society dominated by money.

Socialists do not demand the “tightening-up of the boarding-out system,” or “More Inspectors of the Children’s Homes,” or “More Efficient Control,” as repeated ad nauseam in the public press. They organise politically to abolish social system which makes Poverty the worst of crimes.

Horatio.

The facts about working class savings (1945)

From the June 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Institute of Statistics, in the issue of their Bulletin dated January 13th, 1945, publish the results of an inquiry into working class savings, undertaken by the British Institute of Public Opinion in the Spring of 1944. The inquiry was based on a sample of 1,153 working class families chosen at random and distributed throughout the country. Taking into account all money savings in Cash, Savings Banks, Savings Certificates, Government Bonds, Co-operative Societies, Building Societies, etc. (but excluding savings in the form of house property and insurance policies), it was found that the total savings of over half the families amounted to £50 or less; and three-quarters of the families had £100 or less. Only about one family in eight had more than £200. The cautious conclusion reached is that “the results of the inquiry—after allowing for errors inherent in this sampling method—do suggest that the bulk of the working class population have comparatively insignificant holdings of money-savings."

The reason is, of course, that the working class only receive about sufficient to meet day to day expenses, and the campaigns of the National Savings Committee are largely wasted as far as members of the working class are concerned.

P. S.

Proper Gander: Track And Trace (2021)

The Proper Gander TV column from the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

There’s a long, long, list of things which are accepted as part of today’s world and which will sound barbaric and bizarre to those living in a sane future society. One of these is ‘tagging’ people convicted of a crime – ordering them to have strapped to their ankle a box which traces their location. Tagging, or ‘electronic monitoring’ as it’s officially known, is seen as a cheaper alternative to jail for some of those judged guilty of crimes such as shoplifting and fraud who are still required to be monitored. In a society based on free access to goods and services and with production owned and run in common, shoplifting and fraud wouldn’t be possible, and the reasons why people turn to crime today wouldn’t be there. And so people wouldn’t have to be subjected to something as dehumanising and demeaning as being fitted with a tracker.

Tags have been used by the UK’s enforcement agencies since 1999, having been introduced in America during the early ‘80s. They record data about the movements of their wearers, checking that they are avoiding areas proscribed by the court, attending necessary appointments and keeping to a curfew. The tag sends a regular signal to a receiver unit installed in the wearer’s home, with alerts generated if the equipment is disconnected or if the wearer is not inside when they are required to be. An alert means that the wearer is in breach of the conditions of their sentence or bail, which could lead to them being sent back to prison. Since 2019, GPS technology has been used to more precisely identify a tag wearer’s whereabouts, with this newer generation of devices having cost £60 million. Each year, 60,000 people in England and Wales are ordered to wear a tag. 7,000 of these are women, three of whom were followed around by cameras for a recent documentary in BBC Three’s Tagged series: Women on Tag.

Amy and Stacey, both in their twenties, are living on tag in a stark bail hostel in Greater Manchester. Amy was placed there after a prison sentence for fraud, theft and shoplifting, while Stacey is awaiting trial for an assault charge. Jody, living in a flat in Cambridgeshire, has been convicted of burglary and is also wearing a tag until an upcoming trial. She and Amy both have children who were taken away from them when it was decided that their drug use and criminal behaviour meant they couldn’t provide adequate care. All three have a history of problematic drug use, which, as they explain, was a method of blocking out past traumas but which soon led to the routine of stealing to fund their habits. As the programme mentions, 49 percent of women arriving in prison have a drug problem, which is likely to continue inside. Little money and few opportunities pushed them into breaking the laws which are part of the system which put them in that situation. Jody describes her unsettled upbringing, guessing that by the age of 29, she’s had over 50 bedrooms through moving home so many times. Already pushed down by the system, she and the others now face the additional humiliation of being tagged. Stacey says ‘I feel like a robot’ while she stays by the wall for over two hours until her tag charges up from the mains. The documentary also finds a parallel with how animals are treated, when Amy and Stacey see a field of goats with tags stapled to their ears to denote who they belong to.

By the end of the programme, only Amy is looking forward to a better life, having been allocated a rented flat of her own. Stacey gets evicted from the bail hostel, loses hope and eventually gets authorisation to stay at a friend’s house while she waits for her trial. Jody is arrested for a breach of her conditions and returns to prison, with her daughter’s placement in care made permanent. So, the tags haven’t been as successful in controlling behaviour as they’re supposed to be. Figures show that over half of people fitted with a tag in 2018 didn’t comply with their curfew or tampered with the equipment. Tags, along with prison and other punishments, aren’t able to prevent criminal behaviour because the people most oppressed by capitalism sometimes can find no other way to survive.

Regardless of their ‘effectiveness’, tags have been a money-spinner for the private companies which operate them under contracts with the Ministry of Justice. Senior staff in these companies have been much more audacious with their law-breaking than the people wearing their tags, motivated by greed rather than poverty. The Serious Fraud Office investigated Serco and G4S for attempting to defraud the state, and together they were fined nearly £178 million. Both companies hid the true extent of the profits generated by their tagging businesses, in the hope that the Ministry of Justice wouldn’t notice how favourable their contracts were and then try to decrease their revenue. Serco and G4S were stripped of their contracts, and in 2020, some of G4S’s senior executives were charged with fraud. If the justice system has a sense of irony, at some point they’ll be fitted with the tags they used to profit from.

Mike Foster

What sort of state is Israel? (2021)

From the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

There appears to be more of an understanding that the state of Israel seeks to establish a form of religious apartheid but which supporters of Israel vigorously deny.

In our analysis of the South African regime of racial apartheid, we were perhaps unique in our hopeful anticipation of its dismantling because we considered that the capitalists running the country’s industry themselves found such a strict racial divide an obstacle to their profits. It was not because of any global boycott but rather the need to fully integrate the nation’s black population into the economy as productive workers and lucrative consumers.

We pointed out in one of our pamphlets:

 ‘Apartheid is essentially a pre-capitalist form of oppression; it is an attempt to impose the colour patterns of a frontier farming community onto a modern industrial economy. It will never work properly because what the government is trying to separate the economy keeps bringing together… South Africa’s big capitalists want to encourage this tendency of capitalism so that they can make more profits on the basis of a modern wages system and a stable, integrated urban working class. They recognise apartheid as an obstacle to this and oppose it’.

However, the situation in Israel is not the same. When the first Intifada in 1987 exposed the vulnerability of a reliance upon daily West Bank workers for Israel’s business, the policy of importing migrants from the Far East and Eastern Europe was adopted to bolster the labour supply, all hired on temporary contracts, denying them any chance of permanent residency. There are currently over 300,000 migrant workers in Israel who were described in 2003 by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network and the International Federation for Human Rights report as ‘contemporary form of slavery’ (fidh.org).

Similarly, the outright rejection of 35,000 or more, mainly African, asylum-seeking applicants demonstrates a bias against non-Jewish newcomers who are nevertheless employed in menial jobs replacing West Bank Palestinian workers who are increasingly superfluous to the labour needs of Israel’s capitalist economy.

In March 2019 we reported on how the Israeli government is displacing (to use the polite word for ethnically cleansing) its own Bedouin second-class citizens. How much worse it is for those who are considered captive civilians.

In 2006, former American president, Jimmy Carter, wrote a book called Palestine: Peace or Apartheid? and remarked in an interview:

‘When Israel does occupy this territory deep within the West Bank, and connects the 200-or-so settlements with each other, with a road, and then prohibits the Palestinians from using that road, or in many cases even crossing the road, this perpetrates even worse instances of apartness, or apartheid, than we witnessed even in South Africa’ (bit.ly/3f640f4).

In 2011, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine ‘found grounds to conclude that Israel’s rule over the Palestinian people under its jurisdiction, regardless of their zone of residence, collectively amounts to a single integrated regime of apartheid’ (ohchr.org).

Then in 2017 a report (bit.ly/3f640f4) was published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) which described Israel as an apartheid state. The diplomatic pressure from Israel’s allies very quickly buried that report and it disappeared from the public discourse.

The Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh Din, published a legal opinion in 2020 where it argued that apartheid was being practised. ‘The crime of apartheid is being committed in the West Bank because, in this context of a regime of domination and oppression of one national group by another, the Israeli authorities implement policies and practices that constitute inhuman acts as the term is defined in international law’.

Another Israeli human rights campaign group, B’Tselem, issued their findings in January 2021, A Regime of Jewish Supremacy From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This is Apartheid. It said ‘B’Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B’Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians’.

The report describes how Israel systemically privileges Jews over Palestinians: permitting immigration for Jews only; appropriating land for Jews while crowding Palestinians into enclaves; restricting Palestinian freedom of movement, and denying Palestinians the right to political participation. The report also points to the 2018 nation-state law, which establishes ‘Jewish settlement as a national value’ and enshrines the Jewish people’s ‘unique’ right to self-determination to the exclusion of all others.

The international rights body, Human Rights Watch, in its April report is the latest to level the charge of apartheid against Israel. HRW stated that:

 ‘Israeli authorities use a series of policies and practices to methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and repress Palestinians. The severity of the repression carried out in the OPT [occupied territories] amounts to ‘systematic oppression’ by one racial group over another, a key component for the crime of apartheid as set out in both the Rome Statute and Apartheid Convention.’

Answers are not found in segregating peoples and enforcing separation by decree such as with the American Jim Crow laws. Nor do solutions lie in the creation of sovereign states, nor in retaining them, but rather in their complete elimination.

ALJO

What’s left of Labour? (2021)

"Look away, look away."

From the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party suffered something of a defeat in the 2021 local elections. The Conservative Party gained 13 councils, 235 councillors, where Labour lost 8 councils, and 327 councillors. That a party which has been in continuous power for over a decade keeps making gains is surprising, to say the least. It seems the last year – despite promises of a new Labour (though, assuredly, not New Labour) – has been more of the same for the party. Why? Certain commentators have offered their speculations. Typically, they’re what you’d expect – Labour is still in the claws of the radical left (viz. trade unions, ‘Corbynistas’, and other public enemies), and unless Keir Starmer steps up and frees it, it faces an existential threat.

In an article about the leadership elections in May last year we wrote that the radicalism Starmer campaigned on seemed even then to be vacuous, but what was hard to foresee was just how harsh the crackdown on the Labour Left would be. The business press weren’t afraid then, and they certainly aren’t afraid now. So, if the explanation that Labour is failing because it’s trying to pander to the radical left is incorrect, what is happening? The facts of the matter seem quite clear: voters believe Labour has nothing to offer them. People have no idea what the party stands for, to say nothing about the leader in particular, and there has been little to no attempt to lay out any concrete policy, beyond flat-footed attempts to get votes, like flag-waving and ‘dressing smartly’ (Guardian, 2 February).

The new leadership

The shadow cabinet has taken a number of stances that represent (and they are keen to emphasise this) a break from what came before. A defining feature of the current opposition was characterised by Starmer himself in his victory speech: ‘Under my leadership, we will engage constructively with the government. Not opposition for opposition’s sake. Not scoring party political points or making impossible demands’ (Independent, 2 April 2020). The campaign slogan was ‘A New Leadership’, another attempt to emphasise that this is no longer the party of Jeremy Corbyn, who has been stripped of the Labour whip since the end of October 2020. Many MPs regarded as on the left of the party, like John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, have not been afforded the sort of positions they were earlier. A lot of that was to be expected. Rebecca Long-Bailey was briefly on the front bench until she was sacked in June. If there has been one thing that defines the Starmer shadow cabinet, it’s the repeated message that it is not a continuation of the Corbyn shadow cabinet.

Quite interesting is how the reshuffles and sackings have been treated. Jeremy Corbyn was often accused of ‘Stalinist’ purges (Times, 22 October 2015; politicshome.com, 24 March 2018), but the media response to Keir Starmer’s responses to the Labour Left does not at all call back to Red Scare smear tactics. On the contrary, one need only look at the sort of line taken by the London Times on the issues: Starmer must ‘face down the left of his party’ (11 May). The leading article goes on to admonish the leader: ‘He ought to have realised by now that the left of the party wants him to fail. That would allow them a perverse sense of vindication in believing that voters yearn for full-blooded socialism.’

Whether the left of the party wants him to fail or not, it seems he is doing so by his own lights. Starmer himself claims Labour has ‘lost the trust of working people’, and that he takes ‘full responsibility’ for the defeats (a day before sacking Angela Rayner). Much of the discussion is about ‘trust’ and ‘reconnecting’; very little is about the actual policies proposed, or the lack thereof.

The case is quite well illustrated by tax policy. Quite different to the Corbyn-era manifesto’s ‘harshest tax regime on business income among large advanced economies’ (FT, 22 November 2019), Labour said it would oppose any raising of corporation tax, and didn’t rule out voting against a windfall tax on supermarkets, though those were proposals by the Conservative Party (Independent, 24 February).

The platform Starmer ran his leadership campaign on was a radical platform – the 10 Pledges, still on his website, promise as the very first priority ‘economic justice’, including a reversal of cuts to corporation tax and ‘No stepping back from our core principles’ (keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges).

The about-face is far reaching. New Labour notwithstanding, the party has historically been intimately linked with the trade union movement – indeed, was once regarded as just the extension of the movement into parliament. Starmer refused Unite’s letter demanding an end to fire and rehire tactics (Skwawkbox, 6 May). This extends even to NHS worker demands: the Royal College of Nursing is preparing for a strike over the government’s promise of a 1 percent pay rise. They demand a 12.5 percent pay rise for all nurses, but Starmer has offered support only for a 2.5 percent increase (and promises negotiation ‘up from there’). Polling has reflected this. 32 percent of 1,843 healthcare workers intended to vote Labour in the 2021 local elections, whereas this figure was at 82 percent in polling for the 2019 general election. Other breaks include security policy – unions and campaign groups demanded the party vote against the ‘Spy Cops’ bill, which grants state organisations freedom to commit serious crimes, but the Labour leadership ordered abstentions. As a result, an amendment proposed by Shami Chakrabarti that would have denied undercover agents immunity was defeated 309 to 153 (Guardian, 13 January).

Speculative pieces

Mainstream commentary inverts the issues precisely. The BBC reports that ‘a prominent politician who spent some time campaigning in Hartlepool blamed the hollowing out of the party during the Corbyn era, with strong organisational, as much as political expertise and experience, lost’ (BBC, 7 May). The figureheads of political expertise and experience are speaking up, as it happens – both Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair have written extensive speculative pieces about how they think Labour should have acted and why it has faced yet another defeat. Mandelson criticises the ‘power of hard-left factions that abuse [the trade union link]’, such as Mick Whelan and Len McCluskey, who ‘use Labour as a political plaything to pursue their ultra-leftism, which is completely unrepresentative of both their own members’ and Labour members’ views.’ Blair’s reflections are equal in their force and content. On Good Morning Britain, he emphatically places the ‘Far Left’ seizing the leadership of the party as the cause for its defeat (Independent, 12 May).

To look at the more liberal end of the discussion, for commentators who don’t want to be quite as harsh on the party as Blair and Mandelson, another explanation has to be conjured up to deal with Labour’s defeat. Naturally, a new term is coined: ‘Pasokification’. After the Greek centre-left party, PASOK, haemorrhaged votes from 2009 to 2015, losing them to the left-wing party Syriza, the term was coined to refer to the decline of moderate social democracy. This has supposedly been ‘a continuing problem for Labour’ (Guardian, 8 May). There’s something to this, to be sure – there looks to be less and less room for centrism in politics, contra Blair. Yet it’s not so much the pursuit of centrist policies that voters are sceptical of, in this specific case, it’s more the lack of pursuit of any specific policies, easily confused with centrism. Blair and Mandelson are in a particularly apt position to make the sorts of claims they make, as they don’t have to come up with any concrete policies – none are mentioned or even gestured towards. Starmer’s problem seems to be that he touts this sort of rhetoric without any policies to back it up, and of course, unlike Blair and Mandelson, he can’t get away with that. And this is exactly what voters recognise.

Mandelson and Blair both make the claim that it is being out of touch, or unrepresentative, that led to Labour’s loss. Factual claims should be assessed as such: polling rules that analysis out conclusively. Based on a survey of 775 people, a lack of policies is by far the biggest reason people did not vote Labour in the local elections (jlpartners.co.uk/local-elections), and the biggest reason voters defected is the leadership itself. Unions were mentioned in the former survey but were as significant as the word ‘joke’, and less significant than the word ‘useless’, both quite low in the ranking. The most popular reason for voting Conservative was ‘job’, and one of the most popular reasons people didn’t vote Conservative was corruption. Those are all good indicators of where Labour went wrong.

There has been a lot of criticism of government sleaze, from flouting lockdown restrictions to simply handing over huge amounts of public funding to private power. Sir James Dyson simply needed to ask for no change in tax status for his staff, and Boris Johnson vows to ‘fix it’. Of course, this is nothing new – fresh allegations of lobbying in favour of financial services company Greensill have come out about David Cameron. Yet, what criticism Labour has made of Tory sleaze seems to be too much for establishment journalists. A column in the Times (4 May) warns Labour that ‘Starmer is making a big mistake on sleaze […] It could tarnish Labour, as antipathy rises towards politicians in general rather than the Tories in particular.’ There is an element of truth to that, but as mentioned above, the electorate is much more sensitive to Tory corruption than Labour’s. That may be partly explained by the fact that the Tories happen to be the incumbents, but it hardly amounts to an argument that opposition parties must tread lightly. This being said, the point about disillusionment with politicians and the democratic process as it stands generally is one worth pursuing, even if it is not seriously taken up by the commentators themselves.

As is often the case, none of the liberal discussion has any mention of voter turnout. In England especially, voter turnout for local elections is often low – as low as a third in many cases. The only concern is the ruthless drive for a higher vote share. People do not feel motivated, and especially so in local elections, to vote. And why would they? It’s been a well-recognised fact for a while that local government has been largely incapacitated for the last decade or more, and that this is a serious threat to a well-functioning democracy. To take one example, the LSE Democratic Audit reported in 2018 that ‘The cumulative adverse impacts of austerity [… on …] local government have rapidly increased since 2015. Civil service efficacy has radically declined, the quality of public services has significantly worsened, and local government has been hollowed out’ (democraticaudit.com).

The tack Labour has taken does little to change that. What strategies they have are pursued out of a narrow interest in increasing vote-share by appealing to aesthetics and emotion, viz. ‘patriotism’ and ‘dressing well’. A cynic might easily draw the conclusion that this is really a sort of condescension towards the working class, who are taken to be unable to differentiate substantive positions from mere play-acting. Whether one chooses to follow the cynic in that or not, the problem remains that a campaign that rests solely on the principle of ‘We aren’t Corbynistas,’ can’t work. It still can’t work if you add the principle ‘We aren’t the Tories’, either, especially when the rhetoric of the campaign revolves crucially around co-opting Conservative talking points about patriotism, traditions, so on.

Does Labour face an existential crisis? Perhaps something not quite as strong as that, but an identity crisis, certainly. It may end up turning back to anodyne centrism and wearing that on its sleeve – certainly if Tony Blair’s ideas are followed – and nothing said so far rules that out completely. However, it’s clear the immediate situation is that no one, including the party itself, seems to know what Labour stands for anymore. In some cases, it’s easy to tell what the party leadership opposes, but very little has actually been offered in terms of concrete policy proposals. It is losing funding from unions, and according to Andrew Fisher, the small donations, which poured in during the Corbyn era, ‘have dried up’ (iNews, 11 May). Perhaps the only option left is pandering to business, or turning back to Corbyn-style leadership. A good deal of the most important facts are left out by the commentariat. For instance, it is not that Labour simply is out of touch with its base – they genuinely do not feel like there is anything coherent in the programme as it stands (insofar as a programme exists). Vilification of ‘ultra-leftist’ unions and ‘public ownership of industry’ as outdated reflects a particular political stance more than it reflects public opinion, and claims that ‘All the evidence is that [Labour] can only [find a coalition] by building out from the centre ground’ are all well and good as spirited liberal discussion go, but ultimately amount to speculation from the armchair (despite the mention of evidence). Though the path that the opposition leadership will follow isn’t quite clear yet, it does seem that whatever is going to be left of Labour after this, it won’t be the Left.

M. P. Shah

Cooking the Books: Lights Out (2021)

The Cooking the Books column from the June 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

Arising out of our review in February of Aaron Benanav’s Automation and the Future of Work, in which he mentions companies like Tesla ‘pushing toward “lights out” production, in which fully automated work processes, no longer needing human hands, can run in the dark’, a reader has asked:

‘How can a production facility without human labour power (variable capital), as the only commodity capable of adding surplus value in production, possibly be profitable?'

Although in Marx’s day a ‘lights out’ factory was not an issue, it is an extreme case of something that he did consider when, in chapters 8-10 of volume III of Capital, he dealt with the emergence of an average rate of profit which all capital would tend to make.

Our reader is correct. Labour power, when activated, is the only source of surplus value, and so of the profits capitalist enterprises make. Thus Marx called the capital invested in buying it ‘variable’ capital as its value ‘varied’, increased in size, in the course of the production process. The value of the capital invested in plant, machinery, materials, power, etc was transferred unchanged into the value of the product; so Marx called it ‘constant’ capital.

But there was a problem. Assuming that the productivity of all labour power was the same in that any given amount produced the same amount of surplus value, this would mean that industries using more would make a larger profit than those employing less.

To illustrate this point Marx compared five different industries with different average combinations of constant and variable capital. Two will suffice to illustrate his point: one 60 constant and 40 variable; the other 90 constant and 10 variable. The surplus value produced in the first would be 40 and in the second 10, meaning that, if each retained the surplus value produced in it, the rate of profit in the first would be 40 percent and in the second 10 percent.

However, this is not what happens. Industries with a lower proportion of variable capital do not make less profits and, if they did, there would be no incentive for capitalist enterprises to adopt the less labour-intensive, more technologically advanced production methods that is one of capitalism’s observable tendencies.

What happened, Marx explained, was that, as capital flowed into the industries producing more surplus value and out of those producing less, this led to changes in amounts produced and their price that meant in the end that capital of the same size invested in any industry would tend to make the same rate of profit. It was as if all the surplus value produced was pooled and shared out in proportion to the size of the total capital (constant plus variable) invested. In our example, with the total capital invested of 200 and total surplus value produced of 50, the rate of profit in both industries would be 25 percent.

As Marx put it,

  ‘However an industrial capital may be composed, whether a quarter is dead labour and three-quarters living labour, or whether three-quarters is dead labour and only a quarter sets living labour in motion, so that in the one case three times as much surplus labour is sucked out, or surplus value produced, as in the other, ….in both cases it yields the same profit’. (Chapter 9, Penguin edition, p.270)

The same would apply to capital invested in a ‘lights out’ factory. The fact that it would be composed of 100 percent dead labour would be irrelevant; it would still tend to attract the same rate of profit as any other industrial capital of the same size, despite not contributing anything to the pool of surplus value as it did not use any value-producing, living labour.

Capitalism and Automation: Progress Perverted (2021)

Book Reviews from the February 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

We discuss two recent books on the effects of automation under capitalism.

Aaron Benanav’s Automation and the Future of Work (Verso) is one of a significant number of books published in recent years offering serious critiques of modern capitalism that tend to have one thing in common. While usually describing themselves as ‘anti-capitalist’, in the solutions to the problems they point to in the capitalist system they almost always end up with recommendations not on how to end the system but on how to improve it, how to make it run more ‘caringly’, more ‘fairly’, more ‘equitably’. Lacking a vision of a wholly different kind of world than the current one based on buying and selling, money and wages, and profit, these books advocate action to achieve various reforms, for example – in the most recent popular thinking among authors and activists – what is usually called Universal Basic Income. This idea has been discussed in this journal on a number of occasions and rejected for its inability to bring about any qualitative change in social organisation and for constituting at best a way of redistributing poverty and at worst a sure-fire way of exerting downward pressure on wages and salaries.

Now, however, we have a book that does something different. Not only does it offer an original and thoroughgoing critique of the current social system, but to the never-ending problems it throws up it proposes a truly radical solution: the abolition of the wages system and a ‘post-scarcity’ society of abundance. Readers of this journal will of course know that this is the very non-market-based remedy advocated by socialists such as Marx and William Morris towards the end of the 19th century and which the Socialist Standard has kept alive uninterruptedly since 1904. The author of this book recognises this idea’s pedigree in stating that the ‘vision of post-scarcity was what “socialism” and “communism” had come to mean before later identification with Stalinist central planning and breakneck industrialisation’, and, in his final chapter, entitled ‘Necessity and Freedom’, he describes it variously as, ‘the abolition of private property and monetary exchange in favor of planned cooperation’, ‘a world of fully capacitated individuals … in which every single person could look forward to developing their interests and abilities with full social support’, ‘a world in which democratic associations of women and men replaced the rule of the market with competitive production – and taking advantage of capitalist technologies – reduced the common labors of necessity to expand a realm of individual freedom’, ‘a new form of life that does not organize itself around wage work and monetary exchange’, a society in which ‘everyone can go to the social storehouses and service centers to get what they need’, and finally ‘for most people (…) the first time in their lives that they could enter truly voluntary agreements – without the gun to their heads of a pervasive material insecurity’. In such a society ‘dis-alienating community life – by taking that life under democratic control and collective care – becomes the way to ensure that individual freedom is shared by all’.

While consistently advocating just such arrangements, the Socialist Party has never sought to put forward detailed plans of how the new society of free access will be organised, since we would not seek to dictate now to the majority of socialist-minded workers at the time how to put into practice the plans they will have previously worked out about how to organise production and distribution cooperatively and democratically. Benanav, while not proposing detailed plans either, does, however, have some interesting insights as to how this could be organised or, as he puts it, ‘how the pieces of this defunct world can be reassembled into a new mode of social existence’. For example: ‘We would divide up responsibilities while taking into account individual aptitudes and proclivities. Some tasks would need to be performed locally, but many could be planned on a regional or global scale, using advanced computer technologies.’ Further: ‘The realm of freedom would be the one giving rise to all manner of dynamism: that is where human beings would invent new tools, instruments, and methods of accounting, as well as new games and gadgets, rapidly reallocating resources over time and space to suit changing human tastes (…). The world would then be composed of overlapping partial plans, with interrelated necessary and free activities, rather than a single central plan.’ He concludes, nevertheless, in a way that echoes closely the approach the Socialist Standard has taken in dealing with this subject over the years, by saying: ‘But these issues, as well as the related question of what counts as necessity and what as freedom, would be matters for a free humanity to resolve for itself, politically.’

Much of this follows from the ‘Future of Work’ element in the book’s title. Benanav’s argument about work in capitalism is that the ‘rise of the robots’ discourse common to those he terms ‘automation theorists’ is overblown and that the reason why workers of all kinds, whether in countries of advanced capitalist production or in less developed ones, are seeing increasing pressure on pay, job security and work conditions is not principally that the work is being done by automation (so-called ‘long-run technological unemployment’) but that capitalism in recent decades has experienced ‘deindustrialisation’, that is the number of jobs in the service sector consistently outstripping those in manufacturing side by side with global industrial over-capacity, ongoing wage stagnation, rising inequality and a proliferation of ‘bad jobs’. He sees this, together with the ‘angry ethnonationalisms’ it tends to bring with it, as an inevitable feature of the system’s trajectory leading to increasingly worse conditions for workers at all levels, incapable of remedy by vogue ideas such as Universal Basic Income and only capable of resolution by a movement of new social consciousness uniting ‘around a new emancipatory social project’ to bring in the kind of non-market post-scarcity society outlined above.

Theories of capitalist decay are of course debatable. Capitalism in its history has gone through numerous phases and crises and on the whole has managed, even if in an extremely uneven and irregular way, to improve living standards and conditions for large numbers of its wage slaves. What is not debatable, however, is that, under the current system, as the author puts it, ‘even in the richest countries most people are so atomized, materially insecure and alienated from their collective capacities that their horizons are stunted’ and that the kind of society he recommends to replace capitalism would be far superior to anything that has so far existed or that capitalism could promise in the future. In addition, though it would be, unlike capitalism and as socialists have always maintained, a society of abundance, it would not be – and would not need to be – a society of super-abundance, and this is something that Benanav captures effectively by stating that ‘a literal cornucopia is not required’. He goes on to explain that ‘it is only necessary that scarcity and its accompanying mentality be overcome’ and how ‘abundance is not a technological threshold to be crossed’ but ‘a social relationship, based on the principle that the means of one’s existence will never be at stake in any of one’s relationships’.

The sources drawn upon by Benanav in writing this book are wide and diverse with a good number of charts, graphs and tables and almost 40 pages of extensive documentation. Yet none of this weighs heavily on the reader, since both the thrust and the details of his arguments are laid out in a clear, engaging fashion making them easy, indeed pleasurable, to follow and take in, and causing the whole to hang together in a way that makes it a highly satisfying and persuasive read both for socialists and for anyone open to radical ideas about social development.

Howard Moss

Why no abundance or more free time?

One thing that has puzzled academic economists is why, given the spread in recent years of IT, AI and automation generally, productivity has hardly gone up. In Smart Machines and Service Work: Automation in an Age of Stagnation (Reaktion Books) Jason E. Smith offers an explanation which also challenges those like Paul Mason who see a society of abundance and leisure as in the process of gradually evolving.

Productivity should mean physical output divided by the amount of labour-time required to produce it. Thus, if output increases while the amount of labour-time remain the same or if output remains the same while the amount of labour-time falls, then productivity goes up. This works for a particular factory or industry producing the same product but can’t work for the economy as a whole because what is produced is so different. To get round this, economists measure productivity by dividing the money value of total production by the total number of hours worked. For them, productivity at this level is GDP divided by the hours worked by all workers; which is a pretty meaningless figure, not least because it does not distinguish between hours worked to produce the output and hours worked by workers paid out of the output. It is, however, how ‘productivity’ is defined in this context.

Smith’s explanation as to why the increase in productivity in this sense has been so sluggish in recent decades is that, while productivity has gone up in the sector of the economy producing material goods, it has not gone up by anything like the same amount in the service sector which now accounts for as much as 80 percent of economic activity in the advanced capitalist parts of the world. Most services are labour-intensive and involve personal attention and inter-personal skills that can’t be replicated by machines. In addition, many of these jobs are low-paid, which reduces the incentive for employers to automate them.

Automation since the 1960s, or ‘cybernation’ as it was called, led neither to the mass unemployment nor to the leisure society that was variously predicted but, says Smith, to the growth of the service sector, many of whose jobs are unskilled and low-paid. Smith expects this to continue to be the trend despite all the hype about AI.

That increased productivity in the sense of physical output per hours of productive labour worked should result in the growth of low-paid service jobs is a perverse outcome. Marx had already noted this in the 1860s as, in a passage, Smith quotes from chapter 15 of Volume I of Capital:

  ‘[T]he extraordinary increase in the productivity of large-scale industry, accompanied as it is by both a more intensive and a more extensive exploitation of labour-power in all other spheres of productions, permits a larger and larger part of the working class to be employed unproductively. Hence it is possible to reproduce the ancient domestic slaves, on a constantly extending scale, under the name of a servant class’.

Today the ‘servant class’ is composed not of domestic servants (these still exists and their number is growing) but of those employed by the state – the appropriately called ‘civil servants’ and others – some of whom are engaged in very socially useful work such as teaching and health care but who are nevertheless still paid out of taxes levied on the output of the productive sector of the economy.

Taking less and less time to produce material things and the means to produce them does open up the possibility of a world of plenty, better and more extensive public services and amenities, and free time for people to develop their talents or pursue what interests them. However, this is not achievable on the basis of the present-day class ownership of the means of life and their use to produce wealth for sale with a view to profit. It requires what Smith calls ‘a non- or post-capitalist society’ (and we call ‘socialism’) in which production is directly geared to satisfying people’s needs on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of society’s productive resources.

Adam Buick