Running Commentary: Census count (1981)

The Running Commentary column from the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Census count

In early April, workers in Britain were treated to some special attention. We were counted. “Today well all be counted because we all count", said the official adverts in the papers. It was a bit like election time or war time, when we are required to lay down our votes or our lives. We had to fill in the sordid details about our living conditions and the company exploiting us. We could then read the free leaflet explaining the usefulness of the census: "Housing: to work out present and future needs we must know how people are housed now, and the sizes and ages of their families." But don't they realise that in this capitalist society needs are only ever met if people can afford to pay the price, and ensure the profit for the shareholder or the government? That is why most cities have had a “housing problem" for generations, and why there are thousands of homeless people in Britain today, while there is a “slump" in the building industry.

Wealth before health

Another example of how the profit system fails to satisfy human needs — private wealth must come before public health. The latest report of the Alkali and Clean Air Inspectorate says that concern for the environment is increasingly having to compete with worries about inflation, employment, difficult trading conditions and profit. And for the first time since the thalidomide case twenty years ago, the regulations governing drug-testing in Britain are to be eased. The Sunday Times reported that the Association of Community Health Councils is worried that “the interests of industry, rather than any great concern for patient benefit, seem to have been the motive force behind the changes” (5/4/81). The same edition contains advertisements for a Mayfair house costing £625,000, a Knightsbridge “family home" for £550,000, a Rolls-Royce car for £55,000 . . . so it seems that not everyone is tightening their belt.

Imagine!

In his hit record Imagine, the late John Lennon sang of a society rid of the religious myths which offer the false hope of paradise beyond the grave: 

Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try,

No hell below us, above us only sky

Imagine all the people, living for today;

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do,

Nothing to kill or die for; and no religion too . . .

So it is rather odd that a memorial service should have been organised for him in Liverpool cathedral. The crowning irony, though, was that Imagine was played as part of the service!

As for the shooting of Ronald Reagan, we have no sympathy for one of the figureheads of the most violent and barbaric society the world has ever known: world capitalism. America is one of hundreds of states competing to see who can exploit their populations most efficiently, and organising wars all in the interests of the privileged minorities (including Reagan himself) who profit from expanding markets. American expenditure on weapons of violent destruction is rapidly approaching S 400 billion a year, that is more than twenty million pounds in hour Massive military aid is given to murderous regimes such as that in El Salvador. Each year millions die of starvation, while millionaires like Reagan are prepared to use any kind of violence to defend their privilege and profits. He represents a system in which those with power are free to kill, free to exploit.

So we will not shed any tears over Reagan’s wounds, unlike his fellow capitalist rulers. President Brezhnev sent a telegram from Russia: "1 wish you, Mr. President, a full and early recovery”. President Zhao Ziyang of China was "shocked to learn of your being wounded . . . I wish you a speedy recovery", while the Pope and Prince Philip both organised prayers for Reagan (The Times 1/4/81) 

Apart from Lennon and Reagan there are thousands of others being murdered all the time, for it is the poverty, the coercion and the frustration of the present system which provokes theft, despair and violence. Let Reagan think of that the next time he orders the murder of a few thousand people from Latin America or Vietnam or anywhere else in the name of "freedom”.

Russian gold

Those who still hang on to the myth that there is something about the Russian Empire which is different, and better for the workers than other nations in this capitalist world, will have had their illusions shattered by Gold and Diamonds — the Kremlin Connection (Panorama, BBC 1, April 6). Russia and South Africa hold between them a virtual monopoly of the world’s gold, platinum and diamonds.

This programme exposed the secret collaboration between presidents of Russian marketing organisations and directors of companies like De Beers and the Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa to fix the world market and control the prices of these commodities.

It was shown how gold sales to the West are set up by WoZchod (Western) Bank of Russia in Zurich. The film focussed on the hypocrisy of this partnership in the face of the proclaimed military hostility between “Communist” Russia and capitalist, race-segregated South Africa. But it was also evident that the Russian ruling class, involved in high finance, is just as removed from the workers of the world as are the ruling class in other countries.

Capitalist Russia

There are many other examples to demonstrate how countries like Russia and China are part of one world-wide capitalist economy, in which commodities are produced by wage-workers and sold on the market at a profit.

At the end of March, the Midland Bank opened a branch in Peking. A project currently being undertaken by Buckinghamshire College of Higher Education and the Humboldt University in East Berlin to study differences between the systems of East and West is in danger of being terminated by the East German authorities, because of the similarity it shows between the two (Guardian 24/3/81).

An international conference in Hangchow recently announced that foreign investors in China need not worry, for they will be guaranteed a profit. China has now officially adopted a policy of what they call “commodity economy", with fierce market competition through the price mechanism (Guardian 27/3/81). The Sunday Telegraph Magazine on October 15, 1978 showed about ten limousines owned by Brezhnev, including one of the Russian hand-made Zil cars.

A booklet published in 1972 by the Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow, on “Labour Remuneration" boasts that in Russia "The level of profitability rose from 13 per cent in 1965 (in industry as a whole) to 22.5 per cent in 1969” and even makes the outlandish claim that "Profit and the level of profitability are the most important indicators of the operation of a socialist enterprise”.

But this does not mean that socialism has "failed to work"; in fact it has never been tried. There cannot be socialism without socialists; a majority of people who are ready to co-operate in a democratic society based on a real community of interests, people who want and understand socialism.

Clifford Slapper

SPGB Meetings (1981)

Party News from the May 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Storm over Shipping (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The most critical period of World War 2 is now but a painful memory to the members of the British and American capitalist class. The dark days of Dunkirk, of Singapore, of Pearl Harbour, are to them fast receding into history. They were indeed anxious, perilous days for them—days during which their whole economy was ruthlessly transformed and moulded, their wealth and material resources made subordinate to the needs of a struggle, the stake of which they realised, almost too late, was their very existence as major capitalist powers.

The fortunes of battle have turned. Optimism over the prospects of winning out in the struggle has given way to confidence. No longer immersed in the arduous struggle for self-preservation, they have begun to devote more of their attention to matters much more pleasing to their hearts— and, incidentally, to their pockets.

As a contrast to the airy nature of their promises of Atlantic Charters and Four Year Plans, their statements on this subject have not been marked by any lack of frankness. Recrimination and accusation have been equally indulged in by both sides. In industry after industry, particularly during this last year, has this conflict of interest made itself manifest. Some months ago controversy arose between Britain and the U.S.A. over post-war air transport. Hardly had this died down when mutual denunciation ensued over natural and the question of natural and synthetic rubber. Even more recently many hard words have been said by both parties over petroleum supplies during and after the war. On the subject of this increasing friction between the interests of British and American capitalism, the United States News (October 22nd, 1943) says the following : —

“Nationalistic suspicions are putting a new strain upon the relations between the U.S. and its British and Russian allies. They break out at every turn—over oil, bases, rubber, lend-lease supplies, shipping.”

In no industry has there been more mutual suspicion and ill-will aroused than that of shipping.

To British capitalism, a large and efficient merchant marine is an absolute and vital necessity. During the nineteenth century, when she was the “workshop of the world,” she possessed a virtual monopoly of the world’s shipping tonnage. Since 1900 that supremacy has been gradually whittled down until the proportion now owned by British shipowners amounts to but 26 per cent. of the world total.

The history of American shipping has followed a much different course. Although the end of the First Great War saw the U.S. emerge as the possessor of a large merchant fleet, the passing of high tariff laws, almost always fatal to the development of a large home shipping industry, caused the tonnage to decline rapidly. Playing in this war the same role she played in the last—that of the arsenal of her Allies—she has again been compelled to develop a large merchant marine. There is evidence, however, to show that after this war is over, she intends to maintain her maritime supremacy. It is evident that there are other motives at work besides philanthropic ones in this concern of hers for a strong mercantile marine. She sees the prospect that the conclusion of this war will witness the emergence of the U.S.A. as the dominant capitalist power of the world. From the speeches of her statesmen and businessmen, she appears to make her economic influence felt throughout the whole five continents. Already she has in some cases backed up those speeches with action—e.g., the building of air and sea bases. To the American capitalist class it is obvious that their plans to “muscle in” in the economic sphere will be far from watertight without the possession of a large merchant fleet to carry their commodities at reasonable rates. It would be economic suicide for them to produce goods to flood the markets of the world, only to find themselves held to ransom, by exorbitant freight charges in foreign vessels. They have made their intentions in the matter quite clear, witness Time (October 18th, 1943) : —

“A hoarse warning bellow tore through the fog of post-war shipping plans last week, set Britons tooting nervously. Back in Washington from a three-week visit to London, U.S. Maritime Commission’s Rear-Admiral Howard L. Vickery announced that he had told the British the U.S. ‘had become a maritime nation and intended to remain one; that we would do it by cooperation if they wanted to, but if they didn’t want to, we were going to do it anyway’. . . .”

And further :—

“The U.S. merchant fleet will be responsible almost completely for the distribution of the world’s goods immediately after, the war.” (Frank Taylor, President, American Merchant Marine Institute, Sunday Pictorial, November 21st, 1943.)

The significance of these remarks has not been lost upon British shipowners, who are themselves naturally very much concerned with their own post-war prospects and problems. The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943, page 1291) says, for instance: —

“Meanwhile shipowners have been able, through the General Council of British Shipping, to get down to some very important national problems, and, in this respect, will be more fitted to come to grips with actualities when the end of the war quickens the pace.”

The General Council had itself something to say in reply to Vickery’s challenging statements (Time, October 18th, 1943) : —

“Shippers have sufficient faith in American realism to believe that it will be recognised that, however important the possession of an adequate merchant marine may be to the U.S., to Britain it is a vital necessity.”

Neither British nor American representatives appear very happy about the position, however. Oscar R. Hobson, City Editor of the News Chronicle, says in this connection (October 19th, 1943) :—.

“The policy of the U.S. is to remain one of the dominant maritime powers of the world. Admiral Land, discussing the relations between the U.S. and the other maritime powers hoped that a policy of collaboration would be followed, but admitted that it would not be easy to achieve. He suggested that all the nations concerned would want a larger share of the shipping trade than the others would be willing to concede to them. Everybody, he said, wants to cut the pie, but no one wants to take a small piece. His suggestion was one which will commend itself to all right-thinking people: ‘I recommend that we bake a bigger pie.’”

In one respect, however, British and American capitalists and their economic experts are at one—neither party can put forward any solution to the problem convincing enough to bear even superficial scrutiny. The only solution which Admiral Land can advocate is “that we bake a bigger pie,” which is an argument he himself has already demolished in his own previous remarks. Whatever the size of the pie, everybody, as he himself says, wants to cut it, and no one wants a small piece.

The Stock Exchange Gazette (November 27th, 1943) is even more pessimistic : —

“It is easy, with sufficient State aid (and sufficiently complacent taxpayers) to build a mercantile marine up to any size. It is another thing to be able to use that mercantile marine, not necessarily profitably but at all, except by sailing the ships round the world in ballast. Otherwise they must be tied up at the buoys, as the unfortunate American ships were in the Hudson River and elsewhere after the last war because they were the wrong ships for such scanty post-war employment as was available.”

There it is in black and white. After the last war. the spectacle was seen of dozens—nay, hundreds—of ships lying idle in rivers, docks and other waterways, lying idle not only in the Hudson river, but in the Clyde, Mersey and Tyne; lying idle not only in Britain and the U.S.A., but in. every country possessing a merchant marine worthy of the name; hundreds of vessels rusting and rotting for lack of profitable cargoes, whilst millions of the world’s inhabitants went hungry, cold and comfortless, and this at a time when—crowning, tragic irony of all—foodstuffs were being burnt, raw materials destroyed, machines deliberately scrapped or rendered idle, and millions of human beings the whole world over, who could have set to and produced the means of human satisfaction were wasting their miserable lives away in poverty and idleness.

The stresses and strains manifest now in shipping are but the reflection of forces at work throughout the whole of industry. The struggles for economic advantage now taking place are paralleled in oil, rubber, textiles, steel, air transport; these struggles, heated and violent as they are now whilst the war is still being waged, will be nothing to the conflicts set in motion after the war has been won.

Whatever group of capitalists wins out in this economic struggle, the conditions the workers experienced before the war they will suffer again in a more aggravated form after it. Socialism still remains the only solution to their problems. Their task is still before them : to organise consciously and politically for the abolition of capitalism and all that it entails, and in its place to establish Socialism, a system in which all the world’s resources will be utilised to the full, in which production will be made subordinate, not to the will for profit of a few, but to the needs of all its inhabitants.

Stan Hampson

Compromise leads to Catastrophe (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nothing that has occurred in working-class history has weakened our view that the most important task to-day is that of making Socialists. We cannot have Socialism until a majority of the workers are Socialists, also as Socialist knowledge animates large numbers of the workers, so will recede the possibility of dictatorship and war. The alternative task to propagating Socialism is that of advocating reformist policies and getting support from workers on the basis of those reforms. Having obtained support, the reformist parties have the task of administering capitalism, a task which immediately brings them into conflict with working-class interests, however sincere their efforts. The Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929 discovered this, but they “heeded not the warning,” and in 1940 some of their leaders joined the Government at the invitation of the ruling class. Inevitably disputes have arisen over reforms, and during many recent debates Labour M.P.s have criticised the seemingly complacent or compromising attitude of these leaders. Mr. Morrison, for example, was described as a “backstair, Tammany-Hall politician” during the debate on Workmen’s Compensation.

Mr. Woodburn, Labour M.P., is seldom amongst the critics. His articles appear in “Forward” defending the Labour Party chiefly on the grounds that they are engaging in the practical politics of to-day and they are obtaining some improvements for workers; and if some of the concessions are smaller than Mr. Woodburn would like them to be, he still supports them because of “quarter of a loaf being better than none.” So is the proverbial crumb. A dispute in “Forward” finished with Mr. Woodburn chiding those whom he calls “the romantic school of Socialists,” who “people the world with villains called capitalists and heroic martyrs called workers.” Actually, and we are indebted to Mr. Woodburn for reviving this profound truth, “there are good and bad in all classes” (“Forward,” October 9, 1943). We are not following him into the ethics of the social classes: we are faced with a serious problem. How can the working-class establish Socialism ? Let us first glance at the economic division in society.

The people in the world are divided into two classes : the capitalist class, who own the means of producing wealth, and who live on the surplus value derived from this ownership; and the working class, who are compelled, in order to live, to sell their energies to the owners for wages. Between these classes there is a class struggle which manifests itself both on the industrial and political fields. Politically it is a struggle over the ownership of the means of wealth production. This is a revolutionary struggle. When Woodburn commends the work of Bevin, Morrison and “others under Clem Attlee” for “creating new methods of running social life” as though these new methods were a development towards Socialism, and infers (without definitely saying so) that the alternative to these activities is catastrophic change, he is merely supporting popular misconceptions of Socialism and revolution. He states : “Socialism is not a catastrophic change from capitalism, but a development out of and on the basis of capitalism. Capitalism is indeed the mother of Socialism. . . . Socialism is approaching us every day in economic development.” (“Forward,” October 9, 1943). In the same issue he commends working with those who are Liberals and Tories—we are not to spurn them because of their label as “our aim is to make Socialists not enemies of our opponents.”

The Labour leaders are not in the Cabinet to establish Socialism; they were allowed in to help in the work of prosecuting the war. Their help in the task of conscripting workers is invaluable to the capitalists; Conservative ministers would have been unable to put into operation so easily such measures as the Essential Work Order and other restrictive orders. These are new methods of coercing the worker, methods of tieing him to his job—in short, they are new methods of running capitalism. They have brought a degree of security to the worker—convict security. Mr. Woodburn, of course, knows that. Where are the Socialist measures or achievements of the Labour leaders? There have been various reforms, approved by a Cabinet predominantly Conservative, such as the Catering Bill and the Pensions Bill and other measures which will alleviate some distress. They are reforms considered to be necessary for the smooth running of capitalism. They have effected no general improvement in working-class life; the capitalism that we knew in 1939, with its slums, poverty, miserable pensions and doles, still persists.

Merely to state that Socialism is approaching, without any clue as to the nature of the change to Socialism, except that it is not catastrophic, is valueless; it conveys nothing to the reader. Two of the necessary conditions for Socialism are a socially-operated, highly-developed industrial system and a working-class capable of controlling and running the system. In this sense, in every country in the world, including Nazi Germany, we are approaching Socialism, but the change to Socialism requires something more than that. It requires a working-class that understands and desires Socialism, and organises politically for the conquest of political power in order to establish Socialism. Having gained political power, they will effect a change in the basis of society from private to common ownership of the means of producing wealth. This is not catastrophic, but it is not simply a progressive economic development from capitalism; it is a revolutionary change in the basis of society.

Past experience has shown that the danger of catastrophe arises from collaborating with the representatives of the ruling class. Bewildered by the broken promises of the Labour parties and their changes in policy, workers have been swept into support of reactionary movements. In 1931, after two and a half years of Labour Government, millions of workers registered their opposition to what they falsely imagined to be Socialism, and voted into power a Government that openly advocated severe wage-cuts and economies. In Germany the Social Democrats had held power or participated in coalition governments for 15 years. In 1933 the Nazis and their allies were voted into power; the reformist efforts of the Social Democrats had the effect of making Nazis. The considered opinion of a small group of German workers, who in 1933 secretly published a book, “Neu Beginnen,” is worth recording: —

“The disappointment of the workers in their own organisations is the fundamental cause of their indifference and inactivity in face of the Fascist advance and even of the partial sympathy which they show towards it.” (Page 36, “Socialism’s New Start,” N.C.L.C. Translation.)

Compromise and reforms had brought, not Socialism, but “National Socialism.” Working with the German counterparts to our Liberals and Tories had not made them Socialists, it had not even brought lasting support from their own members. Bitter experience had shown these workers the truth, that “repeated and disgraceful failures of these parties (the Socialist Labour organisations),” had led to indifference and even opposition to Socialist ideas. These failures were inevitable—capitalism cannot be run in the interest of the workers—but the opposition to Socialist ideas is not inevitable.

The contrasts of wealth and poverty impress workers and make them ready to discuss and accept the Socialist solution. We claim that in order to make them Socialists it is necessary to show most clearly the difference between reforms of capitalism and revolution. History has shown that our claim is true. Workers ignore the class struggle at their peril; no compromise should be their guide in the difficult situations that war and peace have yet to bring.

L. J.

Malthus to Hitler—or Marx (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Socialist View of Population Theories

The Government is very worried and has appointed a Commission of sixteen members on Population. “Their main task will be to examine the present population trends in Britain, investigate their causes and consider their probable consequences, and recommend measures to influence the future trend of population.” (News Chronicle, March 3rd.)

The newspapers are solemnly featuring splash stories of the number of children various members of the Commission have, like the News Chronicle, which gives the list of members complete with size of family.

Thus the Earl of Cranbrook qualifies with five children, although why the mother of the Heanor quads has not been asked to serve, we can’t think !

After all, she’s only just started, and got four already; while the father of the quads is surely more qualified than Lady Dollan, who is quite mature and only has one child.

There is actually a “Biological” Sub-committee presided over by a professor—to investigate the reason for the poor response to the Government’s population appeals.

The Evening Standard (March 1st), in an editorial, “From Malthus to Hitler,” declares that “population statistics are notoriously the most uncertain and dangerous field of economic study.”

After summarily dismissing the Reverend Malthus, who, in his notorious “Principles of Population,” reached the conclusion that the only solution was continence by the working class, the editor of the Evening Standard goes on to consider the findings of Mr. Berle, of the U.S. State Department.

“He foresees the future of the nations in terms of rising and falling populations.”

Germany will decline from 69 millions to 64. Britain from 46 millions to 42. U.S.A., with 135,000,000, will slowly increase. Brazil has doubled her population, and “has every chance to become a great nation.” “Russia’s population is likely to rise to 222,000,000.”

“The advantage from these calculations,” says our Editor, “lies heavily on the side of the United Nations.” We have an idea that is the main reason they were made.

But even the Evening Standard smells a rat. “We cannot be content, . . . the economists should be set to work until they have produced a set and recognisable theory.”

There is no need to set “economists” (?) to work. One great economist has already said all that need be said on the subject.

The first point is that there is no such thing as a general abstract law of population—”every special historic mode of production has its own special laws of population, historically valid within its limits alone.” (“Capital,” K. Marx. Kerr Edition, Vol. I, p. 693.)

What we are concerned with therefore is the law of population of the capitalist system. This is a rather complicated business, as everyone who has read Marx’s exposition in “Capital” knows. It depends very largely on the organic composition of capital—or, in other words, on the proportion of machinery to human labour. Thus, in highly developed industries, the. proportion of human labour is low, the amount of machinery high.

With every technical improvement this proportion increases, so that—

“The labouring population therefore produces, along with the accumulation of capital produced by it, the means by which itself is made relatively superfluous, is turned into a relative surplus population; and it does this to an always increasing extent. This is a law of population peculiar to the capitalist mode of production.” (“Capital,” Vol. 1. Kerr Edition, p. 692.)

Marx exploded the fallacy that population rises and falls with wages, showing by the example of England from 1849 to 1859 how a rise in agricultural wages, accompanied by a fall in the price of corn (consequent upon the construction of railroads, war, and the exodus of agricultural population to the new factories), placed the farmers in a difficult position.

“What did the farmers do now ? Did they wait until, in consequence of this brilliant remuneration, the agricultural labourers had so increased and multiplied that their wages must fall again, as prescribed by the dogmatic economic brain ? They introduced more machinery, and in a moment the labourers were redundant again in a proportion satisfactory even to the farmers. There was now ‘more capital’ laid out in agriculture than before, and in a more productive form. With this the demand for labour fell, not only relatively, but absolutely.” (“Capital,” p. 700, Vol. I.)

The same applied on a national scale to the United States of America.

The important point to remember, therefore, is that capitalists can always compensate shortage of labour by increasing machinery.

If Mr. Berle had anything, China would be the ruling nation of the earth, with India a close second.

What is important is the degree of development of the constant capital (machinery) to variable (human labour), which is highest in the United States, Britain and Germany.

“Capital works on both sides at the same time. If its accumulation, on the one hand, increases the demand for labour, it increases on the other the supply of labourers by the setting free of them, whilst at the same time the pressure of the unemployed compels those that are employed to furnish more labour, and therefore makes the supply of labour, to a certain extent, independent of the supply of labourers.” (“Capital,” Vol. I., p. 702.)

“But … as soon as (in the colonies, e.g.), adverse circumstances prevent the creation of an industrial reserve army, and with it the absolute dependence of the working class on the capitalist class, capital, along with its common place Sancho Panza, rebels against the ‘sacred’ law of supply and demand, and tries to check its inconvenient action by forcible means and State interference.” (“Capital,” Vol. I., p. 703.)

Horatio

“The Transition From War to Peace” (1944)

Book Review from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Transition From War to Peace by A. G Pigou. (Oxford University Press, 6d.)

We have received the above for review. Professor Pigou deals almost solely with the post-war problem of the difficulty in finding employment for large masses of workers, who will find themselves out of a job when peace arrives. In various parts of the pamphlet he records accurately the facts and figures of the labour market after the last war, and on page 6 says:—

“The transition from war to peace, throwing as it must do, vast numbers of men and women out of direct and indirect forms of war work, is bound to create, as it did create in 1919, an assembly of persons, less vast indeed, but nevertheless large, for the moment deprived of employment and anxiously seeking after it in one or another civilian occupation.”

With regard to the immediate post-war situation, he remarks that “a vast process of re-stocking will be called for.” During this time—six months or so after the war, he estimates—it is probable that the problems will arise in the transfer of workers from one job to another and not in the actual finding of work.

He makes an important point with regard to this “period of transfer and adjustment” on page 9 when he says:-—

“With the large number of persons that must be then suddenly thrown on the labour market, there is a risk that wage earners, at all events in some occupations, will find themselves at a disadvantage in bargaining and so may be forced to accept large reductions in. rates of pay.”

To obviate this after the last war the Government passed Temporary Wage Regulation Acts in 1918 which were extended to 1920. He mentions that it would be sound policy for the Government to do this again after the present war—presumably for the same purpose of preventing unrest amongst the workers who come back from the battle fronts eagerly searching for the “Four Freedoms” or signs of the already moribund “Atlantic Charter.”

Manifesting in no uncertain fashion the character of post-war “reconstruction/’ the pamphlet continues (page 11) :

“The transition is bound to be a long drawn out affair, of which the first year or so of peace constitutes only the initial phase . . . Thus we should expect a second phase following the first—a phase of relatively contracted demand, in which a number of would-be workers may well find themselves without a job—a delayed post-war depression linked with and partly caused by the high activity of immediate post-war days.”

Here again he draws upon the history of the period following 1918 depicting clearly the catastrophic nature of the slump of 1920 and the years following, when prices came tumbling down, and wages following after.

Pigou (who, by the way, is a Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge) states, however, that “it is not inevitable that at the end of the present war these events should repeat themselves.” He says : “The moral of this history is fairly plain. After the war of 1914-18 money got out of hand.” (Page 17.) This is his explanation of the economic phenomena of slump and boom—his solution being that if money is kept in hand by the retention of certain war-time controls these things will not occur.

But the fact that slumps and booms can be controlled or abolished by controlling the movements of money is given the lie by Professor Pigou himself on page 15, where he points out that this boom broke in 1920, not as “a consequence of deflation by the banks, in the sense of a contraction of the quantity of money in existence.”

“It was a consequence of the decisions by business men not to use their money.” (Pigou’s emphasis.)

Why didn’t the capitalists wish to use their money and keep production going? Or, to put the question another way, why from 1918-20 did the capitalists want to use their money to the greatest possible extent, but not afterwards? Obviously we must seek the solution not in the movements of money but in the factors that cause capitalists at one period to wish to use their money in production, and at some other period not to do so. In other words, we must have recourse to the motive of capitalists in engaging in production. Knowing that, under capitalism, goods are produced with the intention of their being sold at a profit, it is easily seen that when the prospects of profit are great the capitalist will jump in on production and when the prospects of profit are very doubtful he will jump out again.

Applying this to the situation in 1918 it is clear that the capitalists fell over themselves to get in first during the “re-stocking” period when demand exceeded supply, prices were high and profits good. As soon as the markets by about 1920 had readjusted themselves (by means of the “healthy competition of private enterprise”) and the normal chaos of capitalist production had its effect, numerous industries were faced with declining demand for their products. Prices slumped, and the prospects of profit disappeared. Then the capitalists were forced to think more than twice about putting their money into further production.

This pamphlet, like others in the series of “Oxford Pamphlets on Home Affairs,” offers a good deal of sound factual information, but fails to offer a correct explanation or adequate solution of the problem with which it deals.

So long as capitalism exists with its private ownership of the means of production and its scramble for markets, so long will exist the economic phenomena of crises and booms, together with all the other problems which face the working-class, such as poverty, mass unemployment and wars.

No! The solution does not lie in the control of movements of money, but in the abolition of a system of society based on private ownership with its consequent need of money and the establishment of a system of society based on the common ownership of the means of wealth production where the need for money will disappear.

N. S.

World Trade Plans (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under this heading the Manchester Guardian for February 8th, 1944, does some rather effective debunking of the scheme sponsored by Sir Edgar Jones, known as the World Trade Alliance.

We suppose it is a good sign when an influential organ like the “M.G.” saves us Socialists the trouble of proving that capitalist production for an unknown arbitrary market cannot be “planned.”

Briefly, the idea of the “World Trade Alliance,” which has received the blessing of the Council of the Trades Union Congress, and the sympathy of the Federation of British Industries, is “that the producers of the world’s chief export commodities should form production committees to fix prices and agree on the quantities which each national group should export.”

“A Central Clearing Bureau is expected to see to it that each country balances its exports and imports, and a World Development Commission would provide additional outlets for ‘surplus’ production by placing it cheaply or gratis in needy parts of the world.”

After pointing out that something like this has actually been tried in the “World Wheat Agreement,” the Guardian goes on to say : —

“What is proposed is that the market mechanism should be entirely replaced by quantitative regulation . . . the principle itself is based on a fallacy. . . Sir Edgar Jones speaks highly of the pre-war cartels for aluminium, rubber, tin and other raw materials. . . . Now, some of these schemes had all the restrictive vices of the textbook monopoly. . . . Few trades hold a monopoly for long and few agreements between producers survive large changes in relative costs. This scheme could work only in a world where costs of production did not change. . . . The danger lies in holding out the promise of stability to an economy like ours, which, more than almost any other in the world, must change or decay. . . . But in a moving world we can no more stop demand from changing than we can stop a tree from growing, or. at any rate, only by the same means.”

What the Guardian does NOT say is that this not merely applies to the World Trade Alliance, but also to the Atlantic Charter and the “brave new post-war world.”

Horatio.

The Beveridge Plan—for Saving Capitalism (1944)

From the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Why the Churchill Government did not immediately seize upon the Beveridge Report as a gift from the gods and as a splendid idea for saving and insuring the capitalist system and giving some reality to stand for national unity will probably puzzle future historians of our time.” (From “Forward,” 25th December, 1943.)

“It can be said, however, that Beveridge has performed a competent piece of work for the capitalists, and that he has shown them how the complex problems of distributing the very barest necessities to the more unfortunate members of the working-class can be organised in accordance with the best modern methods of business efficiency.“ (From “Beveridge Reorganises Poverty “ S.P.G.B., 3d. Post free 4d.)

SPGB Outdoor Meetings (1944)

Party News from the April 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

A "Done & Dusted" catch up special

The things you end up getting around to doing when your eldest son insists on watching Charles' coronation on the 'Big TV'. The last "Done & Dusted" post dates from November of last year, so here  follows a list of completed Socialist Standards that have been put on the blog in the intervening period.

Hopefully, I'll be a bit more up to speed in the future.

November 2022's "Done & Dusted"

October 1929

November 1929

December 1929

January 1930

February 1930

November 1959

November 2009

October 2022

December 2022's "Done & Dusted"

November 2022

February 2023's "Done & Dusted"

February 1931

February 1945

February 1973

January 2023

March 2023's "Done & Dusted"

February 1905

March 1905

October 1943

March 2001

March 2004

February 2023

March 2023

April 2023's "Done & Dusted"

April 1905

April 1908

April 1911

April 1913

April 1930

June 1930

April 1931

November 1943

December 1943

March 1944

April 1953

April 1956

April 1965

May 1973

April 1995

April 2002

April 2003

Our Conference. (1905)

From the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

We should be less than human if we did not congratulate ourselves upon the success which has attended the holding of our First Annual Conference, and the vigour and promise displayed thereat.

When, in June of last year, those of us who felt compelled to secede from the S.D.F., on account of its inconsistent and compromising policy, decided, after very careful consideration, to found a new party, whose aim it should be to raise the Standard of Revolutionary Socialism out of the capitalist mire in which it was being dragged, we fully recognised the seriousness of the step we were taking and the difficulties we should have to encounter.

But the result has exceeded our most sanguine expectations. With one or two exceptions, where personal ambition has been stronger than the desire to act loyally to the Party, the original members have worked strenuously and harmoniously to maintain our “clear and unmistakable principles, interpreted in plain and unequivocal tactics,” as the Chairman of the Conference so ably expressed it.

Not the least notable of the achievements of our Party since its formation less than twelve months ago, has been the inauguration of the Socialist Standard, which occupies an unique position amongst journals claiming to speak on behalf of Socialism or Labour, in that it is neither the private property of individuals nor owned by any limited liability company. It is owned and controlled by our Party,—hence its fearless advocacy of our principles and its unflinching criticism of all who stand in the path of Socialist progress.

Ours has been termed a position of “splendid isolation.” It is, and we look hopefully to the future to justify us, recalling the words of our comrade Wilhelm Liebknecht: “This separation of our party from all other parties—this essential difference—is our pride and our strength.”

The First Annual Conference of The Socialist Party of Great Britain was opened on Thursday, April 20th, at 7.45 p.m., at the Communist Club, London. Twenty-one delegates attended, representing thirteen branches.

E. J. B. Allen was unanimously elected Chairman, R. H. Kent and L. Boyne, Stewards, and W. St. John Dillon, W. Gifford and J. H. Crump, Standing Orders Committee.

The Executive report, printed copies of which had been distributed among the delegates, was adopted after a few points had been raised. H. C. Phillips and H. W. Belsey questioned the right of the E.C. to include in their report suggestions for the alteration of rules which had not been submitted to the branches. Phillips asked whether the unemployed members of the Party were included in the number reported as lapsed. The General Secretary stated that all were counted as lapsed for whom cards for the current year had not been applied, and if Branch Secretaries did not renew the membership cards of their unemployed members, the Central Office could only assume that these members had lapsed. Belsey criticised the action of the E.C. in publishing a certain article by a non-member of the Party in the Official Organ, and Dumenil raised the question as to the propriety of selling at Party propaganda meetings pamphlets with S.D.F. advertisements on them. Pearson enquired why the E.C. had not decided to hold a meeting on the 1st of May, and it was pointed out that the Party was not yet strong enough numerically to hold a successful demonstration.

Belsey and Dumenil moved :

“That any article appearing in the Socialist Standard which has been contributed by a non-member of the Party be prefaced by a statement to the effect that the writer is a non-member and that the Party does not necessarily endorse the opinions therein expressed.”

This was defeated by 14 to 3.

C. Lehane and A. J. M. Gray were declared elected General Secretary and Treasurer respectively, and H. Neumann and D. R. Newlands were elected auditors. The Conference then adjourned.

The Conference resumed at 10.30 a.m. on Friday. The chairman, E. J. B. Allen, stated that many questions of importance would be discussed, and he felt assured that they would be dealt with in a manner becoming the delegates to the First Annual Conference of the Party. That Conference represented practically the beginning of the modern revolutionary movement in England. Capitalism had developed to an extent previously unknown. All the inventions that Science had been able to bring forth, every fresh extension of the domain of man over nature, had under the prevailing conditions only increased the army of the property-less workers and thinned the ranks of the exploiting class. Side by side with this development there was a ripening of the workers to full class-consciousness, and the establishment of the British wing of the International Socialist Party was an event fraught with a great and glorious significance. The Socialist Party of Great Britain stood on the revolutionary principle, and was the only party of the workers in this country. It rested on clear and unmistakable principles interpreted in plain and unequivocal tactics.

The Stewards reported the votes for the Executive Committee as follows: Elected—J. Kent, 98 ; A. Anderson, 94 ; J. Fitzgerald, 88 ; E. J. B. Allen, 86; H. Neumann, 82 ; F. C. Watts, 81; T. A. Jackson, 72 ; T. W. Allen, 57 ; J. Crump, 57 ; A. Jones, 52; F. S. Leigh, 47 ; H. C. Phillips, 42. Not elected —R. H. Kent, 40; A. Barker, 37 ; Kate Hawkins, 36; A. W. Pearson, 32 ; R. Kenny, 31; L. Boyne, 28; W. Gifford, 26 ; H. T. Davey, 21; J. J. Humphrey, 20 ; A. V. Sparks, 10.

The amendments to rules were next considered, including the recommendations of the E.C. regarding some technical alterations they thought necessary. Phillips and Belsey moved:

“Whereas the alterations to the rules as proposed by the E.C. have not appeared on the final Agenda, and taking into consideration the exceptional circumstances, resolved that the discussion of such alterations shall not be taken as a precedent at any future Conference.”

Carried nem. con. The proposals of the E.C. were then adopted, with the exception that the E.C’s. definition of the method of taking a referendum of the Party was referred to the Branches, and that the establishment of relations with the Socialist Parties of other countries shall continue as one of the functions of the E.C.

The Party's attitude on Trade Unions.

E. J. B. Allen moved :

“That whereas in the struggle for existence it is essential that the working-class be organised on the economic field, but whereas Trade Union organisations unless based on Socialist principles are a snare to the workers : resolved, that The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not recommend its members to belong to any Trade Union unless such Union is organised on definite Socialist lines with the Social Revolution as its object, and this Conference hereby pledges the Party on attaining a 5,000 membership to organise Socialist Trade Unions where necessary.”

The Mover said that the political aspect of the Trade Union question was dealt with in the Declaration of Principles of the Party, but these organisations must be dealt with quite apart from the political position. The existing Unions were, without doubt, a stumbling block to the progress of Socialism, because they did not unite the workers—on the contrary, in their capacity as job trusts they divided them,—and because they were used as tools in the hands of the master-class. While fully agreeing that industrial unionism should be an essential feature of working-class organisation, he held that the Unions as they knew them to-day were useless and a source of danger to the revolutionary movement.

The motion not being seconded fell through.

Phillips and Belsey moved :

“That any resolution adopted by the Conference be sent round the Branches as only the expression of the opinion of the Conference.”

Carried nem. con.

Belsey and Dillon moved:

“Members of the S.P.G.B. shall not voluntarily participate in the political action (i.e. action in relation to or dealing with social and economic problems) of any other party or organisation to which, by the unavoidable compulsion of obtaining or retaining employment, or other necessity arising out of capitalist conditions, they may belong: the payment of a compulsory inclusive contribution to any such organisation, part of which is devoted to political purposes, shall not be regarded as participation in such political action, but no member shall seek or accept office in any party or organisation which takes political action.”

Belsey said that attempts had been made to draw a distinction between economic and political action, but in his opinion there was no economic action that was not also political. All working-class action taken outside The Socialist Party of Great Britain was absolutely void, and while members may belong to Trade Unions when compelled by the force of circumstances, he thought it would be well if they were prohibited from taking any office in Trade Unions under any condition. This, he held, was the only logical position.

F. C. Watts moved the following amendment:

“Whereas the Trade Unions, while being essentially economic organisations, are nevertheless in many instances taking political action either to safeguard their economic existence or for other purposes and,

Whereas any basis of working-class political action other than that laid down in the Declaration of Principles of The Socialist Party of Great Britain must lead the workers into the bog of confusion and disappointment; be it therefore

Resolved that this Conference of The Socialist Party of Great Britain recommends that all members of the Party, within Trade Unions, be instructed to actively oppose all action of the Unions that is not based on the principles held by this Party.”

Watts said that up to the present nothing had been done in the Unions to reveal to their members the true basis of working-class action. The members of the party were few, but they must actively resist all unsound political action on the part of the Unions. It was impossible to form Socialist Unions at present, but the better way was to give the Party members in the Unions a definite lead, and in doing this the Conference would be doing all that was expected from it. G. R. Harris seconded,

H. Neumann said that it was impossible to separate economic from political action, for economic action was a thing of the past and the Unions were to-day taking political action. The Trades Councils and the local Labour Representation Committees were trying to get members into the local bodies and into Parliament, and the economic action of the Trade Unions was subordinate to the political. The Party could not say to its members “do not belong to the Trade Unions,” because a man to get a living must very often belong to a Union ; but there was a vast difference between compulsion for the sake of a livelihood and voluntarily going and helping the Unions in their unsound political action. All the political actions of the Trade Unions resulted only in the support of the capitalist-class. Our Declaration of Principles was not sufficient to cover the activity of Party members in Trade Unions, and when they were called upon to take part in the work of the Unions they should be compelled to refuse, whether the office was paid or not. The Party should prevent its members from going astray by laying it down definitely that they shall not take office nor do anything to help the Unions in their unsound position.

Watts denied that the Unions were primarily political organisations, or that the economic action was subordinate to the political. Economic action took place in the workshop, not at the ballot box.

J. Fitzgerald said that if it were true that there was no difference between political and economic action, then it was equally true that there was no difference between the animal and the vegetable kingdoms, no difference between the solid and the liquid. A thing should always be judged by its essential features, and this was the safe and scientific method, If there was no difference between political and economic action, why had it been discussed? An economic organisation fights on the industrial field alone. A political organisation concerns itself with the political or governmental machinery of the country. These were the essential features of economic and political aotion, and these two fields were separate and distinct notwithstanding the fact that there existed a borderland where they intermingled. There was not a Trade Union in the country that paid a tenth or a twentieth of the money towards political purposes that it did for economic action. The miners, for instance, will spend more in one strike than they will spend for generations in political action—sending representatives to Parliament. The very conditions of capitalism forced the workers to form Unions. The duty of the members of the Party was to fight against the unsound position of the Unions to-day. Craft divisions would have to be broken down, skilled and unskilled, brain and manual workers, have to join hands. The tendency of economic evolution should be pointed out, and the changes rendered necessary in the economic organisation. Trade organisation must exist to bring about Socialism, and industrial organisation would be necessary under Socialism itself. Let the members of the Party put their shoulders into the Trade Unions and carry on their work of educating straight and uncompromisingly. In this way better work could be done than by remaining outside.

The amendment was carried by 11 to 3.

Upon being put as a substantive motion, Phillips moved the following amendment:—

“Delete all after ‘Resolved’ and substitute ‘that this Conference recommends that no member of the Party shall hold any official position whatsoever in the Trade Union movement, and moreover recommends that all members of the Party within Trade Unions be instructed to actively oppose all action of Trade Unions that is not based on the principles held by this Party.’”

This was defeated by 9 to 2.

A. W. Pearson moved a further amendment:—

“That this Conference reaffirms the previous declaration of the Party.”

The Mover said that the position of the Party was very clear on the matter. If the Party were to oppose Trade Unions, it should also oppose the Co-operative Societies when they take political action. The Friendly Societies may also go in for political action, and then to be consistent the Party should not allow its members to join them.

F. Craske seconded the amendment, which was defeated by 8 to 6.

The resolution moved by Watts and Harris was then carried by 11 to 3.

Should the Party take part in municipal and parliamentary elections ? If so, upon what basis ?

Gifford was of the opinion that the elections were the best time for propaganda, because then the people took a greater interest in public questions than they did at any other time. He suggested that an electoral programme be drawn up by the E.C., explaining the position of the Party and criticising the reforms proposed by other parties.

Belsey and Dillon moved :—

“That the Party do not take part in any Parliamentary or municipal elections during the next twelve months.”

Allen thought that very little could be done either in Parliament or on local bodies until the Party had a majority of delegates on them. Meanwhile, however, the representatives of the Party on those bodies should do their best in the interests of the working-class.

Neumann said that it was entirely impracticable to mention any time within which the Party should not take political action. If in any constituency there were sufficient workers to demand a representative of class-conscious principles, the workers themselves would come forward and ask for such a representative. With regard to what the members of the Party should do when elected on governing bodies, this was shown in the Declaration of Principles, and they should support only the measures in accordance therewith. The principal thing was to get behind them a class-conscious proletariat, not Radical votes, and then their representative would be backed up in his action by those who elected him. They should be revolutionists all the time.

A. W. Pearson considered that it would take a long time before a Socialist Party man would be returned to Parliament or a local body, but when he got there he would know what to do. There were certain measures which a revolutionist could support, and he instanced the case of the Municipality of Brest which voted money to the strikers. Even when they did not put up a candidate themselves they could issue literature calling upon the workers not to vote.

Belsey explained that his resolution was not intended to prevent the issuing of literature, but aimed only at deferring direct political action by the Party for a period of one year.

Fitzgerald said that Parliament was the power that politically dominated the rest of society, and so long as it was a question of Parliamentary action there was no need for any programme at all. But it was different with regard to municipal action. The Party should contest municipal elections because it would be good propaganda, because during the elections the people took a greater interest in politics, and because the Party was out for the capture of the whole of the political machinery. The local bodies were very limited in their powers, and the Socialist position should be laid down clearly pointing out that even with a majority in power much could not be done. The capture of a municipality would, however, be a means of educating the other municipalities. Money should be voted for all possible purposes in the interests of the working-class, and the wages of municipal employes raised as high as possible, but no doubt the ruling authorities would come down on the municipality and some of its members would be imprisoned.

The resolution was defeated by 14 to 2.

The International Congress and representation thereat.

Jackson said that if they examined the British delegation to the Amsterdam Congress they would discover that it was the largest and was composed largely of non-Socialists. The I.L.P. voted for the class war resolution at the Amsterdam Congress, and afterwards scoffed at it as an obsolete Marxian dogma in their official organ.

Pearson was of opinion that the International Socialist Bureau was composed of persons opposed to the principles of this Party. The rule at the Congress was that each country must verify its own credentials, and if the delegates of the Party had refused to go into the British section they would not have been admitted to the Congress at all. They were in a minority and would have to present their credentials at Stuttgart in 1907 to the British Section.

Fitzgerald said the Conference was an International assembly composed of men of different nations, customs, and languages, and the difficulties surrounding such an assembly were very large indeed. Before it would be possible to break down the national system of representation a better education of the working-class of the world would be necessary. Different systems of representation could be adopted based upon (1) the number of members of Parliament, (2) the parties in a country, (3) the membership of the parties. The Bureau had decided that each nationality should have two votes, and when there was a dispute between two sections of the nationality they were to split the votes between them. When this was done another section in France claimed a third vote. Who is to decide and where is the question to be raised as to the rights of the parties to representation? The matter should be raised on the floor of the Congress itself. They should keep steadily fighting at the Congress for the principle that only Socialist parties should be admitted to the Congresses. When this had been done for two or three Congresses many of the other parties would adopt that view.

F. Sator thought that a manifesto ought to be issued to the Socialist Parties of the world explaining the Party’s position.

C. Lehane, General Secretary, submitted to the Conference the following questions : —

1. Shall the Party become affiliated to the International Socialist Bureau and pay subscriptions thereto?
2. Shall the Party demand its own delegate on the International Socialist Bureau?
3. Shall the Party demand independent representation at the International Socialist Congress and verify the credentials of its own delegates ?

On the motion of Phillips and Belsey it was resolved that the questions be sent round the Branches for a poll of the members. Phillips and Jones moved :

“That the E.G. be instructed to draw up a series of resolutions embodying the following points:

1.—That only Socialist organisations recognising the class war in theory and practice should be represented at the International Socialist Congress.

2.—That disputes between the various parties in each country as to the genuineness of their respective organisations be settled by the Congress itself.”

After a few remarks from the Chairman the Conference closed at 8 p.m. with the singing of the “International” and cheers for the Social Revolution.

Invention: A Capitalist Monopoly. (1905)

From the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently in a London Police Court an Engineer was charged with stealing two sheets of drawing paper belonging to his employers. The employers, however, were not so much interested in obtaining the paper as the drawings it bore. Property in drawings on paper is not defined by law, but the right to such property has been frequently asserted by enforcing the right to the paper. In this case the defendant had been sent to inspect the exhibits at Olympia Motor Exhibition, and as the result of these visits “at his employers’ directions and expense” he developed ideas for the invention of a new gear box, the rough sketch of which he outlined on paper, “doing his drawing work in his employers’ time, at his employers’ office, with his employers’ materials.” The magistrate notwithstanding discharged the defendant, it being in his judgment “impossible to say that any invention which might earn £1000 a year belonged to those who paid the inventor £3 a week.”

Now this form of property comes under the classification of “Intellectual Property,” and it will be observed that the right to such property is not legally defined, being, as the plaintiff’s solicitor put it, “as in the dark ages.” Neither did the magistrate give judgment in favour of the defendant as a matter of principle, but solely in consideration of the comparative insignificance of his salary.

Why is the right to intellectual property so ill-defined? Lafargue, in an admirable little pamphlet entitled “Le Socialisme et Les Intellectuals” touches upon this subject. He says :

“Material property, whatever may be its origin, is declared eternal by capitalist law : it is assured for ever to its possessor, handed down from father to son until the end of time, no power, civil or political, being able to lay sacrilegious hands upon it.

. . . . . . .

“Capitalist law has none of these considerations for intellectual property. Literary and artistic property, the only forms which the law protects, have but a precarious duration, limited (in France) to the life time of the author, and to a certain period after his death; 50 years according to the latest legislation. This moment passed, the right succumbs and falls in the public way : so that from March of the present year (1900) publishers can enrich themselves by publishing the works of Balzac, the genius of romantic literature.

“Literary property, if of importance to publishers, in reality not a very numerous class, does not yield any profit to the capitalists as a whole; but it is not thus with the property in inventions, which is of supreme importance to the industrial and commercial capitalists together. Likewise the law extends no protection whatever to it. The inventor, if he desires to defend his intellectual property against the bourgeois plunderers, must begin by buying this right by taking out a patent, which must be renewed annually. One day behind time in paying the tax, his intellectual property becomes the legitimate prey of the capitalist robbers. Even while paying this sum regularly his right is limited to 14 years (in France). During this short number of years, generally insufficient to have his invention completely adopted in practical industry ; it is he, the inventor, who at his own expense must put the legal machinery against the bourgeois plunderers who would seize it.

“The ‘trade mark,’ which is a form of capitalist property, never having demanded any intellectual effort, is on the contrary indefinitely protected by law like material property.

“The capitalist has only grudgingly granted to the inventor the right to defend his intellectual property, because by his right of reigning class, he believes himself master of the fruits of intellectual labour as well as of manual labour, just as the feudal lord arrogated to himself the right of possession over the property of his serfs.

. . . . . . .

“The capitalist-class, the most revolutionary class that has ever oppressed human society, cannot increase its riches but by incessantly revolutionising the means of production by the never-ending introduction of new applications of the mechanical, physical, and chemical sciences to the industrial tool. Its thirst for inventions is so insatiable that it has created factories of inventions. Several American capitalists have associated in organising at Mungo Park, for Edison, the most marvellous laboratory in the world. Here they have placed at his disposition an army of scientists, the aristocrats of labour, and the material means necessary to make and continue making the inventions that the capitalists patent, exploit, or sell. Edison, who is himself one of the sharpest of business men, has, however, taken precautions in order to insure his participation in the profits which the inventions of Mungo Park will yield.

”But all inventors cannot, like Edison, impose their conditions on the capitalists who build factories of inventions to exploit them. The Thompson-Houston Company at Paris, Siemens in London and Berlin, have, side by side with their electrical machinery, workshops and laboratories where engineers are engaged in research work, seeking new applications of electricity. At Frankfort in the factory of aniline colours, the largest in the world, and where the mineral antipyrine was discovered, there are more than one hundred chemists paid to discover new chemical products. Each discovery is immediately patented by the firm, which, by way of encouragement, gives some reward to the inventor.

“To a certain point we can consider all factories and workshops as laboratories of inventions, because a considerable number of improvements in machinery have been found out by the workmen in the course of work. As the inventor has not the necessary money to patent or apply his discovery, the employer takes out the patent in his own name, and thus, as bourgeois justice wishes it, it is he who gathers all the accruing profits therefrom. When the government thinks of rewarding talent it is the employer who is rewarded; the workman inventor, who is but an “intellectual,” continues toiling on as before, and as in this capitalist world one must be contented with little, he consoles himself in his misery, saying that his invention brings profit and honour to his master.

. . . . . . .

“Will the intellectuals yet hear the voice of the Socialists calling them to the rescue to free Science and Art from the capitalist yoke, and liberate thought from the slavery of wagedom?”

P. J. Tobin

Life and Times: R-E-A-L L-O-V-E (2023)

The Life and Times column from the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

My local Community Centre recently advertised a Saturday evening event, a gospel choir with performers from London. Entrance was free to all. I view religion as baseless superstition, but I do enjoy gospel music. Regardless of many of the sentiments it expresses, I enjoy its energy, its rhythm and the powerful singing voices of those who perform it. And I respect the sincerity of its performers and their followers.

With this in mind I decided to go to the event. Arriving a few minutes before the start time, I was surprised to see only a sparse audience in the Community Centre hall. That, it seemed to me, would not be good for the atmosphere. But the organiser was reassuring. He announced that more people would arrive soon and in the meantime advised those present to pray. He proceeded to do so himself out loud in improvised fashion. And then more people did arrive and the show started.

Gospel rap

But I was in for a disappointment. Rather than a massed choir or Mahalia Jackson-type singers belting out Oh Happy Day, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Old-Time Religion or Amazing Grace, it was individual performers with pre-recorded backing doing what I was later told is ‘gospel rap’. Rap isn’t my favourite type of music and, since the acoustics in the hall weren’t brilliant, it was difficult to catch the words most of the time. The exception to this was a number called Real Love, since the spelt-out refrain (R-E-A-L L-O-V-E) was much repeated and gave the listeners something to hang on to. The ‘real love’ was of course love of or for God or Jesus. Fair enough given the context, but what I wasn’t expecting was the religious ‘testifying’ that punctuated the evening. Each performer, after their spot, would stay on stage, tell their story and exhort the audience to listen to and embrace the word of God or the teaching of Jesus, to put their hands in the air and even come to the front if they were moved to do so. A small number did, though these may have been members of the group who were organising the event. But their exhortations were impressively powerful and gave some kind of inkling of how the mass events of evangelising preachers are capable of gaining converts on the spot. I was reminded of the mass rallies addressed by the American Baptist preacher, Billy Graham, over many decades.

I obviously wasn’t up for conversion, but, as the event drew to a close, one of the organisers, who, when I came in, introduced himself as Dion, came and sat next to me and asked me if I was a Christian and, if so, did I want to take that further? I very politely made it clear I didn’t have Christian beliefs and wasn’t a candidate for conversion. But I also told him I’d found the concert interesting and wished him luck in any future events.

The solace of religion

What to make of that? Well, first of all, before going to a gospel concert again, I’d make sure what kind of music it was going to be. And I’d also be prepared for any evangelising, not be surprised by it and just consider it part of the show. One of those who had ‘testified’ told the gathering that he was a refugee who had the group – and Jesus – to thank for embracing him after much suffering. I could understand the force behind that. But I found it more difficult to fathom why seemingly ordinary people with the families and children they had brought with them should be involved in activities and beliefs that were so contrary to evidence and to everyday experience of life. But maybe they too, for their own reasons, needed the solace, the comfort of religious belief and its ritual and the attachment to a community it brings with it. Maybe they needed, as we all do in our own way, to feel part of a larger group, to feel, in a world that oppresses us all in so many ways, that we at least have something to hang on to.

Illusions

The trouble of course is that, on top of the illusions that most people have about the way the society we live in – capitalism – works, which are a serious impediment to understanding its true nature and the urgent need for a different kind of society, religion constitutes an additional illusion in its irrational belief that there exists a supernatural entity, a supreme force that intervenes in nature and human affairs and even somehow allows us to live on after death. This is one of the reasons why socialists are opposed to religion, whether organised or otherwise, and see the socialist society of free access and democratic organisation we advocate and work for as one that will be free of religion, and indeed will have no need for the illusions religion harbours and seeks to spread.

When Dion came and sat next to me at the end of the concert, I would have liked to say those things to him, but of course it would have been unfair, as it was his ‘gig’. I would have liked to tell him that religious fantasies answer no questions about the world we live in, that humans are born into a material world, that their ideas are fashioned by that world and that they in their turn modify it. But not knowing the circumstances of his life, I may have come over as plain offensive. Maybe I could at least have pointed out that the music I’d heard that night was not ‘gospel’ as normally understood and that, when they next put on an event, I’d be glad to attend if real gospel music was on offer.

Howard  Moss