Another backlog of "done & dusted" Socialist Standards from the blog. I'll try to be better next month . . . promise.
May 2023's "Done & Dusted"
Saturday, August 5, 2023
Voice From The Back: The arrogance of the capitalist class (2010)
The arrogance of the capitalist class
In a society wherein children are trying to survive on a dollar a day the obscene wealth of the owning class and their flaunting of their riches has recently shown a particularly obnoxious example. “A bidder has agreed to pay $2.63 million for a steak lunch with the billionaire investor Warren Buffett in a charity auction held on eBay Inc’s website. The highest bid in the 11th annual auction topped the previous record $2.11 million paid in 2008 by Zhao Danyang, a Hong Kong investor. Wealth manager Salida Capital Corp of Toronto won with a $1.68 million bid in 2009.” (Reuters, 11 June) Millions of dollars spent on lunching with a billionaire while millions of children starve, do you need any other reason to get rid of capitalism?
What recession?
As the British government announces massive cuts to deal with the economic recession it is interesting to note that recession or not the owning class still manage to spare a few coppers for their art collections. “Last week was one of the biggest ever in the world of London’s art auctions, with the recession failing to stop records being broken at the Impressionist/Modern evening sales at both Sotheby’s (22 June) and Christie’s (23 June)” (Observer, 27 June) A Picasso went for over £34 million, a Manet for over £22 million and a Klimt for just under £19 million. It is nice to see that our betters are not letting an economic downturn affect their appreciation of artistic merit.
Let ‘em fly copters
The arrogance of the Russian ruling elite is prodigious but even by their standards this takes a bit of beating. “As Moscow residents sweltered in an unprecedented traffic snarl-up, the governor of the region around Moscow offered an unusual solution on Friday: buy a helicopter. ‘I fly in a helicopter. (You) should also buy helicopters instead of cars – then you do not need roads,’ Moscow Region governor Boris Gromov told journalists, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.” (Yahoo News, 2 July) This crass statement brings to mind Marie Antoinette’s reputed statement on hearing that the lower orders were rioting because of the lack of bread “Let them eat cake”. In Marie’s defence she probably never said such a thing, but Boris did and he should remember Marie’s fate.
The silent spillage
The Press and TV have given great prominence to the oil spillage in the Gulf of Mexico but very little has been reported about the oil disasters that continue to plague Nigeria.” A series of spills, some of them the responsibility of the American multinational ExxonMobil, have been polluting the Niger delta for five decades. One estimate says the amount spilled in the region over nearly 50 years totals 10.5 million barrels. That is more than five times the worst estimate of the spillage so far from the Deepwater Horizon leak in the Gulf. Yet despite the pollution, illness and poverty caused by the ongoing leaks in Nigeria, they rarely make the international headlines. And there has been no high-profile effort to correct the situation.” (First Post, 17 June) The spillage on the USA’s shores may be more news-worthy but the pollution in Nigeria is just as deadly. It is just another example of how in its quest for more and more profits the capitalist system pays little regard to human health or happiness.
Stop Moaning. Work Harder
Next time you complain to your boss about being exploited let us hope he doesn’t read this piece of nonsense. “People who make their colleagues miserable by constantly moaning at work may actually be suffering from a mental illness, a study suggests. According to researchers in Germany, they are suffering from a new condition called post-traumatic embitterment disorder. …The findings are based on a two-year study of 21 people by researchers at the University of Berlin.” (BBC News, 20 June) Presumably the “researchers” didn’t moan or complain and no one mentioned to them that research that only used 21 people is hardly convincing. Here’s to the day when more and more of us “suffer” from post traumatic embitterment disorder. The researchers may call it a mental disorder – we call it good sense.
Material World: Waste and Want: Grapes of Wrath revisited (2010)
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In his famous novel The Grapes of Wrath (Chapter 25), John Steinbeck described how food was destroyed during the Great Depression:
“Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people come for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges… A million people hungry, needing the fruit – and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.And the smell of rot fills the country.Burn coffee for fuel in the ships… Dump potatoes in the rivers and place guards along the banks to keep the hungry people from fishing them out [with nets]. Slaughter the pigs and bury them…And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificates – died of malnutrition – because the food must be forced to rot.”
A few more facts. In 1933 alone, the US federal government bought 6 million hogs and destroyed them. Vast quantities of milk were poured down the sewers. 25 million acres of crops (the area of a square with sides 200 miles long) were ploughed under. In Brazil, 69 million bags of coffee, equivalent to two years’ output, were destroyed. All to keep up prices.
What about this time round?
The current depression is the deepest since that of the 1930s, and its end is not yet in sight. As real wages continue to fall and austerity measures bite harder, more and more goods will remain unsold. Falling prices and profits are already leading to scenes reminiscent of those portrayed by Steinbeck.
Leaving strawberries to rot
In March reports appeared that Florida strawberry growers, faced with a flooded market and a sharp collapse in wholesale prices, were leaving huge tracts to rot in the fields. Most of these farmers did not allow people in to pick fruit for themselves. They were afraid that cucumbers and other new crops they were planting between the rows might be harmed.
Not only the strawberries went to waste but also the water used to grow them. Cultivation of the wasted strawberries drained the groundwater and caused local water shortages.
Bulldozing houses
There have been reports from around the United States of the destruction of houses, many of them newly built. Most foreclosed houses can no longer be sold at auction, even for prices as low as $500. They end up in the hands of banks that see no medium-term prospect of reselling them and conclude that the cheapest solution is to tear them down. This happens not only to individual houses but often to whole streets. In May 2009, a bank decided to bulldoze an almost finished housing complex in California rather than spend the few hundred thousand dollars needed to complete it.
Meanwhile the ranks of the homeless continue to swell. They are in desperate need of housing but generate no “effective demand”.
Slashing clothes and shoes
In early January, The New York Times ran a story about two major retail chains, H&M and Wal-Mart, throwing out unsold clothes in trash bags. First they are made unwearable: employees are told to slash garments, slice holes in shoes, cut sleeves off coats, fingers off gloves, etc..
The response to this article included internet testimony from ex-employees of other large stores, revealing how widespread these practices now are.
Cheryl: “I worked at Dillards for several years. They do the same thing. Their logic was that if they donated it [to charity] people would try to bring it back to exchange for other merchandise.”Martha: “Yeah, I used to work at a store where they would rip the bed sheets, blankets and pillow cases if they couldn’t sell them, then throw them away… I thought it was dumb. I wanted to take it and donate it, but they didn’t let me.”Nat: “I used to work for H&M and hated to cut the clothing [that] I knew we could have given away to those who needed it. We destroyed EVERYTHING and I found it so stupid. It was such a waste and sad!”Maryliz: “This just makes me sick. How terrible, especially right now with people freezing to death. They could have been saved if they had sufficient warm clothing. Shame on the companies that do this.”Maggie: “I got so mad that my managers wouldn’t box up [unsold food] and take it to shelters that I called corporate headquarters… They wouldn’t let the food be donated! Some blather about how that would devalue the brand, because people would just go to that shelter to eat the food instead of coming and paying for it.”
The vintage Steinbeck finishes Chapter 25 with the passage that gives his book its title:
“In the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.”
There is ample cause for wrath. But wrath is not enough. The managers who got Maggie so angry have to act as they do. (Otherwise they won’t remain managers.) They have to pursue the commercial logic of maximising profit or minimising loss. The idea of giving people what they need, simply because they need it, is inconsistent with this logic. It expresses a different, human logic, which will come into its own once we reorganize society on a different, human basis.
Stefan
Marx and the Ideology of Darwin (2010)
Marx admired Darwin’s work but was critical of some of the conclusions drawn from it. The second of our three-part article on Marx and Engels and Darwin .
In Marx’s initial enthusiastic reading of The Origin of Species he had written to both Engels (19 December 1860) and Lassalle (16 January 1861) that it “contains the natural-history foundation of our viewpoint” and that “it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle.” What could he have meant by these comments? He was certainly not saying that the Darwinian process applied to human society. After all, Marx had spent nigh on 20 years grappling with trying to understand social processes and arriving at the “guiding thread” of his materialist conception. It is unlikely that in the 18 months separating what he wrote in the famous 1859 Preface and his reading of Darwin’s Origin that he would have jettisoned his own hard won approach and replaced it with Darwin’s. So what was the connection with Darwin? It is unlikely to have been Darwin’s Malthusianism, as anything smacking of Malthus would have been contemptible to Marx. Perhaps a closer look at what Darwin meant by the phrase “struggle for existence” may help.
Darwin made clear in The Origin that he used this phrase in a metaphoric sense to cover a wide range of situations:
“I should premise that I use the term Struggle for Existence in a large and metaphoric sense, including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. Two canine animals in time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle with each other which shall get the food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture.”(Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859; Penguin edition 1968, p.116.)
And:
“Hence, as more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life.” (ibid., p.117.)
This “large and metaphoric” meaning of the phrase “struggle for existence” includes more than the Hobbesian “war of all against all” or of “nature red in tooth and claw” of Tennyson, and refers to the necessity of all biological species to obtain their means of survival and reproduction from their interaction with the environment they inhabit, and that different biological forms have different kinds of interaction with their surroundings. Human beings, too, have to confront this problem of obtaining their conditions of existence. Indeed, in The German Ideology (1845) in which Marx and Engels first formulated their materialist conception, they state:
“The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions of their life, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus, the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature. Of course, we cannot here go either into the actual physical nature of man, or into the natural conditions in which man finds himself – geological, oro-hydrographical, climatic and so on. All historical writing must set out from these natural bases and their modification in the course of history through the action of men.” (Marx and Engels, Collected Works, volume 5, p. 31.)
In this process of obtaining their conditions of existence humans in particular construct and use tools as instruments of production, but so too, to a lesser degree, do other animals. Far more important for animals in this was the specialised development of parts of their body. And it was this aspect of Darwin’s “epoch-making work” (Capital, volume 1, Penguin edition, 1976, p. 461, note 6) that Marx referred to in the only comments published during his lifetime, and then only as footnotes in Capital, volume 1:
“Darwin has directed attention to the history of natural technology, i.e., the formation of organs of plants and animals, which serve as the instruments of production for sustaining their life. Does not the history of the productive organs of man in society, of organs that are the material basis of every particular organisation of society, deserve equal attention? And would not such a history be easier to compile, since, as Vico says, human history differs from natural history in that we have made the former, but not the latter. Technology reveals the active relation of man to nature, the direct process of the production of his life, and thereby it also lays bare the process of production of the social relations of his life, and of the mental conceptions that flow from those relations. . . . The weaknesses of the abstract materialism of natural science, a materialism which excludes the historical process, are immediately evident from the abstract and ideological conceptions expressed by their spokesmen whenever they venture beyond the bounds of their own speciality.” (Capital, volume 1, Penguin edition, 1976, pp. 493-494, note 4.)
Throughout his work, Marx always made a distinction between natural history and human history, and the difference between animals and humans in their relationship to their conditions of existence. Again in the German Ideology, he and Engels had written of this:
“[Men] themselves begin to distinguish themselves from animals as soon as they begin to produce their means of subsistence, a step which is conditioned by their physical organisation. By producing their means of subsistence men are indirectly producing their actual material life.” ( p. 31.)
As soon as human beings start to produce their means of subsistence they must enter into certain kinds of relations of production, and these are not nature-determined as they are with other species. The earliest humans may have started out with nature given conditions, but the evolution of their biological structures made it both possible and necessary for them to move beyond this. This aspect of human beings was beyond Darwin’s viewpoint; he could not move beyond natural history.
Although Marx appreciated the scientific significance of The Origin, his critical perspective brought to the fore some of Darwin’s ideological assumptions, especially when applied to human society and the use made to justify capitalism as “natural.” In one of his last letter in which he mentions Darwin, writing to Laura and Paul Lafargue (15 February 1869) he wrote:
“Darwin is led by the struggle for life in English society – the competition of all with all, bellum ominum contra omnes – to discover competition […] as the ruling law of ‘bestial’ and vegetative life. The Darwinian, conversely, considers this a conclusive reason for human society never to emancipate itself from its bestiality.”
Marx’s interest in Darwin did not extend beyond The Origin, and there is no evidence that he read The Descent of Man or any other of Darwin’s works. However, there is no doubt that he appreciated Darwin’s “epoch-making work” and held Darwin in high regard. This is made clear when he sent Darwin, on 25 September1873, an inscribed copy of the second German edition of Capital: “Mr Charles Darwin on the part of his sincere admirer Karl Marx.”
Darwin (1 October 1873) sent a typically courteous but non-committal reply, and the majority of the pages remain uncut in Darwin’s library. And since the mid-1970s the myth that Marx wished to dedicate volume 2 of Capital to Darwin has been laid to rest.
On the same day he sent his inscribed copy to Darwin, Marx also sent one to Herbert Spencer, another giant of 19th century thought, perhaps even more widely read by others than even Darwin. But apart from the long forgotten Italian criminologist, Enrico Ferri, who wrote Socialism and Positivism (1894; English edition 1905), who else has attempted a Darwin-Spencer-Marx link up?
Ed Blewitt
Next month (concluding article): Had Engels read Darwin’s The Descent of Man? The first part appeared in the June issue.
Letter: Withering away of money? (2010)
Withering away of money?
Dear Editors,
Responding to Max Hess’s article ‘Capitalist Money Madness’ (Socialist Standard, May) a suggestion. Perhaps, a way a Socialist government (if there ever was one ) could bring about a moneyless economy is to print the stuff in abundance and pay it out in salaries and wages. Everyone would be employed in goods and services and use money to buy whatever they needed, or thought they needed. Meanwhile, everyone would be working to produce and provide the goods and services but no one would ever be without enough dosh to ‘purchase’ whatever they wanted because they would have access to as much of the stuff that they wanted.
Of course, in no time at all there’d be run-away inflation but it wouldn’t matter if there were no money markets, exchange and financial institutions, there’d be no capitalist institutions because there would be nothing for them to do. As Max says, also no need for police, military, bankers, lawyers, prisons and prison officers … a whole swathe of jobs related to money, it’s use and misuse.
People would soon realize that money isn’t necessary to maintain an economy. It’s just a method used by a profit system that was perhaps necessary in times past but now no longer appropriate, needed or wanted. They’d only need to continue doing what they always did do…work and consume without the need to use paper and metal tokens to do it.
If other capitalist countries wanted to trade with Britain we’d provide them with goods and services in exchange for what we needed of theirs. Their workers would soon see what ours have got up to and would bring about the same change in their countries. When people see that they don’t need money to maintain their standards of living and even raise them to heights only ever dreamed of they’d wonder why it was never thought of before.
Then they’d realize the great thievery that had been perpetrated upon them for centuries and resolve to never again allow capitalism to raise its fanged head again. Then, and only then, would a truly international common global economy evolve. Then, and only then, would mankind advance to the utopian world dreamt of by our ancestors .
Of course, things wouldn’t run smoothly at first but society by its very nature is a moral system and just as today layabouts and petty thieves are disdained and rejected, so too in a sane socialist system dissenters would have no argument and find it hard going to feel self respect and acceptance.
Am I right or am I right ?
Leo Aliferis (by email)
Reply:
You’re right that when people realise they don’t need money to maintain a very good standard of living, they’ll wonder why it was never thought of before. But that awareness can’t be achieved through a leftwing ‘socialist government’, which would have campaigned for, and been elected to, supervise capitalism — not abolish it.
In the highly unlikely event that such a government, led by a Trotskyist-style vanguard, sabotaged the profit-wages-money system by deliberately bringing about hyperinflation and economic chaos, the population would neither expect nor want this. All voters would then focus on is the ensuing financial turmoil and they’d be extremely alarmed by what was happening and they’d throw that government out of office at the earliest opportunity. Deliberately subjecting a pro-money population to economic chaos, as a means of supposedly leading them to socialist awareness, is doomed to fail.
Whereas, if a clear majority of the electorate vote for moneyless real socialism, because they have come to understand what it is and consciously want this system instead of capitalism, then there’d be no need to continue with a means of exchange. They would already “realize that money isn’t necessary to maintain an economy”. And after a clear majority of people have voted for real socialism in a general election, then plans and preparations to bring this about can be acted upon immediately without any widespread rejection and resistance that would be associated with trying to impose it on an unready and averse population from above.
Given the dire condition clapped-out capitalism is now in, and that we’re heading for a prolonged period of additional working class suffering and misery, mainstream party politicians will be trying harder than ever to dupe people into believing that money management offers the answer to alleviating and solving these capitalism-caused problems. They’ll want people submissively accepting worsening state-funded services. They’ll want those without jobs submissively accepting any low-paid work they are offered. They’ll want those with jobs submissively accepting pay restraint and cuts. They’ll want people turning against supposedly less-deserving recipients of welfare benefits.
We need to get people to completely reject this bogus capitalist agenda that managing money better is in our best interests. It isn’t. Abolishing money, and the capitalist system that requires it, is in our best interests.
We are not “all in this together”, as Cameron farcically states. Capitalists and their political stooges are in it for as much as they can get out of it. Everyone else is required to keep the pig trough as full as possible. – Editors.
Land Grab: win-win or win-lose? (2010)
Corporate self-regulation or total system change?
Following the recent growing interest in land acquisition and investment in land around the world for which there are no binding regulations and also, apparently, no agreement by private industry as to whether or how to adopt voluntary self-regulation, the World Bank with the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Institute for Food and Development, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) convened a meeting to discuss this issue. Titled ‘Principles for responsible agricultural investment that respects rights, livelihoods and resources’ the discussion notes from the September/October 2009 meeting were published in January.
A set of seven principles was drawn up highlighting the main risks, which were perceived to be displacement of populations and undermining or negating existing rights. The first two principles were concerned mainly with not jeopardising existing land rights and ensuring that food security would not be threatened in the targeted areas.
Two more principles were focussed on transparency at all stages of the process when accessing land or other resources, to ensure that all stakeholders would be kept within the information loop. Consultation and participation were to be such that all those materially affected should be consulted and agreements from consultations would be recorded and enforced.
The remaining principles were concerned with ‘responsible’ investing, respect for rule of law, use of industry best practice and to balance returns for shareholders with significant positive outcomes for the host nation. Both social and environmental sustainability were considered important, with the need for environmental impact studies written in and the recognition that there should be no negative impacts on local populations.
In conclusion it was noted that agreement had been reached that a set of principles was necessary and that the seven drawn up were the right ones.
Response by UN Special Rapporteur
This proposed voluntary code was responded to on 26 April at a high level session of UNCTAD and the Commission on Investment Enterprise and Development in Geneva by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter. He is independent of any government or organisation and reports to the Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly. His response was lengthy and apprehensive especially with regard to item five on the agenda – Investment in the agricultural sector with a view to building productive capacities – concerning the seven principles above. ‘I am worried,’ he began before going on to expound his many reasons. In a number of areas he felt that the focus was wrong, that it should be on rural development and increased incomes, not on boosting production, He referred to the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1970s when food production increased per capita by 9 percent in South Asia 1970-1990 but the increase of hungry people was also 9 percent and in South America in the same period food production per capita increased 8 percent but the hungry increased by 19 percent.
Another concern was that with agricultural investment there was a tendency to antagonise groups of farmers who are involved in different kinds of farming, especially the small land owners who, although generally more productive, can in no way compete with the bigger mechanised farms. A further worry came from knowledge of earlier projects when land rights had been violated in investments in plantations for fuel crops, dams, tourism and large scale infrastructure projects.
His conclusion: ‘We cannot afford more dispossessed, greater inequalities, more leaving the land because it has become unviable – pastoralists to lose access to grazing, fishers cut off from their fishing grounds, forest destruction or fencing in for carbon sequestration.’
The World Bank’s and their associates’ statement and principles all sound quite reasonable if we are able to lay aside cynicism for a fleeting moment. However, if it is as trustworthy and dependable as it appears to be – transparent, fair, considerate of all parties etc etc – why does Olivier De Schutter feel the need to report that he is worried and to further expand on the principles and explain where they can go wrong? Remember the original principles were an attempt to provide merely a voluntary code to which De Schutter was compelled to call for added regulation or more careful wording, discerning the probability of win-lose scenarios.
Note there was no discussion of binding the principles in law, merely a suggestion that respecting any current laws would be favourable. The very fact that it is considered necessary to implement a (voluntary) code of conduct implies that previously (and currently as this code of conduct has not yet been agreed) dubious practices have been rife. We have to conclude that it is not the need for voluntary or mandatory regulations to protect what may be vulnerable, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, that are required but the removal of each and every agent that causes these vulnerabilities.
Few people are naïve enough in the 21st century to believe that investor agencies, corporate, financial or whatever, are altruistic in their dealings with the (mostly) developing countries being discussed in their absence. We recognise that their first consideration will be the timescale of the profit potential. Maybe the following response can throw some light onto a better way to deal with this matter if we are to be serious about focussing on benefits rather than profits. The way to make it possible for all possible third parties to benefit materially in exchange for a signature is to eliminate the profit motive. This is also the sure fire way to ensure that any outside agencies are there to assist positively rather than to profit personally. The guarantee that all communities around the world will be empowered to organise their own affairs according to their own self-determined aspirations will come from the rejection of the capitalist system in favour of a world socialist system; from the democratic decision of a majority world population desirous of a world of free association and access.
(World Bank guidelines and De Schutter’s response originally sourced from www.farmlandgrab.org)
Janet Surman
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Conversation with a hairdresser’s assistant (2010)
In the 1930s Wilhelm Reich, perhaps best known as the author of The Sexual Revolution, developed the theory that it was possible to explain the basic concepts of Marxian economics without employing complicated economic terms and arguments. As an example of his attempt at this, we publish below, for the first time in English translation, an article he wrote in 1935 under his pseudonym of Ernst Parell for the Zeitschrift für politische Psychologie und Sexualökonomie (vol 2, No 1) he published in exile in Denmark.
Assistant: Style or a simple haircut?
Customer: A haircut please but square not round.
(Pause)
Assistant: What do you think of present times?
Customer: Terrible. Where will it lead to?
Assistant: The hooligans are going to cut each other’s throats and we’ll get the worst of it whoever wins, whether the Communists or the Nazis. They’re as bad as each other.
Customer: Perhaps you’re right. I can’t understand politics.
Assistant: I’m glad I’ve got a job and am making ends meet. As for the rest, all I want is to live in peace.
Customer: May I ask how much you in fact earn?
Assistant: 100 marks a month.
Customer: Can you live on that?
Assistant: Just about. I’d like to get married but it’ll take a long time until my fiancée and me have saved up enough to be able to rent a flat. I’ve been working ten years in this place and I’ve not saved up enough yet.
Customer: What’s your boss like?
Assistant: He’s a very nice person. Sometimes he’s a bit moody, but I get on fairly well with him.
Customer: How many customers do you deal with a day?
Assistant: 10 to 15. On Saturdays it’s more.
Customer: So that means that 15 customers pay 15 marks into the business. OK, but you only get 3.50 marks a day. What happens to the rest?
Assistant: You’ve not taken into account the expenses of our business. Lighting, telephone, insurance, instruments, rent, they eat up quite a bit.
Customer: I’d be interested how much.
Assistant: (thinks awhile) Well I suppose at least 8 marks.
Customer: OK, but that still leaves about 9-10 marks.
Assistant: Yes, but the business must make a surplus since the boss takes a great risk. For example, on some days there are fewer customers, or in bad times.
Customer: Does that mean that you get more when business is booming?
Assistant: No, why should I? I’m on a regular income.
Customer: I don’t understand. When you work more you don’t get paid more? And of the amount you earn on average for the boss keeps a fund for bad times?
Assistant: You’re quite right.
Customer: If I understand you correctly, you produce after subtracting all costs about 10 to 12 marks for him per day and of this you receive 3 to 3.50 marks. And if times become permanently bad for the business he’ll sack you, in which case the reserve fund is of no use to you. So what in fact does he use this money for?
Assistant: Well, for example the boss has to acquire modern machines. At present we’re replacing the hand clippers by electric ones.
Customer: What does that mean?
Assistant (surprised): What, you don’t understand that? It’s quite simple. Now I can deal with 10 customers a day, afterwards I’ll be able to deal with 20 because the cutting will be much faster.
Customer: And each one of these 20 will be paying 1 mark as before. And you, how much will you get then?
Assistant (even more surprised): Naturally, I’ll continue to get my 100 marks.
Customer: Excuse my being so inquisitive, I’m getting a bit lost and am rather amazed. With the new improved machines you’ll be earning 20 marks for, him but you yourself will continue to receive only 3.50. That means the surplus has grown from 8 to about 13? Where does the money go?
Assistant: (scratches his head) Actually, you’re right. That’s a good question but, you know, I get so tired from working that I don’t have much energy to think. I’m happy if I can rest and keep my job. You know next week 2 out of my 5 workmates are being made redundant and I have to ensure that I’m not sacked too.
Customer: It must be pretty bad to stand 10 hours a day in the shop – what about holidays?
Assistant: Oh yes. I get a fortnight every year, but the others also go on holiday and when they do I have to do more work. And now the boss is going away for 2 months.
Customer: Where does he get the money to stay away for so long?
Assistant: He has a villa in Dahlen.
Customer: Oh. How come?
Assistant: Well he’s owned this business for 30 years now.
Customer: I see. Does he work?
Assistant: Oh no, only sometimes he helps out. But it’s a successful business.
Customer: Listen. I don’t understand anything about such things but it seems to me that his villa and his summer holidays are paid by the 8 or 13 marks which you earn for his “business surplus”.
Assistant: Oh I don’t think so. But perhaps you’re right, it is odd. I’d like to talk to you sometime about this. You talk a lot of common sense.
In this conversation no political word has been mentioned, but this hairdresser’s assistant has developed the theory of surplus value, rationalisation and unemployment from the experiences of his own life. And over and above this he has developed a confidence in the “customer”. You don’t need to teach him about what rationalisation or exploitation is, he has described these himself. What he lacks is the understanding of the link between his knowledge about his work and surplus labour with the villa of the entrepreneur. Nor is he at all conscious of the fact that he identifies with his boss. And he is completely unable to see the connection between politics, which he is against and afraid of, and his everyday life. At this point it will be easy to make him conscious of this because it is contained in what he himself has said and experienced; all that has to be done is to develop it.
Ernst Parell
Tiny Tips (2010)
The Tiny Tips column from the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard
“This is a system of the elite, by the elite and for the elite,” said Riyaz Hussain Naqvi, a retired government official who worked in tax collection for 38 years. “It is a skewed system in which the poor man subsidizes the rich man.” The problem starts at the top. The average worth of Pakistani members of Parliament is $900,000, with its richest member topping $37 million. “It’s a very good country for the rich man. Chauffeurs, servants, big houses. The question is, who is suffering? The common man.” :
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The anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders, whose Freedom party (PVV) won 24 seats and third place in the Dutch national election last month, says he is forming international alliances to launch branches of his Islamophobic party across the Western world. Almost 1.5m Dutch people voted for the PVV in June. “The message, ‘stop Islam, defend freedom’, is a message that’s not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world.”
[Dead Link.]
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The United Nations estimates that each year 5,000 mostly Muslim women and girls are shot, stoned, strangled, stabled, burned, or smothered by family members with the intention of cleansing shame from the family’s name. While most of these crimes occur in the Middle East and South Asia, immigration is taking them around the globe.
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Fears are growing for the fate of thousands of young girls in rural Mauritania, where campaigners say the cruel practice of force-feeding young girls for marriage is making a significant comeback since a military junta took over the West African country. Aminetou Mint Ely, a women’s rights campaigner, said girls as young as five were still being subjected to the tradition of leblouh every year. The practice sees them tortured into swallowing gargantuan amounts of food and liquid - and consuming their vomit if they reject it.
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As 14-year-old Nguyen Hoang Anh was being branded with hot irons, had solvents poured in his wounds and had his teeth pulled out with pliers, those who heard him ignored his cries. In most countries, suspicions of any kind of child abuse, let alone such a horrific case, would rouse a small army of social workers and police. Vietnam, however, has no such public system and only loose laws protecting children and other vulnerable people. “We don’t consider beating a child to be violence against children,” concedes Nguyen Hai Huu, director of the Ministry for Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs’ child-protection unit.
[Dead Link.]
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An Indian court has ruled that Hindu gods cannot deal in stocks and shares, reports said Saturday, after an application for trading accounts to be set up in their names. Two judges at the Bombay High Court on Friday rejected a petition from a private religious trust to open accounts in the names of five deities, including the revered elephant-headed god, Ganesha. “Trading in shares on the stock market requires certain skills and expertise and to expect this from deities would not be proper,” judges P.B. Majumdar and Rajendra Sawant said, according to Indian newspapers.
[Dead Link.]
Politics in Zambia (2010)
Democracy is an all-encompassing word used to describe the political state of modern times. More or less democracy describes a political state in which fully fledged parliamentary legality flourishes and political parties come to power through the ballot box. The art of constitutional government as we know and practice it in Zambia is derived from British colonialism (parliamentary democracy). But parliamentary democracy is not a static condition – political constitutions have been revised in Africa day in and day out to suit respective political parties that may happen to be in power. In Zambia the ruling MMD has been experimenting to revise the current political constitution, in a move aimed to make it impossible for opposition leader Michael Sala to stand for the 2011 presidential election.
It is the case in Zambia today that the methods of political change are fraught with many difficulties – chief among these is the regional fragmentation of voting patterns, i.e. people still vote on tribal allegiances. Zambian politics is heavily influenced by political charisma. The first president Dr. Kenneth Kaunda was a charismatic leader and still remained a flamboyant personality. Charismatic politicians have a propensity to capture public worship either through making articulate speeches or wearing fine suits. Both Kaunda and Chiluba had a gift of making inspiring speeches and a flair for clean and smart clothes. Chiluba is said to have possessed two hundred pairs of shoes worth hundreds of dollars per pair.
Both Kaunda and Chiluba had the gift to foresee what the masses’ feelings were and used to take advantage of a given moment by seemingly voicing those feelings. And it became very problematic for many ordinary Zambians to rally behind the late president Levy Mwanawasa, who lacked a magnetic personality and was a poor speech-maker. Indeed, the current president, Rupiah Banda lacks a political flair for publicity and lacks a flair for speech making.
Freedom for expression in Zambia has been conceived in wrong terms. It has meant incessant political criticism of ruling government in methods likely to provoke political violence. We in the WSM abhor the methods of political criticism that is spearheaded by the PF and UPND because they border on intimidating certain individuals instead of offering an alternative system against the existing status quo (capitalism). Political demagogy by itself is not an antidote to unemployment and inflation. The problems of human rights, gender equality and freedom of expression will not exist in socialism because a socialist will entail the actual embodiment of political and gender emancipation.
The failure of any political party in England to win an outright parliamentary majority during the May general election was resolved in an amicable manner with the Conservatives and Liberals forming a coalition government. In most African countries such an election result would have given rise to political violence.
Kephas Mulenga
Obituary: Friedrich Vogt (2010)
Obituary from the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard
We were sad to learn of the sudden death, at the age of 88, of Comrade Frriedrich Vogt in Vienna. He was one of a group of trade unionists and former members of the Austrian Social Democratic party that broke away in 1959 and eventually, in 1966, through contact with Comrade Rudolf Frank there, came to accept the object and declaration of principles of the World Socialist Movement.
As there was already a registered “Socialist Party” in Austria, the new group was named Bund Demokratischer Sozialisten (League of Democratic Socialists). Members addressed each other as “Genosse/Genossin” rather than as “Kamerad” as this was associated with the Austrian Communist Party.
Although they held informal discussion meetings, the members’ main activity was the production and distribution of their newspaper format journal Internationales Freie Wort (International Free Word). Although they had a list of subscribers, canvassing was by far the main method of sale. On my only visit I took part in this. Up and down the stairs of apartment blocks was certainly amongst the hardest work I have done for Socialism!
Unfortunately, as members aged and became physically less able they could not keep up with this strenuous work and publication of the IFW ceased.
During the war Friedrich was conscripted into the German Army to fight on the Russian Frant but was soon sent back as unsuitable because of his behaviour. He attended our Conference just once and told me how much he enjoyed meeting members here, some of whom kept in touch. We have lost a friend as well as a comrade and the companion parties a staunch and tireless worker for Socialism.
Eva Goodman
Friday, August 4, 2023
50 Years Ago: The Passing of a Labour Leader (2010)
It is not our purpose here to attempt an analysis of the career of Aneurin Bevan, but only to put one or two aspects of his progress from being a working class rebel against the tyranny and sordidness of capitalism to his occupancy of high office in the post-war Labour Government (…).
Throughout the years after he had begun to make a name in the Labour Party he was torn between the desire to be a rebel espousing certain ideals and the necessity of working out concessions to meet the needs of practical politics. Nobody can suppose that Bevan was happy about finding himself supporting war, supporting re-armament and making his belated decision to press for the retention of the H-bomb as a bargaining counter in the Labour Party’s plan to work for all-round disarmament.
But was he ever clear about what was happening and why it happened? Did he ever realise that his dilemma is one that necessarily faces all who take on the task of governing a capitalist country in a capitalist world? With or without seeing it clearly he, like the other leaders of the Labour Government, had come down on the side of the belief that as a present practical policy a Labour Government must face the workers as an administration trying to keep the British economy functioning and must face the world as guardian of British interests which necessarily meant in both spheres of action accepting and working within the framework of the capitalist social system. That he did so with some reluctance and occasional rebellious withdrawals show his resentment of the dilemma, but he never succeeded in resolving the problem. He would have argued, no doubt, that there was no alternative, and here we as Socialists insist that there was, and is, the alternative of leaving the running of capitalism to those who believe in it and of devoting efforts to building up an international Socialist working class with the consciously-held aim of putting Socialism in the place of capitalist society.
(Editorial, Socialist Standard, August 1960)
The Dean and the Chop Sticks (1952)
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If we charitably concede that Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury, is, as he claims, a devout and peace-loving Christian, filled with loving-kindness for all humanity, anxious to promote happiness and to avoid violence and war, it is only possible to do so on the assumption that he is capable of self-deception and mental blindness to the point of absurdity. This assumption is, however, an easy one, for the Dean’s public utterances over a long period have shown him to be naive almost beyond belief, highly susceptible to flattery, with an unparalleled capacity to be misinformed on the economic and political questions he studies and writes about and a pathetic readiness to believe the most incredible stories without, or against, evidence when once his emotional interest has been aroused. At one time he espoused the currency mumbo-jumbo of the credit creationists, at another he was backing the idea of a communist Britain, with the present monarch at the helm, and as member of the Editorial Board of the communist Daily Worker he was able to square his Christian doctrines with that journal’s barely veiled campaign of national hatred against Americans. He has long sought to reconcile the irreconcilable, by holding that Marxist materialism is compatible with Christian mysticism, though it must be said in excuse that he was in this matter merely a gullible dupe of two-faced communist propaganda. His principal published contribution to political confusion has, of course, been his “Socialist Sixth of the World,” in which, against all evidence, including much that he provides in the book, he maintains that Russian State capitalism is its opposite. Socialism. He easily took in his stride the notion that dictatorship is democratic provided it happens in Russia. In recent times he has been active in trying to show why the Russian war preparations and glorification of the weapons of destruction are quite different from identical manifestations in other countries, and has achieved particular prominence by proclaiming his belief in the Russo-Chinese Governments’ propaganda about germ warfare in Korea and China.
Here let us clear the air by stating the obvious about the use of germ warfare. Governments at war—all governments —will use any weapon that they think will help them to gain the ascendancy over their opponents. The Dean would doubtless assent to this general proposition, but with the exception that he does not believe this of the Russian government and its allies because they say they are peace lovers. To which, of course, there is a brutally simple answer, For what purpose does the Dean think the Russian government makes atom bombs if not for the purpose of using them?
The Dean is equally naive about war propaganda. Words are a weapon of war, used to stimulate die home front and weaken the enemy. The truthfulness of the words is irrelevant except that some experts in war propaganda hold the view that propaganda that is built up on some truthful elements is more effective than total untruths.
Among recent efforts of the propagandists of Russia and her satellites have been the Colorado beetles said to have been dropped by American planes beyond the Iron Curtain to destroy the potato crop, the dropping of poisoned food in Albania, British poisoned cannon balls in the Crimean War of a century ago, and alleged dropping of lepers by British troops into' North Korea. Bv contrast, the Daily Worker's horror at the sending of “savage dogs” from Britain was a puny effort. The only story that has really justified its use is that of the germ-infected flies and fleas said to have been showered down on the Koreans and Chinese. The Dean believes this to be true mainly because it is vouched for by certain Christian bodies in China, and though he can, it seems, stomach all the horrors of war waged by “conventional ” weapons he cannot condone germs.
Since we know that all governments when at war will stop at no horror, the most pertinent point made by the Dean’s opponents is that researches into germ warfare by Western Powers have produced nothing likely to be at all effective. This—if true—would carry more weight than all the denials, and as it happens the Dean confirms this. He denies that the germs alleged to have been dropped have had any appreciable effect because a simple remedy has been evolved. He told a Press Conference on 8th July “how the little Chinese, when germs had been dropped, formed sanitary cordons in the fields and went about 'collecting the germs with chop sticks’ and popping them into bottles.” (Manchester Guardian, 9th July, 1952.)
So effective is this that, according to the Dean, “the direct effect of germ warfare will be a rapid lowering of the mortality rate with consequent rise in population.”
The logic of his conclusion is perhaps open to question since lowering the mortality rate due to germs can hardly increase the population, unless indeed the children also collect germ-laden insects native to the countryside as well as those dropped by planes; but the Dean’s belief is clear.
If, therefore, we are to believe the Dean his course is obvious. He should now open a campaign for the abolition of dangerous weapons like rifles, artillery, tanks, high explosive bombs, etc., etc., and get the governments to agree to fight wars only with germs. “ The germ, the whole germ and nothing but the germ.” Then, with our issue of chopsticks and bottles we shall all be safe and sound in a third world war and shall all live to bless the Dean of Canterbury.
One other aspect of the battle of the germ deserves notice. His fellow Christians in Britain have denounced his lack of patriotism and sorrowed over his absence of any critical faculty that would deter him from accepting statements on trust even from fellow Christians in China. But why should anyone expect a Dean, nurtured in the bosom of the Christian church, to be able dispassionately to weigh the evidence of what is alleged to have happened this year in the Far East? Are not all Christians taught to accept on faith astonishing stories of wonders and miracles supposed to have taken place in the Middle East nearly 2,000 years ago?
Edgar Hardcastle
How they choose the U. S. President (1952)
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The Republican and Democratic Parties of the U.S.A. held their conventions in Chicago in July. The main purpose of these conventions is to adopt a party platform and to nominate a candidate for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency of the. U.S.A. The conventions then dissolve to be born again four years later.
Time, the weekly news-magazine published a guide to the American conventions. The introduction to the booklet said it contained the history, highlights and highjinks of past conventions, and the customs, procedures and rules governing the current conventions and that what the America citizen would see and hear on radio and television would often be an extension of the backroom bickering and manoeuvring that would take place behind the scenes.
It was estimated that between 50 and 60 million viewers would be able to see the conventions on television.
The convention setting is described as a uniquely American scene. So let’s have a look at it through the courtesy of Time magazine
A party convention, the Paris newspaper Le Matin explained gravely to its readers in 1948, is “a manifestation typically American, where politics, patriotism and the music hall mingle to create an atmosphere which at the same time becomes a country fair, a religious meeting, and a public reunion.”
Its streets hung with bunting, the rugs and the best furniture carefully removed from hotel lobbies, gaudy welcome signs plastered across the honky-tonks on South State Street, Chicago will have readied itself for the avalanche of delegates, bands, elephants, donkeys, straw hats and rumpled seer-suckers. Convention planning committees will be besieged with impossible requests. One delegate in 1948 asked for 20 cases of whisky, another for a room out of range of alcohol fumes.
At Philadelphia, in 1948 (where the previous convention was held), practised scavengers could go from one suite to another, pick up combs, cigarette holders, furniture polish, coffee, doughnuts, beer, cheese, crackers, gum, candy, soft drinks, nail files, noise- makers, bottles of deodorant, tickets for door prizes and enough literature to start a wastepaper business. In relation to the above it should be explained that campaign managers for the candidates usually set up their headquarters in a hotel. Minor candidates might have a single hotel suite, but the bigger, more prosperous headquarters might occupy a rambling network of reception centres, press rooms and strategic hideaways, with corps of press agents, pretty secretaries, and prettier models.
Much of the circus and party-time atmosphere is created by people with nothing better to do. Regarding the delegates, a large number come to the convention pledged to vote for certain candidates, but the pledges are not always as meaningful or as weighty as they sound. Some are firmly committed to their candidate by state primary laws or by party understanding, and will stick to their commitments as long as their man has a chance for the nomination. Some are pledged through the first ballot only; many others have only the thin moral commitment of a "beauty contest” primary. Some state delegations will vote solidly behind their leaders, others have more renegades than regulars.
Supporters of each candidate go after these waverers like a party machine in miniature. They watch opposing candidates carefully, send out trial balloons to test the direction of the convention winds. They plant rumours, send them filtering down through the hotel lobbies and out to the convention hall. Heads of state delegations still in the doubtful columns are courted like queens at a high-school prom. Leading candidates try to give an impression of invincibility: get on the bandwagon before it’s too late. The dark horses play the opposite tune: it’s too early to tell; hold tight and wait for the break.
Timing of individual campaigns is worked out in meticulous detail. The Dewey manager in 1948, for instance, announced the support of a few new states each day to build up the impression of a swelling tide of support, were able to override all opposition on the thifd ballot. A planted gallery at the 1940 Republican Convention, setting up its "We want Wilkie" chant, gave a push to the Wilkie bandwagon.
When the convention opens, the bickering that has been going on in the hotel rooms and lobbies moves to the floor of the convention hall. But first come the time-honoured preliminaries. At the opening of each session, the National Anthem is sung and prayers are offered. With sweeping impartiality the conventions are prayed over by clergymen of every religion and denomination that can be squeezed into the programme. At the 1940 Republican Convention, prayers were led by a Rabbi, a Lutheran pastor, a Christian Scientist, a Roman Catholic cardinal, an African Methodist Episcopal bishop, a Presbyterian minister, the chancellor of a Roman Catholic archdiocese, a Baptist minister, a Protestant Episcopal bishop, a Methodist Episcopal minister, and the chaplain of the Connecticut state senate.
A potential bombshell at the convention is the report of the Platform Committee—the final, polished result of argument and compromise that have been going on since long before the convention opened.
Much of the lobbying at the convention is done at open hearings before this committee. The committee listens tolerantly to most proposals, but is predisposed to a middle-of-the-road position wherever possible.
The platform may actually be written by two or three men in a back room, while the rest of the committee listens patiently to the people grinding their axes. Tactics differ, but the platform is designed to win, not alienate votes.
The end of each nominating speech becomes a signal for a wild demonstration. A parade begins to snake around the convention floor, picking up new delegations as it winds round the aisles. The candidate's band plays his campaign song and the air is filled with whistling, singing, shouting. The demonstrators try to convince everyone that a bandwagon is on its way. Wiser political heads scan the hall carefully to see which delegations have not joined the parade.
In recent years the tendency has been more towards theatricals than pure noise. During the Stassen demonstration at the last Republican gathering, a bevy of strong, young men carried on their shoulders a rowboat occupied by a shapely blonde in a satin sailor suit. The local florists presented a liberty bell made of flowers to President Truman in 1948. Inside were 48 pigeons. Most of them fluttered out into the hall, rafter-bound, some perching on electric fans and sending down a shower of tail feathers.
Floor demonstrations run on until the wind leaves their sails, and succeeding parades are diplomatically permitted to go on as long as their predecessors did. But nominating speeches are limited to about twenty minutes, seconding speeches to five.
The last-minute business begins in earnest. State leaders haggle for favours—the Vice-Presidency, Cabinet offices, pledges of support in state election contests, key jobs in the party itself. The convention city is abuzz with rumours of significant deals and trades.
The emphasis shifts from the unwieldy convention to the more flexible caucuses where party leaders meet —sometimes in hotel rooms, away from the hubbub and ballyhoo of the main arena. It is in such small meetings that class and sectional interests can be brought to bear effectively.
Then the tired delegates want to finish up and go home. But if they leave the convention wearily, they know they have been through an experience that is the fibre of American politics. The national convention provides a setting where smart men can gamble and manoeuvre . . . Time magazine’s guide also tells us that each year the bleating and bawling International Live Stock Exposition—“ The Supreme Court of live stock shows" is held in the same hall as this year’s convention.
We have of course emphasised the circus-like aspect of the American political conventions and given an idea of the trickery and manoeuvring that takes place. But when Time magazine published the booklet and sent it free to anyone in this country who wrote up for it, they presumably meant it as a general guide to the U.S.A. party conventions.
One can enjoy a good laugh. But are the conferences of the British Labour Party or Tory Party all that different? There may be less ballyhoo, and the circus atmosphere may be considerably reduced. However, one has doubts whether there is less trickery and manoeuvring. It would be difficult to claim that the British worker is any more class conscious or has a greater understanding, of the political parties than his American counterpart.
D. W. Lock
Notes by the Way: The Workers’ Share of the Product of Industry (1952)
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The Workers’ Share of the Product of Industry
In the “ Times Review of Industry ” (April, 1952) Dr. L. Rostas examines the preliminary results of the 1948 Census of Production. One piece of information brought out by the Census of Production figures is the total value of the net output of workers in manufacturing, mining, building, etc., and the amount of wages and salaries paid.
The figures show that in 1948 the average net output per employee was £543. Wages represented 48.1 per cent, of that figure and salaries 11.8 per cent., so that wages and salaries together represented 59.9 per cent, of net output.
Dr. Rostas quotes for comparison the corresponding figures shown by the 1935 Census of Production, which was 60 per cent. While therefore the position in 1948 was almost identical with that in 1935 earlier figures showed that the workers' share had risen between 1906-7 and 1924. These figures were published in the Report of the Committee on Finance and Industry (1931, Page 312), and were 52 per cent. in 1906-7 and 55 per cent. in 1924.
The above figures relate to manufacturing industries, mining, building, etc., but do not include transport, finance, civil service, etc. The figures covering all workers are published each year in the Government booklet “ National Income and Expenditure.” For 1948 the division of the total national income (before deducting taxes on income) were: wages 45 per cent., salaries (largely clerks, shop assistants, etc.) 23 per cent., making a total of 68 per cent. In that year the pay of the armed forces represented 3 per cent., and Rent, Dividends and Interest 29 per cent.
The wages and salaries figure for 1951 is also 68 per cent, but in 1938 it was rather smaller, 61 per cent. The main reason why the later figures for wages and salaries have been higher than before the war is that owing to the fall of unemployment more workers have been receiving wages.
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Increase of Output per Employee
Dr. Rostas also shows the increase of physical output per employee in the 13 years 1935 to 1948. Total output of manufacturing industry increased in the 13 years by about 32 per cent., but as the number of workers had increased by 25 per cent., the physical output per worker had increased by about 6 per cent. This is less than half of one per cent a year and is below the normal annual increase over long periods. Undoubtedly the rate of increase will have been somewhat larger in the years since 1948.
In the five years 1924 to 1929 it increased by 11.6 per cent., representing over 2 per cent. a year. (Report of Committee on Finance and Industry, 1931. Page 310.)
An elaborate inquiry by the economist Colin Clark covering the 80 years 1870 to 1950 shows that the product per worker increased by 76 per cent., or rather less than 1 per cent, a year. (Published in Review of Economic Progress, July-August, 1951, Brisbane. Australia.)
During the same period, 1870-1950. the amount produced per head of the population increased by a larger percentage than did the increase of output per worker. This was because a larger proportion of the population were employed in 1950 than in 1870. The amount produced per head of the population was a little over twice as much in 1950 as in 1870.
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Innocents in Russia
Mr. Emrys Hughes, Labour M.P. for South Ayrshire, is best known for his near-pacifism and his constant efforts to get the world's governments to get together to avoid war. He recently visited Russia and published his observations in “ Forward." He has one advantage over many visitors to Russia that he speaks Russian and he claimed that nothing was done to prevent him from entering into conversation with people he met.
Nevertheless he does on one issue betray a certain amount of simplicity. Writing in “Forward” (3rd May, 1952) he claims that “the Communist Dictatorship not only survives but is generally accepted," and that “there is a stable government to which there is no discernible or organised opposition.”
Now Mr. Hughes knows that it is illegal in Russia to attempt to form any political party other than the Communist Party and that all journals and news reports are censored. If he were in Russia and tried to form a party like the one of which he is a member, or tried to make his customary pacifist speeches, or tried to publish a journal like “Forward," of which he was formerly editor, or tried to run as a Labour Party candidate, he would be breaking the law and would incur speedy and drastic penalties. Knowing all this he nevertheless can say that there is in Russia no discernible or organised opposition!
It may be correct that there is little opposition and that what underground opposition does exist is not organised, but when Mr. Hughes says that the opposition is not discernible he is being a little naive. Does he really expect anti-Communists in Russia to disclose themselves? If he had visited Germany under Hitler he would have found the same absence of individuals anxious to become “discerned” and consequently jailed.
Or to come nearer home, if Mr. Hughes had six months ago visited the anti-trade union establishments of Mr. Thomson of Dundee he would have failed to discern on that dictatorial individual's premises even the smallest sign of “ discernible and organised opposition.”
It is, of course, very difficult to tell what opposition exists under any dictatorship and perhaps later events may show that Mr. Hughes was as much misled about Russia in 1952 as was the British Ambassador in Russia in 1917 who was quite unaware until it broke out into open revolt that there was widespread opposition to the Czarist regime.
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How to Muzzle the Press
In Russia the Government openly exercises a censorship on what news comes into the country and on the reports sent out by foreign journalists, and, of course, on what is printed in the Russian Press. Also there is the widespread Russian jamming of foreign broadcasts.
When challenged on the subject Mr. Stalin used the defence that whenever the censorship had been lifted the statements made about the members of the Russian Government by foreign reporters were such that the Russian people became "very indignant," and the censorship had to be re-introduced (Soviet Weekly, 15th May, 1947.) It is a very curious excuse in face of the way in which much of the Russian Government's own internal propaganda is designed to stir up popular indignation against foreigners.
However, a crude censorship is not the only way of preventing publication. It will be recalled how for months the events leading up to the abdication of Edward Vm (the Duke of Windsor) were kept out of the British Press though widely discussed in other countries. More recently we have seen how a request to the British Press not to publish an indiscreet statement made by Lord Alexander at a dinner at the Canada Club was generally observed. Here the reason given was that “security” was involved though in fact a very similar statement had been made by him shortly before and had been published. The Evening Standard (4/7/52) published a letter by Mr. Beverley Baxter saying that as the request not to publish was made by Lord Alexander on grounds of “security" the editors of the morning newspapers were right to accede to the request. The editor of the Evening Standard took the opposite line. He wrote:
"No question of security was involved. The editors were therefore wrong to accept a request for suppression on security grounds.”
A Denunciation of Nationalism
The Indian, M. N. Roy, who was at one time prominent in the Communist International, but later broke away and took a line of his own, recently wrote for the Manchester Guardian (21/6/52) an article “Asian Nationalism. Its Roots in Race Hatred."
In it he puts the case that the Asiatic nationalist movements are not just movements to secure independence from the foreign governments that kept them in colonial subjection, for even after achieving independence they continue to preach the same anti-foreign doctrines as before. He quotes Mr. Nehru, Prime Minister of India, and advocate of Indian nationalism, as having admitted that he does not know what nationalism is:
“What exactly is nationalism? I do not know, and it is extremely difficult to define. In the case of a country under foreign domination it is easy to define what nationalism is. It is anti-foreign power. But in a free country it is something positive. Even so, I think that a large element of it is negative or anti-, and so sometimes we find that nationalism, which is a healthy force, becomes—maybe after liberation—unhealthy, retrogressive, reactionary, or expansive."
Yet though Mr. Nehru could not define nationalism he went on to declare that it “warms the heart of every Asian" and that “any other force that may seek to function must define itself in terms of this nationalism.” Mr. Roy says this is nonsense and that what Mr. Nehru's explanation really means is that nationalism is “race hatred kept alive artificially.”
“ Asia nationalism is an unmixed evil. It has not got the saving grace of a cultural and idealist origin as in the case of earlier European nationalism."
Although Mr. Roy notices that between the wars European nationalism developed into fascism, and quotes the statement of the late Lord Acton that nationality sacrifices everything “to the imperative necessity of making the nation the mould and measure of the State,” he does not appreciate the simple fact that nationalism has been and is everywhere the form in which each capitalist group tries to carve out a place for itself in the world of warring capitalist states. If he did he would not be at all surprised that the politicians who have used nationalism to gain independence from a colonial power need it just as much afterwards in order to persuade the workers to go on fighting capitalism’s battles.
If it is an illusion to think that nations can be friendly in a capitalist world provided that they are all “independent,” it is equally an illusion on the part of Mr. Roy to think that the Powers, great and small, could dispense with nationalism.
At least one thing Mr. Roy has correctly summed up. Discussing the disappointing results of national independence from the worker’s point of view, he says that when India and other countries achieved independence, “absolutely nothing changed except the personnel of the State machinery.”
On one thing we can put Mr. Roy right He says of the “reforming Liberals and the revolutionary Left in the Western countries” that disregarding the bitter experience and irony of history which had shown them nationalist movements starting with men like Mazzini and ending with regimes like Mussolini’s, they “vied with each other in patronising colonial nationalism.” Whatever the Liberals and Labourites did, the S.P.G.B. certainly did not fell into this error but always condemned nationalist propaganda whether at home or abroad, in Europe or in Asia.
Edgar Hardcastle
Blogger's Note:
The piece on M. N. Roy and the perniciousness of nationalism was previously posted on the blog as a standalone article in September 2011. I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe I copied it from the SPGB website, not knowing that it was part of a larger Notes by the Way column. No worries.
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