Pirates (2024)

Book Review from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Pirate Enlightenment, Or The Real Libertalia. By David Graeber, Penguin, 2024

The Age of Enlightenment is usually said to be the intellectual movement that occurred mainly in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, based on knowledge learned by reason and evidence. Graeber argues that the Enlightenment did not begin in Europe and that its true origins are to be found on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was in the Golden Age of Piracy which lasted no more than fifty years, but it was also an experiment in radical democracy as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land. Those also involved were Malagasy women, merchants, traders and escaped slaves. They were exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice in Europe a century later.

This short book was first written to be a chapter of a book on ‘divine kingship’ Graeber co-authored with fellow anthropologist Marshall Sahlins. Graeber obtained a doctorate under Sahlins doing ethnographic research in Madagascar. Graeber died in 2020. This book answers the question: since they were wanted men who couldn’t go home, what happened to the pirates who wanted to escape or retire? The answer seems to be: they often settled in north-east Madagascar, a large island (one thousand miles long) to the east of Africa. Libertalia is the name given to the utopian pirate experiment, even if there was never any actual settlement that bore that name. Piracy is still practised in that part of the world.

Graeber’s treatment of piracy and Madagascar is convincing. He argues that what unifies the pirate Enlightenment of Libertalia and the later Age of Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which was conversational. In Libertalia there was an expectation of rational conversation, on an egalitarian basis, of such subjects as liberty, authority, sovereignty and much more. There is however no persuasive evidence of the pirate Enlightenment feeding into the later Enlightenment, as Graeber claims. He admits that he is being ‘intentionally provocative’ as if he knows the evidence he presents is flimsy and speculative. In this respect he is following in the buccaneering tradition of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

Lew Higgins

Halo Halo (2024)

The Halo Halo! column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard 

As Horace Walpole said, ‘This world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel.’ Rationalists find plenty within religion as a whole to occasion mirth, with some individual ones especially capable of producing belly laughs. But there are times when it’s very hard to echo Eric Idle’s exhortation at the end of Life of Brian to always look on the bright side of life.

Michael Palin said this about the 1979 television debate about the controversial film:

‘He (Bishop of Southwark) began, with notes carefully hidden in his crotch, tucked down well out of camera range, to give a short sermon, addressed not to John or myself but to the audience… He accused us of making a mockery of the work of Mother Teresa, of being undergraduate and mentally unstable. He made these remarks with all the smug and patronising paraphernalia of the gallery-player, who believes that the audience will see he is right, because he is a bishop and we’re not’.

American bible-bashers continue to press for their fantasies to be imposed upon children within public schools:

‘At a curriculum committee meeting school board Director Jordan Blomgren requested that “both sides” should be presented to students about evolution and climate change, stunning onlookers. ‘My question always comes down to the content,’ said Blomgren, who is also a teacher. ‘Like, you know [the] Earth’s been around for billions of years. Are you talking about both creation and evolution, like just having both… making sure that we’re showing both sides.’ A mother said “My kids are heavy into STEM, I don’t want them to be ill-prepared because Jordan wants to take up space complaining about fossils. I really don’t want my kids to be taught creationism. That’s for a Christian school, not a public school”’ (Buckscountybeacon.com 5 June).

They don’t give up, do they? Oklahoma’s top education official has ordered all public schools in the state to teach the Bible and the Ten Commandments to their students, a move that critics claim violates the US Constitution:

‘He called the Bible ‘one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth” of the United States. It is a necessary “historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system”. Every classroom in Oklahoma from grades five to 12 must have a Bible, and all teachers must teach from the Bible in the classroom.’

‘Requiring a Bible in every classroom does not improve Oklahoma’s ranking of 49th in education,’ State Representative Mickey Dollens said in a statement. ‘The state superintendent should focus on educating students, not evangelizing them.’

‘The Oklahoma directive comes a week after the governor of Louisiana signed a law ordering all public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.’

It’s August. Time to start buying those Chrisfest baubles now appearing in a store near you.

DC

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The richest 1% of Norwegians held 22% of net wealth in 2022, according to Statistics Norway. That compares with 34% in the US, 30% in Germany and 21% in the UK. 

(MSN)

Senior Chinese leaders… are engaged in corruption and hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth by using relatives to disguise their activities, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. By 2012, Mr. Xi had amassed at least $376 million in company investments, an indirect 18% stake in a rare-earth mineral company worth more than $311 million, and $20.2 million holdings in a technology company, according to a CRS report based on published information from news outlets about the hidden wealth. 

(The Washington Times)

Among the 2,300 sewer cleaners under the employment of the KWSC, to do manual scavenging to unclog the drains, he claims to have taught Adil the dos and don’ts of diving into the slush. ‘You have to be smart to outdo death, which is our companion as we go down,’ he says. It is not the army of cockroaches and the stink that greets you when you open the manhole lid to get in, or the rats swimming in filthy water, but the blades and used syringes floating that are a cause for concern for many as they go down to bring up the rocks and the buckets of filthy silt.

(Inter Press Service)

Umm Shadi, 50, called for Hamas to ‘end the war immediately without seeking to control and rule Gaza’. ‘What have we gained from this war except killing, destruction, extermination and starvation?’ she asked. ‘Every day the war on Gaza increases, our pain and the pain of the people increases. What is Hamas waiting for?’. 

(France24)

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen. ‘We have the Israelis right where we want them,’ Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages… In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as ‘necessary sacrifices’ while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria. 

(CNN)

Graham stressed that helping Ukraine in its fight against Russia could also have strategic economic benefits for the U.S. and Western countries. ‘They’re sitting on $10-12 trillion of critical minerals in Ukraine. They could be the richest country in all of Europe. We don’t want to give that money and assets to Putin to share with China,’ he told Brennan on Sunday. ‘If we help Ukraine now, they could become the best business partner we ever dreamed of. They’re sitting on a goal mine. To give Putin $10-12 trillion that he will share with China is ridiculous’. 

(MSN)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Diggers Festival in Wigan (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Diggers Festival in Wigan

‘True commonwealth’s freedom lies in the free enjoyment of the earth‘ (Gerrard Winstanley 1652).

Stripped of his religious, patriarchal views, Winstanley is still relevant today. He saw that:

Freedom has an economic basis and is impossible in a property-based society.

Society is structured to maintain the privilege of a few. Laws are made essentially to defend property and official religion is designed to terrify us into submission.

Buying/selling causes war and keeps us poor.

Winstanley’s answer was much like ours. A society where things are produced purely to meet human need (no form of exchange), where production and distribution are based on democratic, informed consent, and everyone can achieve their full potential.

This is what we mean by socialism. Everyone can have a life of material security – provided the majority takes control of the world’s resources from the capitalist minority.

Even if you came today just for a pint and the music, you might want to consider joining with us to put things right at last.

Leaflet to be distributed at this year’s Diggers Festival in Wigan in September.

Exhibition Review: Troubled Times (2024)

Exhibition Review from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Imperial War Museum North at Salford Quays is currently running an exhibition on ‘Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles’, which deals with the period of violence which lasted from the late 1960s to the signing of the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and caused the deaths of over 3,500 people. It is on until the end of September.

One of its main themes is the different perspectives on developments from the ‘loyalist’ and ‘nationalist’ sides (though both are in fact loyal to different nations). This extends even to basic facts, such as who had guns in the Battle of St Matthew’s on 27–28 June 1970, in which three people were killed. Views representing both versions of what happened that night are given.

Many of the statements and other exhibits should cause visitors to think a bit. For instance, a poster shows Tufty the squirrel (used to teach children about road safety) warning kids not to pick up things in the street, as they might be dangerous. A former member of the Provisional IRA says that you have to ‘depersonalise’ people in order to shoot them. The members of fire services were stoned on an almost daily basis. People would go out to shop and find soldiers in gardens and checkpoints on roads; they had to go through turnstiles and bag searches in order to get into the centre of Belfast. Most victims of the Troubles were civilians, not soldiers, police or paramilitaries.

The glossary accompanying the exhibition states that loyalism was ‘primarily working class in nature’, and class is mentioned a number of times in the displays, though without any definition. The vast majority of those killed were working class, and a Sinn Féin member is quoted as saying that there was a class issue across communities, but that the fundamental constitutional question was the real dividing line.

A final film with a variety of quotes claims that Northern Ireland now has more institutionalised sectarianism than ever, and that a war continues, using words rather than bullets. A United Ireland will not end sectarianism, it is said, and Brexit has led to trade and border concerns within the North.

It’s not mentioned in the displays, but Troubles-related tourism now takes place in Belfast; it’s an example of ‘dark tourism’ (cf the Jack the Ripper Museum in London).

This is an informative exhibition, from which visitors are likely to draw different conclusions, perhaps including that nothing of any significance for the vast majority of people was being fought over.

Paul Bennett

Something to think about (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Private property ownership stands between us and any real meaningful freedom. The power it gives is not safe in anyone’s hands. The world society we propose does not use it. It would therefore have to abolish the concept and use of money.

In the new society, all things would be freely made and freely given. There would be nothing to pay, and no money to pay it with, since there could be no wages for work done.

Perhaps you ask: how are we supposed to get work if nobody is going to get paid for it? Why should we even get out of bed in the morning? The simple answer is: if nobody can be bothered to make the slightest effort then we’ve all had it.

But work itself, like so many other things, would change out of all recognition. Gone would be the Boss, and fear of the sack. Gone would be the drudgery of doing a job you hate just to pay the rent. Instead, great opportunities would open up for people to choose their job, to change jobs more frequently, to work far shorter hours.

It is not simply work that would change for the better. Warfare would change too – out of existence. Can you think of a war that was fought, in reality, over anything other than money, and ultimately, control of resources? We can’t. Whatever the propaganda made us all believe at the time, all the wars of history have been squabbles over money, land, trade routes and so forth. In the new society, arguments like that just couldn’t arise, because no one would own these things in the first place.

We think the new society could benefit all in an enormous number of ways.

Free travel anywhere in the world; pleasant, interesting work to choose; a sense of feeling useful, of belonging, of playing a part in things; a strength in yourself to be yourself, and not to have to take orders from anybody at all. Imagine waking up in a world where nobody in it is starving to death. Imagine being able to walk around at night without fear. Imagine having time for things, and for people. Imagine having enough at last, without having bills to make your life a misery.

One day. But it’s not going to happen without you. If any group of hot-blooded rebels tries to go it alone, without the agreement of the rest of us, it will end in bloodshed, terror and chaos, as it always has in the past. Socialists are democrats. We could never support such madness, and we would never instigate it. The proper road to a peaceful and democratic society is by peaceful and democratic means, and so members of our Party spend their time not in building bombs but in building agreement.

How society works (2024)

From the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do wage increases lead automatically to price increases? If they do, there would presumably be no point in fighting for a wage rise, as it would just mean that prices of goods would go up too, and people would be no better off. Looking further into this issue reveals a great deal about how society works.

In fact, higher wages need not mean higher prices, because prices aren’t determined by wages. In many industries, wages are relatively high but prices low, and in others wages are low but prices high.

To see what’s behind this, we should step back a bit and look at what constitutes a wage and how prices are determined. Prices are of course influenced by supply and demand, but there has to be more to it than that, since what happens when supply and demand cancel each other out? What really matters is the value or exchange value of some good, and that depends on the amount of labour that was needed to produce it. Not just the last stage of production, but all the labour that went into obtaining the raw materials, the buildings, the machinery and so on. Why do TVs cost a lot more than electric kettles? Because far more labour goes into producing the TVs. The price of something is essentially based on its exchange value, but supply and demand can affect it as well.

As for wages, these are in fact also a price: the price of the worker’s labour power, or ability to work. Labour power has its own value, that of the value of what is needed to produce, maintain and train the worker: the cost of rent, food, heating, transport, clothing, entertainment etc. So a worker produces enough value to get paid sufficient to live on and bring up a family. But – and here is the big revelation – the worker will be forced to work for longer than that. In four hours’ work, you may produce enough to keep you going, and that is what you’ll get in wages. However, your employer has bought your labour power and can make you work for longer than that, say for seven hours. In those three extra hours, the value of what you produce goes to the employer: this is known as surplus value, and is what constitutes profit for the boss.

In that example, you work four hours for yourself and three hours for your employer. That is exploitation, and it lies at the heart of the current economic system. By all means struggle for higher wages, and against wage cuts and longer hours and harder work. But you should also be aware that, however hard you fight within the present system, you will always be in a subordinate and precarious position. The real solution is to combine with fellow workers and fight for the abolition of the wages system!

Paul Bennett

The Row About Overseas Students (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Students who come to the UK from abroad to study make another part of the education pot that is at boiling point. But as with the reasons for the cuts in the education system (discussed last month) so also with the explanation of the row about overseas students. The causes have nothing to do with so-called academic freedom, or colour prejudice, or the duty to help developing countries. The cause of the dispute is within the economics of capitalism itself in one of its periodic crises.

Cuts are demanded in state expenditure by the capitalist class and in education in particular. One of the things which have been cut back on is the “subsidy” to overseas students. This so-called subsidy relates to the fact that the fees paid by all students to universities and colleges of higher education do not in fact represent the true cost of the course they will be attending. The real cost will be many times higher and the balance comes from central and local government grants to the universities and colleges, together with whatever else they can squeeze from private sources. Overseas students (estimated to be about 95,000 for the academic year 1973/4) therefore apparently cost the capitalist class considerable amounts.

For example the “price” of one year of a 3-year course in science at University College London, for the academic year 1975/76 was £157. But this figure probably represents no more than 10 per cent of the true cost of providing the services and equipment available to each student on a science course at UCL. So the call grows from the politicians (the mouthpieces of the capitalist class) and others involved to make students who come here to study from abroad pay the market price.

Material Reasons

The facilities for overseas students are claimed to be given on the basis of the moral duty of the country to help educate those of poorer countries where an education system is not provided. At times it almost gets down to the level of the charitable good souls of the do-gooders’ camp versus the mean lot of the other side This is all window-dressing with as much relationship to the real issues involved as blow-football to an FA cup final. Cheap or cut-price education for people from other countries is merely part of what is known as overseas aid, something which most of the advanced capitalist countries have been doing for years. Overseas aid has never been given for other than purely material reasons—how much will the “giving” country make on it at the end of the day? It is the same with overseas students.

The furore really began when a Cabinet committee recommended an increase in the fees to overseas students of between 2 and 5 times to bring them up to more than £2000 p.a. for advanced students in the year 1976/77 (see The Times, 11th February 1976). This provoked Mr. Alan Phillips, General Secretary of the World University Service, to say that the suggested increase would destroy Britain’s reputation as a haven for academic refugees (The Times, 12th February). Whether he himself really believes that the UK is a “haven” for refugees, academic or otherwise, only he knows. But when education is regarded as merely the best way to train man-power for the production line (as it is under capitalism), it does seem stretching it a little to make such wild statements! Is it a haven for those refugees that come to this country and cannot afford to keep themselves without doing a full time job, making studying if not impossible, at the least a most difficult task?

The arguments of the side supporting the move to increase the fees are equally spurious and at times nauseating. A letter was written to The Times (17th January 1976) by the Medical Officer of Warwick University, asserting that it is not only the fees that these students get on the cheap, since they also use resources other than academic ones. They are a drain on the National Health Service (he claimed) and they have different diseases and psychiatric problems from those of their British counterparts, costing considerable sums to treat. Worst crime of all “not only do the students themselves use the NHS but also they may bring their wives and even children.” What will he say to General Gowan (the butcher of the Biafrans but now respectably studying at Warwick University itself) when he comes in to see the medical department asking for some aspirin? It is often quite unbelievable to see the length the working class will go in defending their masters’ interests, or what they take to be their masters’ interests.

Profitable Investment

But capitalism does not need university medical officers to tell the workers the amount it has to pay to provide education as a form of aid. It has august bodies who will do some proper research for it, such as the British Council. They reported on 20th January this year that in the long term the overseas students were of great economic value to what the council called the country but of course means the capitalist class. And in a long analysis by The Times education correspondent (10th February 1976) the facts and figures to back this up are given.

He starts by saying that his initial reaction to the proposals for increasing the fees charged to overseas students is “one of guts abhorrence” to anything which would threaten the free movement and international concept of university and college education. There has never been any such freedom; but let us pass on to the more serious part of his report which, as even the most ill-educated member of the capitalist class (and there are plenty of those) will tell you, means money. The Times correspondent goes on to give some very sound reasons why it would not, paradoxical though it may seem, be in the interests of the capitalist class to raise the fees charged to overseas students, thus causing some of them to look for their studies elsewhere. He draws up the equivalent of a balance sheet showing the profit and loss from the overseas students trade. The cost is some £83 million p.a. But on the credit side, it is estimated that overseas students spend something like £75 million p.a. whilst they are over here. Add to that the fact that it is estimated that £40 million p.a. is spent at private schools which get some of the academic backwash of the so called “free movement” of students to the country. The capitalist class as a whole are already in credit. But the best is yet to come:

Add to all this the intangible, unquantifiable, but logical advantage to British exports. Students highly trained in this country who then proceed to important posts in their own country can exert great influence on contracts entered into with Britain for equipment, buildings and technical skills . . . And Lord Caradon, Britain’s former representative at the United Nations, said: ‘It is unanswerable that the foreign students who come to the country contribute in the money they bring with them far more than anything that is paid by this country on their education.’ The millions of pounds we spend on foreign students each year should be recognised as a considerable investment in the future prosperity of our country as well as a cheap and effective form of aid programme.

One can only add: “Q.E.D.”

Free Learning

Education is of course a carrot which can be used when the representatives of the British capitalist class are trying to sell goods abroad. "Buy British and get some education on the cheap.” One of the Professors of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine recognised that when he wrote to The Times (18th February 1976) discussing Barbara Castle’s visit to Kuwait for the purposes of expanding the British export trade to that country. What better way to sell your goods has been invented? What was all that about academic havens and free movements . . .?

However, despite the fact that it obviously not profitable in the long-term interests of the capitalist class to increase fees, the increase took place. As explained last month, capitalism is not capable of being a rational efficient system, even within the confines of its own interests. Either short-term exigencies do not permit it, or those advising the capitalist class get it wrong. Either way it is haphazard and no “right” answers are possible.

Education under capitalism is not “free” and never has been. Freedom is a concept which is almost completely debased by its users within the confines of capitalist society. One of the most important aspects of Socialist society will be free access. This does not only mean unrestricted ability to take from what is produced and to be able to use and enjoy the means of production. In a Socialist society (and only in such a society) knowledge will be freely available for the benefit of all. Studying and education will merely be a part of a life-long process of physical and mental enrichment; not as now, a drudgery to be suffered when young. And in case anyone has missed the point, as there will be no countries but only one world society in Socialism, so the problems of the overseas student will quickly be placed in the dustbin of the problems of a previous society.

Ronnie Warrington

Communism, Religion and the USSR (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lord Donald Soper, the Methodist leader, has acquired the reputation of being a great orator. Those of us who have heard him speaking at Tower Hill and Hyde Park are always impressed by the flow of fine phrases, but on closer examination these turn out to mean precisely nothing. There is no doubt whatever as to his great entertainment value. However his virtues else, be they as pure as grace, when it comes to making a contribution to political thought Lord Donald has been decidedly unsuccessful. Good Labourite that he is, he has been a regular contributor to Tribune, the left-wing journal of utopian reformers who want to retain capitalism on working-class terms. Consequently his writings, tailored as they must be to the needs of this clearing house for malcontents, have little to offer by way of a solution to the problems of the real world of capitalism. How could they, when the ultimate authority which lies behind all Lord Soper’s prognostications on the state of the world is God and religion?

It is this type of religious rubbish which gives the name “Christian Socialist” to religious critics of capitalism, and encourages them to make the nonsensical claim that Socialism and religion are quite compatible, and that Jesus Christ was a Socialist. The Labour Party and the Trade Union movement is full of these “Christian Socialists”, Baptists, Methodists, lay preachers, Salvationists, lesson-readers, and all the other dreary joyless characters who provide religion on the cheap for the godless industrial masses. As long as there are votes to be had from those workers who hold religious ideas no capitalist party, and here we include the Communist Party, will repudiate religion, the churches and other forms of religious organization. Most workers are easy-going on the subject of religion and its social importance has receded but has not yet vanished. The capitalist class can still find a role for religion to play in support of the system when the occasion arises.

True to form, Lord Soper has just made a fresh statement which is as stupid as it is incorrect. Addressing the Annual Methodist Conference at Preston during a discussion on religious education in schools, he claimed that Communism is a religion:

It is unquestionably a religious faith. We shall get into trouble if we try and distinguish between what we call religion and ideology.

(Daily Telegraph, 1st July 1976)

We certainly shall if we don’t. Religion deals with fiction and Communism, or Socialism, deals with facts. All religions are united on the principle of supernatural phenomena and life after death in a spiritual world — Hell or Heaven, as the case merits. Socialism, or Communism, is based on materialism, which means that we can know nothing outside of the senses, and that all natural and social phenomena must be interpreted through the human agency without divine intervention. Materialism also means that men are in command of society and science, and “acts of God” are nothing more than a term used on insurance policies for material reasons.

Perhaps Lord Soper was getting a bit confused over the term “Communism”. He obviously meant the system prevailing in the Soviet Union, but which bears no resemblance to communism. There, undoubtedly, religious attitudes are indoctrinated but with the difference that the state and the leadership replace the God and saints of the old Russian Orthodox Church — but not quite. There is certainly very little to choose between the religion of the old world and its uncritical adulation of God, and the claim of infallibility of the Communist Party leadership, based as it is on the exploitation of superstition and ignorance of the Russian masses. That type of communist superstition, coupled with the myth that common ownership exists and the worship of the god of productivity, is certainly taught in the Russian schools, but this is the worship of capital, albeit state capital. The Soviet Union has proved that you can have religion with or without God — a belief in the supernatural has various applications. It is not subject to any laws of logic, reason or science — the world of fantasy is a great place for those who can live on dreams for the future which never arrives, or has not arrived after sixty years.

Officially the Soviet Union is godless, but millions of people still have religious views and take part in the ceremonies and ritual of the Russian Orthodox Church. The main religious festival is Easter; Good Friday and Saturday being the big market days. “At Moscow Yelokhovsky Cathedral, Pimen, Patriarch of all the Russians, officiated . . . the packed congregation included a sizeable number of foreign diplomats admitted through a side door to avoid the crush. Others drove 40 miles to the Sergei Trinity Abbey, one of Russia’s holiest places. All day there were long lines, mostly of women, outside churches each with Easter cake slung in a napkin waiting to have it blessed”. (The Times, 26th April 1976.)

Lenin and the old Bolsheviks denounced religious institutions because the Russian Orthodox Church was a pillar of the Czarist regime. They claimed they would abolish religious influences by separating the church and the state, and making religious societies and institutions dependent on those who adhered to the faith. However, Lenin was astute enough to realize that you cannot abolish religion by decree, as was attempted in the French Revolution. He knew that he was dealing with masses of superstitious and ignorant peasants, and he wanted their support. Consequently, the “socialist atheism” of the Bolsheviks was played down in favour of “religious freedom”. “Everyone must be absolutely free to profess whatever religion he likes, or to profess no religion; i.e. be an atheist as every socialist usually is.” (p. 12, Lenin on Religion, Martin Lawrence.) This was not opposition to religion but pandering to it.

One thing is certain and that is that Socialism is not compatible with religious ideas. The Communist Parties of Europe, including the British party, have faithfully taken up a high-sounding attitude of religious freedom. Consider how much support the Communist parties in Italy and France would get were they to attack religion. In any case, the Soviet Union are no longer interested in abolishing religion, particularly as the church is now under the thumb of the Communist Party. When it suits them they will use religion in its customary rôle to maintain their position by befuddling the workers.

The Sunday Times of 27th April 1975 reported that Russia was using priests as emissaries to Israel to discuss certain property questions. “Two Moscow churchmen visited Israel at the end of last month officially for talks on a legal dispute over Russian Church property . . . Further talks are expected in May when Metropolitan Nicodemus, foreign relations secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate visits Jerusalem as a pilgrim to the Orthodox Churches Easter ceremonies. The Patriarch of Soviet Armenia is also due . . .”. No doubt the Russian capitalist class wants the priests and bishops to work for their keep, and for that very reason they will keep the religious institutions going by recognizing their use value. The fact that Church property still exists contradicts the claim made repeatedly that the communists would confiscate the property.

The Communist Party in Russia is a capitalist party and has the responsibility of running capitalism in that country. Fundamentally there is little difference between Russian capitalism and Western capitalism. The dominant relations of production are wage-labour and capital, and the prevailing ideology is one of support for the institution of private property, with all the trimmings of religion, mock-morality and hypocrisy. A Communist society cannot exist where one section of the population is exploited by another, and the term “Russian Communism” is the ignorant man’s way of describing state capitalism.

Jim D'Arcy

About Socialism (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

After trying to explain Socialism to friends I often find them suddenly asking, “But how much would a manual worker get?” or something equally startling. I suppose it must be partly my fault for advocating “production for use” and “common ownership and democratic control of the means of wealth production and distribution” etc., without always getting across even the major implications of such Socialist fundamentals. (It’s also partly the fault of Labour, Communist, Conservative and other political parties who intentionally propagate the idea that the nationalization in the UK and the capitalism in Russia have something to do with Socialism; and that wage-earners, money and armed forces etc. can or do exist in a Socialist society. Some of the members of these parties genuinely believe these ideas out of ignorance —others, better-read and “knowing the score” deliberately preserve the deception out of self-interest.)

And so, for the benefit of readers not long acquainted with the Socialist Standard or other Socialist literature, here are some of the physical implications of a Socialist society.

There will be no money. The necessities and good things of life will be produced by the community and owned by it, so no one will be in a position to sell anything to anybody. Each individual will take (literally) freely what he or she needs—no buying, no selling, no stealing—all impossible, and money superfluous. Each person will work because he or she is a human being to whom useful work is natural and each will eat, and enjoy leisure for the same reason. There will be no “If you don’t work you don’t eat” threats. The only “punishment” for consuming without producing will be the pity and possible “patronage” of one’s fellow beings. (Which is probably worse than it sounds!) Stealing having disappeared — so will prisons, policemen and armed forces. Likewise there will be no vested interests, power groups, nations or nationalism. The motive for war will cease to exist.

Because of the advanced state of material development the world has now reached, all this is within our reach, requiring but one more thing—the understanding of, and consequent desire for Socialism by a majority of the citizens of the world.

R. B. Gill

Remember Soweto? (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now that the headlines have died down over the recent riots in Soweto, South Africa, and the press vultures are picking over some other gory carcass, it is worth a look at what the Johannesburg Star had to say before the outbreak of riots.

In an article on 14th June 1976 it described Soweto as ". . . just a huge agglomeration of people living without many of the accepted amenities of urban life. Physical security, schools, decent sanitation, and roads, electricity, proper shopping and recreational facilities . . ." In other words, a massive shanty town for “probably well over a million people” (i.e. black workers). Since last year, when the Johannesburg Star had another article on Soweto “matters have not improved”. The cauldron could well have boiled over earlier.

The real concern of the paper is revealed in the last paragraph of the later article:

Can any government in its right senses allow this drift towards disaster to continue? Even if you leave human compassion right out of it and simply consider the huge potential threat that is building up here to the security of everyone. White as well as Black?

The capitalist class are always willing to “leave human compassion right out of it”. What they are concerned with is “the security of everyone”, specially themselves. You can’t have the workers going round rioting, stealing and destroying property; they might start bringing these reactions into the factories and other places. Workers must respect property. The capitalists must keep the lid on and maintain law and order “at all costs” as Vorster emphatically pointed out.

The tragic lesson of Soweto is that the capitalists will unhesitatingly use the state power when they think their interests are threatened. While we abhor the conditions under which the South African workers are forced to live, the solution does not lie in abolishing apartheid but in the recognition by all workers that their common interest lies in the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism throughout the world.

T. K.

So They Say: Ungrateful Lot (1976)

The So They Say Column from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ungrateful Lot

Much play has been made recently by both Labour and Conservative! groups on their various schemes to allow Council tenants to purchase the properties they occupy. The Southwark Community Development Project and the Joint Docklands Action Group of Newington decided to conduct a survey to discover the appeal of such schemes to those concerned, and came up with the conclusion that “few are interested in buying a typical council flat.” The report in The Times of 29th June seemed to have regarded the findings as something of a foregone conclusion. It argued:

While new houses with gardens on suburban estates or in new towns, for example, would attract ready buyers flats in inner city tower blocks would have little or no appeal.

While surveys like this never cease to amaze us, it shows just, how unreasonable workers can be. Who else but the members of the working class would express disapproval at the prospect of spending their lives, and paying for the privilege at that, packed together well above ground level in noisy and uncomfortable cells of concrete (often, as in the case of Ronan Point, with no visible means of support, or lifts—even if installed), albeit with magnificent views over the previously erected low-rise slums? Come to that, who else but the workers would be offered such a glorious opportunity to join "the property owning democracy”?

O Brother!

"We should not destroy or split or seek to destroy in any way the Labour Government” said Mr. Benn on the 4th July, and no doubt the Labour government gave three cheers for Benn and said "Amen”. He was speaking at the Institute for Workers’ Control in Keele University, in his capacity as Labour’s Energy Secretary, when he also revealed to his audience the information that capitalism was in "irreversible decline.” We do not know if he was standing on his head at the time.

Now we who advocate the abolition of the capitalist system were naturally agog with excitement at a “leak” of this magnitude. Was there to be a surprise announcement from the government? We scanned the newspapers. Yes, there was an announcement from Healey. No, it was not a surprise—except perhaps for his fellow minister Benn.

Britain would be one of the few countries which could look forward to a rapid recovery over the next 18

months . . .

The Times, 7th July 1976

Followed presumably by three more cheers and back-slapping. Considering that both these men are “united” in a political party which expresses the view that a system of exploitation is the only one to which workers are entitled, and capable apparently of both declining and recovering at the same time, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that were they to pool their respective talents and issue a joint statement, it would prove twice as ignorant as either of their individual efforts.

Sir Willie?

The fanaticism with which William Hamilton attacks the Royal Family appeared to have abated somewhat when he voiced “concern” over a motion from other Labour MPs—themselves expressing “surprise” over the Queen’s purchase of Gatcombe Park for her well- breeched offspring Princess Anne. The price was reported in the Daily Telegraph of 12th June as £500,000. No, No, said the microscopically-minded Hamilton, the Monarch should spend her money as she saw fit. What was wrong was that “the Royal wealth which makes such expenditure possible has been due to the failure of successive governments to tax that wealth in the same way as that of all other citizens.”

Can it be that he is angling for something? Considering his immense publicity services to the Crown, he must surely be deserving of some appropriate medal or title. This would be no more than he deserves. We note incidentally that in the Register of MPs’ Interests, he gives one source of income under the appropriate heading of “royalties”—a reference to the money from his literary masterpiece on the Royal Family. While he, and others, spend so much of their time and effort in expressing a petty outrage at the size of the molehills, they have missed the mountains—capitalism rumbles on. But then Labour MPs could hardly be expected to think about anything as fundamental as that.

What could be fairer ?

It is usually the practice, after being led up the garden path by one man, to find at the end of it another who then exhibits a bag from which he releases a cat. Although capable of fulfilling both rôles, Eric Varley, Secretary of State for Industry, has been releasing the cat.

The dictionary definition of a scientist is given as: “A person learned in one or more of the natural sciences” and science as: “Systematic and formulated knowledge.” Now Mr. Varley has not so much altered the definition, but put it into perspective! within the context of capitalism—where, like all other members of the working class, scientists must live by selling their mental and physical energy to the ruling class. He was bemoaning the fact that “to be a technologist or a manager in industry is considered to be a pretty lousy job” and from this erudite premise, drew the conclusion that potential but reluctant scientists just did not know what they were missing:

Qualified scientists and engineers, although numerically a small category, have a particularly significant role. They have the innovative capacity to generate and translate the technology into competitive and saleable products and the responsibility for managing the production processes.

Daily Telegraph, 7th July 76

A significant role therefore, not in an abstract sense of the pursuit of Knowledge, but in the real economic field where the owning class is in pursuit of something else, the accumulation of capital.

Class Distinction

“More than 1000 London dockers, who are being paid £57 a week for doing nothing, at a cost to the Port of London of between £6 million and £7 million a year, are ‘moonlighting’ to double their earnings”, reported the Daily Telegraph of 30th June. “A scandal” is their description. They do however concede that the men, on average 1,250, do no work for the reason that there is often no work for them to do. The men are protected, however, under the National Dock Labour Scheme from sacking on this ground alone, and even the inducement of a £5,250 “golden handshake” to accept redundancy has failed to shift them. Considering the apparently universal exhortations from the press for workers to pull out their respective fingers and earn themselves a living, we would have thought that the taking of a second job would have merited praise. Apparently not, so “a scandal” it remains.

Surprising then to note that the moral indignation of the Telegraph respectfully faded to nothing when it reported on the twelve, no doubt “just”, women whom Paul Getty “richly remembered in his Will” (10th June 76). Among others they noted that Lady Ursula D’abo, sister of the Duke of Rutland, was to receive 1000 of his shares, worth £93,361, and how she was duly “surprised by the gift. The shares will remain in Getty Oil until I die, as he would have wished.”

All highly commendable; no mention here of a “scandal.” No mention, incidentally, of what happen to the share dividends either—we refer to the large cheque which drops through the letter box from time to time. Work for a living? My dear, who do you think opens the envelope!

Idle-ized

Who was Eric Singer? If you never heard of him— Snap! But on 30th June The Times published an obituary of him. What were his achievements? Take note.

According to the article, he was “an early, though later disenchanted” member of the German Communist Party. In Britain he became “a planning consultant”. To illuminate that, he was able to do his day’s work “before most people had roused themselves from their beds”, which clearly means it was a very small day’s work. What did he do after the rest got up? “He left behind an uncompleted book on inflation and an unpublished work on architecture.” He spent the war “at the roulette tables in Lisbon”, and became “a purveyor of gallantries to ladies, snuff and gossip to men”. “He greeted each day with his freshly-plucked button-hole, his stick and his joie de vivre”.

This reminds us strongly of Fred Bloggs. In his teens Fred joined the Balls Pond Road Libertarian Society, resigning when he discovered he had mistaken its name for “Libertine”. He was widely known in all four corners of the betting shop, while his élan and the je ne sais quoi with which he rolled a Nosegay cigarette made him a favourite of barmaids everywhere. He always alluded to his lifelong redundancy with the characteristic epigram: “Never done a stroke and don’t intend to, mate.”

What a curious world where a man is praised for having had political delusions and spending his life as a fashionable idler.

Alan D'Arcy

Labour-Power and Wages (1976)

From the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The particular form of society in which we live is capitalism which is composed of two classes, defining class as relationship to the means of production. The capitalist class own the means of production, which enables them to exploit the working class and to live luxuriously on the surplus-value the workers produce. The working class have no ownership in the means of production and must therefore, to live, sell the only commodity they possess: : their mental and physical energies, viz., labour-power.

Labour-power is not to be confused with labour; the latter is the function of the former. Labour-power, being a commodity, is subject to the same economic laws as other commodities. The value of any commodity is determined by the amount of socially-necessary labour-time required for its reproduction. In applying this yardstick we shall see that labour-power exists in the living individual: therefore the value of labour-power resolves into the means of subsistence, food, clothing, living accommodation, all the things required to reproduce the labour-power for the employment in which it is engaged. This includes provision for the worker’s family, as his children must replace him in the labour market.

The purely physical means of subsistence required to keep the worker sufficiently supplied with energy to continue in working order is qualified by historical or social elements; these reflect wants arising from developing social conditions, and varying standards of living obtained by workers in different countries. The value of labour-power may therefore vary within certain limits. It may, for example, be increased by the expansion of the social element, or the social element may be brought nearer to the bare means of subsistence just sufficient to keep the worker as exploitable material. Any further reduction, reducing wages beyond the physical element, would result in labour-power failing in normal efficiency.

Wages are the price of labour-power, the expression of its value in terms of money, although price and value are not necessarily identical. Wages therefore may rise above or fall below the value of labour- power, depending on the pressure of capital on one side and the resistance workers are able to put up. A constant struggle takes place as a necessary result of the wages system. The worker must always try to maintain his standard of living, the capitalist will always try to increase his profit.

The value produced in a working day is divided into two parts. The first is that which has to be returned to the worker as wages. The remainder is appropriated by the capitalist class as owners of the means of production, and is called surplus-value. Clearly the one cannot increase without the other decreasing. Also, wages can never rise above the point where the average amount of profit is threatened to any extent. However, it is a mistake to suppose that this conflict of interests constitutes the class struggle. It is one part of the class struggle, a necessary but limited one. The ultimate struggle is over the ownership of the means of production and distribution, and its prosecution requires comprehensive political action.

Failing that, the basic position of the wage-worker remains unaltered. As we have seen, labour-power is a commodity and like other commodities has value. But it is unique among commodities in that by its use, i.e. when the worker produces by applying his energies to natural resources and raw material, he creates value. He not only adds value, but more value than that of his labour-power. It is the difference between what the worker receives as wages, and the total value he produces, that is the source of the capitalist’s profit. The worker must supply the capitalist with surplus-value in order that he may work for his own livelihood.

Socialists ask their fellow members of the working class to look beyond the wages system, to become conscious of the need to move on to an altogether different society. A society where wages would have no place, there would be no wage-working class, and no capitalist to appropriate what is produced. Property society has served its purpose. Socialism will give rise to new social relations corresponding to the ownership of the means of living being in the hands of the world community. The aim should be to abolish the wages system and to replace it by a system where people can freely take the things they require, as they will freely take part in producing them.

P. Young

Letter: Small Fry (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Small Fry

I read with interest your reply to Robin Cox, entitled “Working and Class” (March Socialist Standard), in which you say that a self-employed business man employing a handful of people cannot be classed as a member of the capitalist class proper. With which I agree, but by the same token, if a person retains the full value of his own labour and the surplus value of, say, 5 or 6 other people then he cannot be classed as a member of the working class proper.

I remember reading an article which, if my memory serves me right, made this very point, saying that the labour theory of value was very elastic and that the small business man came into an economic “grey area”, but that these people were such a small minority of the world’s population it was of no importance to the scheme of things. It also rightly pointed out that a self-employed person’s interest lies more with the working class than the capitalist class, as often in an economic crisis many find themselves fighting for their very existence. Indeed, thousands have found themselves relegated to the ranks of the dole queue in competition for the sale of their labour-power.

I would be most interested in your comments.

E. Higdon. 

Auckland, N.Z.

Reply:

In addition to the answer you yourself give, we would say the following. The kind of small enterprise you suggest is seldom independent and would not be capable of competition with larger companies. Instead, it is commonly dependent on one or another of them. It supplies components, or sub-contracts, or plays a part in distribution.

The “business man” running such a firm is theoretically getting his living from the surplus-value produced by those he employs, but in practice he is supervising a segment of the larger enterprise. Usually the use of his own labour-power is as indispensable as that of the employees, and in effect he is himself employed and exploited. When the major company reduces production he is likely to be left with his outlet diminished or gone and his liabilities to meet: hence the many bankruptcies among small companies.

It is convenient to the capitalist class to let small enterprises go on in this way. Many of them produce cheaply because they are in sub-standard premises, employ part-time or casual labour, or believe sacrificial cheapness equals competitiveness and will get them more contracts; and the volume of goods or services supplied to a company in this way is not sufficient to be worth the company’s while to incorporate in its own production. As an example, a few years ago the Esso oil company operated a system of “authorized installers” for central heating. Under it, small businesses installed boilers, pipes and radiators for small returns—so that Esso heating oil could then be sold. Not much doubt who was, and who was not, realizing the surplus-value in that case.

Editorial Committee.

Letter: The Working Class (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Working Class

You are interested in the working class which is 60-70 per cent of the population. Have you any surveys, or are there any socialist-type surveys which indicate a particular psychology especially comparing them with other classes and how they differ? First money; according to probate statistics the working class leaves nil as far as this district is concerned in the overspill Manchester area. As far as I can see they are not interested in looking after their own social interests like tenants’ league and political meetings. They are certainly fond of children. They are also fond of hire-purchase. They do not tidy up their gardens like the middle class bungalows here. What have they not that the higher-ups have?

W. Popplewell, 

Knutsford

Reply:

You are approaching this matter from the wrong direction. The working class, as you indicate the overwhelming majority, is so called because the members of that class have to rely on a wage or salary in order to live and maintain their families. The term “middle class” is confused, although it is popularly used to denote those who earn relatively high wages or salaries; this does not influence the economic realities of the “middle class.” They too have to sell their labour-power in order to live.

Members of the working class leave relatively little because while they are selling a lifetime of labour- power they receive (in wages and salaries) only that amount which generally accords with the amount required for them to live. There is no surplus. Hire-purchase is a debt which workers incur because they are unable to purchase certain articles outright. But neither of these phenomena indicates a fondness or an innate characteristic displayed by workers: they are reflections of working-class poverty.

Matters such as the workers’ fondness of children, and gardening habits, clearly vary in individual circumstances and are also open to a wide range of opinion. Although it would be unsatisfactory to draw any common significance from them, what can be said is that by and large, members of the working class look after children and gardens. The point to note here is that these do not necessarily have to be their own.

On your last point—the working class have not got the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. This is the factor which underlies all working-class behaviour, and not some “special” psychological characteristic.

The answers to the questionnaire you have also sent, cannot be dealt with here. We suggest you approach the reference section of a public library which will have many of the statistics you require.

Editorial Committee.