The way out. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The greatest problem before the working class to-day, the problem that requires immediate attention, is poverty. On all hands the existence, of poverty amid extreme wealth is admitted. All parties, no matter what their label, admit the existence of this problem and trot out one scheme or another that they claim will alleviate the evil. Before considering remedies, it is necessary to discover the cause of the evil, and having found that, to endeavour to, if possible, abolish the evil by removing the cause.

The first important fact that confronts us in this examination is the fact that poverty is confined to one section of the community, and, strangely enough, to that section which alone produces the welter of riches we see around us. We find that it is the hewers of wood and the drawers of water that are poor, while the idle class are rich.

Why is it that those who produce wealth in abundance receive but sufficient to keep them alive ?

It is not that there is not sufficient wealth in the country to supply the needs of the whole people, for we find it admitted on all hands that that wealth is increasing by leaps and bounds, while at the same time the poverty and misery of the workers increase.

The very fact that men able, and willing to produce are unemployed shows that there need be no scarcity of wealth.

There is sufficient for all, but the working class are denied the opportunity of consuming it; nor are they allowed to operate the tools of production in order to produce what they need.

We are forced then to see that members of the working class, while desirous of producing, are prevented from so doing by another class, who own the means of wealth production. This class are thereby enabled to dictate terms to the workers, who are forced to accept them in order to obtain sustenance.

The terms are that they shall create a value far in excess of the amount paid to them in wages. The difference between the value they receive and the value they create is taken by the capitalist as his profit.

This surplus, the result of the robbery of the worker, is piled up by the capitalist, who is unable to consume it fast enough, with the result that sooner or later the markets are glutted and the workers discharged. With the growing productivity of labour we find these periodical gluts recurring with ever greater rapidity. The unemployed army, growing greater and greater, clamouring for a purchaser at almost any price, force down the wages of those employed to the lowest possible level, despite all attempts on the part of the latter to raise them.

The class that produce the wealth are in poverty because that wealth when produced is stolen from them by the capitalist class.

The capitalists are enabled to steal the workers’ product because they own the only means by which they can live.

As we have seen, the working class are compelled to produce more than they receive because they are forced to accept the masters’ terms in order to live. Should they endeavour to take those things necessary for their maintenance, or try to use the means of production for themselves, they are faced with the police and, these not sufficing, the military.

The master class control the fighting forces and are prepared to use them to maintain their position. They are enabled to use those forces through their control of the political machine—which they hold by the votes of the class they have robbed. In a word, the continuation of the workers’ poverty is due to the fact that they have voted their enemies into power.

What, then, is the remedy ? How are the working class to regain that which has been stolen from them ? How are they to stop the robbery in future ?

Obviously by the removal of the root cause ; the ejection from power of the capitalist class ; the control of political power by the working class, in order that they may throw off from their shoulders the class which oppresses them and theieby gain access to the means of wealth production.

This can only be accomplished by the organisation of the working class into a party hostile to their enemy the capitalist class, determined to end capital, capitalist and capitalism.

The capitalist hirelings, led by the “statesman of Labour,” John Burns, tell you that the poverty of the worker is due to his thriftlessness and excessive drinking habits. While telling you this they are compelled to publish figures proving that poverty is on the increase while the expenditure on intoxicating liquors de-creates year by year.

Despite an increased expenditure of £93,000 on wines (certainly not a working class drink), the total drink bill for 1909 shows a decrease of £5,897,997 compared with that of 1908. Taking into consideration the increase in prices the total decrease in the consumption of liqour amounts to about £11,147,997.

Capitalist statisticians and others, while attributing the greater amount of poverty to drink, are compelled to admit that it is not possible to eradicate the “drink evil” while the housing condition of the workers remains as it is. Drinking habits, they admit are largely due to the vile housing accommodation and the course and indigestible food of the workers.

The workers live in the slums and consume bad food because they are poor, so we are brought back again to the original cause, namely, poverty. The Tory party, in order to get the votes of the working class, bring forward a proposal which they call Tariff Reform. They tell us that a tariff placed upon foreign manufactured goods will keep out foreign competition and at the same time raise, by the tax (upon the goods that are to be kept out), sufficient to enable them to finance measures of social reform.

The Tory leaders, however, have admitted that Tariff Reform will rot solve the poverty problem, and a little enquiry into the conditions of the working class in those countries where protection has been established will show that Tariff Reform is no solution.

The Liberal party have been compelled to admit that they have no remedy. Free Trade, they say, is the workers’ real protection, whereas under free trade capitalism the workers starve. Both parties are pledged to support the present system of class ownership and are consequently enemies of the working class,

The Labour Party are pledged to support capitalism through the Liberal party, while in its turn the I.L.P. has sunk its political identity in the Labour Party.

The S.D.P. has all along shown its ignorance of the working-class position. While at times preaching the antagonism of interest existing between the two classes it has constantly blurred the issue by advising the workers to support sections of the master class. It exists merely for the purpose of advocating reforms of the present system, such as State maintenance for school children, the right to work, etc., none of which touches the poverty problem at all. They also have endeavoured to make alliances with the historic enemies of the working class and can be lumped with the other parties as being worthless from the point of view of the worker.

The only party that stands for the entire abolition of capitalism and all that capitalism involves ; the only party that has laid down a clear and definite set of principles in accord with economic truths, and stood by them consistently ; the only party that aims at, and steadfastly works for, the elimination of the causes that make for poverty, is the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Twel.

A Lesson from a “White Paper.” (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The futility of palliatives, amongst which we must perforce reckon conciliation boards, is strikingly illustrated by the consideration of the Board of Trade White Paper containing the preliminary statement relating to the railways of the United Kingdom for ’09. The result of a few of the decisions of the conciliation boards operate in favour of the men, but only on comparatively unimportant questions. By judicious “wangling,” ruthless cutting down and agreements between companies, any slight advantage to the men has been more than out-weighed, smd there is more despotism than ever. The financial results of the year’s operations compared with 1908 were as follows :

	1909	Inc. Or decrease
	£	£
Passenger receipts	51,198,000	-467,000
Goods receipts	68,971,000	+742,000
Working expenses	75,033,000	-1,375,000
Net receipts	45,130,000	+1,649,000

Maintenance of way, works, etc., cost £60,000 more, but there was a saving of £1,422,000 in locomotive power. Such facts invest the dryest figures with interest. The quantity of minerals and general merchandise conveyed increased by 7,727,000 tons, but the number of train miles declined by 3,035,000.

The lesson here is clear and plain. Any tinkering with conditions of labour, whilst the chain of wage slavery remains unbroken, can only, if it affects matters at all, result in a tightening up of the links. After all, the bargaining with employers, be it through conciliation boards, deputations, recognition of Union officials or what not, is not progressive. It is only the half conscious effort of the workman to recover the ground that capitalism ever pushes away from beneath his feet. It is a struggle against retrogression. Only in Socialism do we find the larger hope. Let us, then, abandon trying to patch up a rotten system ; let us desist from the fatuity of endeavouring to make worse more bearable. All such effort is mere resignation to the slave condition. There is far better work to do than to struggle for such crumbs as your leaders lead you on to. When those leaders led you into the “conciliation boards” trap they delivered you, bound hand and foot, into the hand of the masters. We said so at the time and events prove us correct. Join the S.P.G.B. . . . and concentrate on your freedom.

Wilfred.

Buy ’em out. (1910)

From the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

The text for this article is the following abstract from a speech delivered by Mr. P. Snowden in the House of Commons, July 4th, 1910.

“Mr. P. Snowden (Lab. Blackburn), speaking as a representative of Socialism, said he was not appalled by the figures of the Budget ; on the contrary, he hoped to see the day when the Chancellor of the Exchequer would bring in a Budget for 3 or 4 hundred millions . . . The Labour Party supported last year’s Budget because it was a good beginning. He would not tax landlords out of existence, but would buy them out.

A Unionist Member: Where would you get the money ?

Mr. Snowden : That is a question often put by ignorant men at open meetings. (Laughter.) If they tried to float all the public-houses of the country as a trust with assurance that they would be free from increased taxation there would be no difficulty in obtaining the money. (Labour cheers.)” Daily Chronicle, 5.7.10.

Mr. Snowden’s claim to be a Socialist representative is soon disposed of. His election address and speeches at the last General Election, to say nothing of an analysis of the votes cast for him, amply disprove that claim. Goaded, possibly, by the disaffection in the ranks of the I.L.P., he blossoms out, on occasion, as a ‘”Socialist representative.” This is part and parcel of the political game he and his colleagues are playing.

But I wish to deal with his piffle about buying up the land.

How Mr. Snowden and his like can rave to an I.L.P. audience about the robber landlords whose ancestors filched the land from the people, etc., etc. Of course he knows his audience. He has to tickle their political palates in order to earn his lecturing fee, with one eye on a return engagement. But to a more “respectable” audience, such as the House of Commons, he adopts another tone. He appears to be quite unconcerned as to the lack of consistency (I had almost said lack of honesty) in raving at one time against the robbers and parasites on the body politic, and at another time admitting the claim and title to their monopoly by talking about “buying them out.” If this is not confusion, what is it ? To the Socialist, with regard to the land and ALL other means of capitalist exploitation, there is no question either of “compensation” or “confiscation,” but simply RESTITUTION.

Again, taking Mr. Snowden’s remarks on the level of his own verbosity, which is not the Socialist level by any means, we observe his smart wangle in reply to an interjector who asked “Where would he get the money from ?” Possibly the writer is equally ignorant; anyway, I repeat “Where would he get the money from” to buy out the landlords ? Obviously such a transaction could not be concluded in the coin of the realm, as there is not sufficient coinage minted in this country with which to do it, and moneymanias will doubtless tell us that if such an enormous sum was specially minted for the purpose, when put into circulation it would swamp the money market, etc., so as to make it just about valueless. Therefore it would have to be done with scrip, treasury bonds, and the like, and to be of any value these bonds would have to be interest-bearing.

So, here you will see the drift. Here, with very little imagination to fill in the gaps, we can foresee the birth and result of a new side-tracking agitation for another “drastic reform.” Shout it from the housetops; sing it in the music halls. “Land Purchase.” “The Land for the People.”

Miles of fulminations and perorations on the platform and in the Press over a course of years, perhaps generations, would induce the landowning section of the capitalist class to “reluctantly” give way (with their tongues in their blasted cheeks), and accept in exchange for their rent rolls, treasury bonds bearing perpetual interest of certainly not less amount than their present incomes—the dominant political power, the capitalist class, will see to that. And the result to the gullible members of the working class who had been bluffed by the afore-mentioned perorations ? Simply, as you were. They would still have to provide the luxuries for the parasites, the only difference being that they would be called “interest” now.

Let us suppose that “hand” John Smith’s wildest dream is realised and in consequence of this very revolutionary change he lives “rent free,” what happens ?

“Times are bad,” says the employer to John, “Business is rotten, and I really cannot keep this place going in face of the foreign competition unless you accept less wages. You can easily do this: you have NO RENT TO PAY now; therefore I must dock your wages 10s. per week.”

“But,” protests John, “my rent was only 5s. per week.”

“Indeed,” retorts the boss. “Then let us compromise and call it 7s. 6d.”

Of course John will fight, but after tightening his belt daily for a few weeks and watching his wife and kiddies starve while he is on strike, he will return to work at 5s. per week less than formerly ; meanwhile his boss has got rid of his surplus stock at enhanced prices and treats himself to a new aeroplane. John soon forgets, in his anxiety to get a living, all the balderdash he swallowed during the “drastic reform” agitation (unless the wicked Socialist is there to jog his memory). He has got the reform all right, but he has yet to learn that he and his class will never, while capitalism lasts, receive more on the average, than a bare subsistence.

Poor John ! Is it any wonder that some people think that he only get his deserts ? Well, he must thank, amongst others, Messrs. Snowden & Co. for the condition in which he finds himself, and in which he will remain until he learns the one grand lesson—that Socialism is the only remedy.

W. E.

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For August. (1910)

Party News from the August 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Labour Party Programme For The Year 2000 (1955)

Editorial from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The idea of encouraging the donkey forward by dangling a carrot a short distance in front of his nose is an ancient one but even the oldest tricks can be changed and Mr. Albu, Labour M.P. for Edmonton, has discovered a startling variation.

Like other Labour M.P.s he has had to realise that the Labour electoral carrot offered to the voters in the recent General Election was not successful in enticing them to the polling booth for 1,500,000 of former Labour voters this time refused to go in and put their cross. So Mr. Albu,_who is a member of the Executive Committee of the Fabian Society has been thinking up a new programme for Labour. He spoke about it at a meeting of the Central London Fabian Society on June 29. He said:—

“There should be adequate incentives, but property ownership should be reduced by estate duties and a capital gains tax so that by the year 2000 the distribution of inherited wealth would be similar to that of taxed income today."

(Manchester Guardian, 30 June, '55.)

Mr. Albu is not proposing that inequality of accumulated wealth be eliminated but only that it should be lessened, so that it would not exceed the smaller, but still very great, difference between the annual income of the rich man and the wages of the poor. So we progress! Many years ago the Fabian Society, and later the Labour Party, planned to do something “immediately” about this inequality. Now Mr. Albu suggests postponing the completion of half a plan until a date 45 years ahead, by which time most of the present generation will be dead. 

The basis on which Capitalism exists is the monopoly by a minority, of the accumulated wealth of society. It is the cause of the poverty of the many. This has been the central theme of the Socialist case against Capitalism and it was known to Mr. Albu’s Fabian Society long, long ago.

Two thirds of a century ago Mr. Sidney Webb wrote in the Fabian Essays 1889 (“Historic” page 60).

“If private property in land and capital necessarily keeps the many workers permanently poor (through no fault of their own) in order to make the few idlers rich (from no merit of their own), private property in land and capital will inevitably go the way of the feudalism which it superseded.”

In 1908 the Fabian Society had phrased the known inequality of wealth in the statement “about one seventieth part of the population owns far more than half of the entire accumulated wealth, public and private, of the United Kingdom.” (Fabian Tract No. 7 Capital and Land. Page 10.). 

Sometime later they expressed it in the form “ten per cent. of the population own 90 per cent. of the wealth.”

In this form it was used in articles in the Daily News in 1916 and reproduced in the Fabian Tract When Peace Comes. (P. 28).

This proposition has been doing service ever since in the propaganda of the Labour Party. It was featured in their election programme of 1918, Labour and the New Social Order and 31 years later, in 1949, a Minister in the Labour Government confirmed that it still represented the division of wealth. (Mr. Glenvil Hall, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, ‘Hansard' May 18, 1949). After all these years and though we have had three Labour Governments, nothing whatever has been done to end the state of affairs that the early Fabians recognised as the cause of poverty. Incidentally, the Fabian Society in 1908, proposed to take over the land and capital “ without compensation (though not without such relief to expropriated individuals as may seem fit to the community.") (Fabian Tract Capital and Land 1908. P. 18.).

The Fabian Society named itself after a Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, known as the “Delayer,” who perfected harrying tactics described as “masterly inactivity,” and whose motto was said to be “make haste slowly."

But Fabius did win some notable battles and would have been surprised if he could have known that an organisation named after him was to do nothing at all to win its major battle for some 70 years and an executive member was then to propose aiming at some slight action 45 years later still.

Muddled as the early Fabians were in their twin notions that capitalism would disappear of its own accord or alternatively could be modified by reforms into becoming an equalitarian society, they were mental giants compared with those who have followed them in the Labour Party.

In the meantime the rich one-tenth still own nine-tenths of the accumulated wealth; and there is still no solution to the poverty problem except the Socialist one of transforming the means of production and distribution into the common property of society as a whole.

Maureen ! (1955)

A Short Story from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Maureen was such a nice girl. Everyone was delighted when she landed a good job. Some people had been a bit worried when she was in the third year. Got into bad company and caught smoking in the lavatory! But later, thank goodness, after a few talkings to she had responded splendidly.

Just before leaving she had been a modest girl. Her speech had improved, so had her manners and appearance. There was no difficulty in recommending her for a good job.

She got a post with one of the best firms in the City. “I am pleased!” said Miss Prim.

She had done so well in the dramatic class. Why, her new employers were so good that when she asked for a day off, only a day after she had started, they said “ Certainly!” You shall have full pay and we hope you will continue your drama studies! “What better treatment could you have than that? ”

Maureen came back after the first week to tell us how happy she was.

Imagine our surprise when she came again just before the Easter holidays to say that she was no longer there.

But why? Maureen! Surely the money was good, and it’s one of the best firms for staff welfare in the whole of London!

It appears that in three short weeks Maureen’s rosy dreams of a bright and happy future had evaporated.

The first week was jolly. The second a bit dull. The third very nearly drove poor Maureen barmy. Her job was examining banknotes, in a room full of other girls examining banknotes. All day long she sat at a table with a strong concentrated light looking at banknotes, hundreds of banknotes, thousands of banknotes. In the room she met and spoke to girls who had been examining banknotes for five years, and would go on looking at banknotes for another 25 years.

Maureen had looked hastily round. Girls can still pick and choose. She is now working in a dressmaking factory. At least the colours of the dresses are different.

Funnily, enough, I happen to know one of the directors of Maureen’s first firm in a purely private capacity.

“Pity about that Maureen kid!” I said. “Oh! I dunno! was the reply. She didn’t do so badly. Three weeks is about the average. We only get one in 20 to stay longer. Of course, it’s repetition work, but they can get used to it.”

There you are! That’s the trouble with the youth to-day. When I think of all the time spent at interviews. The Youth Employment Officer, the Headmaster, the Teacher. The letters and references, and now she’s gone to a dress factory where they don’t ask for references at all.

It makes you sick! Why, for all the good it’s done we might just as well have told her to go where she liked at first.

I nearly felt like telling her so when I saw her last week if she hadn’t told me first that she’d just been after a new job.

It appears that at the dress factory she had to sit at a machine sewing buttonholes. All day long, buttonholes, hundreds of buttonholes—thousands of ’em.

“CYNICUS”

Letter: The Class Struggle and Socialism (1955)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

(We have received the following letter of criticism, to which is appended our reply—Ed. Comm.)

Golders Green, N.W.11.

4.7.55.

Dear Sirs,

The July Socialist Standard reprinted a quotation from an issue of 50 years ago “ Militant the workers’ cause is identified with class; triumphant, with humanity.” Recently (Oct. 1954) you reprinted the same quotation, which seems to indicate that you endorse it to-day. I have given considerable thought to the attitude to Socialism which is summed up in these few words, and I would appreciate it if you would allow me to state my point of view, together with whatever reply you may consider necessary or desirable on behalf of the S.P.G.B.

The first thing that strikes me about the quotation is that it states an obvious—even tautological—truth about the class struggle that characterises all property societies The “cause” of the people who are organised as a class in society can only be seen as a class cause—they are on one side or other of the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour power. These causes and this struggle—militant or otherwise—are unquestionably a major feature of capitalist society. In so far as there is any triumph in this struggle, it is when one side gains a victory at the expense of the other—a class victory.

There is, however, another kind of struggle going on in society—the struggle for Socialism. On the one hand are Socialists: people who believe that a classless society is both desirable and practicable. On the other are those who are not Socialists, and who either support or acquiesce in the continuation of Capitalist institutions. The struggle between these two groups of people is a different kind of struggle from the first because it is concerned not with class interest but With social interest. Triumph here means that co-operation, harmony, social equality, will have ousted competition, warfare (including class warfare) and commodity relations.

Bearing this in mind, it seems hardly possible for the appeal to establish Socialism to be a class appeal. Much more is it a call to all people to be “integrated in a carefree world of humans,” as one of your writers puts it. This, of course, is not to say that Socialists should, in their propaganda, disregard the fact of the class struggle within Capitalism. It is a plea that the case for Socialism should be presented clearly for what it is—the triumph of humanity through the work of humanity.

I would like to add a few words on another point quoted in the S.S. that “the interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination.” Everyone championing a sectional interest claims that it really represents the interests of all. At a recent political meeting I attended, several speakers tried to persuade the audience that movements for colonial self-government (i.e. nationalist movements) were really international in character. How easily Socialists can see the fallacy of that claim! Yet does it not appear that the S.P.G.B. is a victim of the same fallacy in claiming that a class movement can establish classless society

Yours sincerely,

S. R. Parker.

Reply:

The quotations to which our critic refers are those published under the heading “Fifty Years Ago” in our issues of October 1954 and July 1955.

The two articles from which these quotations were reproduced appeared in our issues of October 1904 and July 1905. They both express the point of view of the Socialist against that of the Reformists who, while reluctantly having to admit that the class struggle is a fact, want to disregard it. The first was an attack on Keir Hardie, who was one of these, and it included a quotation from Belfort Bax, who wrote of the “Benevolent old gentleman who says, 'Let us ignore classes, let us regard each other as human beings.' "

The second article (July 1905), again attacked those who, admitting the reality of the class straggle, refused to recognise the necessity of basing working-class political action on that reality, on the ground that “it is immoral, that it stirs up strife and sets one class against another.” It admitted that this was logical for those (Keir Hardie was one) who based their “Socialism” on the New Testament and its injunction “Resist not evil”; it also pointed out how this injunction serves the interest of the Capitalist class and fits in with their class morality which teaches the workers that any resistance by them against their exploitation is immoral. The article went on to show that as no propertied class ever voluntarily gives up its privileged position, and as the ending of class society is in the interest of humanity, “the only class that can be relied on for the abolition of privilege and power to exploit, is the unprivileged propertyless working class.”

One point made in the article was:—"Not indeed that we must hate the individual Capitalist, for he is the product of his circumstances; but in the interests of humanity the firmest action must be taken. The power to exploit must be wrested from the parasites.”

It should not be necessary to reproduce again the passage quoted in our July issue, but we do so because our critic’s letter so grotesquely misunderstands what it contains.

The quotation was:—

“The victory of the Socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the Capitalist class by the workers: it means the abolition of Capitalism and the end of classes, for the great unprivileged masses cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling masses are fundamentally the interests of humanity.

“Socialism, is then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary economic foundation of a rational code of morality. The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination. As it has very truly been said: 'Militant, the workers’ cause is identified with class triumphant, with humanity'.”

(In our July issue the word rational in line two of the second paragraph was in error given as national).

Our critic misrepresents the substance of this quotation by the peculiar and quite incorrect meaning he gives to the term class struggle and by his failure to read simple phrases in their obvious unmistakable meaning.

He thinks, as will be seen from the second paragraph of his letter, that the class struggle consists of “the struggle between those who buy and those who sell labour-power.” Historically class struggles have sometimes been between propertied classes, as for example between Feudal landlords and the rising Capitalists. In modern society the predominant class division is between the Capitalists who own the means of production and distribution and the property-less working class. This is the basis and substance of the class struggle; the struggle over wages is merely a restricted aspect of the class struggle, the one to which the workers are normally confined because the State power precludes other activities on their part. The culmination of the modern class struggle is the political struggle of a Socialist working class for Socialism.

But even for non-Socialist workers the wages struggle does not represent the whole of their aspirations. In our own time we have seen workers, when conditions made this temporarily possible, seize possession of the employers’ factories, as in Italy after World War I, and the Syndicalist movement before that war aimed at "taking and holding.” In the early 19th century workers’ movements (e.g. the co-operative pioneers) aspired to create a new society, though their aim was vague and they failed to understand the means necessary for its achievement

Next our critic evidently fails to notice that our quotation begins with a reference to “the Socialist working-class,” and fails to notice the reference in the same quotation to “the aspirations of the oppressed working class in its struggle with Capitalist domination." “Aspiration” is defined in the dictionary as “noble ambition,” and Capital domination does not merely mean the employers’ resistance to wage increases. So, departing entirely from the plain meaning of the passage, he criticises it as if what had been written there was something like this:—

“The victory of those non-Socialist workers whose aims extend no further than the struggle for another 3d. an hour embodies the aspirations of the Socialist working class and is in the interest of humanity.' "

In the light of what the quotation actually says the criticisms of it contained in the letter are almost entirely irrelevant

Rejecting the Socialist conception of a working-class becoming Socialist, and taking political action to end class society, our critic offers us instead the conception of a “group” of Socialists struggling against a “group” of non-Socialists, but omits to tell us how this is to lead to Socialism.

He concludes by asserting, without any discernable reason, that a Socialist working-class, constituting the great majority of society, cannot have a classless society though that will be its aim, but informs us that a “group” (a section only of society) can do so by struggling against the defenders of Capitalism.

What the example of self-styled Nationalists claiming to be Internationalists has to do with the case we do not know.

Editorial Committee.

Marxism: Past and Present – pt.1 (1955)

Book Review from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marxism: Past and Present by R. N. Carew Hunt. (Published by Geoffrey Bles)

This book is a mine of reference on Marxism. While the author may have diligently quarried for his treasure, precious little has been brought to the surface that materially adds to existing stocks of knowledge on the subject. The book in fact is not so much a solo as a sound track for a massed anti-Marxist choir: so much so, that the author’s voice seems but the sotto voce of a “whispering baritone.” In addition, he attempts to decant the whole quart of Marxism into the half-pint bottle of 175 pages, thus making impossible any systematic treatment of the many issues raised.

The author essays to show that the totalitarian empire of Russia is the melancholy sequel to Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” Presumably, had there been no Marx there would have been no Lenin, no October Revolution. The sequence of events in Russia might then have told a happier story. Once again, then, Marx takes on the legendary role of history’s “wicked uncle,”

One of the author’s contentions, then—the one we shall deal with—is that both Leninism and Stalinism are rooted in Marx’s doctrine of “the dictatorship of the proletariat.” The author adopts, however, the dubious procedure of interpretation rather than testimony, of inference in lieu of evidence. He selects passages from Marx and Engels compares them with statements of Lenin and stress similarities. He never selects passages which reveal differences.

Yet those differences are of an order to show not a crucial connection but antithetical relations between Marxism and Leninism. While Marx and Engels were never specific as to what they meant by “the dictatorship of the proletariat,” they were always consistent with the generally accepted notion of democracy. Lenin’s political doctrine did not characterize democracy but only caricatured it in a debased Soviet form. Marx’s political theory carried no suggestion of a one-party device for the capture of political power. On the contrary, it presupposed “free elections” via the polling-booth. That was the method of the Paris Commune—and that, said Engels in his most vigorous statement on the subject, was “the dictatorship of the proletariat.”

Engels, in the Critique of the Erfurt Programme, declared : “Our party and the working class can only gain political supremacy under the political regime of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form the dictatorship of the proletariat as the great French revolution has already shown.” (Marx Engels Correspondence, p.486)

For Lenin the organizational form of the proletarian dictatorship was political centralism, with its military dictatorship and denial of any right of appeal from decisions made by the ruling body. The sinister sequel to this was dramatically summed-up by Lenin himself when he stated:

“The Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way incompatible with the rule and dictatorship of one person . . . this was explained to and accepted by the Central Executive Committee a long time ago ” (Socialist Party of Canada Pamphlet The Russian Revolution, p. 14).

Mr. Carew Hunt’s arrangement of quotations serves to conceal, not reveal, the antithetical views of Marx and Lenin. Thus, Lenin is quoted: “The transformation of the proletariat into the ruling class is identical with democracy,” While this in the letter agrees with the Communist Manifesto’s statement “The constitution of the proletariat into the ruling class is the conquest of democracy,” in the spirit it is utterly at variance.

In fact, Lenin’s notion of the conquest of political power by a class-conscious proletariat was perfectly consistent with his anti-democratic outlook. By giving the term “proletarian” an ideological twist, Lenin was able to include in the term his own Bolsheviks, who by and large had no working-class origin but had sprung from the Russian bourgeois intelligentsia. These for Lenin were not only “proletarians” but formed in the main his “class-conscious proletarians.” That is why Lenin made a decisive distinction between “the class-conscious proletarians” and “the masses.” While he often adroitly manipulated the term “proletarian” for demagogic purposes, he always made the capture of political power by the class-conscious proletariat synonymous with the supremacy of an élite.

Yet Mr. Carew Hunt blandly informs us that this is all perfectly in line with Engels’s statement in the preface to Class Struggles in France “that in a complete social transformation the masses themselves have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for body and soul. The history of the last 50 years has taught us that.” The author is able to say that because he never informs us as to the real content of Bolshevik doctrine. He only misinforms us of its relation with Marxism. Because the author’s proofs of most of his assertions are so constricted, he stretches his imagination to the point of rupture.

The Bolshevik seizure of power is paralleled also with Engels’s statement in his article On Authority, February, 1873, that “a revolution is an act where one part of the population imposes its will on the other part by rifles, bayonets and cannon.” (Selected Works, p.578) But in this particular instance Engels specifically cites, as an example of the armed authority of the people, the Paris Commune, which was no Leninist usurping of power by a minority but authority democratically conceived and arrived at.

Also the Communist Manifesto’s statement, “The Communists are the most resolute section which pushes on all other sections,” the author suggests, is the originating idea of Lenin’s professional élite. Undoubtedly his penchant for reading between the lines of Marxist literature has given him a bad squint.

The authority of the Communist League (1850) is cited as good Marxist paternity for Leninism. Marx then advised workers to agitate on behalf of the Democrats, who represented the German lower-middle class; and, in the event of their forming a government, to foist on them “revolutionary demands,” thus weakening the power of the upper bourgeoisie and strengthening the revolutionary potential of the workers. This political immaturity of Marx was never repeated. Afterwards, he made working class political maturity the measure of working-class development. All the essential features of Leninism, however, were missing from the Communist League. There was no separation of intellectuals from workers, no proscribing of working-class activity, no envisaging seizure of power by a political Junta.

Ted Wilmott

(To be concluded)

Notes by the Way: Religion in Russia. (1955)

The Notes by the Way Column from the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion in Russia.

One of the heads of the Russian Church, the Metropolitan Pitirim of Minsk, addressed a Press conference at Lambeth Palace on the position of the Church in Russia.

His figure of “over 20,000 churches” shows little change from the figure for 1945. (Statesmen’s Year Book, 1952, p. 1413.) 

He claimed that there are eight seminaries and two academies, at which over 2,000 young men were in training for the priesthood. “He said that 85 per cent, of Russians had remained faithful to their Church.” (Manchester Guardian, 12 July, 1955.) 

He had rather a lot to say about the funds of the Church and must have made some of his English audiences envious.

“Questioned about church finance, the Metropolitan said that it was all provided by the gifts of the faithful. Fingering a diamond-set medallion of die Virgin Mary, he added that he had several of these treasures, as well as two fine cars which had been given to him. 'By this you can judge our material position,' he said; 'it is all given by the people, who love their priests.' ”

(Manchester Guardian, 12 July, 1955.) 

The Daily Mail reported him as saying also that every clergyman in Russia is provided by the faithful with a car. 

The “Socialism” of the I.L.P.

The Socialist Leader, organ of the I.L.P., in its issue of 16 July, comes out with its proposal for the coal mines. It asks “ Why not stop paying the former coalowners?” This, it thinks, would enable the Coal Board to avoid increasing the price of coal.

It is typical of the I.L.P., now as in all the years of its history, that whenever a problem of capitalism comes up, it thinks of all sorts of solutions except the one to which it is nominally committed—Socialism. It is also typical of the I.L.P. when it makes its proposals to help the capitalists run capitalism that it thinks it knows better than they do how it should be done. Past experience gives no support even to this. When the two Labour Governments, of 1924 and 1929, were running capitalism, composed as they were predominantly of members of the I.L.P., there was nothing in their record to encourage such belief.

It is also characteristic of the naive attitude of the I.L.P. that its article on the coal situation should discover, as if it is a matter for surprise, that the Government has not put up coal prices in the interests of the mineworkers. Why should it and if it accepted the new I.L.P. proposal the same would be true. When will the I.L.P. wake up to the fact that nationalisation is State capitalism and is not in the interest of the workers, and has nothing to do with Socialism?

How High are Co-operative Society Profits?

The co-operators insist that their dividends on purchases are profit, not a reduction of prices. They do so on principle, but they also have a particular reason in that some manufacturers of proprietary articles will only supply them to Co-operative societies on condition that no dividend is paid to purchasers in respect of these articles. Co-operative News (9th July) writes:—‘The manufacturers regard the payment of dividend as a cut in price, which is pure nonsense.”

But apart from this, some Co-operators are keen to show that their stores make just as large profits as do private Capitalists. Co-operative News (14th May, 1955), published some facts about Co-operative profits. The writer showed that the Co-operative Wholesale Society last year paid out £6,174,067 as dividend; which on a capital of £27,431,064, is a rate of 25.25 per cent. He compared this with the Imperial Chemical’s distribution of a 10 per cent. dividend (but did not deal with the further profit, not distributed, which would have enabled I.C.I. to pay 30 per cent).

The writer showed, too, that on the retail co-operatives’ capital of £220,500,000 their dividend of £38,000,000 is 15.2 per cent. It looks like good Capitalist business.

Can the Workers Understand?

In the Socialist Standard of 50 years ago (August, 1905) was an article with quite up-to-date applications. It derided a furious agitation then being carried on by Labourites as being for a farcical object of no value to the workers. It went on to examine the reason given by Labourites who claimed to want Socialism, for wasting time on such trivial issues. Their explanation was one we still hear. They said that, desirable as Socialism is, you cannot expect the ordinary worker to understand it but must gain his interest by putting to him other simple immediate issues that he can understand, and thus lead him on step by step.

The writer of the article in the Socialist Standard argued that the case for Socialism was in truth simpler than the tortuous case for reforms and that these sidetracking proposals could only serve to confuse the workers and take them away from the real issue, that of establishing Socialism.

From 1905 we may jump 50 years to the recent Blackpool Conference of the Transport Workers Union. On 12th July, 1955, the delegates accepted the lead of their new general secretary Mr. A. E. Tiffin, and rejected resolutions for widespread new nationalization measures. Mr. Tiffin reminded delegates that the Labour Party had just fought an election on Nationalization and lost it, and the reason was, he said, that the workers don’t understand what Nationalization is all about.

“. . . We have to face the fact that nationalization at the present time has not yet been sufficiently explained to our fellow citizens as to convince them that further nationalization is in the interests of the whole nation."

“. . . even our own people in the industries we nationalized do not really understand what was the basic motive for nationalizing them." (Times, 13 July, 1955.)

The leaders also did not understand what they were doing and had, said Mr. Tiffin, relied on trial and error methods. “We should know precisely what we are going to do before we engaged on more Nationalization and not leave it to trial and error.” (Daily Herald, 13 July.)

So after half a century they can’t understand their own programme though Nationalization was, 50 years ago, just one of the side-tracking, time-wasting reforms advocated by Labourites on the plea that it was more easily understood than Socialism and would help us on the way.

Now let us return to another of these useless agitations, the one dealt with in the Socialist Standard of August, 1905. The article in question pointed out that this agitation had already been going on for 25 years and had never mattered. What, then was it? It was the demand for the abolition of the House of Lords! Three years later at the 1908 conference of the Labour Party a resolution demanding its abolition was passed unanimously (Report, p. 68) and this demand was reaffirmed at later conferences.

And here is an extract from a speech about it:—

"The first thing the Tories should understand is that if they tinker about any further with the British Constitution they must be informed that if we get a majority we will put an end to the House of Lords . . ."

Who made this speech and when? It was none other than the ebullient clown of the Labour circus, in one of his profound, statesmanlike moods, Mr. Aneurin Bevan. (Times, 24 May, 1955.) And it was made in 1955 after three Labour Governments had been in office and done nothing about it; showing, incidentally, how little it matters even for their purposes. All they have ever done is to fill a lot of the plush seats of the House of Lords with superannuated Labour M.P.s.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Revolutionary Proposition (1955)

From the August 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern Society is made up of the working class, the great majority, who produce but do not own and a small section (barely 10%) who own but do not produce. For the protection of the latter’s wealth and privileges against the have-nots at home and against covetous and greedy competitors abroad, the possessing class needs coercive machinery, police and armed forces, and so it is that every technical improvement in the tools of production finds its primary application to arms production. The discovery of nuclear energy is only the most recent case in point, though unique in so far as it has “revolutionized the entire, foundation of human affairs and placed mankind in a situation both measureless and laden with doom.” Churchill, who spoke these words, “had no solution for permanent peace between the nations, although,” he said, “we pray for it.” He also said that “it would be folly to suppose hydrogen-weapons would not be used in case of war.” Apparently Churchill knows his men and also his God.

Now, there is a solution, and if it is not for avowed defenders of capitalism like Churchill and the other avowed anti-Socialists to advocate that solution, honesty and consistency would require of those calling themselves Socialists to urge that solution especially since it is the only way out of the present appalling dilemma.

Though an exposé of the genuine Socialist case, i.e., the abolition of Capitalism, lock, stock and band, in other words: a fundamental' change in the constitution of present-day society, from production for profit to production of the means of life for use, on the principle: From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs, though such a proposition would fall on deaf ears in Parliaments and be promptly derided as a Utopia.

Yet, though “we are all Socialists now,” there has not been to the writer’s knowledge, any reference to Socialism as the only solution of society’s problems from any “Socialist” quarters. One is bound to conclude that actually all of them—save that of the Socialist Party of Great Britain and the companion parties overseas—look upon the conversion of the means of wealth production and distribution from private or State control to COMMON OWNERSHIP and democratic control by the people as a whole, as a Utopia, just as do the Capitalists themselves. There is, for example, Attlee, saying in the debate on Defence: “There is sometimes a need for something more dramatic if a H-bomb-war and the destruction of civilisation was to be avoided. He believed that it was felt by the rulers of Russia, as well as by the President of the U.S.A., and by the rulers of France, but somehow the thing did not get moving. We were looking for an initiative.” Just as 40 years ago, at the outbreak of World-War I, another pseudo-Socialist Party, the Socialist Labour Party, confessed officially that they had been taken by a storm and “were waiting for a lead.” Attlee said he had had talks with Malenkov, for he was “a very important factor.” (That this “important factor” became only a few days afterwards a mere factotum, shows the political foresight and intellect of these Western Capitalist factotums). What a Socialist indeed, who received the praise of H.M. Government for getting the atom-bomb for Britain and who is now “looking for an initiative” to avoid the destruction of civilisation—as if he had never heard of Socialism!

Others of Attlee’s ilk talked about the “tremendous catastrophe of another war, and that a superior ideology to put over to the people had to be found.” Any ideology will apparently do for these Socialists, as long as it does not end Capitalism and the good old “transition- period" on which these leaders and job-hunters prosper and thrive.  

R.

(To be concluded next month)

This is Socialism ! (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism means common ownership

The means of production will no longer belong to a privileged minority class, whether private capitalists (as in the West) or state bureaucrats (as in the East). Both private capitalism and state capitalism will be replaced by a system in which all natural and industrial resources will be held in common by the whole community. This is the basis of socialism.

Socialism means social equality

With the establishment of common ownership, the existing division of society into a privileged ruling class and a majority class of wage and salary workers will come to an end. Instead, every member of society will stand equal with respect to the means of production and have an equal say in the way social affairs are run.

Socialism means cooperation

With the disappearance of classes, a common social interest really will exist. People will no longer be alienated, isolated individuals competing in the marketplace, but will be members of a real community of free and equal men and women cooperating for their mutual benefit and for the common good. In line with the nature of humans as social beings, cooperation, not today's competitive individualism, will be the prevalent social ethos, transforming all aspects of social life — work, play, education, the family and personal relationships generally.

Socialism means democratic control

The existing political structures where a government rules over people on behalf of the class that owns the means of production will give way to a fully democratic system of decision-making and administration. Decisions will flow upwards from the broadest possible base rather than from the top downwards as at present. Delegates, subject to the full range of democratic checks and controls, will carry out and supervise the purely administrative tasks that will remain once the political state with its machinery of coercion has been dismantled.

Socialism means production for use

Production for sale with its profit motive will come to an end; goods and services will be produced to directly supply needs without the intervention of buying and selling. The mechanisms of the market will be replaced by a self-adjusting system of production for use. The productive and distributive network will be geared to respond in a flexible way to information about needs, communicated to it directly as required amounts of specific goods and materials.

Socialism means free access

With the abolition of market mechanisms, people will be able to obtain the food, clothes and other articles they need for their personal consumption by going into a store or distribution centre and taking according to their own self-defined needs. Houses and flats will be rent-free, with heating, lighting and water supplied free of charge. Transport, health care, communications, education, restaurants and laundries will be organised as free public services. There will be no admission charges to museums, parks, libraries and other places of entertainment and recreation. Money will become redundant.

Socialism means the abolition of the wages system

Since people will have free access to what they need, productive work will no longer be performed for an employer in return for a wage or salary but will become a voluntary service organised on a democratic basis. The factories, farms, offices, schools, hospitals and other places of work will be administered democratically by those working in them. People will undertake this work service as their contribution to the necessary social tasks of producing the goods to keep the stores stocked with the things for people to take for their personal consumption and of running the free public services and the administration.

Socialism means a world community

Because capitalism itself is already a world system which, either in its private or in its state form, dominates the whole globe, socialism too can only be a world system. This means that socialism could not be established in just one country but only as a world community without frontiers, in which the natural and industrial resources of the Earth will be the common heritage of present and future generations. The world will be regarded as one country and humanity as one people.

Scorpion is on holiday.

Food as a weapon (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the ending of the Cold War. American military power is no longer sufficient to hold its real economic rivals— Europe and Japan—in check, and the three power blocs are squaring up for the battle for world economic domination in the 21st century.

The current battlefield is a scries of talks on world trade, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which have now been stalled for nearly two years, with the European and US governments hurling abuse at each other over the emotive issue of farm subsidies.

So what is GATT, and why does an apparently minor dispute over handouts to farmers threaten to bring the world trading system to the point of all-out economic war?

The GATT process is aimed at promoting “free trade" amongst the competing states of the world, tearing down barriers to imports and allowing consumers to choose the most efficient supplier of anything from banking services to hairdryers.

In reality, of course, there is never any such thing as free trade among equal players— no ‘‘level playing field". US-based multinational corporations. with the economic battering ram of vast scales of production behind them, and the military and political power of the US state in the not too distant background, are clearly going to make easy meat of the struggling young industries throughout the “Third World”, currently protected by their own governments’ trade barriers.

Trade wars

Now all this is fine with European governments as well. They too have multinationals based on their soil, only too eager to participate in the turkey shoot. In the coming months you will doubtless hear ministers extolling the virtues of Free Trade for the health of the world economy.

But when we come to agriculture. there is a slight fly in the milk churn. European farms tend to be small and “inefficient" (unprofitable), whereas their US competitors tend to be large and “efficient"—fully industrialised and reaping the advantages of economics of scale.

This, of course, would give them a significant advantage in a genuinely free market, almost certainly devastating the European farm industry, and scoring round one of the battle for 21st century economic domination to America.

And American farmers have never been more desperate for markets for grain, which regularly gluts the American market. (Of course, this does not mean that there are no hungry people in America, simply that they can’t afford to buy what lies rotting in warehouses).

In fact this is another bizarre consequence of the ending of the Cold War. since in those good old days the Soviet empire bought all Americas surplus grain and paid on the nose with hard currency.

Europe’s governments, then, urged on by the powerful farming lobby, are determined not to give up their agricultural subsidies, while the US is desperate to prise the European market open.

A few months ago. a high- level EC delegation led by Portuguese Prime Minister Cavaco Silva and Commission head Jacques Delors, visited President Hush in Washington for crisis talks, with Cavaco Silva making it quite clear how deep the rift had become. “Sometimes there is a discrepancy between the apparent political goodwill and the technical proposals put on the table by the US”, he told the European (9 April).

And that’s just about as close as a diplomat comes to calling the other side a dirty cheating liar.

Both sides only entrenched their positions at the G7 economic summit in Munich last month, with John Major suffering a major rebuff to his attempts to break the deadlock, and vowing to continue to “bully, badger and cajole" fellow leaders into living up to the undertakings to conclude a deal by the end of the year.

In fact, although the European side has offered a 30 percent reduction in protection and support for agriculture, this would be on the basis of levels operating in 1986—a real cut of little more than 15 percent (The Grocer, 23 November 1991).

In the EC’s last review of support prices in June 1991. ministers cut a modest 1.5 percent from levels of support for oilseed, and at the EC Lisbon summit price support for cereals was cut 29 per cent. "Still not enough" said Hush.

Agri-business

The Daily Telegraph issued a dire warning following the failure of the Munich summit that the world is edging closer to a menacing era of protectionism. “There is a real danger that the Uruguay round of GATT could breakdown altogether, taking us back to the unstable trade bloc structures of the 1930s” (9 July).

The point is that food production is governed by the laws of competitive production for profit. Manufactures of food only survive by selling at a reduced price against their competitors, and with a glut of unsaleable food on the world market, pressure to subsidise unprofitable, mainly small-scale European producers against their industrialised US rivals is immense.

So the EC’s subsidies pile up yet more unsellable food, and US farming corporations are forced to watch their own surplus production rot in warehouses because it can’t be sold anywhere. The GATT negotiations are therefore a trial of political and economic strength between US and European agri-business, with their respective governments fighting their corners round the negotiating table.

What insanity! Capitalism— the competitive production of goods for sale at a profit—yet again proves itself to be completely unable to cope with a world in which we could provide an abundance of food for each citizen of this planet. It is the only system that actually manages to find adequate food production a major crisis. Surely its time to establish a system where this is an opportunity. through free access to all food production, to abolish hunger once and for all.

Andy Thomas

Socialist Standard Readers Survey (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

An interesting innovation from the Socialist Standard editorial committee in the 1990s. The results from this survey were written up in the November 1992 issue of the  Socialist Standard. (There was a similar type survey in 1994.)

Could a similar type survey be produced today? What with the majority of readership of the Standard now being online, I'm not altogether sure but I would hope that the editorial committee would give it some serious consideration.

Promises, promises (1992)

From the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

A few months ago we heard the politicians of capitalism making their overblown speeches and promises, vowing they’d do this and swearing to do that when in office. And once again, sufficient numbers of gullible enough voters let them get away with it, put them back in power to run the same old system the same old way.

When they get office we witness all the usual traditional reneging and treachery, the feeble excuses and transparent pretexts for "expediency” and compromise—the same old sell-outs and U-turns on policy and supposed “principle".

All the parties of the Profit and Wages System keep on making promises they never keep. The promise to solve the housing problem, which stays as bad as ever or gets even worse no matter what any politicians say. The promise to do something about unemployment, which has gone on rising over the years in spite of every “job-creation” scheme and YTS programme. The promise to make “our” country more democratic—when more and more civil and legal rights have gradually been eroded away by successive governments of whatever political hue. And with each fresh election the promises seem to get more vivid and extravagant. Kinnock promised us the sun, moon and stars if we voted for him; the Tories promised things which a couple of years ago, under Maggie Thatcher, they wouldn't have dared contemplate for fear of invoking her Divine Wrath.

All the other parties in Britain, such as the Liberals, the Nationalists, the Greens, the SWP, and various far-Left parties, all make promises of some kind. All want power to rule and govern us just like the two main parties of capitalism. And none of them can keep their promises, whatever it is they say they can or will do. This is because the existing social system won't allow it; the profit-motive takes care of that, forbidding any significant change in the way society is run or structured.

One political party stands out for its absence of promises. One party alone doesn't make any: the Socialist Party. We don’t ask people to vote for us as leaders or for any leaders whatever. We tell workers what capitalism is all about, what’s wrong with it. and why it should be abolished and replaced with Socialism. We tell workers all about what socialism really means and how to achieve it. None of this entails making any promises, or making any extravagant claims for ourselves. This is because the Socialist Party doesn’t strive to run capitalism or solve the perennial problems arising within it; that fruitless task we leave to our capitalist opponents to deal with if they can. We are not in the business of theorising quack remedies for the social ills capitalism has created; we want rid of capitalism, lock, stock and barrel, and that’s the only item on our agenda.

Nor do we promise that socialism will be a perfect Utopia; socialists are far too realistic for that. We analyze the real world and offer ways and means of changing it so that the basic needs of the entire human race may be fully satisfied. This, we consider to be a positive step forward in social progress, not to eradicate all problems from human life—which is impossible—but to make it a lot easier to solve them when they arise.

D. E. F.

Letter: Class struggle in sport (1992)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class struggle in sport

Mention the term “class struggle" to someone and they are most likely to recoil in terror or perhaps conclude that you are slightly mad. The John Majors of this world would, of course, have you believe that we now live in a classless society; and if you don't believe him there are always plenty of sociologists around to assure you that yes, there are classes—but it’s OK because everybody's “middle class" nowadays.

On 1 April last members of Canada's National Ice-Hockey League voted 560 to 4 in favour of calling the first ever strike by players in the NHL's 75-year history, and in doing so stuck two fingers up at those academics and politicians who are proclaiming the “death of the working class" and of socialism in general.

Now I'm not pretending that hockey players have spent the past few weeks skating around with copies of Marx’s Capital in their hands, but nevertheless there is a profound sense of awareness on the part of the players that, in the words of one of the ex-stars Tiger Williams. “we have rights just like any other worker”.

The fans in Vancouver, however. are up in arms over the strike especially in a year when their beloved team has a great chance of winning the revered Stanley Cup. How, they argue, can players whose average yearly earnings top $350,000 (about £175.000) choose to go on strike at a time when ordinary fans are struggling to make ends meet?

The facts, though, paint a different picture. The average salary is misleading in that there are a handful of players who earn an amount well into seven figures, thereby pushing the average up. The players were told recently by the owners of the NHL franchises that there would be no money available for increased wages despite a turnaround last year of over $43 million.

On top of this the average pro hockey player can expect his career to last about four years during which he will be subjected to constant media pressure, long-distance travel, niggling injuries, and the physical and psychological grind of playing and training day in and day out. a fact which is reflected in the abnormally low life-span of many professional athletes. Added to this, after his career is over he has little to fall back on in terms of “marketable skills”.

Yet perhaps more than this the strike is about “free agency", or, as described by Pat Quinn. the Vancouver Canucks General Manager, “the right for players to sell their talent to another club— which is at the moment being denied to them by the owners”.

The bottom line being, of course:

that this is entertainment, that tickets are sold for a product, that the value of that product is found in the talent of the players.(Globe and Mail, 2 April).

And summed up nicely by the CBC reporter:

This is not a sport—it is a business, built around one point—the raw talent of the hockey player.

All this goes to show that under capitalism, there exists a fundamental social antagonism between those who own the means of living and those who don’t. The exploitation of wage labour exists regardless of whether one is a factory worker, a working mother, a university professor or a professional ice-hockey player.

What all these people have in common is an interest in getting rid of a social system that has long since outlived its purpose and in establishing instead a way of living in which human talents from whatever walk of life can finally be expressed to the full.

Julian Prior, 

Vancouver