How you can do a spot of work for Socialism (1936)

Socialist Standard News from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

The majority of the libraries in the big towns now show a copy of The Socialist Standard. We would like to get The Socialist Standard on show in every library in the land. Our Libraries Committee will co-operate with you in bringing this about, but it falls on you, as a local resident, to take the initiative.

Write to the chief librarian of your own public library and ask why The Socialist Standard is not on show. Get your friends to write. Inform our Libraries Committee that you are doing this, and they will reinforce your enquiry by writing a letter from Head Office enclosing a specimen copy of The Socialist Standard.

An interesting fact which you can mention in your letter is that the New York State Public Library recently acquired a complete set of Socialist Standard’s, right back to the first issue.

Libraries naturally vary in their methods of acquiring literature, but you can say that The Socialist Standard can be obtained through W. H. Smith & Son, or by subscription direct, or the Socialist Party of Great Britain will keep the library supplied free of charge.

The most effective method of getting The Socialist Standard on show is by pressure from local residents, either by interviewing or by letter, but letters are the most effective, because they can be retained and submitted by the librarian to the local libraries committee. If you do not know exactly how to frame your letter, write to the Libraries Committee, 42, Gt. Dover Street, S.E.l, and they will help you in the task.

We are fully convinced that those who realise what a big thing Socialism is, and the necessity for it, will tackle this job right away.

New Party Pamphlet: War and the Working Class (1936)

Party Notice from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Do you know why modern wars occur?

Do you know what is the Socialist attitude towards war?

Do you know that the S.P.G.B. was the only political organisation in Great Britain which proclaimed its Socialist opposition to the Great War immediately it broke out and kept to that attitude throughout the War?

Do you know what attitude you as a worker should take up towards war?

For answers to these and other questions read

"WAR AND THE WORKING CLASS” .

36 pages, 2d. Post free 2½d.

Blogger's Note:

The text of this pamphlet is available on the SPGB website.

Reproduced below is the preface from that pamphlet.

War and the Working Class

The Socialist Party States the Case

Preface

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, like a voice crying in the wilderness, has always maintained that capitalism and war are inseparable.

There can be no capitalism without conflicts of economic interest. From these arise the national rivalries and hatreds, the fears and armaments which may at any time provoke war on a terrifying scale. Most people do not take the Socialist view. Even when faced with the Great World War of 1914-18 human hopefulness everywhere refused to accept what appeared to be a doctrine of despair. To say that capitalism must produce tense international situations from which war may burst at any crisis seemed like the passive acceptance of a series of wars, each more horrible than the last. So in the midst of the last Great War the peoples of all lands cherished a belief in a new world freed from fear and from war. It was left to the S.P.G.B., in its official organ, the Socialist Standard, in November, 1914, to insist on the bitter truth: “… the facts point irresistibly to further great wars. They indicate that no sooner will the present struggle have ceased than diplomats will be at work forming new alliances, and the Krupps and Armstrongs busy evolving fresh ‘surprises’ and mightier means of war. . .”

Nobody will now deny that the world is as ripe for war as in 1914. The diminishing number of those who can believe in the League of Nations since the Abyssinian fiasco carry on a disheartened struggle. The Conservatively-minded preach armaments and still more armaments, “to ensure peace and security”, while those who claim to stand for progress can think of no solution more hopeful than to restore Colonies to German capitalism – in other words to return to the state of affairs out of which the last war arose!

Only the Socialist can look realities in the face and not give way to despair. Our message is one of hope—of coming triumph. You have the choice of roads, a choice which all humanity must make. The one road is the road of blood and tears, of capitalism and war. The other is the road to Socialism. Only by ending the exploitation of man by man can we strike at the roots of war.

Executive Committee, S.P.G.B. August. 1936.

SPGB Meetings and Economics Classes (1936)

Party News from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Notes:

'Reginald' was the name that Augustus Snellgrove used for speaking engagements and writing for the Socialist Standard. 

'G. Clifford' was Clifford Groves.

'R. Robertus' was Robert Reynolds.

Though 'N. Nesbit' is listed repeatedly in the Socialist Standard during this period, either as a Party lecturer or as an outdoor speaker, there is no record of a 'Nesbit' in the Party membership records.

'Hardy' was the name Edgar Hardcastle used when listed as a speaker at Party meetings. He wrote for the Socialist Standard under the pen-name of 'H'.

SPGB Meetings and Educational Visits (1936)

Party News from the November 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Blogger's Notes:

• 'L. Otway' was the husband of May Otway. Both Otways joined Walthamstow Branch of the SPGB in October 1924. Whilst May Otway resigned her membership of the Party in April 1940, L. Otway was lapsed from Party membership in May 1942.
• Thirty years before debating the SPGB in Glasgow in November 1936, Guy Aldred was in correspondence with the SPGB about possibly joining the Party. He never did. Twenty-six years after that debate at the Clarion Scouts' Hall against John Higgins of the SPGB, Aldred stood against a SPGB candidate at the November 1962 Glasgow Woodside bye-election. What's interesting about the debate with Aldred is that there is no mention of the fact that in 1936 he would have been a leading member of the United Socialist Movement. I wonder if he spoke as their representative in the debate, or was he just speaking in an individual capacity?
• 'Robertus' was Robert Reynolds.
• 'G. Clifford' was Clifford Groves.
• 'H. Russell' was Henry Russell. He joined the Southwark Branch of the SPGB in September 1933 and he was a member of the Party until his membership was lapsed in November 1952.

What Comes Next? (2026)

Book Review from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

What Comes Next? Why Our Society Needs a System Upgrade. Volume 1: The Illusion of Money. By Robert Everett Cox. 2026. 326 pp.

This book, the first in a 3-volume series, presents a detailed explanation and critique of the capitalist system. It delves into various different views on the origins and rise of capitalism and the impact that system has had, and continues to have, on people’s lives. Its four chapters, each divided into various parts, are entitled ‘Why Work?’, ‘The Wages System’, ‘Abundance Thwarted?’ and ‘For Richer or Poorer’.

It is difficult to do justice in a single review to the breadth and intricacy of the investigation the author conducts, characterised as it also is by multiple references to the contributions of other writers and researchers. It may be useful, however, to pick on certain aspects that this reviewer found especially striking for the way they illuminate certain widely discussed topics whose implications are often incompletely understood and rarely taken to their logical conclusion.

The first one of these, which spans the volume and is interrogated with admirable clarity, is the ‘two-class’ case advanced by socialists, ie that society is divided between the tiny minority who own most of the resources and wealth in society (capitalists) and the vast majority who don’t (workers). Among the objections often raised to this view is that, since not everyone falls neatly into either of these categories, it does not reflect the reality of things. The author’s response to this is a frank and simple admission that such a picture of society is indeed ‘a simplification, a generalisation’, but that ‘making generalisations is unavoidable if we want to see the wood for the trees as far as understanding society is concerned’. More precisely: ‘A capitalist may be loosely defined as someone who possesses sufficient capital to comfortably live off the proceeds of investing that capital. This should not be confused with a self-employed worker; however hard-working, entrepreneurial and frugal such a worker may be. The latter does not possess sufficient capital to qualify as a capitalist and therefore still depends on working to obtain a living, like other members of the working class’.

Secondly, the much debated subject of ‘financialisation’ of the capitalist economy (‘making money out of money’), the ‘fictitious capital’ associated with it and how that relates to capital invested in the traditional production and distribution of goods and services is examined in a way that sheds far more light on the phenomenon than this reviewer has previously found and is also linked in innovative fashion to Marx’s ideas on money, credit and surplus value. Ultimately, the author tells us, we should not be surprised by the manifold forms that capitalism’s drive for profit may take, since ‘like some hydra-headed monster of Greek mythology, it grows a new head as new circumstances dictate’.

Next, there is ample discussion of what the author refers to as ‘capitalism’s structural waste’. Most people are aware that a good many of capitalism’s technological advances, rather than being used productively to better the human lot and create the abundance modern technology is capable of, are directed instead into activities that make life more complex, more insecure or more perilous the world over. Here we are talking about, for example, increased bureaucracy, the sales and advertising industry, and preparation and waging of war, which absorb the time, effort and mental and physical energies of so many of the working population. This ‘progress perverted’ phenomenon is, of course, widely understood, but rather than just lament the waste associated with it, the writer is not afraid to refer to the whole world of ‘commerce, finance and retailing’ as ‘socially useless industries’, and then to take it further by analysing and putting an actual figure on the ‘wasted labour’ all this represents (50 percent). His incontrovertible explanation for this is that ‘Under capitalism, generally speaking, technological innovations tend not to be taken up and developed if there is no prospect of making a profit by doing so’.

A final example, among many, of the issues this volume addresses in a novel and thought-provoking way is the futility of proposals or attempts to reform capitalism in the interest of workers. It dwells, in particular, on the advocacy by many of Universal Basic Income (UBI). In a section entitled ‘The UBI Panacea’, it explains in entirely credible fashion how automation and AI are unlikely to drastically reduce the number of jobs any more than previous major technological developments have and so are unlikely to cause what John Maynard Keynes wrongly foresaw as ‘a new disease … namely technological unemployment’. It follows from this, the author goes on to argue, that UBI policies by governments will not be needed, since dire want among the mass of workers owing to unemployment will not come to pass. As for UBI as a solution that governments could adopt anyway to deal with the structural unemployment caused by capitalism or simply to try and equalise spending power among workers, he points to the impracticality and potentially disruptive nature of this on a plethora of different levels whatever the model proposed. A hypothetical example given is of a government conceiving and trying to bring in UBI as a measure that ‘provides everyone with the same lump sum, which they receive on top of their income, earned or unearned’.

Such samples of the issues addressed in this volume may give an idea of the breadth with which it covers a wide range of other areas, eg, the ‘human nature’ argument, the ‘fake’ socialism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the nature and causes of inflation, ‘the penetration of money into every aspect of our lives, the continued validity of Marx’s analysis of capitalism, the concept of ‘relative poverty’, the vast disparity of wealth ownership between workers and capitalists. It also offers a small taste, if only a taste, of the ‘What Comes Next?’ of its title, ie the alternative system of society the author sees as necessary to replace the one investigated here. This alternative is summed up as ‘a post-capitalist society when employment (and hence “unemployment”) would cease to exist and when money would no longer be required to access the goods and services we need’. How this characterisation is followed up and fleshed out in the further 2 volumes of What Comes Next (‘Beyond the Price Tag’ and ‘A Sharing Society’) will be discussed in reviews of those in future editions of the Socialist Standard.

Howard Moss

Has The Archers gone political? (2026)

An everyday story of rural idiocy.

From the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anyone following the longest running soap opera on the airwaves, The Archers, will have heard something new in a recent episode – mention of the words ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’. The context was the millionaire farmer, Brian Aldridge, complaining to others in the village about the vets’ bills he was having to pay and how we shouldn’t ‘let a bunch of capitalists hijack our country’s vets’. To the jibe from one of his listeners that he was ‘hardly a socialist’, Brian replied that he was ‘certainly not’.

Can we unpick this? The first thing is that, over a long period of time, the words ‘capitalist’ and ‘socialist’ have been used to mean all sorts of different things to all sorts of people. Let’s start with ‘capitalist’. It was used in the 19th century by Karl Marx to refer to the small minority of people who owned and controlled what he called ‘the means of production’, that was the factories, the workshops, the offices, the land – in short all the productive resources of society. And by dint of the wealth they gained from this, they did not need to work for a wage or salary. Those who were employed in the places owned by the capitalists were dependent on the wage or salary they received from the capitalist owners and could not survive without selling their energies to them. The government’s role was to oversee this arrangement so that it worked as effectively as possible in the interest of the class of owners, the ‘capitalist class’, and to intervene if necessary to try to smooth out any problems that might arise.

Since Marx’s time, there have been cases where the government of a country has taken over the running of capitalism completely and its leaders have themselves effectively become the owners and controllers of the wealth produced by its workers. Examples of this are Russia at the time of the Soviet Union and Cuba and Vietnam today. This ‘state capitalism’ is also the system under which modern China operates, though its government also allows a certain degree of private wealth ownership whereby a small minority of individuals are allowed to amass considerable wealth deriving from the profit that comes from employing workers.

But in all these cases, so whether a country’s system is overwhelmingly based on private ownership or run under partial or complete state control, it is still capitalism. That is because it still displays the characteristic features of that system – money, prices, profit, wages and salaries, buying and selling, and division into two classes.

So what we heard when Brian Aldridge complained on The Archers about a capitalist hijack was in no way a condemnation of capitalism but rather a representative of one group of capitalists – big farmers – complaining about another group – large shareholder conglomerates that look to buy out smaller capitalist businesses (‘independent’ veterinary firms in this case) and form monopolies which, according to circumstances, may give them the power to increase the prices for their goods and services. Ironically, perhaps, this comment put in Brian’s mouth by The Archers scriptwriters was confirmation of part of Marx’s analysis of capitalism, ie the concentration of capital into fewer and fewer hands – something that remains a prevailing tendency despite the massive increases in production and transformations in technology that have taken place over the last two centuries.

What about the ‘socialist’ part of The Archers venture into politics? Brian was clearly appalled by the suggestion that complaining about big capitalists swallowing up smaller ones made him a socialist. And indeed it didn’t. But behind the suggestion that he might be a socialist lurked a clearly different notion of socialism from anything that the Socialist Standard would put forward. We are talking about the idea that anything that isn’t the entirely ruthless way of operating of the big capitalist combines has something benign about it and may therefore be worthy of being called something different, such as socialism. And behind Brian’s own rejection of being a socialist is also probably the idea of socialism as government control of the economy of some kind or other rather than private capitalists being able to operate freely. This represents another common view of what socialism is – a sort of half-way house between private and state ownership.

As for the Socialist Party, while recognising that the word ‘socialist’ is given many different meanings by many different people, we would not accept that such notions as outlined above should be given that name, just as we would reject the idea that the authoritarian state capitalist regimes of the past that called themselves socialist such as the Soviet Union and Albania, or present-day ones such as China, Cuba and Vietnam, bear any relation to the original idea of socialism – the one widely accepted in the second half of the 19th and early 20th century that we would consider still entirely valid today. We are talking here about a moneyless, wageless society of common ownership, cooperative endeavour and free access to all goods and services based on the practice of from each according to ability to each according to need.

A far cry this of course from anything likely to be discussed in The Archers. But, on the other hand, we should not perhaps decry such a programme its making mention of issues that might be called political. After all, such reference may just have the effect of stimulating among some of its listeners thinking and discussion about the reality of what we call the profit system, a clearer understanding of the meaning of capitalism and a less wrong-headed view than that held by most people of what socialism really entails.

Howard Moss

As an afterthought . . .

I should mention that the excellent political cartoon adorning the front cover of the November 1991 Socialist Standard, with Kinnock and Major as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, was by the late, great George Meddemmen.

Click on the link for some more of his excellent cartoons and illustrations.

No leaders need apply (1991)

From the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The race is on to lead the workers of Britain into five more years of misery. Carrots are being dangled before us and promises showered upon us. Liars are telling us that life under the profit system can be made decent, and honest leaders are deceiving themselves that they can run the slaughterhouse for the benefit of the cattle.

Whoever wins, the evil of the two lessers, be it Major the mediocre or Kinnock the conman, one thing is certain: within a few years of being elected millions of workers will be blaming them for their problems. Such is the role of a capitalist leader: success in conning enough wage slaves to vote for them results in the harsh reality of having to do the dirty work of running capitalism and let the workers down. No capitalist leader remains popular for long for the simple reason that the system never goes on for long without creating new problems for which they are made to answer.

So it was that Churchill, the man regarded by millions of deluded patriots as their war-time saviour, was voted out of office in 1945 and, when re-elected in 1951, was seen as an incompetent Tory fool. Likewise Thatcher, the market goddess who had small businessmen cheering in 1979, was so hated by 1990 that her party had to ditch her or face electoral defeat. Today many commentators speak about the wisdom of Labour's John Smith: give him eighteen months actually trying to run the capitalist economy and taking the blame for it and see what they say of his wisdom.

Don’t blame the leaders

The workers are an ungrateful lot. No wonder the politicians treat our class with such contempt. Wage slaves rush into the polling stations and vote for leaders, only to boo and hiss at them once they have made the mess of things which they always do. Workers love the fake promises and then have the cheek to expect them to be carried out.

In fact, leaders cannot carry out the policies which they advertise to us at election time. Leaders cannot do very much at all—because leaders do not govern, but are governed. They are governed by the dictates of the profit system which runs according to the economic law of profit accumulation which is beyond their control. Leaders may want to build more houses or provide more jobs, close down dangerous power plants or clean up the air, but leaders do not own and control the resources of the society that they claim to be running. The small minority of millionaires and billionaires who do own and control the means of producing and distributing wealth make the real decisions. And nobody ever elects them. There are no elections into the capitalist class. The leaders simply do what they can, which is not very much at all, within the limits of the system which places producing profits for the capitalist minority above all else.

The leaders are not running the profit system; it runs them. So it is foolish to blame the leaders for the mess over which they preside. If it was not Lamont supervising the dispossession of homes and closure of hospitals and job losses, it would be Smith or someone else. There is no more sense in blaming the capitalists as people. It is not their fault if they live under a system in which they are legally entitled to be exploiting parasites. Who would blame anyone for being a millionaire rather than a wage slave? Blame serves no purpose.

Leaders can only lead if followers follow. A leader without a follower is like a shepherd in a land without sheep. Sheep need leaders—and, of course, they are regularly fleeced by them. Workers do not need leaders. After all, we run society from top to bottom: we build everything, make everything, dig and sow and teach and mend and carry and invent. Without our hard work the whole world would stop dead tomorrow. We do not need leaders to tell us how to produce and distribute the goods and services which we need. We do not need leaders to tell us how to live.

Workers do not need leaders, but we will be led as long as enough workers are willing to follow. Our class has spent so long following that many people have forgotten just how strong they are, how un-sheeplike the human is capable of being. We have been conditioned to obey and to follow. First religious following kept most wage slaves on their knees, then Liberal and other reformers got the workers' vote, then the Labour Party posed as a party led by workers for workers, and now, after all this history of humble following, the workers are almost afraid to think for themselves.

Consciousness the key

Workers will be led as long as they do not believe in themselves. The worker who is lost, alienated from his or her consciousness of how the world really is and how it could be. is an easy target for the political leader.

For socialists, who are workers who understand the system we are living under and know that it is only as strong as we are weak, consciousness is the most potent weapon. Give socialists a million bullets and they will be useless, but give us a thousand newly active minds and we are on our way. Only when a majority of workers know that there must be a new way of organising society, on the basis of production solely for need not profit, can socialism come about. Once that knowledge is in the minds of our class no government or army will shift it or defeat it.

For this reason the chief battle of socialists today is the war of ideas. Workers must learn to think for themselves. Reasoning scientifically, with experience as a constant guide, it will be clear to our fellow workers that this system must be removed and socialism established. The role of the Socialist Party is to put our ideas with force and clarity, not just as abstract theory or idealistic fancy, but always in relation to the real lives and struggles of our class in its inevitable conflicts with the rulers and exploiters.

The Socialist Party educates but does not lead. To lead is to ask others to follow. This party calls upon no-one to follow us. Indeed, followers are not wanted—they are unwelcome here. Unlike the arrogant leaders of the SWP, RCP and various other mixed-up initials reflecting mixed-up ideas, this party does not labour under the delusion that we are a vanguard to whom the message of socialism has been passed and workers are too thick to understand it. Those Leninists who do understand the case for socialism (and they are rare specimens) refuse to put it to the workers because, according to Lenin, the workers can only ever achieve a trade-union level of consciousness. The Socialist Party, in line with Karl Marx, asserts that only the workers can achieve the consciousness to bring about a free society: the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class themselves. Socialists have no leaders and those arrogant would-be leaders who want to talk about socialism while trying to tell other workers what to do need not apply to this party.

A leaderless society

Once the majority has established socialism, doing so without leaders, there will be no government and no state. The state is the machinery for class rule; no class society could exist without one. In a classless society the state will be dismantled immediately—there will be no Socialist State, a term about as meaningful as liquid ice. There will be no socialist government or President or leaders of any kind for the simple reason that in a society of co-operative equality there will be no followers. Socialism will be a leaderless. stateless, followerless community.

The government over people will give way to the administration of things. People will make decisions, utilising the information technology now available and will run social affairs locally, regionally and globally in accordance with different levels of decisions needing to be made. Democracy will prevail. If mistaken decisions are made there will be no leaders to blame, but all will need to pull together to rectify the damage.

Life without leaders will not only be more democratic and efficient, but psychologically liberating. The follower is bound to have a slave’s mentality. The free women and men of a socialist community will imagine and create and consume without the need to think of rulers and of the risks, often massive ones under our system, of our masters making a drastically wrong move. Right now we live under the shadow of a nuclear cloud. The leaders could push the button any time. No more leaders will mean no more need to worry about what the swines are up to. The only people we shall need to trust is ourselves.

The Socialist Party has made a small start. We are a party without leaders and yet we are not in chaos. What the majority says goes. Why not apply that wise system of organisation to society as a whole? Why choose between tweedledum and tweedledee when the next ballot paper is handed to you by the government official? Why not tell these swindling rogues and useless fools that we have had enough of their fatal sheep-herding? Why not vote for yourself—for a change?

Steve Coleman

Letter: Population breeds pollution? (1991)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Population breeds pollution?

Dear Editors,

Thank you for publishing my letter on population and for your reply (July Socialist Standard). I do not understand why you so vehemently dismiss population growth as a contributor to serious environmental problems, and indulge in a compulsive denigration of Malthus: “Parson Malthus spouting his own brand of naturalistic determinism”, "apocalyptic vision had not an iota of scientific validity”, "completely arbitrary” (Socialist Standard, April 1991). Perhaps you are loyally echoing Marx’s similar invective when Malthus’s theory seemed to threaten his system?

In fact, Malthus regarded rapid population growth as highly desirable, provided adequate resources were available to support it. Nor was he a misanthrope, but a person of great charm and an advocate of progressive social measures, including much more equitable distribution of wealth. It is clear that he would have preferred his theory, arrived at in the pursuit of truth, not to have been valid, but could not escape from its conclusions. Which of these conclusions have stood the test of time?

The best known is that human fertility has the capacity to increase population exponentially ("geometrically") and, if unchecked, can overwhelm any conceivable supply of resources. (This is true; for example. if this country’s population of about 9 million in 1800 had grown at Kenya’s present rate of 4 percent per annum, we should now have more than three times the present world population of 5,500 million). What Malthus could not have known was that the revolution in agriculture was about to lead to a rapid increase in production, sufficient temporarily to relax the linkage between population and food supply that had, as Malthus realised, held in Europe for many centuries. The health of the people, and their numbers, now increased together, as Malthus. with characteristic honesty, acknowledged in the fifth edition of his Essay in 1817. Even so. the "misery" (Malthus's word) of anxiety about supporting a large family still operated strongly, and the average annual population growth of about 1.5 percent per annum during the 19th century fell a good deal short of the theoretical maximum, and indeed of present growth rates in Africa and South America.

Birth control

In the developed countries the anxiety about supporting a large family has now been much reduced by a deliberate choice of small family size, facilitated by contraception, something which Malthus ruled out on moral grounds, recommending instead “moral restraint” and voluntary choice of late marriage. (Practising what he preached, he married at 38 and only had three children). Your reply to my letter says that I “undermine the case for birth control by associating it with the ideas of Malthus”. Whatever this means, it does seem to be an association that Malthus himself would have rejected.

I said in my earlier letter that we should look at the actual world situation as it is now to see if some common ground for agreement can be found. In the developed world, rates of population growth are low and in some countries may become negative for a time. As some reduction in population size would have many beneficial effects. it is hard to sympathise with the near-hysterical reaction this prospect seems to produce in some quarters.

The Third World of poor countries is another matter. In Africa, food supply is now falling behind population, and the latter is expected to double in the next 25 years, unless serious attempts are made to reduce growth, or the checks of famine and disease detailed by Malthus are allowed to operate. Attempts to increase food production in Africa or (as you imply) in Western countries that might export food to stricken areas will involve soil erosion, deforestation, increased pollution by pesticides and fertilisers, and greater demand for energy. Clearly these measures can only provide temporary relief while population growth is dealt with. Any delay will only lead to further increases in the numbers at which population levels off.

Turning to environmental damage by human activities, your pamphlet Ecology and Socialism recognises the dangers of the “present mode of production” to the biosphere and acknowledges the "urgent need for humans to take action to change the way they relate to the rest of nature". So far so good, but the next sentence offers an explanation which is altogether too facile: "We in the Socialist Party agree that capitalism has devastating consequences for the environment”. Much more careful analysis is needed here than you offer in your reply to my earlier letter, in which you simply assert that the only cause of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system: "its cause is not the pressure of population nor industrialisation".

Several issues need to be disentangled: is it true that an industrial system can be run under any political regime without causing significant environmental damage, that damage being approximately proportional to the size of population? Will a socialist system at least minimise the damage? How long is it likely to be before a socialist system can be put into operation on a world scale? What are the implications of population growth in relation to these questions?

Ecological damage

It is certainly true that the capitalist system encourages economic growth as a consequence of its internal dynamics, and that this leads to rapid obsolescence, increased production rather than more efficient conservation, thoughtless depletion of resources dictated by market forces, short term planning through discounting the future. and so on. Additionally, the present state of international relations leads to wasted spending on armaments at a rate of £1,000,000 a minute (though this represents less than 5 percent of world GNP).

One can only make informed guesses as to how far the benefits of industrialism (which you welcome—see Socialist Standard, April 1991) can be provided with little or no environmental damage, but the measures you suggest in One Green World, although beneficial, would be very far from reducing the damage to zero. Recycling of materials requires energy and is inevitably incomplete in each cycle; “prudent" use of fossil fuels would still mean heavy use; control of pollution is only partial in most industrial processes; and so on. Transition to more economical practices takes time, and further population growth and the expansion of industry in the Third World are more than likely to outpace the improvements in technology.

In Ecology and Socialism (page 27) there is a complete misunderstanding of the effects of a “steady-state economy", which, although less menacing than an exponentially expanding one, is not sustainable if its consumption and production rates are high. For example, stabilising fossil fuel consumption at today’s levels would still lead to a progressive and rapid increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. (However, you do at least acknowledge that as part of a steady-state economy, population levels must also be stable—i.e., growth must cease! I low do you reconcile that with your dismissal of population growth as a cause of the ecological crisis?)

Even if the socialist system you envisage comes about by achievement of the necessary popular majorities in its support, this is bound to be well into the future. Would it not be wise in the meantime to reduce population growth as far as possible while the existing, more wasteful, economic system is in being? And can you be sure that, in practice, your system will be as effective as you claim in reducing ecological damage? I can think of few things more conducive to waste than being able to pick up as much as one likes of basic commodities for nothing.

I spent over 20 years in the late Conservation Society, most of the time as its chairman or director, and the relationship between politics and the environment was one of my main interests. I find many of your goals attractive, but reading your dogmatic assertions about how to achieve them prompts me to conclude with a paragraph from Malthus:

The speculative philosopher [i.e.. the advocate for the perfectibility of man. and of society] equally offends against the cause of truth. With eyes fixed on a happier state of society, the blessings of which he paints in the most captivating colours, he allows himself to indulge in the most bitter invectives against every present establishment, without applying his talents to consider the best and safest means of removing abuses and without seeming to be aware of the tremendous obstacles that threaten, even in theory, to oppose the progress of man towards perfection.

John Davoll

Shepperton, Middx

Reply: No, it doesn't—capitalism does

Socialists argue that the lot of the majority of world society can be vastly improved by replacing the present dominant world economic system—capitalism—with a system of common ownership and democratic control of the means of life. This system would allow the Earth's resources to be used to abolish world poverty and misery through the institution of production directly for use instead of for sale at a profit as now happens. Malthus and his followers deny that such an improvement can come about. According to them, increasing population will wipe out any gains, so it is better to do nothing. Not only is this wrong; it is heartless and deeply anti-human. It leads to a situation where a fall in the death rate (because, for instance, improved living conditions lead to babies and children living longer) is seen as a “catastrophe"

Thus Garrett Hardin, a Professor of Ecology at the University of California, can say:

I don't think anything can be done in the short term that won't make things worse in the long term. If there are too many people . . . saving lives ensures that more people will die in the end. . . . If a population is so malnourished that its physical ability to produce children is reduced, the first effect of improving a peoples nutrition is to increase that fertility. (The Christian theologian) Tcrtullian regarded famine as a blessing, to cut out excess population. It sounds hard . . . but it is so. (Science Digest, May 1986).

Apart from the fact that in the long run we are all dead, the thing to notice here is that the “excess" population are never well-off university professors but those unfortunate enough to have been born poor and without access to the means to overcome their poverty.

Is it really surprising that socialists attack these notions? Marx did so with a vigour which may have on occasion bordered on the intemperate but that is understandable in view of what was being said. He certainly did not do so because he feared “Malthus's theory seemed to threaten his system". Like us, he attacked the ideas and theories of Malthus because they were wrong and because they were used to defend the status quo.

Family size

Large families are not the cause of poverty. Many small families and people without dependants suffer the ill effects of poverty while the wealthy and privileged whatever the size of their families have always been able to escape from the misery and privations suffered by the poor. Nor would the attainment of “zero population growth" automatically lead to an improvement in the lot of the propertyless majority. The history of Ireland is proof of this. The population at the end of the 19th century was about half what it had been earlier in the century, yet the majority remained poor and the Irish economy relatively underdeveloped.

Socialists are all in favour of the widest possible dissemination of information about birth control and methods of limiting the size of families or the numbers of one's children. But one important point to notice (and it seems to have been missed by John Davoll) is that family size is not simply a question of biological drives. It also has a social aspect. Historical, economic and cultural factors play a very large (possibly major) part in determining family size:

reproduction, whether at high or low levels, is so important to the family and to society everywhere that its level is more or less controlled by cultural norms about family size . . . In each society the cultural norms about these vital matters arc consistent with the social institutions in which they are deeply embedded. Changes in fertility are unlikely without prior or, at least, simultaneous changes in those institutions. (R. Freedman quoted in David M. Heer, Readings on Population, 1968).

A study of the failure of a large-scale multi-million dollar birth control campaign in India (the Khanna Study) pointed directly to the fact that a large family was a necessity for the overwhelming majority of the agricultural population studied. For them the practice of birth control was seen as economically ruinous and a threat to their well-being, particularly in later life in a society lacking state-provided welfare services. (Mahmood Manvidani, The Myth of Population Control, 1973).

It is obvious that the numbers of human beings cannot go on rising for ever. But to think that population control can be successful without the introduction of the economic security that socialism would bring is mistaken. Engels put the matter well in a letter he wrote to Karl Kautsky in February 1881:

There is of course the abstract possibility that the number of people will become so great that limits will have to be set to their increase. But if at some stage Communist society finds itself obliged to regulate the production of human beings . . . it will be precisely this society, and this society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty. (Marx and Engels on Malthus, 1953. p. 97).

Contrast this with the contradictory forces operating within capitalist society. Fears about the "dangers" of overpopulation alternate with concerns regarding population decline seen as a loss both of potential markets and of recruits for the armed forces to fight for the interests of the ruling class in the wars capitalism causes.

Thus present-day child benefit payments to parents in Britain have their roots in a 1944 White Paper advocating family allowances as a means of arresting the decline in the birth rate. A recent report by the Family Policy Studies Centre into a similar situation in the Common Market over the past few years suggests that pressure will be put on the European Commission in Brussels to support "pro-natalist" policies (Independent, 29 July 1991).

John Davoll expresses an understandable concern about conditions in some parts of Africa. The situation there is, again, the outcome of the workings of the world capitalist economy. Investment of capital in profit-making enterprises such as logging lays waste vast areas of forest at a far greater rate than local subsistence farming. Investment in large-scale agriculture drives the peasant who cannot afford to compete on to fragile marginal land which rapidly degenerates into desert:

Drained, fertile floodplains and complex irrigation systems favour the most "economically profitable" land use systems which invariably amounts to the large-scale cultivation of cash crops destined for the export market. As a result of the small farmer's weak financial position he cannot compete for the fertile lands, and is relegated therefore to lands of marginal fertility for food production. (Saidou S. Jallow of Gambia College in S. H. Arnold and A. Nitecki Culture and Development in Africa. 1990. p. 72).

Africa cannot be seen in isolation from the rest of the W'orld. A world-wide socialist system would give all access to food and the means of producing it. Local shortages could easily be made good from the common world pool of resources.

Capitalism and pollution

Because under capitalism profit-seeking firms are producing commodities to be sold on the market in competition with other profit-seekers, they are under pressure to produce as cheaply as possible so as to undercut competitors. Anything which adds to their costs of production (as pollution control measures do) hampers this profit-seeking and is resisted on the grounds that some competitors may not have to bear the same cost.

When pollution control first became a big political issue in the 1960s the then President of the Chemical Industry Society, Professor G. H. Beeley, pointed out that chemical wastes were not re-used because "it is cheaper to throw them away" than to concentrate them for re-use:

Neither the chemical industry nor the users of its products lightly accept. . . the cost of disposing their waste. The cost can mean the difference between profit and loss".(Soil Association press release. 28 July 1969.)

This is why under present conditions the elimination of 98 percent of emissions from smoke stacks takes place only where the value of precious metals recovered is greater than the cost of filtration. Socialism, because it will produce for use only and not for profit, will have no such constraints on the implementation of know n measures to eliminate pollution.

We are a little surprised that John Davoll appears to chide us for advocating re-cycling as a means to a sustainable “steady-state economy”. He himself has gone on record as stating that “industrialism" does not have to cause the environmental damage it does today "if goods were made more durable . . . and were also designed to be capable of being re-cycled, re-used and repaired" (John Davoll. "A Sustainable Society", Conservation Times No 86. July-October 1983).

Humankind has now developed the technology to provide everyone on Earth with a decent existence while at the same time minimising environmental depletion and destruction. How soon? As soon as a majority understand the need for the change and take the necessary democratic political action to gain control of the state and use it as a means to free us from the danger we are now in. Many hands will speed the plough.

Gwynn Thomas

Blogger's Note:

John Davoll's mention of  'One Green World' may be in reference to this special issue of the Socialist Standard that dates from August 1987.

Caught In The Act: Slogans (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Slogans

Connoisseurs of political slogans will have more than their fill during the long, wearying months leading up to the next general election. When it is all over they may well need a period of abstinence, to recover from gorging themselves on the concentrated nonsense poured forth from the fertile minds of the slogan-composers.

Labour and the Liberals, as the parties out of power, will be hoping the voters will fall for an appeal to a brighter future. The Liberal Democrats have already settled on Changing Britain For Good and in the last election Labour went down to defeat when the voters did not accept their invitation to Meet The Challenge—Make the Change. On the other hand the Tories will be trying to scare us with the prospect of a Labour government wrecking the prosperity they have so carefully organised on our behalf, as they did in 1959 with Life’s Better Under the Conservatives, Don’t Let Labour Ruin It and at the last election when they warned us Britain Is Great Again— Don’t Let Labour Wreck It. This last kind of slogan may not appeal to the unemployed, the homeless or social security claimants fretting over their meagre benefits but never mind.

Patriotism will certainly feature in the slogans for nothing goes down better with the voters than stimulating their pride in this grand old, polluted, crime- ridden, poverty-stricken country of ours. In 1950 the Labour Party, which was once thought to be internationalist, assured the voters that Labour Believes in Britain; in 1959 they startled the propertyless working class with Britain Belongs To You (it didn’t then and it doesn’t now) and in 1974 Britain Will Win With Labour which by 1987 had been slashed to Britain Will Win. Of course the Tories are not to be left out when it comes to patriotism; in 1974 they promised Firm Action For A Fair Britain and later that year Putting Britain First.

It is unlikely that any of the 1992 slogans will be more memorable than Labour’s battle cry of 1945—Let Us Face the Future, which was not so much an encouragement to look ahead as to divert attention from the embarrassments of their past. In 1970 the Tories under Ted Heath promised Action Not Words, by which they did not mean the kind of government policies which brought about the futile struggle with the miners and the inertia of the three-day week.

But this is all good clean fun and it keeps the advertising and media people happily busy. The people who should worry are those in the sloganeers’ sights, whose intelligence is so grievously insulted by their being the target of so much rubbish but who react in the only way the politicians understand—with their votes.

The voters will doubtless make their choice, either way, for callous Kinnock or malevolent Major. After the election everyone—or almost everyone—will be convinced that by choosing one or the other they have done something significant.

In fact whoever is in charge of capitalism, and whatever their personality, it makes no difference to how the system operates nor to its effect on its people. To change the world in any fundamental and permanent way we need to dispense with leaders and instead to rely on ourselves and our ability to run the world in our own interests.

Between the Lines

Watching Margaret Thatcher being cheered ecstatically—a six minute orgasmic ovation by the assembled Tories, to be precise—was an unnerving experience. I had watched leaders being wildly cheered for saying absolutely nothing on previous occasions, but in those eases their lips were clearly moving and audible world-like phrases were being emitted. Watching the Thatcher silence on BBCl’s Conservative Party conference coverage (Tuesday, 8 October, 2pm) offered a short flash of what it might have been like to have seen Stalin sit at an opera and have all the party hacks watch him suck his toffees while the performers sang to themselves. Mind you, with John Major as the Tory Pavarotti, watching Thatcher suck a mouth ulcer would be exciting alternative viewing.

At the event advertised as a Labour Party conference—in fact, a stage show for viewers with votes but no thoughts—the assembled players sang "We Are The Champions of the World" (BBC2, 4 October, 4pm). These lyrics were more Hitler than Stalin; the song by Queen, who play to chanting mobs in football stadiums, was one of the more embarrassing pieces of political indignity that Labour has stooped to in its bid to convince the electorate that it is harmless and toothless. In this respect, Roy Hattersley sang particularly well, winning second prize in the contest for the most foolish singing performance of the week. First prize must go to Kinnock for his leading part in this year’s Gang Show when he led a hall-full of pathetic-looking Labourites in a pathetic-sounding rendition of "We Shall overcome—Some Day". Kinnock neglected to sing the obscure fifteenth verse of this hymn which adds that unless "we" overcome next time round, i. e. the next election, there will be endless daggers heading for the back of the smiling leader. But that was what everyone was thinking as they underwent this humiliating televisual ritual.

By contrast, there was something quite cute about Eugène Terre Blanche, the Leader of the South African AWB. Nick Broomfield’s superb documentary The Leader, His Driver and the Driver’s Wife (C4, Monday 7 October, 10,30pm) did not waste its time on the easy job of highlighting the foulness of the racist ruffians of this little outfit. Instead, the programme concentrated on the silliness of the AWB Leader (known to his followers as The Leader) and the sad way in which workers like The Leader’s driver JP and his soppy wife Anita were taken in by Terre Blanche’s amateur dramatic bid to become the new Boer Fuhrer. Terre Blanche showed himself to be a boorish Boer: arrogant, thuggish and with the kind of delusions of grandeur which makes some people imagine that they alone will determine the outcome of history. Hitler was never interviewed by Jeremy Paxman and exposed as a dopey little twit (there was no Newsnight in those days, but only Charlie Chaplin who carried out the same mission in The Great Dictator), but Terre Blanche was interviewed by Broomfield; it was like a smiling cat "interviewing" a mouse with a low IQ.

Terre Blanche claims to represent "the master race"; Kinnock claims to be a "democratic socialist" (what exactly is an undemocratic socialist? A non-socialist); and Major claims to stand for a "classless society". They are each as big liars as the next one. The Socialist Party is hostile to the lot of them.

Ivan

Blogger's Note:

In the original Standard this column was actually unsigned but Caught In The Act was Ivan's (Ralph Critchfield's) column, so I presume it was just a mistake at the printers that month. It happens.

Kwik-Kure Wage-Slave Service Centre (1991)

Cartoon from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

This cartoon originally appeared in the November 1991 Socialist Standard embedded within Ron Cook's article on the Attlee Labour Government, 'When Labour Ruled'.

SPGB Weekend School: Missed opportunities, shattered dreams (1991)

Party News the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

It's a shame there isn't an audio recording of this DaySchool on the SPGB website. Maybe it doesn't exist? The editorial from the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard also carried the title of 'Missed opportunities, shattered dreams'. 

SPGB Meetings (1991)

Party News the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Notes:

• The guest speaker at the Camden Town meeting, David Hines, was a longstanding SPGB sympathiser.
• I believe the video shown at the West London Branch meeting in Chiswick was mistitled in the Standard. Its actual title is 'Are You in a Bad State?' It was a film produced by the late Larry Law, who was best known for the pocket-size situationist journal, Spectacular Times. A grainy version of the video - maybe it was always grainy? - is available on YouTube.

Who Pays for the War? An Examination With Assistance. (1916)

From the November 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Workers’ Error.

“Who pays for the European War is a question that needs a definite answer, in accordance with facts. The workers everywhere blindly hold the belief that it is they who are paying to-day, and for generations to come will continue to pay. They ignore facts. They do not reason. They reach their conclusion by leaping from a condition of mind to an inference that has no logical connection with it. Because the working class suffers, self-pity is generated and suffering is somehow translated into terms of cash.

But suffering will not receipt bills or meet liabilities. The war machines have to be paid for in cash.—which the working class do not possess. It is a physical impossibility for them to pay : they are too poor. The deep and ever-growing poverty of the working class, in peace or war time, is admitted on every hand; but only the Socialist can explain its cause. In that explanation is to be found the answer to the question : “Who pays ?”

The means of wealth production are owned by the capitalist or master class, to whom the members of the working class have to sell their labour-power, which they have to expend in the factories and mills, producing wealth that is owned by the masters. The price of labour-power is determined, as is that of other commodities, by its cost of production. Like other commodities, too, labour-power has its market, where the prices are raised or depressed in accordance with supply and demand. The supply being always greater than the demand, and the aim of the masters being to secure cheap labour-power, the price of labour-power is easily kept down to the level which insures for its owner just sufficient to feed, clothe, and house himself and his family—that is the minimum price at which labour-power can be produced and maintained in efficiency. Even this minimum is only arrived at as an average. The vast majority of the workers are forced to sell their energy at a price which does not replace it, their physical powers wearing and wasting away in the labour process long before the period of their fullest development is reached.

The Workers’ Share is Wages.

The workers’ share in the total wealth produced is wages, and wages so low that they barely satisfy his material wants. Wages are spent as soon as they are paid—often before— the necessaries of life being obtained on trust. Every occupation has its army of unemployed, always on the increase. Competition for jobs intensifies, and with the return of the “piping times of peace,” will intensify a hundredfold. The labour market has been flooded with female and child labour, and the wealth-production of pre-war times has been exceeded. With this added competitive element how is it possible for the workers to sell their labour-power above its cost of production ?

As wages must always be spent on necessaries, and wages always tend to fall to the level of a mere subsistence, the working class will never be in a position to pay for anything beyond the necessaries of life. If the cost of living falls, their wages fall. If it rises, they are compelled to struggle hard for an increase, failing which their toil and semi-starvation means for them a more rapid physical decay.

The wages that constitute the worker’s share are only a fraction of the total wealth of society. By their labour the working class produce, not only the wealth they themselves consume in the shape of necessaries, but also the vast wealth owned by the ruling class. The worker sells his labour-power for a mess of pottage—adulterated and served in a cracked basin—but his labour-power, expended under normal conditions, brings into existence fabulous wealth, which he neither owns nor controls. His claim on that vast wealth was relinquished when he placed himself at the disposal of a master at the current price for labour-power. He is between the devil and the deep sea. He must either accept the current price and become a wage-slave or starve.

The One Long Stocking.

The robbery of the working class takes place in the factories and other places where they are forced to sell their labour-power. They continue the labour process long after they have produced the equivalent of their wages. The surplus thus created constitutes revenue of the master class. From this the sum the cost of every collective action undertaken by their executive must be paid. They know better than to expect anything more from the workers after the process of exploitation is completed.

When a war loan is floated it is the capitalists who take it up. The silver bullets subscribed by a minority of the workers, out of their overtime, is a mere drop in the ocean. The dollars would not be worth the time expended in printing and collecting were it not for the opportunity it offers for the cult of patriotism.

The capitalist class finds the money to carry on war. A portion is paid in taxation ; the rest is loaned by individual capitalists at a stipulated rate of interest, which is to be paid from future taxation. It is an arrangement confined to the master class and its executive, the workers, of course, being outside the scope of taxation because the machinery of capitalist society is adjusted to give a living wage, and no more, to the vast majority.

The government of each belligerent country, looking forward to military success, hope to impose an indemnity to cover their expenditure, in which case the successful country, pays off its debt while the losing country tax itself heavily to pay the indemnity.

Plans for Plunder.

The governing class of the conquered territory, however much it begrudges the wages necessary for the maintenance of its wage-slaves, can hope for little from that source. By squeezing the skilled and better paid workers an insignificant sum might be obtained; but the inducement to acquire skill would suffer as a consequence. Efficiency has become a fetish with the capitalist, who, in general, realises that he must pay for it if he wants it.

There is an old proverb, applicable to others than poultry farmers, which says, do not count your chickens before they are hatched. But that does not deter patriotic writers from assuming the supremacy of the allies, and constructing a plan for collecting the indemnity. Thus, Francis Gribble (“Daily Chronicle,” 15.9.16) outlines a scheme wherein

“Germany will have to assume a liability, and put up security for the interest and the gradual amortisation of the debt. That security must take the form of a transfer of the mortgages. The Allies, in a proportion to be agreed among themselves, must become, instead of the German State, the universal mortgagee, with a lien on all German property, public and private, real and personal.”

The beauty of this plan is, according to Mr. Gribble, that those responsible for the war will have to pay. He divides Germany—the German people—into two classes, wage-workers and property owners. He does not assume for one moment that the former have the power to contribute anything whatever. They are propertyless; they have no property to mortgage. But the real property owners, those who own the means of wealth production, can be bled. It is a case of the robber being robbed.

“The proper plan will be for the Allies to become mortgagees in possession. In the case of the land and houses, they can either draw the rents or institute some system of purchase, enabling the occupants to buy back the holding by instalments. In the case or industries, they can put in receivers to carry on the business for their benefit, just as debenture holders do in the case of insolvent joint stock companies.”

No Delusions Here.

This, then, is the contemplated plan to make German capitalists pay for the war. The results of their exploitation of the German working class are to be appropriated by the allied capitalists,

“and no German shall be allowed to own any property, or to handle any money that he does not earn, from day to day, by the sweat of his brow.”

Mr. Gribble, faithful servant that he is of the allied capitalist groups, throws the whole blame of the war on the German capitalist group. According to his plan they are able to pay and should be made to pay, and suffer as well. He freely exonerates the working class from any complicity in the crime. They had no voice in the councils that declared war. They had no promise in a share in territory that might be won, or markets that might be gained. Neither will they be permitted to aspire to the honour of paying. “The common people,” says Mr. Gribble, “will have in the future, to work, and to work hard.” Of course the workers in the countries that are going to win are being told they will have to work, and work hard to beat their rivals in the world’s market; but that is only a detail.

“But that work will not be punitive. It will be done under normal conditions, and for reasonable remuneration. The men engaged in it will be earning their living, in accordance with their capacities, as of old. They will no more be slaves than are other workmen in other countries.”

From these quotations we are justified in drawing the conclusion that the working class of the conquering and conquered territories will not have changed their status. They will have to work, and work hard, as they did before August 1914, for what the capitalist is pleased to term a “reasonable remuneration.” Mr. Gribble makes the position quite clear. He says:

“The first charge on the businesses will naturally, and, indeed, necessarily, be the wages of the employees. They—the working classes of Germany— will suffer no detriment from the change. Whether they work for foreign or German capitalists, their position will be the same.”

“Naturally and indeed necessarily” wages must be paid. Thus Mr. Gribble recognises the inability of the workers to pay. It is natural and necessary they should have a living wage. Neither does it matter to them who pays the wage, German or foreign capitalists. By the same token it matters nothing to the workers of Belgium, France or any of the allied countries, of what nationality the capitalist who pays their wages. Further, and this is the logical deduction from Mr. Gribble’s reasoning, as the workers of all the belligerent countries continue to produce fabulous wealth for a parasitic capitalist class in return for a bare living wage, they stand neither to gain nor to lose from the struggle; they have no possible interest in the result.

The capitalist class in each of the belligerent countries own all the means of wealth production, and all the wealth produced by the working class over and above the workers’ necessaries. To realize in hard cash the value of that wealth they need markets. When the different groups of capitalists, with this object in view, come into collision, they drag in the working class to fight it out. The victorious group or groups of capitalists impose an indemnity which reimburses them for their outlay ; and if some cunning neutral does not step in while the quarrel is on and get the market, they get that too. The indemnity is taken by the executive or government, on behalf of the capitalist class, and the latter deliver their goods in the markets they have won, realizing in cash the results of their exploitation. And the working class, where do they come in ?

They play the same role they have played ever since feudalism gave way before a triumphant capitalist class. They drag their weary bones through the factories and slums allotted to them by their masters. They beg for work when it is rest they need. They build the spacious palace for their idle masters and crowd themselves into hovels, without regard to health or decency. They ransack the earth for rich delicacies to tickle their masters’ palates, and plead for a cheap loaf for themselves. They weave rich fabrics for the playthings of their exploiters and in rags and tatters they slouch, in thousands, to the workhouse.

War only adds to their suffering while they stand to gain nothing by it. They have no share in the plunder, for which war is made. They have no more interest in the settlement of the quarrel than has the ground they tear up by artillery barrage.

“For whichever side wins they will suffer no detriment from the change Whether they work for foreign or “native” capitalists their position will be the same.”

While capitalism lasts, they, the working class, will be wage-slaves. The wage being the cost of necessaries for the slave, when there are obtained the wage has vanished. How is the working class to pay for a war waged with all the extravagance and profligacy of the irresponsible ruling class? Millions of the workers cannot afford the few coppers required weekly, to fight their own battles against the masters. Yet every strike that takes place is of greater import to them, from an economic standpoint, than, a dozen European wars. By their trade-union activities, they resist the depression of their standard of living. But capitalist wars and capitalist victories leave the workers’ position untouched in any essential.

But though the capitalist class can and will pay for the war waged in their interest, their paying will not mitigate their crime against the workers of the world, who, if they would prevent its repetition, must understand Socialism, and organize to strip the master class of its power, in peace and war, as a preliminary to the establishment of a sane and healthy system of society, wherein property will no longer be owned by a class, but by society.

F. Foan

By The Way. (1916)

The By The Way Column from the November 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much has been written and said with regard to the question of British Prisoners of War and their treatment in Germany, but of late various items of news come to hand which tend to show that the “Ger-Hun” can be out-Hunned by the Brit-Hun. Witness the following:

“The Newhaven Guardians have declined to admit for treatment to the workhouse conscientious objectors working on the Newhaven to Seaford road improvement scheme who fall sick.”—”Star,” Sept. 23rd, 1916.

* * *

And, again, there is the report in the Press of a conscientious objector who met his death at Dyce, near Aberdeen, under the administration of the Military Service Act. Whilst the Local and the Appeal Tribunals disallowed his claim for exemption, after nearly concluding his sentence pronounced by court-martial, he was re-examined by the Central Tribunal and offered work of national importance—a reversal of the two previous decisions. He was eventually sent to Scotland and there contracted a chill, the result of leaky tents and damp soil, with no provision for drying wet clothes, from which he died.

Dr. Clifford describes this as:

“The latest of a long series of incidents demonstrating the injustice of the new conscription policy, and the fearful tyranny of our growing militarism.”

Further he adds :

“The fact is, we have been grossly deceived. Faith has not been kept with the people. With or without intending it, the Coalition Government has betrayed us. Parliament distinctly arranged that conscientious objectors should be safeguarded.”—”Daily Chronicle,” Sept. 9th, 1916.

* * *

A later announcement on this case states that a Deputation from the Home Office visited the camp and a “representative of the men stated afterwards that the Committee decided that the tents should be abolished and arrangements made with local farmers to accommodate the men in lofts. A building is to be erected to deal with cases of sickness.”—”Daily Sketch,” Sept. 20th, 1916.

When cases of neglect or ill-treatment of prisoners of war occur in Germany large headlines and long articles are necessary to point out the enormity of the offence, reference being made to the Hague and Geneva Conventions, etc., but when it is the Hun in our midst a short paragraph suffices. Such is our prostitute Press.

* * *

I well recollect how important, in the days of my youth, it was considered to be that my religious instruction should in no wise be neglected. And so it came to pass that at this period of our existence we used to read that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof;” the meek “shall inherit the earth”; and many other such texts. But in due season one came to the conclusion that in the first quotation the printer had omitted the prefix “Land.” Verily, verily, I say unto you, hearken unto me and read you that which is good. For the last two years and two months we have had dinned into our ears a lot of talk about “our” country, but even during that period we have read of desirable plots of freehold land being bought and sold. An interesting case of how “our” country is disposed of from time to time may be gathered from the following :

“Mr. Harry Lauder has bought an estate of 14,000 acres, it was stated yesterday in Glasgow, on the east side of Loch Fyne, at Glenbranter, a place formerly linked with the name of the late Mr. David MacBrayne, Steamshipowner, Glasgow.”—”Reynolds’s,” Oct. 15th, 1916.

There’s war economy for you ! Save your money and lend it to your country, screech our masters and their hirelings to the workers, whose portion of the country is contained in a flower pot.

* * *

On another page of the same paper I notice that the question of war time economy was to be practised on the old people, whom our spiritual guides would describe as the Lord’s poor. It reads :

“The Walsall Guardians by a majority of one vote decided to substitute suet pudding and treacle for the Christmas plum puddings in the workhouse. Alderman Bull said the workhouse master expected to save £15 to £20. Mr. Carter, another member, said the action was contemptibly mean.”

It would indeed be interesting to learn whether these paragons of economy contemplate sitting down at the Christmas season to similar fare. Precept and practice are so vastly different, you know.

* * *

With a desire to try and get a further lease of life and to regain their hold over the masses the Church has inaugurated a National Mission of Repentance and Hope. Sky pilots from far and near are busily engaged telling us how the war is uniting high and low, rich and poor, in short, how it is attempting to bridge the chasm between classes. And that after the war capital and labour must cease fighting each other and work for each other’s good. The Bishop of London himself says: “If it is shown to us by the Spirit of God that we must alter the whole system I can promise we are ready to do it. If there is anything in our position, houses, incomes, in our motors, in anything we have then that thing has got to be scrapped.” Our well-paid bachelor Bishop might as a preliminary make a start by following his Lord and Master a little more closely. For I read that the “Son of Man hath not where to lay his head.” This 20th century disciple, however, is more fortunately placed than He who said : “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” But stay, the Bishop says “if it is shown to us ‘by the Spirit of God’ that we must alter the whole system . . . we are ready to do it.” Seeing the vast epoch that has elapsed since the statement with regard to taking up the cross was made, methinks it will be “some” time yet ere these gentlemen who have waxed fat on the cross will be able to discover “by the Spirit of God” whether they are to abandon pelf, place and power.
,

* * *

This Right Rev. Father in God, speaking at Victoria Park, made reference to a desire for a better state of morals in London, and said “we mean to have a . . . cleaner London for the boys when they come home from the trenches and the North Sea.” The pearl of greatest price is found in the following:

“It is the working-class daughter that I am trying to save by my campaign in West London. Why should they be at the mercy of the lusts of mankind ? The fault is largely in the home teaching.”

It would be more correct to say that they were at the mercy of the wealthy class in society. Has this shining light and supporter of capitalism never heard, or has he forgotten, the Queenie Gerald case with its sordid story of obtaining girls for wealthy patrons ? We have no recollection of the Bishop at that time speaking outside St. James’, Piccadilly, pointing the moral and adorning the tale of the cadet who wrote asking for a virgin and offering a respectable sum for the privilege. Yet, forsooth, he wants to save the working-class daughters. It will be within the recollection of many that when the defendant in this case was conveyed to the police station a large sum of money was found in her possession, also valuable jewellery, which went to show the nature of her patrons. The Bishop would be better employed in prosecuting his “purity” campaign in fashionable churches rather than in a public park in the East End ; and working-class parents might profitably consider the cause of, and remedy for prostitution.

* * *

I might in passing just note for the benefit of my clerical friends and others, who so often refer to the waywardness of mankind across the seas, that in a recent issue of a weekly capitalist paper there was an announcement to the following effect: “Nearly 500 cases, mostly divorce, will occupy the attention of the Judges, in the Probate and Divorce Division during the Michaelmas Sittings . . . Of this number 376 are undefended matrimonial suits.” Who said Socialism would break up the home life?

* * *

Reverting to the subject-matter of an article in last month’s issue of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD. The nonsensical statement attributed to Jaures, that,

“Without nations there could be no international”

One is not surprised to see that statement repeated by Dan Irving in the Burnley “Pioneer.” One fool makes many, and the time-servers of the master class who pose as Socialists, must indeed be conscious of their own fraudulent position, when reduced to such puerile phrases, in order to justify their support of capitalist anarchy.

* * *
How feeble is the labour leaders’ conception, of Internationalism, is seen in their denunciations of the Social Democrats of Germany. Every capitalist rag in England—and no doubt in all the allied countries—has boasted the fact that even the Socialists recognised the justice of their cause and were forsaking the class war, or suspending it, while national interests were at. stake. The German Socialists excused their lapse from Internationalism—if they ever understood it—with the fear of a Russian invasion. Their prototypes in the allied countries took up their masters’ cry of German militarism and from the first called upon the workers to take-up arms and crush it. Whatever land the fakirs hail from, there is no difference or distinction between them ; they are all tools of the ruling caste and have no cause to sling mud at each other, as the allied Socialists do at their German comrades in fraud. One in particular saying

“the German Socialists must wash the blood off their hands with tears of remorse, and even then they would have to take a back seat in international movements.”

The Scout.

Blogger's Note:

The conscientious objector who died at Dyce Work Camp was Walter Roberts. I remember reading about his sad story in Come Dungeons Dark, John Taylor Caldwell's biography of Guy Aldred. Aldred was an inmate at the Dyce Work Camp and was a friend of Roberts.