Science versus spoon-benders (2001)

From the March 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

I didn't much like science at school. It was my brother who took things to bits, not me. Mathematics was the worst, and afterwards an almost lifelong phobia. Physics was almost as bad as Maths. Chemistry was only interesting when something exploded. Biology seemed designed specifically to put me off my lunch. Science for me was just another cross to bear in a Christian school. 

Fortunately we find ways of justifying our little ignorances to ourselves. I accepted the ancient and venerable "two brains" theory of learning, according to which you either have a scientific brain or an artistic brain. There was no point trying to learn science if you didn't have "that sort of brain", and anyway it was better not to have "that sort of brain" because then we wouldn't be us, and goodness but weren't we interesting people! We were all artists in those days, naturally, and everyone knew that scientists had no imagination and no creative talent. Apart from Tom Lehrer, the singing mathematician, that is, but we'd allow them one. We decided that science was clever the way a performing poodle is clever, good at a few tricks but not really genteel company for dinner. And this wasn't just my snobbery. Post-war Britain just couldn't seem to turn out scientists, its very culture was against it. Nobody wanted to do science because it was work as in "manual work" not as in "work of art". Everyone in the sixties wanted to be a beat poet, even the snotty little kids like me. Harold Wilson tried to do something about the huge bias in education towards the Humanities (the very name suggested that scientists were inhuman). Britain was up to its shins in philosophers and therapists, and no-one to mend the roof or rewire the sitting-room. My local LETS scheme is still the same today. But while Wilson talked thrillingly of the "white heat of technology", everyone continued to regard science as a good thing for someone else to learn, and his new science-oriented Polytechnics turned out to be dustbin colleges for those who couldn't get into a real University.

Was god an astronaut?

In my late teens Britain was swept by a “revolutionary” new theory, propounded by a best-selling author, to the effect that God was an astronaut. In book-after-book the theory expanded, multiplied, made ever larger claims and sold ever more copies. Everyone, it seemed, had read these books. Everyone, it seemed was talking about them. Conventional science, astonishingly, was silent.

Like the excellent scientist I was, I ignored the text, looked at the pictures, read the captions and the blurb on the back cover, and concluded that it must all be true. He'd gone to a lot of trouble after all, so he must know what he's talking about. The phrase "don't believe everything you read" came back to me, but really, how was one to tell? Even supposing I read every word properly, how would I know whether it was right or not? Who was I to criticise? You needed to be a scientist to criticise.

Eventually, at last, it had to happen. The scientific community wearily responded. The BBC flagship science programme Horizon finally dealt with Erik von Daniken's theory. In fact it destroyed his case so comprehensively that even I, the eminent believer, had to laugh out loud. I'd been had, big time, and so had everyone else. Maybe I should have been annoyed at having my time wasted, or being made a fool of, but I wasn't. We can forgive any sin if it's entertaining.

It made me think of other times when I'd been conned, or baffled, usually both, by some fantastic claim. Uri Geller, the mind-control and spoon-bender, had me and my friends stroking teaspoons. We read assiduously the Arnall Bloxham tape transcripts of people regressing into past lives, serialised prominently in that most august periodical the Sunday Times, and were astounded when Bloxham admitted he'd cheated. At school we tried using Ouija boards to try to get in a quick communication with the hereafter before Afternoon bell. After much tumbler wrestling we got a name, Bill, and a date, 1780, and we went around in awe for a week. I didn't think of myself as gullible, or even ignorant. After all, the world was an amazing place and anything was possible. I could criticise a poem but not a proposition. School didn't arm me for that, despite the pickled frogs and the fizzing chemicals.

"Scientific Socialists"

By the time I encountered the Socialist Party I had already learned how to criticise society for myself, and I understood the importance of reason, but I was nevertheless startled by the party's description of their “scientific socialism”. I envisaged a whole population in lab coats. A scientific socialist to me was a party member who knew the Periodic Table. But it was explained to me that it was the "method" that was "scientific", not the membership. This meant nothing to me. They weren't saying simply that the case for socialism was a logical one. It was more than that. Any stupid idea can be expressed in logical terms. What was “scientific” was not so much the argument itself but the means by which the argument was first thought out, the habitual mode of thinking of the individual. And the scientific method which socialists follow is both open-minded and sceptical, willing to embrace or drop an idea depending on the evidence, willing to change the theory if the evidence demands it. Carl Sagan described it well:

"Science is generated by and devoted to free enquiry: the idea that any hypothesis, no matter how strange, deserves to be considered on its merits. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge."

Those who criticise our rejection of religious beliefs do not perhaps grasp this "scientific" nature of the case for socialism, that it is rooted in the real world of hard facts and reliable evidence, and so must people be if the world is to see any real progress. But we don't particularly have it in for the God squad, because they're not the only mystery merchants out there spreading fog and confusion wherever they go. There is a plethora of pseudo-sciences to choose from if virgin births and original sin are a bit hard to take and Buddha is uncool. In my area recently there was a spate of UFO sightings, and the local press had a fun-filled week out of it. Judging by the number of sightings, I should have been abducted for experiments long since, with the rest of the town. No aliens have called, however. They probably watched one episode of Eastenders and decided not to bother with homo sapiens.

According to a report in Cultural Trends, in the past five years the market for "new age" and occult books has grown by 75 percent. As Catherine Bennett observed in the Guardian a while ago:

"neither incoherence, nor ignorance, nor overwhelming implausibility is any impediment to publication. These books are not going to face scholarly competition, but sell in a dedicated drivel department, along with feng shui, astrology [etc]" (31 October 1998).

She deliciously strips bare the pretensions of one particularly awful offering from Channel 4, called Quest for A Lost Civilisation. Graham Hancock, the best-selling writer, is firmly in the von Daniken tradition:

"Hancock's principal strategy is to exploit his readers' ignorance, dazzling them with irrelevant sums, flourishing spurious connections . . . He asks big questions, rushing on before you realize he hasn't answered them."

She concludes, correctly, that publishers don't give a damn about truth so long as they sell books, and attacks the scientists who, by remaining "mute with distaste" actually do the von Danikens a big favour. And she is right. Very few scientists seem worried about what the rest of us believe. Undoubtedly, scientists have themselves to blame if nobody understands what they're doing. In increasing desperation, Horizon has devoted no less than three programmes in the past year to unravelling Hancock's nonsense, such is the demand for fake science in a fantasy-filled world. Yet still scientists seem to think they can ignore reality, rather like Archimedes thought he could rudely ignore the Roman sergeant with the drawn sword.

Common sense rules 

But it's not all their fault, and it wouldn't kill us to be a little more scientific in our thinking when considering the world around us. Surprisingly, it's not that difficult, if one observes a few basic rules, most of which are common sense. That these rules can be applied to politics as much as science will be illustrated in the course of description. This list is probably not exhaustive, (10 seems a suspiciously round number, for one thing) and I invite readers to send in their own suggestions.

1. First of all, don't believe a complicated explanation if a simpler one will do. 

This rule, known as Occam's Razor, would really dismiss von Daniken instantly. After all, it is simpler, and fits all the facts, to believe that astronauts did not land on Earth in prehistory than to believe that they did. Lack of hard evidence for UFOs can be, and often is, enthusiastically ascribed to a huge government cover-up, but conversely, and more simply, it could be ascribed to the fact that UFOs don't exist. In politics too, conspiracy theories are seldom the simplest explanation for anything, even if they appeal to some people's penchant for paranoia.

2. A second rule would be: never believe anyone who will profit by lying.

This lets out every politician, I fear, as well as best-selling authors. By the same token, if one applies this rule to the Socialist Party, which has no plans to take power for itself now or in the future, its statements are automatically rendered more reliable than those of Trotskyist groups with a vested interest in being leaders. That doesn't mean we're always right, just that we have no particular reason to lie about it.

3. Exceptions don't prove rules, despite the saying, they break them.

The term "prove" in this expression is related to the Italian "provare" which means "test" or "try out", which explains how this sensible maxim has acquired a modern, nonsensical meaning. As an illustration of this rule, if some societies are known to be peaceful, it destroys the claim that humans are basically aggressive and warlike. If a majority of people are poor in capitalism, it destroys the claim that capitalism is in the common interest or that it is a "good provider".

4. Even if the structure is logical, the basic assumptions may not be.

As an example, capitalism is a supremely logical structure, based on the assumption that resources are limited but wants are unlimited. When one examines this assumption critically there appears no justification for it at all, and the entire structure sinks like a Monty Python castle built on a swamp

5. Beware of the sleight-of-hand known as special pleading, which is essentially a sales tactic.

Emotive arguments are a good example of this, and very common in politics, where it is hard not to be emotional sometimes. I recall a woman defending the Peace Camp at Greenham Common thus: “Something that feels so good just can't be wrong.”

6. Don't be bamboozled or "blinded by science". 

Carl Sagan relates how, when discussing with an Egyptologist the theories of Velikovsky (who had been excitedly compared to Darwin and Einstein by the popular press), he had remarked that the ancient history looked impressive whereas the physics was nonsense, whereupon the Egyptologist responded in surprise that he had thought precisely the reverse. Even scientists can temporarily be taken in. Anything emanating from government experts, especially economists, needs to be treated with caution.

7. An idea is not a valid theory unless a way exists of disproving it (falsification). 

Hence, the argument that God exists is not a valid theory, whereas you can disprove the case for socialism by showing, for example, how material abundance is impossible to achieve.

8. A test result is not valid until and unless it can be recreated. 

One recent sensation was the achievement of "cold fusion", another was the transmission of light at 4.7 times the speed of light. Neither have been successfully repeated. Governments which claim economic success once are certainly just lucky, and are unable to repeat this success later, when conditions have altered.

9. A theory which cannot predict anything is worthless.

If the Socialist Party's analysis was incorrect, its predictions would also be. However, we have a surprisingly good hit rate over the past 100 years.

10. The most obvious (but most often broken) rule is that if the facts don't fit the theory, change the theory.

You don't need to be a scientist to know that, but you need to think like a scientist to stick to it.

Will reason win?

Socialists try to apply these rules to society, and expect to have them applied to their own case. Perhaps we are not always as rigorous as we should be. Perhaps you aren't either. So if you think you can disprove all, or part, or a bit of our case, go right ahead. We'll listen. If you find a flaw we'll have to change our ideas, and if, by the same token, we find a flaw in your thinking, you'll have to change yours. That is how the scientific method works. It doesn't mean you won't ever fall for a con, or make a mistake, but it makes it much less likely.

The world is as full of superstition and silly ideas as it was in the Middle Ages, but it is far richer in knowledge. Whether the scientific method prevails in the future is open to question, for it has failed in the past to rescue societies from decline, and the ideology of capitalism is reinforced constantly by a battery of propaganda and mystification that are a perpetual obstacle to clear thinking. The battle is ongoing, and will continue in this new century, and reason will either win or it won't. The last word ought to go to that supremely humanitarian scientist and visionary, the late Carl Sagan:

“Humans have evolved gregariously. We delight in each other's company; we care for one another. We cooperate. Altruism is built into us. We have brilliantly deciphered some of the patterns of Nature. We have sufficient motivation to work together and the ability to figure out how to do it. If we are willing to contemplate nuclear war and the wholesale destruction of our emerging global society, should we not also be willing to contemplate a wholesale restructuring of our societies?”

Paddy Shannon 

Comical revolution (2014)

Book Review from the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Revolution Will Be Hilarious. By Adam Krause, New Compass Press, 2013

The cover of Adam Krause's book features the unlikely combination of Lenin and Groucho Marx. Groucho would be uncomfortable with being in such proximity to Lenin whose regime announced 'without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds, let them be thousands, let them drown themselves in their own blood'. Groucho observed about capitalism 'the secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.'

Krause opens his book with a scene from Woody Allen's film Stardust Memories but the more appropriate film would be Annie Hall where Allen places comedy in the service of the radical left:

'Allison: I'm in the midst of doing my thesis on Political Commitment in Twentieth Century Literature. Alvy: You're New York, Jewish, left-wing, liberal, intellectual, Central Park West, Brandeis University, socialist summer camps, the father with the Ben Shahn drawings, strike-oriented. Allison: That was wonderful. I love being reduced to a cultural stereotype. Alvy: Right, I'm a bigot, I know, but for the left.'

George Carlin and Bill Hicks have used their comedy to question the way we live and posit an alternative to capitalism. Carlin's lines like 'that's why they call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it' and Bill Hicks's statement 'It's not that I disagree with Bush's economic policy or his foreign policy, it's that I believe he was a child of Satan sent here to destroy the planet Earth' contribute to developing class consciousness.

Krause cites the role of the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear as a character that can speak the truth to authority without fear of reprisal. A different Shakespearian reference could be the role of 'working class' characters in Henry IV Part 1 such as Poins, Bardolph, and Peto who 'hang out' with Falstaff and Prince Hal (the future Henry V) in taverns drinking, whoring, and engaging in tomfoolery and even robbery. Here, the class boundaries are blurred in a revelry of youthful rebellion paid homage to in Gus Van Sant's film My Own Private Idaho.

Krause cites Emma Goldman's popular misquote 'If I can't dance, I don't want to be in your revolution' although it is never clear from Krause's book what this 'revolution' is. Krause does not mention socialism although he refers to William Morris's novel News from Nowhere. Krause's 'three favourite Marxists' Groucho, Harpo and Chico hilariously send-up militarism and nationalism in the film Duck Soup which is also used in Woody Allen's film Hannah and Her Sisters as motivation for a character to carry on with life.

Socialists expect the aftermath of 'revolution' to be as Guy Debord writes in Theses on the Paris Commune: 'the Commune was the biggest festival of the nineteenth century'. Krause concludes that 'the revolution will be hilarious. Seriously' but during his book he forgets EB White's advice 'humour can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind'.

Steve Clayton

Practical politics. (1920)

From the February 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have often been told that they are not practical, that their ideas are of a visionary character, and that they lack knowledge of political affairs. Let us see how far this stock argument of the "anti" is correct.

In the sixth clause of its Declaration of Principles the Socialist Party states: " . . . the machinery of government, including the armed forces of the nation, exists only to conserve the monopoly by the capitalist class of the wealth taken from the workers . . . " That is to say that Parliament, which passes the laws, the Cabinet, which frames them, the officials at Whitehall and elsewhere who execute them by giving orders to generals and judges, who in turn direct soldiers and policemen, all have one common object, which is to 

PROTECT PROPERTY!

We see this illustrated nearly every day of our lives. Take up any paper and you will find how this or that unfortunate member of the working class has been run in for taking, by "direct action," something which did not "belong" to him. Let any considerable body of workers strike, and immediately troops are despatched to the scene of action. Why? Because strikes mean hunger, which in turn leads to attacks on property. Finally, let any foreign group of capitalists threaten "our" trade, "our" empire, or "our" country, and forthwith the same troops are sent, not by the hundred or thousand, but by the million, to defend that which, to "our" masters, is dearer than our lives, i.e.,

THEIR PROPERTY.

And this property is all the product of the workers' labour. Whether it be acres of land, picks or ploughs, ships or railroads, factories or machines, shops or goods for sale, all are taken from the workers, all are owned and controlled by the master class for the purpose of wringing still more wealth from the sons and daughters of toil.

Is there anything fanciful or far-fetched about this statement? Does it not rather reek of reality at every turn? Let us, then, proceed to examine the following:

"The working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of government . . . in order that this machinery . . . may be converted . . . into the agent of emancipation . . . "

This is the Socialist policy in a nutshell.

In the first place the workers are accustomed to organising for defence. Trade unions to-day comprise something like a quarter of the adult population. In fact, the amount of organisation existing is worthy of a better cause. We suggest that a change in tactics from mere defence (varied by surrender on important occasions) to a vigorous attack is necessary. And the proper place to deliver an attack is against the enemy's weakest spot—the ballot box. It is not enough to strike—the bosses can sack you and starve you! It is not WAR to start a little street-corner insurrection, in which only the workers' blood is shed and a capitalist can only get hurt by accident! These, of all policies, are the least practicable. 

But

SEIZE THE POLITICAL MACHINE!

That is the source of the masters' strength. And it is to control that for which they most need your support! It is for that they tell you all kinds of lies, make all kinds of false promises, and employ the most cunning scoundrels the country holds. Don't be deceived by the fact that a vote is simply a piece of paper. So is a bank note or a police summons! But behind the paper is the power! Capitalists are practical men; they don't ask you to vote for fun. They know that when the workers cease to vote for them and send to Parliament, instead, the representatives of a revolutionary class, the game will be up. It will be the turn of the "respectable people" to turn rebel—if they have the guts. The worst they are likely to achieve, however, is to bribe a few fools to do their dirty work for them; but the machinery of government includes the armed forces of the nation. The workers supply the guns and all the equipment of the fighting forces, in addition to the personnel of the rank and file. All that is necessary, therefore, to control those forces is the organisation of the workers themselves

AS A CLASS

for that purpose. Is there anything impossible in that?

This organisation once established can only have one object, i.e., to abolish the monopoly of the wealth taken from the workers by the masters. It will convert into common property the means of production, i.e., land, factories, railways, etc., and thus impose upon everyone the necessity of work and the freedom of all to enjoy the fruits of their common labour. No one will be able to live on rent, interest, or dividends, a life of idleness. None, on the other hand, who are willing to work, will stagnate in the half-starved ranks of the unemployed. The organisation of the workers will proceed to control industry. Again we challenge contradiction when we assert that this is the only practical solution of the workers' problems.

The various parties of the master class—Tories, Unionists, Radicals, etc., have long ago established their privileges, and now spend their time in retaining them. This they do by interesting the workers in every piece of legislation, etc., which they, the masters, from time to time consider necessary. Taxes on imports, taxes on land, taxes on incomes, more efficient State control of this, that or the other; all these measures are dressed up

IN THE GUISE OF REFORMS

for the benefit of the workers in order to gull them into voting their masters into power. In opposition (so called) to these parties stands the alleged Labour Party (or hotch-potch of parties) which differs from them only in the fact that its programme of "reforms" is more "advanced"—that is to say, it is calculated to more thoroughly organise capitalism and deceive the workers. None of the Labour Party's proposals differ in this from the Single Tax and other "progressive" nostrums! Every measure proposed by non-Socialist parties reveals, when closely analysed, some other attempt on the part of some section of the masters to increase or protect their revenue in some way. In no case will it be found that the workers benefit in any way. Parties are the expression of interests. The "practical politician" will be hard put to dispute this. Turn for yourselves to history and see for example how the landed Conservatives struggled against the rising manufacturing Liberals. Where is the party of the workers?

It can only be a party which

FIGHTS THE MASTERS!

It cannt be a party, which, like the "Labour" Party, joined the Coalition of Capital when it saw jobs given away and only left it to get into a position to bargain for more! This sort of thing may be "practical" for job-hunters: it is of no use to revolutionary workers. The Socialist Party, therefore, wages war on all other parties, and calls upon the workers of this country to muster under its banner.

Eric Boden

Not much to argue with here (1996)

Book Review from the August 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Left-Wing Democracy in the English Civil War by David W. Petegorsky with a new introduction by Ivan Roots (Alan Sutton £14.99)

Anybody interested either in the revolutionary history of England during the seventeenth century or the origins of socialist ideas will not be properly educated until they have read this book. First published in 1940 by the Left Book Club, it has been hard come across secondhand copies of this key work, so this re-publication is to be welcomed, even if a price of fifteen pounds for it in paperback is not.

Gerrard Winstanley can well be described as England's first articulate socialist. The importance of this book is the detailed attention it pays to the precise nature of Winstanley's ideas and those of other Digger who were pioneer socialists. The ideas are placed within the context of the extremely turbulent intellectual climate of the revolutionary years, during which two elites battled for state power, throwing up all kinds of radical constitutional, religious and economic ideas in the course of their struggle. Whereas the Levellers, who were also radicals for their time, saw the first English revolution as a springboard for the creation of political equality (a case they argued for unsuccessfully in the Putney Debates), the Diggers sought social equality, fusing economic and political objectives as all socialists must.

Winstanley and his Digger comrades clearly stood for a society in which all goods would be held in common, with free access for all to the common store. Winstanley explicitly rejected money, the rule of government and (despite his use of religious metaphors) belief in churches or omnipotent gods. Ivan Roots, in an introduction which adds little to the original book except for some brief information about who Petegorsky was, is right to place Winstanley as a materialist. Indeed, there is not much said by the Diggers which socialists today would want to argue with. The difference is that they were advocating what could them have only been a utopian strategy, which they attempted to implement and were persecuted for so doing, whereas now capitalism is ripe for being replaced by a new system of social organisation. We who seek to bring it about have good reason to remember Winstanley and the Diggers. We have good reason also to admire the remarkable account of Petegorsky who, unlike so many left-wing historians who dwell only upon the more plodding gradualism of the Levellers, recognise the particular significance of the Diggers and provided us with a unique insight into the movement and its revolutionary ideas.

Steve Coleman

Classic Reprint: Education for living? (1985)

A Classic Reprint from the September 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

"What's this got to do with engineering?" Instead of waiting for an answer, he is staring sullenly out of the window near the back of the classroom. It would be possible to ignore it and carry on with the talk on The Cause of Two World Wars, which you have just started. Not all of them are paying attention yet; but even among those who are, some are smirking at the question. You are conscious of the fact that the employers of this eighteen-year-old apprentice would be pleased to hear him talking like this. They release him for one day a week to attend school; and they begrudge any time which is not spent in learning his trade.

Some of those who are smirking are dressed in leather jackets and bright blue jeans. They couldn't care less whether they are wasting their time or not. At least, school is a skive from work. But his question threatens to side-track the subject of the lesson: and that appeals to them. This youngster, Wilkins, on the other hand, has a conventional haircut and wears sports jacket and flannels. He is bright too, so that any attempt you might make to explain the relevance of the subject, or the importance of their Liberal Studies period in general, will be seized upon and turned into an argument. On balance, you decide that it would be better to keep him silent, and hope that the subject will engage his interest eventually.

While you have been weighing up the pros and cons, there has been a pause of almost five seconds, so that even the youth in the far corner who has been reading the Daily Mirror more or less covertly is now listening for your answer.

"Nothing at all", you say, with a smile that signifies total confidence in what you are doing,

Wilkins snorts contemptuously out at the view.

"If you look at these maps, you can see that Germany did not even become a nation until the end of the last century, whereas Britain and France . . . "

"I mean—what do we want to know about History for?"

"Yeah! That's in the past."

Even a quiet fat lad at the front is muttering something similar, so that you can sense that it is going to be a waste of time while they are in this mood. They are not usually as bad as this. Perhaps it would be better if you let them get it out of their systems. "All right. Let's put the lesson on one side for a minute. You think you should come here just to learn engineering and nothing else, Wilkins, is that it?"

"Well, that's what we're going to be, isn't it?"

"Yeah! What good's this stuff to us? Last week it was art, or something. And we heard all about the stars, and biology and that. How's all that gonna help us to get a good job?"

It would be taking an unfair advantage to press this small, pimply-faced boy to explain what he imagined as a good job. The youth in the corner has gone back to his newspaper; but you can afford to ignore that too for the moment. "I'm well aware that you are going to spend the best part of your lives working—whether you want to or not. But is that all life is—eat, work and sleep? By the time you are forty, and you've got whatever job you're going to get—what then? You've got to have some other interests." There is a dirty laugh from the middle of the room; it is taken up with gusto by the rest. You smile faintly, waiting for them to subside, and then say, "Yes—but even that wears a bit thin over the next twenty years, you know. If you've got no interest in the world around you, no knowledge of what's going on, life's a pretty dreary business. Look at Robinson", you say with mock enthusiasm, pointing to the youth with the newspaper. "He's keeping up with world affairs, you see—reading his newspaper."

Robinson goes red, folds up the paper and says, "I was reading the cartoons", anxious to disclaim any suggestion that he was doing anything intellectual.

"We don't want none of the egg-head stuff. It's a load o' junk", says pimple-face.

"How do you know?"

"I don't wanna know", he says, getting angry. "If that lot at the top go for it, then it's crap as far as I'm concerned."

"What are you trying to make us all", Wilkins sneers, "—good citizens?"

If you weren't a socialist, this one would be a gift. You could talk with all the reformer's enthusiasm about better opportunities for everybody, steady social improvement, increased and enriched leisure for all, and the responsibility of every citizen in forming this brave new world just round the corner.

As it is, you know what Wilkins only feels in his bones, that life in this system of society never works like that, because capitalism needs more restrictions and more repression and more waste the more surely freedom and abundance become possibilities. This is the root cause of Wilkins' sceptical and truculent attitude. He can't see why, but already, at eighteen, he has sensed that there is no way out. Some of the others despise it all, and try to live for kicks, as far as apprentices' wages will let them. He has tried to use his intelligence by putting his faith in the only positive value he can see—work.

"I'm not trying to make you anything, Wilkins. I'm not even trying to make you into an engineer instead of a human being, which is what you seem set on becoming. If you want to be nothing else but an appendage to a machine, that's up to you; but don't try to kid me that it's a full life."

Wilkins is silenced; and the others partly take their cue from him. Instead of attacking now, they ask questions and listen to the answers. But as you go on, showing them bit by bit that the realms of the arts and sciences and world affairs are not simply for the capitalist class (without naming it), a sense of uneasiness grows in inverse proportion to your success. You know that, to them, you represent Authority, one of Them, and that the more reasonable you are, the more they like you and take your judgements on trust, the more you are reconciling them to authority, to the status quo, to the idea that a decent life is possible inside capitalism. What can you do to open up their minds to the influence of knowledge and ideas, without dissipating the sceptical and critical attitude which is their only safeguard against the prevailing climate of hypocrisy and deceit?

"What you say doesn't add up, though, does it?" Wilkins says, putting both hands flat on his desk. "Why do they keep getting steamed up about 'We must export more' and 'We must protect British interests abroad' if that's what caused the last two wars, in the end. If they know that, why do they keep on with it?"

"All right—why do they? It's a good question."

S Stafford

Reprinted from the Socialist Standard

September 1965

The Virtues of Reflection (2000)

Theatre Review from the February 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Candide. National Theatre.

One of the characteristics of turn-of-the-millennium capitalism is that people rarely reflect about life. True a lot of people will wonder about how they are going to survive in the next few weeks and months, whilst most of the rest of us will worry about coping with the stresses and strains of everyday life. But such actions are a million miles away from what I have in mind. I'm thinking about standing back from the ordinary and the commonplace, and trying to look at the world, and the lives that people live, in a larger, more objective way.

I had occasion to think about such matters at the end of Candide, the wonderful musical—music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics Richard Wilbur, book adapted from Voltaire's famous novel, by John Wheeler, in a new version by John Caird—which has been marvellously revived by the National Theatre. As I wandered out of the Olivier Theatre after a second visit, I couldn't but become aware of the favourable audience comment. "That was marvellous," said someone. "Wasn't that wonderful?" said someone else, rhetorically, and when I joined the queue for a drink just about everyone seemed to be saying much the same thing. But no-one was prepared to offer anything more substantial. No-one sought to justify why it had been wonderful or marvellous, or whatever, and when I joined my three companions to drink our cups of tea, the conversation quickly moved to other matters.

Voltaire, were he to be about to witness such things, would probably have been amused, but saddened, by the audience's reaction. By inclination an amateur philosopher, he cast a sardonic eye on the musings of the world's supposed best thinkers. And he would have been no doubt registered, with deep irony, that although by the end of the 20th century the human race had unlocked many of the secrets of Nature, and deployed the resultant knowledge in ways that would barely have been conceivable when he was alive, most people seemed still locked in an almost prehistoric mindset.

Voltaire published Candide in 1759, and like all works of literature it can only properly be understood in the context of ideas of its time. Voltaire was a sceptical, Enlightenment figure, and Candide examines two ideas which were prevalent at the time. One was Optimism, a crude extrapolation based on Leibniz's "Principles of Sufficient Reason". The other the idea of Rousseau that in the state of Nature people are naturally good: a notion which seems to suggest a genetic predisposition to goodness, rather than goodness being learnt.

Leibniz held that since god could have created any kind of universe, the fact that he chose the universe we now inhabit can only mean that since god is good this must be the best possible universe. It follows that, "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds", a uniquely optimistic point of view which is elaborated by Dr Pangloss in Candide.

Not that Voltaire was an Optimist. Indeed the terrible earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 which had killed tens of thousands of people, many of them whilst sheltering in the cathedral, had persuaded him that not only was Leibniz's theory incorrect, but that such events challenged belief in the existence of god and any necessary coincidence between god the creator and god the source of goodness. And if "All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds", the consequences of all human actions is already determined, and with it the possibility of morality based on choice.

The wild, helter-skelter adventures of Candide, a student of Dr Pangloss, are at the heart of Voltaire's novel. And by the end Candide has learnt that neither goodness nor malevolence are natural or predetermined. At the end Candide migrates to a hospitable location which he describes significantly as "Like Eldorado but without the gold". Voltaire, the humanist, lays before us a tale characterised by war, pillage, arbitrary cruelty, rape, starvation and deprivation. The corrosive impact of religious certainty tied to metaphysical justifications in a class-riven society are examined, and rejected. Rather Voltaire suggests that we attend to the facts of the case, in a spirit of co-operative endeavour, and seek to the best we can for all humanity.

Yet on the evidence of my two visits, contemporary audiences have been so successfully taught by the ideological apparatus of society as not to wonder about the lessons of Voltaire's tale for themselves. Could they, too, be the unwitting victims of thousands of present-day Dr Panglosses? Have they so lost the capacity to reflect that whilst recognising the absurdities of the 18th century beliefs which Voltaire parodied, they might also unwittingly believe that "All's for the best in the best of all possible worlds"? What irony that we can even pose the question.

Michael Gill

Educating the workers? (1999)

From the July 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

As this journal has always pointed out, world summits and conferences are as notorious for the verbal rubbish arising from them as they are for highlighting the inadequacies of capitalist society and all attempts to reform it.

Remember, if you will, the Food Summit in the 1970s, at which Henry Kissinger announced to the world that global hunger would be eradicated within 10 years! Today the number of humans starving around the world is double the 400 million figure that enraged those delegates of 25 years ago.

Almost 10 years ago, there was another great meeting of the well-intentioned. This one was in Thailand and organised by the World Bank and various UN agencies, and called to debate the issue of education. To cut a long story short, the delegates of the 150 countries represented at this gathering were so appalled at the state of global education that they signed up to a plan to establish universal primary education by the year 2000. A good idea, you may think, but with months to go before that deadline, the world still has 125 million children out of school, 150 million who will drop out of school unable to read and write, with these figures being set against a world adult illiteracy rate of 20 percent, or 875 million adults.

The recent Oxfam report Education now: break the cycle of poverty, which hits at the shortcomings of the latter makes interesting reading, particularly for critics of New Labour, fond of juxtaposing Blair's education policies with children saving Walker's crisp packet tokens to exchange for school books.

The report reveals that there will be no real commitment to universal primary education until the year 2015, and even then there will still be 75 million children out of school with the proportion in sub-Saharan Africa actually higher than now, and that the cost of educating every child now out of school is $8 billion—which is about 4 days' global military spending, or Europe's pet food bill for 4 months.

While OECD countries spend an average of $4,636 per year on each child's education in the developing world the figure is $165. And while Britain, whose annual education bill is some $3,553 per child, is far below the OECD average, it is still 130 times more than is spent on a child in Zambia.

Oxfam is keen to point to the benefits of universal primary education, stating that it not only improves life, but that it increases democracy and enhances a country's growth. They have observed that every year spent in school decreases the risk of child death by 8 percent and that in sub-Saharan Africa the completion of primary education increases a farmer's output by 8 percent.

The report insists that human capital is vital for growth and for integrating the developing world's imported technology where there is little relevant infrastructure. It further points the finger of blame at organisations such as the IMF and World Bank, whose structural adjustment programmes often mean a country has to cut back on education spending as prerequisite to the securing of a loan, and that the concurrent debt burden means a lesser chance of spending on education.

There is a blatant cycle of disadvantage woven into the poverty-education equation, a kind of Catch-22. Poverty means less education which results in further poverty and accompanying poorer education. Oxfam's solution, involving total reform of the Heavily Debted Poorer Countries Initiative through the implementation of a "human development window" that would offer the incentive of debt-relief to governments prepared to invest four-fifths of savings in poverty-reducing initiatives. Oxfam suggest the debt burden could be shored up with more carefully thought out aid programmes. At present only 2 percent of the aid programme provided by the West is put into education. If this figure was raised to 8 percent, then $4 billion could be invested in education, or so the projection runs—incidentally this is also Europe's annual ice cream bill.

Moreover, Oxfam would like to see reform of IMF and World Bank programmes, with the ring-fencing of education funds. The former would be most opposed to Oxfam's suggestions, not least because of its commitment to structural adjustment programmes and because of its reluctance to aid that might be diverted away from school books and into military projects.

There is a lot the average socialist could argue in favour of improved education standards throughout the world, taking on board much of what Oxfam argues. Even less-liberal economists cite rates of return on investment as a chief incentive. But is a more highly educated global working class really in the interests of capitalism, as already suggested? Only if those workers' newly-acquired skills are going to be exploited for profit. The capitalist class won't want to educate workers more than they have to, if this means eating into their profits. It's a fair bet the education issue in the years ahead is as welcome in the US, for instance, as the idea to set up an International Criminal Court, or to vote in favour of access to food being a basic human right at the UN.

This is not simply socialist cynicism taken to the extreme. Capitalism is a filthy and rotten and decrepit social and economic system, whose apologists will stoop to any level to ensure their profits are never threatened. If this means starting a war, destroying crops from above with poison sprays, overthrowing a democratically-elected government, then so be it—there is no shortage of evidence to support this. Likewise with global education. The real winners in the long run from education can only be the working class.

John Bissett

Cooking the Books: The other Adam Smith (2005)

The Cooking the Books Column from the April 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

Gordon Brown grew up in the Scottish seaside town of Kirkcaldy where his father was a minister in one of the local kirks. Adam Smith was born there in 1723, though his father was a customs official. In February, at Brown’s invitation, Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, visited Kirkcaldy to deliver a lecture on Adam Smith.

Smith’s Wealth of Nations was, said Greenspan, “one of the great achievements in human intellectual history”. Smith’s view that capitalists should be allowed by governments to pursue profits unhindered since, “led by an invisible hand”, this resulted in the “public good” being promoted had, he argued, became “the sole remaining effective paradigm for economic organisation” (Times, 7 February).

That’s the side of Smith that is promoted by free-marketeers such as the Adam Smith Institute. But that’s only one side of his theories. Do the free-marketeers – does Greenspan – know that the Wealth of Nations opens with a declaration that useful things are produced by labour: “The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes”? Or that Smith went on to expound a labour theory of value: “Labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities” (Book I, chapter V)?

Smith even went so far as to identify profits as deriving from the value added by workers in the process of production:

“As soon as stock has accumulated in the hands of particular persons, some of them will naturally employ it in setting to work industrious people, whom they will supply with materials and subsistence, in order to make a profit by the sale of their work, or by what their labour adds to the value of the materials . . . The value which the workmen add to the materials . . . resolves itself . . . into two parts, of which one pays their wages, the other the profits of their employer upon the whole stock of materials and wages which he advanced” (Book I, chapter VI).

Smith’s labour theory of value was refined by David Ricardo and used by early critics of capitalism to argue that the capitalists were exploiters who robbed the workers of a part of the product of their labour. Marx took over and further developed this labour theory of value as the basis for his analysis of capitalism which saw the capitalists’ pursuit of profit as seeking to extract a maximum of unpaid labour from the working class.

The “public good” which Smith argued was promoted by letting capitalists pursue profits was an increase in the total amount of wealth in existence. Marx didn’t deny this, but argued that under capitalism this increase was inevitably unevenly divided: more went to capitalists as accumulated capital than to the actual wealth-producers as increased wages (if that). What Smith’s “invisible hand” did, if you like, was to build-up in this way the material basis for a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control. Which is the “sole effective paradigm” for ensuring that the productive forces built up under capitalism can be used for the benefit of all.

Acting Dreddfully (1995)

Film Review from the September 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Judge Dredd (15)

In the America of the twenty-second century most of the land has been laid to waste by radioactivity and the population is caged up in huge Mega-cities. The market economy is decomposing under the impetus of social disintegration and lawlessness, and Mega-city One, along America's eastern seaboard, is in a state of near chaos. Keeping a semblance of control are the Judges who patrol the streets—police, judges and executioners rolled into one. Most feared among these is Judge Dredd. "I am the law" is one of Dredd's phrases, and few of the assorted punks and criminals roaming the streets would argue.

The character of Dredd, along with much of the plot and the scenario of Mega-city One, has been adapted for this Hollywood blockbuster from the comic strip of the same name in 2000AD, probably Britain's most successful sci-fi comic. But it does not transfer to the big screen as well as it might. The influence of Hollywood is stamped all over it, sometimes for good but mostly for bad. The special effects are tremendous, but if you're looking for a credible plot or some of the futuristic social commentary for which 2000AD has been famous, look elsewhere. Violence, mayhem and glorification of the assembled Hollywood "stars" present is what this film is really about, sadly like so many others these days. Sure, 2000AD has always been a violent comic, but there was a bit more to it than just that, and Dredd's strip was no exception.

Unfortunately, little is shown of the social background to Dredd's capers—so vital to the original comic strip. The graffiti wars, the banning of stimulants like sugar and chocolate, the mass unemployment, the shoddy consumerism and meaningless of life don't get a look in. Perhaps they're a bit too near the bone for the folks back in the US to stomach. Instead we are with Sylvester Stallone parading around as a super-hero once more. But even this is rendered laughable by his obvious inability (once again) to speak his lines properly. At some points his facial contortions are such when he is barking out orders as to suggest he is about to break wind in spectacular fashion. But, of course, we know that super-heroes don't do that, do they?

DAP

Armistice reflections (1927)

From the December 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is Armistice night. I have just come home through London along with a portion of the joyful crowds who are going to celebrate. But what are they celebrating? It cannot be the end of wars since expenditure on armaments still grows, and the "East" and the "West" harries the imaginations of diplomats. Is it a victory they would celebrate? But here a million unemployed, and the miners are marching on London to remind legislators that hunger is abroad in the coalfields.

As I travelled on 'bus and tube my mind wandered over the events of the war and since. The petty squabbles of war "leaders," military, naval, and political, who each tried to keep a grip on the shoddy coat of glory; the nobleness of purpose with which each saddled the other with incapacity. I tried to think of a leader who possessed the military virtues we were taught to revere when we were children—and I failed to think of one. Even the modesty of Lawrence is lost in a crowd of full-dress photographs taken in the waste places of Arabia. A few short years have stripped the idols, one by one, of the gilding a venal Press and a hypocritical platform painted on with such a lavish hand.

The enemies of wartime have again become the joint partners in the plunder of peacetime. German, Austrian, Italian, French, American and English shareholders are indiscriminately mixed in the giant companies and trusts that take from the workman of different lands all that he produces above the pittance that pretends to keep him.

While the crowds passed before the Cenotaph to-day those who had grown wealthier out of war and peace swept in their luxurious cars to the palaces built out of the blood and toil of slaves. Behind all the mockery and cynicism lie the devastated homes, the cheerless hearths, of millions of the poor. The hollow shams at the top and the bitter misery at the bottom; the trickery and the illusions; the romance and the reality.

The tragedies of the war existed not only in the deaths, the mutilations, and the sorrows of the bereaved, but also in what lay behind much of it. Imagine the feelings of those forced, by fear of a white feather or by conscription, who went to battle without enthusiasm but with much dread. They had to endure the manifold hardships without the inner fire of a cause worth while to sustain them. Of such were many who are buried in nameless graves.

Most of us, particularly the more imaginative, when not drunk with enthusiasm or liquor, suffer the nameless dread of mutilations or death. Thousands, nay millions, went through this agony during those terrible years. Of the young and the old of many countries eight and a half millions were killed , twenty-one million wounded. This country alone had a million dead to mourn for and two millions wounded.

But what are the celebrations for? What have the millions died for? Why do many an old couple sit by the fire dreaming sadly of what might have been? Oh, sordid reality! Oh, cold, comfortless truth! Because one group of money bugs wanted more profit than another! For this the flower of youth was trampled and destroyed by the iron heel of war. And even now, while the horror and dread of those days still stirs restlessly in the mind, like the remnants of the spell of a nightmare, the nations of the earth are still hotly pursuing each other in a headlong race to more terrible wars still, though the wiser ones foresee that the end is not worth the price, in wealth and prestige, that will have to be paid.

And those who so easily sent our loved ones to their graves are niggardly in payment to the mutilated and the dependants. They groan of the height of the taxes, and tell fairy tales of the wealth of the pensioners. They would have us believe, as they orate at their many-coursed dinners, that they are really too poor to stand the strain. When unemployment was widespread before the war it was said that the country was too poor to maintain the human scrap heap of industry. Yet, on the war alone, this country was able to throw away wealth to the amount of over six thousand million pounds in four years! And this while millions of the population were entirely withdrawn from productive work.

And to-day those who might ponder over these things and be dangerous to the powers that prey have their emotions diverted into safe channels. They are given a few cenotaphs, a few processions, a turgid mass of hypocritical sentiments. They mourn by cold monuments and return to work sad, but satisfied.

What a civilisation! What a tragedy!

Gilmac.

My road to Socialism (2005)

From the December 2005 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this strange system that received opinion holds to be democratic, who gets to be represented and to what degree? When I was living in "The People's Republic of South Yorkshire" I wasn't the right age to vote, but given the chance I would have succeeded in backing the winning candidate (the only time in my life), little realizing that although he would have been my representative in Parliament he would have represented me very little.

Later, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, being over 21 at last, I got my chance to put my X and did so feeling that now I could make my mark. What an exhilarating feeling, to be able to make a difference! With hindsight it's easy to see I was wrong in two ways; (1) that a vote for Labour would count for anything in that constituency, and (2) that, even if my choice had been elected, he would actually represent any of my core principles.

But I kept on hoping and putting my X (my democratic responsibility) whilst actively demonstrating how I thought the world should be - in Grosvenor Square (US Embassy) against the Vietnam war, at the South African Embassy against apartheid, in Trafalgar Square with CND - you name it, I was there. All this whilst studying for a degree so I could get a good job. Big trouble with the Principal for trying to recruit a few fellow students at my 'seat of learning' into a students' union. How terrible, we would have had access to cheaper books and tickets to concerts.

The 'good job', teaching, spanning a good number of years, led to more militancy. Must show solidarity, join the union, march for better conditions, withdraw participation in voluntary activities, work to rule. Life seemed to be one long struggle for the things I believed in. Meanwhile, a move to Kent and maybe I could try 'strategic' voting. Could I help to keep a particular candidate out rather than failing consistently to get mine in?

In the job (sorry, profession) a 'restructuring' of the pay scales and an apparent promotion yielded an actual pay freeze. Forget the 1250 hours that had been negotiated and hard won; now the schools started 'opting out' and going 'Grant-Maintained' (even the decent canteen grub took a knock with privatisation). This led to newly qualified teachers being interviewed for posts asked such loaded questions as "How late in the evening are you prepared to stay on the premises?" and being given the kudos of an 'acting-up' post for a year in the wild hope of a salary increase the following year for work already done.

Glad to be out of that rat-race. Lots of very happy and satisfying classroom experiences; as for the rest of it.... Now I'm an 'ex-pat', an 'economic migrant' with no vote and no representation in my adopted country. I am my own representative, wholly responsible to myself and my community. Moreover, I have come to the full realization that I have shed my last skin and can confidently say I know what it feels like to have emerged as a fully-fledged socialist.

Janet Surman

Chess and politics (1986)

From the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chess, which has been played for several centuries, is now a big-money, nationalistic sport just like World Cup football. Variations of the game existed in India and China nearly fourteen hundred years ago. Persian manuscripts dated about 600 AD refer to the game, and board games resembling chess have been found in Egyptian tombs over 3,000 years old.

In pre-capitalist times chess met disapproval and was even banned by the Christian and Islamic religions because it was used for gambling. Gamesmanship, hustling and patronage seemed to have emerged in the 15th century with the progression of the game to its present form, as modifications to the moves of some of the pieces made it more interesting and more widely played. Money could be made for the top players from gambling and sponsorship by the rich and influential. Such was the competition and jealousy aroused by the prospects of fame and fortune that Paolo Boi and Giovanni Leonardo were poisoned by rivals in the 16th century.

Wilhelm Steinitz was the first player to become recognised as "world champion" after he defeated Anderssen in 1866 although before this a number of players had been unofficially recognised as the strongest players of their time. Although there has never been the rigid distinction between amateur and professional players that exists in other sports, chess prior to the 1860s had been dominated by men with private incomes as the time demanded for tournament participation effectively excluded workers. The development of chess clocks to time the moves, making the games of reasonable length, and properly arranged tournaments enabled professional players, without private income or sponsors, to compete for prize money.

When spectators were charged half a guinea (52½p) entrance fee in 1876 to see Steinitz play Blackburne at the West End Chess Club, London The Chessplayer's Chronicle was outraged: "The thoroughly mercenary spirit in which this latest exhibition of professionalism was conducted throughout has heartily disgusted all true chessplayers." (Hartson. W 1985 The Kings of Chess, Pavilion Books, London)

The chess establishment was shaken again in 1890 when Steinitz defended his world title against Isidor Gunsberg and agreed that the winner should receive two thirds and the loser one third of the prize money put up by backers instead of the winner taking all. Nevertheless, Steinitz was unable to make a satisfactory living from the game and when asked why he had competed in the taxing 1898 Cologne tournament when over 60 years of age, he replied: "I can spare the fame but not the prize money".

The next world champion Emanuel Lasker, who defeated Steinitz in 1894, was determined not to suffer the poverty of his predecessor and insisted on a higher remuneration for his appearances in tournaments and exhibition games. But Lasker failed to improve the financial circumstances of his fellow chess professionals. Karl Schlechter, the gifted Viennese player who had been strong enough to hold Lasker to a drawn world title match in 1910, died of pneumonia brought about by malnutrition in 1918 and Akiba Rubinstein, winner of 21 major tournaments, ended his career in poverty.

In common with most other sports, the history of chess is one of struggle both for the establishment of the game and for the players until modern methods of communication, and television in particular, reached audiences of millions. Chess "superstars" emerged, able to earn considerable sums of money from their playing abilities. But, also in common with most other sports, chess became a political weapon marked by bitter nationalistic rivalry.

Alexander Alekhine, world champion 1927-35 and 1937-1946, proved a useful tool in the hands of the Nazis. Between 1941 and 1943 he played in a series of tournaments in Nazi-occupied countries and in 1941 wrote a series of articles entitled "Jewish and Aryan Chess" in which he tried to "prove" the superiority of Aryan "attacking" play against Jewish "defensive" methods. Apart from the absurdity of such a racist hypothesis, the first two world champions Steinitz and Lasker were both Jewish Rubinstein, considered by many to have played the most perfect chess ever seen before the first world war, was a Talmudic scholar and ultra-orthodox Jew. In using Alekhine in their propaganda war the Nazis had chosen carefully. Alekhine had joined the Communist Party in his native Russia but later fled the country and denounced Bolshevism. In turn he was denounced and written out of Russian chess history where he had won prizes at St. Petersburg in 1912 and 1914.

Many of the chess Olympiads have been political events in which the interests of the sport took second place. The Munich Olympiad of 1936 was an advertisement for the Nazi regime; Albania refused to play South Africa at Siegen in 1970 and were defaulted 0-4; at Skopje in 1972 Albania refused to play Israel and were scored 0-4; they then withdrew and the entire score was annulled; the Nice Olympiad was a political circus rather than a chess event. Algeria and Iraq refused to play Rhodesia and Tunisia refused to play Israel. The results of these matches were estimated by computer. South Africa withdrew after FIDE (chess's ruling body) decided to expel them and defaulted their last three matches and Rhodesia were also expelled.

The most blatantly political chess event in recent years was the "Against Israel Olympiad" held in Tripoli in 1976 in opposition to the official Olympiad at Haifa. Mike Newman has described how, with a playing strength which could be barely sufficient to reach minor counties' standard in Britain, he played top board for Gambia and achieved a creditable personal score of 8 out of 13, such was the poor playing strength of the 34 competing nations attracted by Libya's payment of all expenses. (Chess vol. 42 pp. 63-64). Chess was encouraged in Russia after 1917 by an organised state programme, in part to discourage excessive drinking among the masses but also to raise the general cultural level, and for use as a political weapon against rival countries outside the Russian empire.

Chess in Russia prospered as a result of state sponsorship and the propaganda war was vigorously (though at times absurdly) pursued. Alekhine and Bogolyubov were praised, denounced for defecting to the West, and later rehabilitated as heroes. Krylenko too fell victim to the purges and was imprisoned and later shot on Stalin's orders for lowering the standard of chess. Even for such a monster as Krylenko the charge was grossly unfair as he had done a great deal to raise the level of chess (even if for the wrong reasons) and, indeed, his name was restored in the anti-Stalinist years when Khrushchev became leader.

The internal politics of FIDE have been governed by expediency; the rules controlling the conditions of the world championship tournaments and the Candidates' tournaments which decide who should play the world champion have been changed time and time again, bowing to political pressures and financial considerations more often that to the interests of the game. At times the pre-match squabbling before the Fischer v Spassky world championship in 1972 bordered in the farcical. And even before then Fischer had vociferously complained about the conditions of the Interzonal tournaments and accused the Russians of cheating in the Candidates' tournaments. Fischer probably had a genuine grievance because the Russians tended to play a large number of brief drawn games against each other and saved their energy for long hard-fought battles against non-Russian players.

The Korchnoi v Karpov matches of 1978 and 1981 were even more farcical: Korchnoi had defected from Russia but his family were refused permission to leave. Tournaments in which Korchnoi appeared were boycotted by the Russians and his name did not appear in their chess publications. Korchnoi accused Karpov of trying to hypnotise him and receiving coded messages in yogurt. Karpov won both matches and, ridiculous as the arguments surrounding the matches seemed, like the Fischer v Spassky match, public interest was aroused. Chess enjoyed a spectacular boom as a result of the publicity.

Chess has become big business: the sale of chess books exceeds that of any other sport; Karpov has become the first chess millionaire; chess sets, chess clocks, score sheets and magazines secure world-wide sales. Capitalism impoverishes our lives; besides enslaving us economically it perverts even our leisure interests in the name of profit. Instead of being a stimulating game played in a spirit of friendliness, chess has been tainted by nationalism, commerce and political rivalry between capitalist states.

Carl Pinel

Greasy Pole: Catching The Eye (2014)

The Greasy Pole Column from the January 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

How many compulsive viewers of Prime Minister's Questions have noticed that there is one MP who is always firmly in the same seat behind David Cameron (perhaps he gets there early to reserve it) and does not take part in the racket of bellows and sneers which signal that the Honourable Members are representing their constituents? Then after each question, before the Prime Minister has had time even to consult the 'briefing' which is painstakingly composed to tell him how to respond to, or avoid, each question, this Member gets to his feet and stays there until the next one is asked when he again stands up, then sits down ...until PMQs comes to an end. The procedure for this event is that backbenchers who have missed out in the ballot to ask a question may try for a supplementary by standing to 'catch the eye' of the Speaker. Is this what motivates this Member? Or are his trousers too tight? Does he suffer from cramp? Is he trying to get a clearer view of Balls and Miliband?

Eton

The Conservative Party Member of Parliament for South West Bedfordshire is Andrew Edmund Armstrong Selous, who went to Eton (although his response to a Guardian survey of his educational background was that he would 'prefer not to reveal' that detail) then Oxford for a degree in Industry and Trade so that he was ready to become a director of the family firm and an insurance underwriter. From that it was almost natural to try for a place in Parliament but first Selous had to prove himself at an unconquerable Labour seat such as Sunderland North where in 1997 his vote was 6,370 while the Labour incumbent got 26,067. In 2001 he won South West Bedfordshire; his majority was a mere 776 but those were hard times for the Tories, with Tony Blair and his street-corner grin and verbiage seemingly threatening us with Labour rule into the foreseeable future.

Sleep-Outs

In opposition Selous spent some time as a Whip until in 2006 he connected himself to a wider horizon as Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions and then, when Cameron ushered in his rag-bag of a Coalition, a 'proper' job nearer the sharp end of power as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Iain Duncan Smith. That was when IDS had been transmogrified into a kind of crusader against the scourge of poverty with an ambition to re-adjust the entire 'benefits' system so as to present it as a lasting remedy to that granitic problem. In tune with this fantasy Selous burrowed into local organisations such as the Conservative Christian Fellowship, the South Bedfordshire Community Family Trust, Leighton Buzzard Parkinson's Disease Society. He is reported to have 'taken part' – although exactly what this demanded of him is not clear – in annual sponsored sleep-outs to publicise the fact that there are some people who are too poor to have somewhere to sleep. For one such charity – Watford New Hope – he did not sleep out but did some time in the dry and warmth of their workshop where wood and furniture are re-cycled.

RBS

Whatever motive may have driven Selous in his persistent efforts to catch the Speaker's eye it cannot have been an urge to give to the Commons a usefully critical view of what property society does to its people. A typical example of his stifling attitudes is that he supported the British attack on Iraq on the inadequate, quickly discredited, argument that Blair's old friend and Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had '. . . clearly advised the Government that the military campaign in Iraq is clearly legal'. He is listed as being strongly supportive of the replacement for the mass-destroyer Trident submarine (one of which is said to be able to kill and lay waste on the scale of the entire bomb loads dropped in the last war). In calmer waters he opposes equal rights for gay people and was against the ban on hunting. In June he spoke up for the Royal Bank of Scotland, so recently a prime example of the profit motive rampant. Selous now thinks that the RBS '...has gone from a bad bank under the last government to a normal bank now and it has actually made a profit of over £800 million in the first three months of this year'. What he did not say was that this bank, as part of being 'normal', is now planning to re-commence paying dividends but also imposing a fresh programme of 'savings' which will entail the sacking of thousands of employees who will thus be forced to face some of the most demanding aspects of their reliance on surviving through the sale of their labour power – and therefore on IDS and what may remain of his ministry's 'benefits'.

Lean English

If Selous was looking for a blast of national publicity to help his career it recently arrived, although in an unintended way. And when it did it illustrated that there are limits to his charitable urges. In June George Osborne held forth to the Commons on the potentially rich theme of immigrants who are also benefit claimants, saying that it was a 'reasonable requirement that anyone on benefits would have a basic grasp of English... From now on, if claimants don't speak English, they will have to attend language courses until they do'. Selous was quick join in this but his contribution was deficient in one crucial respect. He tweeted that he would '...strongly support the loss of benefits unless claimants lean English'. The mis-spelling was greeted by a flood of derisive responses, typical of which was 'Were did you lean to rite so good?' which compelled a panicky Selous to delete the tweet. The episode served to emphasise the assessment of him by politics.co.uk under The Worst MP On Twitter that his stuff is 'meaningless, regurgitated of the highest order...no real engagement with constituents...never actually speaks to them...' If Selous does ever succeed in catching the Speaker's eye it is very unlikely that he will grasp the opportunity to offer anything original or penetrative. It would be in his interests if, when the other Members are in full cry, he were to duck down behind the seats in the Commons rather than expose himself.

Ivan

Eysenck at LSE: Socialist Defends Free Speech (1973)

From the June 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Tuesday 8 May Professor Eysenck, who holds certain controversial views about the intellectual abilities of American negroes, was forcibly prevented from expressing his views at the London School of Economics. Responsibility for this political censorship was claimed by a Maoist group. Our comrade Dom Zucconi, an LSE student expressed Socialist opposition to this suppression of free speech, as the following report from the Daily Telegraph of 11 May shows:

“Tuesday's incident was last night described as a "disgrace and discredit to socialism and a brief for fascism" by Mr. D. Zucconi, a student who described himself as a member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain when he proposed the motion to apologise to Professor Eysenck.

'How does one best deal with fascism? With the butt-end of a rifle or with ideas? The political process is a battle of ideas and, unless you can rebut these concepts, you are lost', he said.

‘In preventing him from speaking, you are resorting to the same tactics you accused fascists of using', he told the meeting to loud cheers.”

For the record, the precise wording of the motion proposed by Comrade Zucconi and carried by a large majority at the LSE Union meeting was:

“This Union strongly deprecates the conduct of those present at Professor Eysenck's meeting on Tuesday who appointed themselves to decide that nobody should be allowed to hear a point of view with which they disagreed. We place on record that only in the healthy atmosphere of free expression can ideas be debated, false ideas debunked and sound ideas developed. We therefore apologise to Professor Eysenck for the action of a minority in preventing him from being heard.”

The Socialist Party of course has always practised the principles expressed in this resolution. We have always been prepared to give opponents of Socialism a chance to express their views from our platform. This is because we are convinced that our views are right and that this will emerge from full and free debate—and if we are wrong we want to know, so that we can stop wasting our time.

Censorship, whether through the legalized violence of the capitalist State as enforced by the Courts or by the violence of self-appointed political guardians as displayed at the LSE, is anti-socialist and anti-working class and must be exposed whenever it rears its ugly head.

THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH    

Statement by World Socialist Society at LSE

As members of the Socialist Party of Great Britain we are opposed to all censorship, whether it be through the legalized violence as enforced by the courts of the capitalist state or by the violence of self-appointed moral or political guardians. Let there be no misunderstanding of the meaning of what happened here last week. A body of people decided that the rest of us should not be allowed to hear certain views they considered objectionable; they took it upon themselves to use physical violence to achieve this end — and succeeded. In other words, they successfully censored what we should hear. But will they stop here? Will they now proceed to prevent Eysenck expressing his views in writing? And, after that, will they burn the books he has already written? And what are the prospects for those of us who disagree with them if ever they win control of political power? Will we be shot or just put into concentration camps? These are serious questions since they are the logical extensions of the policy pursued by last week's political censors.

There is a further point: all censorship — especially censorship of this kind, allegedly exercised for the benefit of the working class — is an insult to the intelligence of ordinary working men and women since it implies that they cannot be trusted to hear or read certain ideas and are incapable of making rational judgements on the merits of rival ideas. Those who favour censorship always assume that they are somehow superior to ordinary people and have the right to decide what ordinary people should or should not hear. Censorship is an elitist policy — but those who favour it here at the LSE such as the Maoists and Trotskyists have nothing but contempt for the ability of the working class to understand Socialist ideas and to establish Socialism by and for themselves.

The classic case for allowing unpopular minority views to be expressed — including those with openly anti-democratic ones like fascism AND Maoism — has never been refuted: if they are wrong then their case will perish in the course of free, rational discussion; if they are right then censorship delays discovering this. As our resolution passed by the Union last Thursday puts: "only in the healthy atmosphere of free expression can ideas be debated, false ideas debunked and sound ideas developed". We are always prepared at all our meetings to give opponents of Socialism a chance to express their views. For we are convinced that our views are right and that this will be shown in any free debate — and if we are wrong we wish to know so that we can stop wasting our time. WE STATE unambiguously that ALL censorship is anti-Socialist and anti-working class.

Last week's incident has done one thing, if nothing else. It has brought into the open those who favour censorship of political ideas: the Maoists and Trotskyists. They have placed themselves in the same camp as the fascists themselves and stand exposed as the dangerous enemies of the working class prostituting the good name of Socialism.

We stand for the common ownership of the means of production, without distinction of race or sex, organised democratically.