The Relevance of Marxian Economics Today (2014)

From the April 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Interview with Andrew Kliman, author of a number of books on Marx’s ideas.

How did you come to be interested in Marxian economics and socialism?

I was 12 years old in 1968, a moment of tremendous radical ferment, and I immediately identified with all of the forces struggling for freedom. I don’t remember whether I immediately identified with socialism, too – in the environment of the time, immediately linking the two would have been rather natural – or whether that took a bit of reading and thinking.

I used to argue with people about capitalism, and I’d be told, ‘you don’t understand supply and demand.’ I realized that was true, and a main reason why I decided to major in economics in college was to see if my views would survive confrontation with ‘the law of supply and demand.’ Eventually, I decided to go to graduate school in economics and focus on radical economics. My knowledge of Marx’s writings, on economics and in general, was still rather limited. I had tried to read Capital, but my eyes kept glazing over and I kept dozing off. But in my first year of graduate school, I took a year-long course that consisted of a close reading of the three volumes of Capital. It was quite a struggle, but slowly I began to understand and to be convinced. The irrationality and corrupt nature of the resistance to Marx’s ideas, even among ‘Marxist economists,’ and the sterile and non-revolutionary alternatives they offer, have strengthened my conviction. So have the Great Recession and its ‘new normal’ aftermath.

I don’t think of myself as a ‘Marxist economist.’ The people who trash Marx or cannibalize his work to further their own ideas and careers have appropriated the term for themselves, and they can have it, as far as I’m concerned.

In ‘The Failure of Capitalist Production’ you claim that the underlying cause of the last global economic downturn was a persistent fall in the average rate of profit which had never fully recovered since the late 1970s. Do you think the falling rate of profit is always the deciding factor in regard to economic crisis or can it be explained by other features of capitalism such as the disproportionate growth between different sectors of the economy?

I say that the fall in the rate of profit was a, not the, key underlying cause. That’s not the same thing as a ‘deciding factor.’ I think a variety of conditions need to be present in order to produce an economic downturn and financial crisis, especially ones as severe as those we’ve experienced. That was Marx’s view as well. In particular, as I stress in the book,

‘Marx’s theory holds precisely that a fall in the rate of profit leads to crises only indirectly and in a delayed manner. The fall leads first to increased speculation and the build-up of debt that cannot be repaid, and these are the immediate causes of crises. Thus, the timing of the current crisis and the sequence of events leading to it do not contradict the theory, but are fully consonant with it and lend support to it.’

Clearly, the main immediate causes of the Great Recession were the bursting of the bubble in the US housing sector and the financial crisis that resulted. But pointing to these events isn’t adequate. If they were the only problems, the economy would have rebounded smartly once the US government quelled the panic; but that was five years ago, and the malaise persists. The recession, and to some extent the financial crisis, were also the product of several other, underlying conditions. A persistent fall in the rate of profit led to sluggish investment in production, which in turn led to a rising burden of debt; and the US government responded to these conditions by throwing even more debt at them. The government policies delayed the day of reckoning, but also made the crisis worse when it finally did erupt. These underlying conditions still persist for the most part, and the future of the Euro area and Chinese economies is quite uncertain, so the malaise persists as well.

During the housing-sector bubble, home prices and financial activity grew faster than the rest of the economy. One can, if one wishes, call this ‘disproportionate growth between different sectors of the economy.’ In this specific sense, the financial crisis and recession can be characterized as a ‘disproportionality crisis’ (but only with regard to immediate causes, not longer-term, underlying ones). But since ‘disproportionality’ generally refers to something different – an imbalance between production of means of production and production of consumer goods and services– use of the term is liable to cause confusion.

What is your attitude towards those that claim government spending and/or increasing working class consumption is a way out of the crisis?

Of course, the government could borrow more, and thus provide more of a temporary boost, but there’s a definite limit to the amount by which governments, even the US government, can run up their debt before the credit market gets spooked and lenders demand so much interest in compensation that running up the debt becomes counterproductive. Even more importantly, running up the debt provides only a temporary fix. It doesn’t set off a perpetual-motion machine of economic growth. Once the stimulus money ends, the stimulus it provides ends as well – and let me emphasize that this is what standard Keynesian theory itself says.

Although underconsumptionists claim that redistribution of income from wages to profits was an underlying cause of the Great Recession, that isn’t true, at least not in the US case. Between 1970 and 2007, employees’ share of net output was stable in the corporate and total-business sectors. So was the share of output that the working class could buy with its income, ie. without going deeper into debt. (Please see my pamphlet ‘Can Income Redistribution Rescue Capitalism?’ which you reviewed in January Socialist Standard, for data and sources).  Since upward redistribution didn’t cause the crisis, it’s not plausible that downward redistribution would solve it. Moreover, any serious downward redistribution would reduce profit and thereby tend to destabilize capitalism even further. After all, profit is the fuel on which the system runs. The underconsumptionist theory of crisis denies this, it tells us that the problem is too much profit, but I think there are fatal logical flaws in that theory. I can’t go into them here, but I do so in the pamphlet and in my book.

Similarly, what is your attitude towards those that claim that banking/monetary reform can improve conditions for the working class as well as preventing future crisis?

Financial regulation, like regulation in general, has a very weak track record. Businesses and investors are always able to find ways around the regulations, and the new regulations that are drawn up are always designed to ‘fight the last war.’ Also, regulation itself can be a cause of financial crisis. One of the biggest financial crises to date, the collapse of the savings and loan (building society) industry in the 1970s and 1980s, was caused by very strict regulations on the interest that the savings and loans could pay and charge, together with the inability of ‘Keynesian’ policies to stem the spiraling inflation problem of the time.

It’s possible to set up a government-handout agency that one calls a bank, funnel borrowed  money through it, and improve conditions for the working-class in that way – temporarily and within strict limits, of course. But if we’re talking about genuine banking functions – attracting funds and lending them out –it’s not possible to turn banks into institutions that operate for the benefit of working people or that pursue public-policy objectives. The capitalist system has its own laws, economic laws that are independent of the intentions of the people who happen to be running it. State-regulated banks, and even state-run and worker-run banks, are still banks. They have to try to maximize profits, just like every other capitalist firm. If they don’t, they won’t be able to provide investors and lenders with a decent return, so the investors and lenders will go elsewhere, and the banks won’t get the funds they need to operate. They’ll fail or, at best, remain tiny, insignificant islands in the sea of profit-maximizing finance.

You have made criticisms of the view expressed by Richard D Wolff (and others) that workers co-operatives are the way to socialism (or even are socialism). Could you briefly outline your position on this issue?

This issue here is really the same one I just discussed. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about banking or some other industry. Indeed, Wolff has applied his general view to the case of banking, calling for worker-run banks which, he claims, would operate for the benefit of working people. Why? Merely because workers have different interests than regular bankers, so they would supposedly make different decisions.

    

But the road to bankruptcy is paved with good intentions. Worker-run banks, and cooperatives within capitalism generally, would fail or remain tiny islands if they decided to sacrifice profit in order to enhance the well-being of their members or the majority of the population. Wolff just fails to deal with this problem. The only co-operatives that can survive are the ones that operate in accordance with the laws that govern capitalism. The result, as Marx put it, is that the workers in these cooperatives become ‘their own capitalist’; they end up exploiting themselves. In order to keep the prices of their products low and remain competitive, they have to keep their pay low, speed-up production, ignore workplace safety and health issues, and so on, just like every other capitalist.

Let me emphasize that the above comments are just about co-operatives within capitalism and as a ‘way to socialism.’ I’m not objecting to co-operatives as a form or even the dominant form of organization of production within socialism.

The assumptions of neo-classical economics have increasingly come under a lot of criticism since the financial crash of 2008. This criticism seems to have made significant inroads into the main stream yet the bulk of it comes from a behavioural economics or Keynesian /post-Keynesian viewpoint. Do you think this development can be harnessed by those seeking to promote a Marxian perspective and if so in what ways?

I’ve devoted a lot of effort to fighting the suppression of Marx’s body of ideas, including the suppression of them by the Marxist and radical economists. But fighting to allow Marx’s ideas to be heard is one thing; promoting a Marxian perspective in the academic-careerist turf-battle sense is another. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in understanding and transforming reality, and for this, openness to dialogue and to new findings and ideas – from wherever they come – is essential.

I think Hyman Minsky, a post-Keynesian, had some insightful things to say about speculative and Ponzi finance. Irving Fisher’s debt-deflation theory of business cycles is also interesting. He was a neo-classicist, but some post-Keynesians have returned to his theory. And Vernon Smith and his colleagues have done what I regard as tremendously important work in behavioral economics, on the causes of asset-price bubbles. They’ve demonstrated conclusively that misinformation and lack of information isn’t the problem.

I agree with you that mainstream economists are engaged in some genuine rethinking. I also agree that Marx’s ideas don’t play any real role in that rethinking. This lack of interest in Marx isn’t due to dogmatism, but to the fact that these economists are agents of capitalism. Their job is to try to figure out how to solve the economic crisis and how to prevent future crises or at least make them less severe. So I can’t think of a thing that Marx has to offer them. His theory of capitalist crisis isn’t about the defects of any particular set of institutions or any particular form of capitalism. It’s about defects that are inherent in every form of capitalism and are inextricable from it. So I don’t think it offers anything to people trying to alter the system while keeping it intact.

Many groups that have shared the Socialist Party’s definition of socialism as a classless, stateless and non-market society have insisted that the working class should abstain from parliamentary activity. The Socialist Party has always maintained that as the state only exists to preserve the position of the property owning minority and that as socialism can only come about through majority understanding and participation, the democratic process should be used in order to win control of parliament for the purposes of preventing the state machine from being used against the socialist majority and to ensure the transition from capitalism to socialism can proceed in as ordered a manner as possible. In what ways would you agree or disagree with this position?

I wouldn’t insist that the working class abstain from parliamentary activity. As a Marxist-Humanist, I support (sometimes critically) all genuine freedom struggles, whatever the form they happen to take at a particular moment. But in the US, where I live, they’ve taken an electoral form only rarely, for instance in the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party 50 years ago. I think that’s largely true elsewhere, too. The institutionalized labor and left electoral parties, even in the best cases, have rarely been vehicles of mass self-activity; and that’s one thing I do insist on, as did the First International: ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.’   

‘Property owning minority’ is too narrow – the top bureaucrats in the USSR, China, etc. haven’t been owners in the usual sense. I do agree that the state exists to preserve the capitalist system and that socialism can only come about through majority understanding and participation. However, I simply don’t see how the rest of the sentence follows from that.

Questions of logic aside, I don’t think anything can prevent the state machine from being used against the socialist majority. Governments can and will suspend our rights and ignore laws passed by parliament when push comes to shove, and they often have constitutional authority to do so. I think that what would offer the most protection against this, and the best chance for a revolution without mass bloodshed, is, first, a large majority in favor of socialism. Second, clarity about who its allies and who its enemies are – this is something that has been lacking far too often. Third, serious work to bring draftees and enlisted members of the armed forces over to the side of the people. If they decide to point their weapons in the opposite direction, that will do far more to enforce the will of the majority than parliamentary decrees can.

But getting rid of the old order is only one aspect of social transformation; the other is the creation of new social relations, rooted in a new mode of production that’s not subject to the economic laws that govern capitalism. No amount of political will, whether expressed by parliamentary or extra-parliamentary means, can bring this about. It’s not a matter of issuing directives, passing laws, or whatever. Unless and until a new mode of production is established that uproots the economic laws that govern capitalism, these laws will continue to nullify parliamentary laws, decisions of workers’ councils, and what have you.

"Ten Forty-Five". (1938)

A Short Story from the March 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

He stood in the queue, huddled close to the wall, staring broodingly in front of him.

His thin, sallow face was lowered into the upturned collar of his overcoat as protection against the cold drizzle. His hat, badly out of shape, with its brim thrust down, made his nose almost the only feature visible. His hands were stuck deep in his pockets. While most of the crowd were chattering animatedly, he stood silently, ignoring even the jostling that took place from time to time.

A raucous voice, that of a policeman, startled him out of his reverie:

"Show your cards, please; ten-thirties only!"

Those at the head of the queue began to push through the narrow door marked "Men," holding out their "Signing-on" cards for inspection. Shoving, pushing, jostling, the rest of the queue moved forward in shuffling gait.

When Sallowface had almost reached the door he stopped, and then edged to the side, holding up several men who were behind him.

"Whatcher trying to do," asked one of them, a burly, red-faced fellow, "get froo a winder?"

"That's all right," he replied, "you get in; I'm 'ten-forty-five.'"

Red-face muttered something whilst disappearing through the entrance.

Sallowface looked after him with a sneer.

"Bloody fool," he hissed almost soundlessly through clenched teeth. His thoughts continued the sneering curse.

"Typical of the lot. No ideas, no mentality, no imagination. He hated them. Hated them as much as he hated the rich, the capitalists. Perhaps more. If it wasn't for them, would he have to suffer all this misery, this poverty?

"They could change things, change the system, if they only had the brains and the guts. Ah, it made him sick! What was the good of it all? They'd never learn. Listen to them now."

"An' I think he played a better game last time out. That save he made in the second 'arf—"

"Not 'arf he didn't!"

"He's a grand player, he is—"

Sallowface cursed silently.

"Give them football," he thought, "it's all they're interested in. No idea of life, as it could be lived, as it was lived by their rulers, their masters. Leisure without worry, luxury all round, travel—"

He sighed.

"Ah, travel! How wonderful to be able to travel. To travel to lands where there was sunshine and warmth even in the winter! To escape this weather, this climate, this fog that made breathing a pain, this rain that soaked through worn-out soles and gave you perpetual colds."

"He'd have to get his shoes mended. No matter if it left them broke. He daren't risk any more colds. They were wearing him out. But where was the money coming from? His wife hadn't paid the milkman for three weeks. She'd have to give him something when he called next. But suppose this rain lasted? How could he look for work with the inside of his shoes full of water?"

His lips compressed into a thin line. Couldn't he try a "screwing-job"? He played with the idea for a while.

To get hold of a few pounds, what couldn't he do with the money! But how was he going to set about it? And where an opportunity? He dismissed the thought in disgust. He wasn't cut out for that sort of thing, anyway. He didn't have the nerve. His wife had often railed him about it.

"You, with your Socialism. That won't get you anywhere! You're supposed to have brains! Always reading those books about economics! Why don't you find out how to get some money? Do a smash-and-grab raid, like some of them! But you ain't got the pluck!"

"Bah," he thought, "what did she know about it. That sort of thing doesn't help you. You're sure to get caught. And then they mark you for life after you leave prison—."

"Prison," he shuddered inwardly, "terrible. Freedom, that's what he wanted. Freedom to live, to enjoy the good things of life. Like those parasites he'd read about in this morning's Daily E—."

"Lord and Lady —have left for Majorca. They expect to be away until next April."

What price patriotism? Buy British, eh? We'll take Britain's wealth and leave you the weather! What humbug! But how he envied them. No worry. They had security—. Security! That was it! They were secure from economic worries. The world was theirs. It belonged to them. That wonderful world, that beautiful sky, the flaming sun, the mountain air, that azure sea, all theirs, theirs to play about with. They weren't free, that sun that browned your body as you lazed about the beach for weeks and months, that air that made your lungs feel as if they'd had a spring-cleaning and gave a sparkle to your eyes and cheeks. They were as inaccessible to people like him as the wealth and leisure needed to go after them.

An uncontrollable impulse seized him. He'd put an end to himself. He couldn't go on like this, his whole existence was a hell, a hell made a thousand times worse by those maddeningly tantalising glimpses of heaven. Why didn't the others feel like that, he wondered. Were they blind to the display of wealth around them, was there not a twinge of jealousy, of envy, amongst them when luxury was flaunted before them? His own wife, even, could not conceive of life other than one limited by working-class means. Sluggish brains and blood! Only yesterday he'd shown her a picture from the Daily M—: "Lady C— saying good-bye to her little son before leaving for the West Indies on a long holiday."

Holiday from what? From the strenuous work of giving parties and dining at hotels? Wish his wife could leave the kids so easily. They were a constant source of worry, nagged her skinny in fact.

He remembered his wife when he'd first met her. Pretty she'd been. Neatly dressed, too, and full of life. Look at her now. An old coat, her cheap stockings darned. She was ageing quickly. Furrows had appeared recently on a hitherto smooth forehead. He thought of of her fondly. Memories crowded in on him, memories of her, of delightful moments. But lately she had always been in a bad temper. So difficult to approach. And nagging: he couldn't bear her nagging. It was terrible, the way she carried on. "Bloody out-of-work, that's what you are! Works two weeks in the year—."

That always made him furious. "Damn you," he would shout, "can I help it? There's no work about, you know it's slack."

"Some slack," she would reply, "getting longer every year! Can't you try something else? But you're too lazy for that. You see the children going without boots and it does not worry you a bit! What have I got from my life!"

Then she would cry, and he'd storm out of the house and tramp the streets, cursing.

"Lazy out-of-work," he would mutter, "I'll give her."

But then his temper would subside and he'd feel sorry for her. Perhaps he was getting lazy. Long stretches of unemployment made you feel like that. He didn't look forward to finding work again. He knew he should, but he didn't. He dreaded work in a way. Bound to a depressing, often insanitary workshop for ten or eleven hours a day, he hated it. Going in when the day was just beginning and finishing when the day had vanished. Slavery, that's what it was. And when he started paying everybody and buying all those necessities they'd gone without for so long, there was precious little left for an occasional luxury. And how he had to work. Piece-work, his trade was. Getting paid per output. And you had to seat and hurry your guts out to keep pace with those you were working. And then the slack season came again, before he had a chance to get clear of debt. The same old round time and again. No escape—.

But he must not let it get him. He must not let it pull him down. He'd got to keep his head up. he had a part to play, if not in the immediate future, but sooner or later the time was sure to come. Things couldn't go on like this for ever. The masses must "tumble," in the end. Poverty wasn't a necessary evil any more. No one need be poor to-day. Things could be produced in such abundance, none need go short. Why, even now, when the actual productive work was done by less than half of the population, there was what was called "Over-production."

What a farce, what a tragedy! Over-production! Millions of people had never known what it was to have even their most elementary needs satisfied—.

He pulled himself up. There he was again, thinking about Social problems, when he could not solve his own. But his own were inseparable from the lot. He knew that.

It wasn't quite satisfactory though. His wife was right. He ought to see to himself first, himself and his dependents. They came first. They were his own, individual responsibility. Why should he be concerned with the others, those dull-witted, stodgy, lethargic fools. They weren't concerned with anyone but themselves.

And when you tried to explain to them, enlighten them, they weren't even interested, thought you cranky. Why should he care then? He'd turn his back on them, blast them. They were not worth it—.

But he knew he would not do that. Once you knew, once you understood, there was no turning back. Something inside you, something stronger than your immediate material interests, drew you back into the struggle. There was a fascination about that battle for Workers' Freedom, fatal though it might be for him. No escape, it was Destiny.

His head sunk still lower, with dull eyes he stared down, his lips moving soundlessly: "It's no use—. I can't get away from it."

"Why did I ever get to know about Socialism"? he thought; "I'd have been better off without it—."

A feeling of despair settled on him. He was through, he had no more strength left to carry on—.

But he knew that when it came his turn to speak to-night at their usual street-corner meeting he would be there and mount the platform again. And then he would talk, haltingly at first, and later, when he had warmed up, he would shout to overcome the noise of the traffic.

And there he forget everything, his troubles, his wife and his children, all was forgotten, as he poured out words—, biting, flaming words; all his bitterness welled up in him. It was a glorious forgetfulness, it made him feel a different person, important—he mattered after all. He was a fighter for The Cause, the greatest cause the world had ever known. And what did he care about his poverty! Greater men than he had sacrificed themselves in the Struggle.

And who knew, perhaps The Day was not so far off, the day of Victory, of Freedom.

"Come along there, you're holding up the line," someone shouted. Mechanically he moved forward.

"Ten forty-five only; show your cards," bawled the policeman.

Sallowface disappeared slowly through the door.

Sid Rubin

Too right-wing (2001)

Book Review from the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reasons To Be Cheerful. By Mark Steel, Scribner, 2000.

"Shame he's a trot", was the recurring thought permeating through my mind as I read Mark Steel's otherwise pleasurable Reasons To Be Cheerful. Packed full of anecdotes and witticisms about his twenty years as a political activist, it's something any long standing Socialist Party member can relate to.

Throughout the book, Steel clearly comes across as someone who is genuinely moved by the horrors of global capitalism but unfortunately this potential socialist joined the anti-working class Socialist Workers Party which is an integral part of capitalism's left-wing.

After rejecting the Communist Party for being "too right wing", the main attraction of the SWP was that one did not have to suffer the indignation of defending the USSR as it was "state capitalist" - a theory pioneered in this country by the Socialist Party. Of course, it would be asking too much for any recognition but it is a shame that Steel's political development ended so prematurely.

From here we are taken on an amusing tour of some of the most significant political events of the last two decades of which Steel played "an extremely minor role". Highlights include getting caught up in the Brixton riot - returning to his boring office job to tell his politically uninitiated colleagues that he had got up to "nothing much" at the weekend and his recent Socialist Alliance candidature for the Greater London Assembly where he feared he would hear the words "Mark Steel - 103".

Such jollities notwithstanding, Steel continually spouts leftist poison such as equating socialism with full employment and referring to "old" labour's "socialist clause four". Not surprisingly, he does not even mention the SWP's non-existent internal democracy nor the fact that they intend to preside over a one party state. Even so, if you fancy some light political reading which gives the occasional belly laugh. you will not be disappointed.

Dave Flynn

Letter: 'Not Socialist enough' (1965)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Sirs,

Today I listened to a SPGB speaker at the Mound, Edinburgh's centre of informal political discussion. This speaker criticised and denounced the whole British Labour Party in politics as well as its whole organisation. Why? Because it is not Socialist enough, he argued.

Now, I gather from your aims, published in the Socialist Standard that you are for political as well as economic democracy. The only means of political democracy is an elective, representative house, and this means "politics" in its most common meaning.

This is the stumbling block—temporary though it is—to the progression of Socialism from the direction of the Labour Party. It is all very well for the SPGB to criticise the Labour Party but in our political democracy, Socialism must at times be suspended for reasons of political expediency. Otherwise Socialism in politics is crippled, and the day for which we struggle no nearer.

This is the reason for the Labour Party's slow, actual movement leftwards. In theory it is as Socialist as your Party, but for the fulfilment of and the progress towards the Socialist aim through the machinery of politics, its progression must be necessarily slow.

The SPGB does a great job. It must be constantly winning supporters if not members, of the Socialist cause. But it would be mistaken of you, I think, to challenge the Labour Party in politics. We must have a united British Socialist movement, for this is the quickest way to success. The SPGB's purpose should be to won members and supporters, and to influence the Labour Party policy in all its aspects. Political rivalry is the quickest, surest way to Socialist disunity—rather the quicker path of Socialist unity to our common goal.

Of course one can criticise Labour short term  and current policy, but your speaker implied that he and you disagreed with Labour's long term, overall plan. What are your views?

Fraser Grigor

Edinburgh, 10.

Reply:

Of course our speaker "criticised and denounced the whole British Labour Party". Why should he do otherwise? The Labour Party is more a Socialist organisation than the Conservatives or Liberals. It seeks votes on a programme (long term and otherwise) of administering and reforming capitalism and must therefore earn our condemnation as much as the others—including those leaning "leftwards" like the so-called "communists".

If our critic thinks we are being unjust, it is up to him to produce evidence that the Labour Party is Socialist; all we can say is that we have studied the Labour Party for the well-nigh sixty years of its existence, and it is obvious that the membership have not the foggiest idea of what the word Socialism means. Mr. Grigor thinks that Socialism must be suspended at times for reasons of political expediency, which is condemnation enough of the Labour Party's activities when it is remembered what over half a century of "suspension" has meant in terms of working class misery and the horror of two enormous wars (both Labour supported).

Incidentally, it amazes us how, even after only a short dose of the present Labour administration, our correspondent can think that they have the slightest interest in a classless, moneyless world of common ownership and democratic control. Imports and exports, wages and prices, god and dollar reserves, etc.—these are their obsessions. They are in fact up to their necks in the mire of capitalism.

We are told—and how many times have we heard it—that we should not challenge the Labour Party, but try to influence its policy instead. Presumably this means we should act as a ginger group, either boring from within or nibbling from without, but for what earthly purpose? As members, we would run the risk of expulsion and either way we would earn the hostility of the Labour rank and file. Certainly we would stand no chance of swinging the organisation over to Socialism—we might just as well try our luck with The Primrose League.

Our party learned this lesson from its inception, when some of our founder members were expelled from the old Social Democratic Federation for trying to preach Socialist ideas. We saw then that a Socialist Party must be completely independent of and hostile to all other parties, and must have Socialism as its sole aim. Only in this way have we been able to keep the idea alive—not an easy task and one which has not been made any lighter by the confusion and misunderstanding caused by the Labour Party.

Socialism is the only answer to the problems of the world today and we work ceaselessly for the time when the working class of the world will unite to achieve it. Far from agreeing that it should be shelved for any reason, the need for it grows more urgent with every passing day.

Editorial Committee.

Mixed Media: The Ayn Lady (2015)

The Mixed Media Column from the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Ayn Lady written and performed by Emma Kilbey, with Lennard Sillevis was produced at the Oval House theatre in Kennington, South London last year. Kilbey and Sillevis play three roles each: as Barker and Larkin, 'objectivist' management consultants attempting to crack through the Russian-doll layers of Ayn Rand, also as Ayn Rand and her husband Frank O'Connor and also as Rand apostles Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. Kilbey is mesmerizing in all three roles.

Rand is notorious as the author of Atlas Shrugged which promoted her 'objectivist' philosophy which boils down to: individuals need to pursue their own self-interest and their own happiness, that is their moral duty. She was anti-altruism, anti-self sacrifice, anti-welfare, big on laissez-faire capitalism, deregulation of the markets, and zero empathy. She wrote that the individual should 'exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself' and extolled egoism as 'the virtue of selfishness.' The play shows how personal relationships suffer in the absence of empathy when Rand and Nathaniel Branden begin an open affair with the reluctant permission of their spouses. Kilbey also includes statements from Tory politicians such as Boris Johnson and former prime minister Margaret Thatcher which resonate with Ayn Rand's philosophy.

One of Rand's apostles was Alan Greenspan who would later become Chairman of the US Federal Reserve 1987 to 2006. In the 1980s Rand became the Reagan administration's 'novelist laureate', and her ideas influence today's economic world stage. The Tea Party in the USA was described by Ben McGrath in The New Yorker as a collection of 'Atlas Shruggers', and in fact according to an American survey, Atlas Shrugged was ranked second only to the Bible as a book that had most influenced their lives.

Gore Vidal in his review of Rand's book New Intellectual in Esquire in July 1961 had warned that 'the muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead.' Vidal dissected Rand's rancid philosophy as 'attempting to give a moral sanction to greed and self-interest, and to pull it off she must at times indulge in purest Orwellian newspeak of the 'freedom is slavery' sort. She has a great attraction for simple people who object to paying taxes, who dislike the 'welfare' state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you're dumb or incompetent that's your lookout.' Vidal concludes that Rand 'has declared war not only on Marx but on Christ' and he believes 'altruism is necessary to survival.'

Anarchist Communist Peter Kropotkin in his work Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution concluded that cooperation and mutual aid are the most important factors in the evolution of the species and the ability to survive. Kropotkin wrote 'the mutual-aid tendency in man has so remote an origin, and is so deeply interwoven with all the past evolution of the human race, that is has been maintained by mankind up to the present time, notwithstanding all vicissitudes of history.' He also writes that in The Descent of Man Darwin 'pointed out how, in numberless animal societies, the struggle between separate individuals for the means of existence disappears, how struggle is replaced by co-operation, and how that substitution results in the development of intellectual and moral faculties which secure to the species the best conditions for survival.'

For Rand the best social and economic system for realising human potential is capitalism. But as the Socialist Standard pointed out in December 2010, it is a 'not really-existing capitalism, more a utopian vision of what a free market, laissez faire future might be like if only people acted rationally and according to their own interest, and the state got off people’s backs. Marx's Capital shows that capitalism, even when it is operating perfectly well, without corruption or unnecessary state interference, must necessarily produce misery and exploitation; and that the state, far from standing in the way of free markets, was an absolutely essential tool for creating and maintaining them.'

Steve Clayton

Obituary: William Logan (1984)

Obituary from the April 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with deep regret that we report the sudden death of William Logan—"Loge" to all who knew him. "Loge" was one of the founder members of Edinburgh Branch in 1968, and a driving force in its early dynamic days. He was an entertaining speaker and a prodigious literature seller. One of his greatest contributions to the Party was his interest in silk screen printing, which enabled Edinburgh Branch to produce their own inimitable posters, which sprang up all over the city. A visitor to one of our meetings in the late sixties, remarking on the number of SPGB posters he saw, thought that the cultural revolution had spilled over into Edinburgh; you could not turn a corner without seeing a poster. The death of "Loge" at the age of only 35 is a grievous loss; his enthusiasm, drive and humour will be sadly missed.

L. A. Craig

Edinburgh Branch

Materialism and ideas (1985)

From the July 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Historical Materialism is the reasonable view that new methods of production and forms of economic organisation arise, with appropriate ideas, as classes in communities seek to further their interests and satisfy their needs in given social situations. A contrary view was argued by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber denies the strong claim of Marx that social existence determines consciousness by illustrating how the ethos of capitalism predated capitalist society. He proceeds by focussing on certain religious communities in reformation Europe and particularly on Calvinists, as their doctrines were readily cast in the form of maxims governing daily activity.

The Calvinist maxims are varied, but two are crucial for Weber's thesis: that you should work hard and adopt an ascetic mode of life. Thus hard work and frugality as maxims led the early Calvinists to set up as entrepreneurs, exploiting the small force of free labourers, reinvesting most of their profits because their religion forbade them to dissipate wealth in personal consumption.

The general conclusion to be drawn from Weber is that an adequate account of the rise of capitalism must allow ideas to have a dynamic of their own, in conjunction with material factors. Weber is an eclectic compromise between materialism and idealism, favoured by liberal historians and sociologists.

Commercial divines 
Weber's position is that consciousness determined social existence — but only in the case of some Calvinists. The first difficulty is to explain why some Calvinists became employers and some did not. A general theory which holds that some people's actions are determined by their ideas and some are not, is clearly vacuous. Even if we allow the potency of ideas in a few special cases, there is still a contradiction at the heart of Weber's analysis; for those few whose actions were most determined by their ideas, were also those few who set aside their previous ideas to invent or accept Calvinist doctrines. So those whose actions were most strongly determined by their ideas were, paradoxically. those who were  not. Innovative ideas and cultural change are permanent puzzles on Weber's account.

The strong part of Weber's case is the interesting claim that ascetic protestantism and the Calvinist maxims of hard work and frugality helped to build up an ethos that lubricated the passage to capitalist production relations in several areas traditionally governed by guilds of craftsmen. If you ask modern capitalists for the source of their wealth they may say hard work and frugality and deny that they exploit workers. Weber argues not that this is now true, but that it was once, for a few divinely inspired commercial Calvinists of the seventeenth century

Religious revolutionaries
Unfortunately for Weber, Calvinists had maxims for conduct other than frugality and hard work and some of them do nothing to foster capitalism, or they have the opposite effect. Prime among Calvinist notions is the idea that believers must submit to the clerical authority of the democratic council of elders, who in the early days ruled that usury should be abolished. Moreover the history of two key tenets of early Calvinism is fatal to Weber's argument. The first is the idea of predestination: Calvinists were, at birth, already allocated their places in heaven or hell and their subsequent worldly activity (good deeds) were irrelevant as far as their final destination was concerned. Neither of these ideas remained unchanged as Calvinism and capitalism developed. This is the key to an understanding of the relationship between Calvinist ideas and rise of capitalism.

The early Calvinists were reacting against the luxury of the papal and royal courts, the great wealth of landowners and the monopoly power of trading centres like Venice. They drew up a code of life where all were levelled down to basic condition of uncertainty as to whether, in the eyes of god, they were of the elect of not. The rich were further levelled down to the poor by the injunction to work hard and live frugally, while the irrelevance of worldly activity meant that the rich could not buy places in heaven with their charity; the abolition of usury was a direct attempt to level differences between rich and poor. Round this off with the democratic election of the council of elders by all member of the church and a picture emerges of a small popular movement in revolt against feudalism, catholicism and the counter-reformation. The speeches of Calvin back up this interpretation, for he couched his theory in terms of revolution against the old order and was often wildly cheered in the reformed churches where he preached.

So the ground of the Calvinist church was one of the areas of consciousness in which people could identify their interests and fight for a society that would realise what they wanted. Explained in this way, the strong part of Weber's thesis collapses into the theory of Marx and historical materialism, while the subsequent history of Calvinism is even more illuminating.

The unknown power
The doctrine of the irrelevance of worldly activity to the predestination of the individual Calvinist was the first to undergo change. In the course of a century the faithful came to look on success in world activity as a sign that they were of the elect. As Calvinism and capitalism evolved there was great concern with the acquisition of wealth on the part of those whose ascetic moral code did not permit them to dissipate that wealth in consumption. Thus, if Weber's account were unmodified, the conditions which fostered the most rapid accumulation of capital during the rise of capitalism (wholesale enclosures, lengthening of the working day, speeding up of production -  and the enforced degradation of people into labourers dependent on employers) would be an unlooked-for consequence of a church which came into existence with the intention of democratising religion.

So, even if Calvinist ideas did promote the growth of capitalism, they could only be said to do so quite opposite to the way intended. For the early Calvinist father would have been appalled by the rampant exploitation in the early years of the industrial revolution. Yet Weber asserts that capitalism is the accidental consequence of those who cherished Calvinist maxims. A much more plausible interpretation of this whole business is possible of religious ideas are relegated to their proper place.

Calvin's original doctrine of predestination, having become theologically insignificant, was corrupted through the desire of the faithful to give cosmological significance to what they were already doing. The wealth they were busily acquiring was given a religious rationalisation and made into a sign that they were of the elect. But feeble though this rationalisation is, much can be done with it if it is stood on its feet in the ground where it emerged.

In the uncertain conditions of early capitalism, before market patterns became established, traders were bewildered by events. At one time they threw piles of commodities onto the market, saw the lot purchased and made handsome profits; at other times nothing was saleable. So the Calvinists among them reasoned the social situation into their religion. The following quotation expresses the relationship between the ideas of ascetic protestantism and capitalism more clearly than Max Weber ever did:

Calvin's creed was one fit for the boldest bourgeoisie of this time. His predestination doctrine was the religious expression of the fact that in the commercial world of competition success or failure does not depend upon a man's activity or cleverness, but upon circumstances uncontrollable by him. It is not of him that willeth or of him that runneth, but of the mercy of unknown superior economic powers . . .

(Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol.3, p.104, Moscow, 1973)

The history of Calvinism illustrates how those who now advocate the reform of religious, political or social institutions should beware. The most sophisticated reforms may be turned against their advocates by the operation of an incorrigible social system.

Calvinists may have helped bring capitalism into being; we have to bring it to an end.

B. K. McNeeney

From the WSPUS Radio Series: The Yom Kippur War (1973)

From issue number 6 (1973) of The Western Socialist

There are several ways of looking at a problem, depending upon one's point of view. Take an example such as the latest Arab-Israeli War, the so called Yom Kippur War. The case for the Arabs rests upon their assertion that Israel is a nation of Europeans and Americans that has taken possession of Arab territories in the Middle East and has dispossessed and driven Arabs from their former homes. Further, that the present nation of Israel should be abolished and a new, secular state instituted that would give equal authority to all resident peoples regardless of religion. At least that is their story. 

The Israelis and all who support them, on the other hand, argue that the Jewish people have a right to exist as a nation; that their homeland rightfully must be located in what is called the Holy Land; and that the State of Israel must continue to exist. They insist that this is all they ask and that if their borders have expanded beyond the original ones of 1948 this is not because of imperialist activity on their part but because of Arab defeats in the previous wars against them and the need for Israel to maintain buffer territories against further Arab aggression. And that is their story. 

There are, to be sure, variations on this general theme. Those who see the Arab world - at least that part of it which proclaims itself socialist - as a Third World progressive force against the capitalist west and the so-called communist bloc in the east are able to see through Israeli hypocrisy and correctly view it as a puppet of U.S. Imperialism. The friends of Israel, on the other hand, and there are many professed socialists among these, too, see the Arab nations as mere puppets of the Soviet Union and a force for reaction, rather than progress. 

The main problem with most of the analysts is that they fail to see the entire picture because they are either ignorant of the fact that society is divided into rival economic classes or, knowing it, fail to apply such knowledge in this instance. There is no homogeneous Israeli people with common interests. Nor is there an Arab people in that sense. The Israelis are divided on the basis of a tiny owning class and a vast class of propertyless wage slaves and there is not one single nation in the Arab bloc - nor any place else in the world - where the same division does not exist, In the Arab world there are even conflicts among rival national ruling classes that pit them against one another in open warfare. 

True, in a large sense, all of the nations of the Middle East are puppets of one or the other of the super powers despite the clout same of them carry because of their oil deposits. After three earlier wars and now this latest one, it should be apparent that neither Israel nor any of the Arab nations can afford to carry on late 20th Century warfare without continual supply from the U.S.A. or the U.S.S.R. And it is equally apparent that neither the U.S.A. nor the U.S.S.R. is ready to relinquish control of the strings. But this in no way justifies the argument that the workers in the Middle East, or any place else in the world, have any real stake in saving Israel from the Arab nations are saving any of the Arab nations from Israel. 

For about three quarters of a century the Zionist movement has pleaded the case for a Jewish Homeland as the answer to the problems of Jewish working people everywhere. After 25 years of this Homeland, those who have settled there have been subjected to continuous warfare, violent "incidents," and continuing poverty - unless they happen to have friendly and wealthy relatives. Arab nationalists have given and still give out the same nonsense to their working people. The World Socialist Movement has but one answer: 

Workers of the world unite far world socialism. You have a world to gain.

Greasy Pole: Hoey Hoo-Hah (2006)

The Greasy Pole Column from the April 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why does she stay in a party which, she says, imposes policies it was not elected on?

Say what you like about rebel Labour MPs, in most cases they are consistent – or should that be boringly predictable? Foundation Hospitals? Against. War on Iraq? Against. Ban Hunting? In favour. All tediously predictable. Then along comes Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, to upset the pattern. The big issue for Hoey – the one which has earned her the most publicity – has been her support for hunting which she demonstrated, on the day the “sport” was banned by Parliament, by riding out with the Beaufort Hunt. She says the ban is unenforceable, that it has actually made hunting more popular than ever: “It’s part of the British rebellious streak that as soon as something is banned it becomes more attractive”. Which raises the question of what she is doing in Parliament, where they lay down laws which ban all kinds of behaviour as a way of making them unattractive to even the most rebellious person. She has also said of the Labour Party : “They don’t understand the countryside” – as if there is a lot more to “understand” than that the countryside is basically the same as the towns and cities, with a class structure which condemns one class to work for their living in varying degrees of poverty and insecurity.

Vauxhall

It is also fair to ask what drives her to be the MP for Vauxhall which, in the London Borough of Lambeth and including Kennington, Stockwell and parts of Clapham and Brixton, is as far from what most people see as the “countryside” as it is possible to be. It is, in fact, one of the toughest and most disrupted parts of London. To ensure that everyone, including the long-suffering voters of Vauxhall, knew where she stood on hunting, Hoey took on the job of chairing the Countryside Alliance – an organisation which tells us it campaigns about rural poverty and the decline of the villages but which was mysteriously silent on these issues until the 1997 Labour victory brought the first ever real threat to hunting. It was unfortunate timing that Hoey announced her new, additional job on the day the police shot John Charles de Menezes – at Stockwell station, in her constituency. This ghastly event did not dampen the Countryside Alliance’s joy at her elevation to lead them, which they said they were “delighted” about. Not all the voters of Vauxhall felt the same: many of them, worried about the living conditions there and the shooting at Stockwell, expressed their angry surprise that their MP had the time to take on so much extra work when she manages to attend only 55 percent of votes in the Commons.

But Hoey’s record of rebellion extends beyond hunting. She is against foundation hospitals (although she was once in favour of hospitals trusts, which many traditional Labour people feared would be a first step in betrayal of the NHS), against student top-up fees, the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill, compulsory ID cards, the war on Iraq… She protests that it the others who are out of step, that the measures she opposes were not in Labour’s manifesto – as if it would have made any difference if they had been. And why does she stay in a party which, she says, imposes policies it was not elected on? Even the Tories are confused about her. In October 1996 the mischievous MP Giles Brandreth recorded in his diary that he plotted about her with Sebastian Coe:

“Why don’t we find someone to defect to us? We decided Kate Hoey was our prime target. We like her, she seems sensible, she isn’t valued by New Labour.”

And more recently a Tory MP in the Daily Telegraph showed that little has changed with her: “She spends more time in our division lobby than on the other side.”

Jowell

Quite what the fatigued electorate of Vauxhall think of the fact that they have elected a Labour MP who votes like a Tory will be apparent at the next election. Meanwhile they may take some kind of hint from Hoey’s assessment of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and her husband David Mills with their labyrinthine mortgages and offshore financial manoeuvres. Perhaps she is jealous of a more durable female rival but Hoey refused to acquiesce in the orchestrated campaign from Number Ten designed to discredit the exposure of Jowell as motivated by gender prejudice. She was one of those who wanted Jowell sacked from leading Labour’s campaign in the local elections, for; she “…grew up in a Labour Party that thought that talking money out of the country wasn’t a very loyal thing to do”. In fact the vast majority of the people of Vauxhall are not rich enough to practice that kind of “disloyalty”; as Hoey put it: “Most people have enough trouble just getting one mortgage”.

Before she joined the Labour Party Hoey was a member of an obscure Trotskyist organisation, which she later explained by confessing that “I didn’t have much contact with ordinary people. So I didn’t understand their concerns” (Brian Deer interview, Sunday Times Magazine 8 August 1993). After that embarrassing spasm she sat as a councillor in Hackney and Southwark waiting, with other hopeful future Labour stars, for the offer of a winnable seat. Hoey’s chance came when the sitting MP for Vauxhall, Stuart Holland, resigned from the Commons to take an academic job. Holland, who was a disciple of Tony Benn , was described by a fellow member of the Lambeth Labour Party as “…pitifully eager to acquiesce in whatever absurdities Lambeth Labour cared to expound”. Holland’s departure came as a relief to Neil Kinnock, tempered by the fact that the constituency party intended to replace him with Martha Osamor who, with her similar ideas, seemed to be no less of an embarrassment to the Labour leadership. So Hoey was imposed on a resistant local party as a “moderniser” – a word with a meaning we are all aware of now. She won the by-election with a majority of over 15000.

Sports Minister

Realising her ambition to be the first woman Sports Minister (she had a qualification in Physical Education, she had been Ulster high jump champion and Educational Adviser to a number of football clubs including Arsenal and Chelsea) brought Hooey up against the spin doctors of Downing Street. Against instructions from Alastair Campell she criticised the decision of Alex Ferguson (a special favourite of Blair’s) to withdraw Manchester United from the 1999 FA Cup, saying that the club’s supporters had been treated in “a quite shabby way”. She officially complained about the MBE awarded to Arsenal striker Ian Wright, because his behaviour on the field – shouting and swearing at other players and the referee – made him a poor role example. She lasted only a couple of years in the job.

And now, on the back benches there seems little more by way of a political career left for her. There is still her writing for the Daily Telegraph, there is chairing the Countryside Alliance and doing her abrasive best to upset her party as she goes into the opposing voting lobby. And of course there may be her memoirs, which should have the words Tally Hoey in the title. If she hangs on to Vauxhall there will be the job of ministering to the people there who, in their poverty, bad housing, crime and pollution, can be expected to be feeling distinctly unministered to. Like most rebels, Hooey will need to work at living up to her own image. Recently in the Daily Telegraph, she was described as wearing a Gucci watch and a jacket trimmed with fake fur. She did not miss this chance to boost her reputation for reckless confession: “The fur” she responded“was real. The Gucci watch was fake”, provoking a spokesman for the Trading Standards Institute to remind her of the realities of commodity society: “We deplore any public figure who seems to be celebrating the purchase of counterfeit items” he sniffed (which probably gained Hoey a few more votes in Vauxhall).

It was Oscar Wilde who once described Hoey’s favourite pastime as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”. We may wonder what enduring, scathing epigram he would have fashioned about a Labour Minister indulging in such “sport” after her party had made all those promises about building a sustainably better society. Like all other “rebels” Hoey relies on the deception that she offers something so fresh and different that it has not been thought of before. In Wilde’s absence let us sum up the futility of it all: the unmemorable in pursuit of the unpracticable.

Ivan

SPGB News Release - Corbyn (2015)

SOCIALISTS WARN OF DEAD-END FOR CORBYN BAND-WAGGON

Members of The Socialist Party of Great Britain have warned the public not to be taken in by claims that Labour Party leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn offers any alternative to austerity in Britain.

Campaigning in North London this week, Bill Martin, who stood for the Socialist Party against Corbyn in his Islington constituency earlier this year, said Corbyn was right to lay the blame for the slump on the economic system, but claimed he was “just a traditional Labour MP, who puts forward the case for state intervention in a capitalist economy: Harold Wilson 2.1.”

“The cause of austerity is not the Tory government, or the absence of a Labour one. It’s the profit system which causes boom and bust,” said Bill Martin. “Governments can only spend at the expense of profits.  Corbyn should know better.  It was his Labour Party in the 1970s that tried to spend it’s a way out of a slump and it didn’t work then.”

Joining him was Adam Buick, an editor of Socialist Standard magazine who commented: “There is a lesson in the failure of the left-wing Syriza government to end austerity in Greece.  While capitalism is in a slump it can’t be ended. It was an impossible demand.”

He said Corbyn and his supporters should “stop wasting time trying to reform the market system and instead join our campaign to replace the capitalist system of class ownership and production for profit by a socialist system of common ownership, democratic control and production directly to meet people’s needs. Only then will austerity be ended forever.”

Letter: Blacklisted (2015)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I am glad you found our book Blacklisted had value (Book Reviews, July Socialist Standard). With the announcement last month of the Pitchford inquiry’s terms of reference on undercover police officers, the point about calling for an inquiry is apposite.

One point I would raise (and Dave Smith may have a different view) is that we primarily set out to explain in detail the operation and effect of the construction blacklist. Part of that required putting that particular scandal in context – because it doesn’t arrive from nowhere – but this isn’t a comprehensive socioeconomic analysis and doesn’t pretend otherwise.

There is about half as much again that we left because it didn’t drive our key narrative. For instance there is more on how the unions operated that we felt, ultimately, sent us off course. This is a book to be read and distributed and campaigned with and used to inform and, yes, entertain.

So, I think to some extent your comment about not calling for the abolition of wage slavery is a criticism of something we never pretended we would do. And I don’t think every piece of work need have that call within it for it to be considered successful.

We are quite clear in the book that blacklisting is not an aberration but part of the mechanism of control deployed by corporations. We are explicit that the state is not neutral.

We are also clear that there are reservations about the reformist approaches adopted by the Scottish Affairs Select Committee and some unions in this matter. The debates on this are part of the story of blacklisting.

People may use the information in the book to support or undermine whichever political approach they like – but they can’t deny the scale, organisation and impact of blacklisting and that was our key objective.

I do hope we get more reviews which challenge us as yours has because it is only through debate that we can learn.

Phil Chamberlain, Associate Head of Dept for Broadcast and Journalism (acting), Bristol School of Film and Journalism

Rhymeating lion tamer (1978)

Book Review from the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

John S. Clarke: Parliamentarian, Poet, Lion-Tamer by Raymond Challinor (Pluto Press)

This little book, published a couple of years ago, is well worth reading containing, as it does, illuminating sidelights on the genesis of the British Communist Party and its later left-wing off-shoots.

Clarke was an extraordinary character, leading a colourful life as a lion tamer (he came of circus stock) and merchant seaman. He travelled all over the world but, although entirely self-taught, showed remarkable gifts as a writer and Scottish "rhymeater" in the Burns tradition. He gravitated to the Socialist Labour Party where his journalistic talents soon made him the actual editor of The Socialist during the first World War. With the advent of the Bolshevik seizure in Russia, Clarke was the first (with Willie Gallacher) to make the Moscow trip. Whereas Gallacher (a muddlehead if ever there was one) swallowed the Russian bait, Clarke refused to come back to England and, as editor of the Glasgow Scottish Workers Committee paper The Worker, wrote critical articles, exposed the unsuitability of Russian tactics in Britain and, above all, the lying, glowing reports sent to Lenin by the greedy job hunters of the British Socialist Party. "Information by the mass, specially preened, pruned, doctored and cooked by the officials of the old BSP was sent to Russia with the deliberate object of misleading the Bolsheviks as to the true state of affairs in Britain" he wrote.

This certainly did not suit the new Russian paymasters who, after buying up The Worker, promptly had Clarke sacked. He was the first publicly to denounce the absurdity of Lenin's tactics of supporting the Labour Party. Challinor claims to have "subjected all Lenin's statements about Britain to a close analysis" and to have come to Clarke's view. "Lenin's mistake was his belief that most British workers considered the Labour Party to be Socialist, and that this myth could only be dispelled by seeing it in office but, in fact, most British workers are aware the Labour Party is largely the mouthpiece of the Trade Union leaders, whose limitations have been known for many years. Hence Lenin's tactic was an unnecessary exercise, telling workers what they already knew," he writes. What a pity that Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Foot, Tony Cliff, Gerry Healey, Chris Harman and co., many of whom were still, up to a few years ago, urging workers to vote for the Labour Party, did not know what "most workers knew". We would have been spared the rubbish of WRP, RWP, Big Flame, IMG etc., "New CP", "Old PLC." Chinese Leninists and so on.

Clarke was persuaded by the Glasgow ILP (Maxton and co) to run for Parliament. He was elected, sat for Maryhill for two and a half years and, to his, credit, chucked it up in disgust!

Borrow the book from the local library, like I did.

Horatio 

The "Friends" of Scottish Workers (1945)

From the April 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the working class was granted the vote there has never been a shortage of busy-bodies who—hand-on-heart, have declared their ardent sympathy and interest in workers' problems.

When elected, of course, the workers become the "constituency" and each M.P. "looks after his constituency" and looks ahead to the next election. W. Gallacher, A. Woodburn, D. Kirkwood and other Parliamentary luminaries are engaged at the moment—amid other equally laudable pursuits—in pressing the post-war claims of Prestwick Aerodrome. All three are campaigning for the "Forth Road Transport Bridge and have endorsed Hector McNeil, Labour M.P.'s efforts to modernize the Clyde so that the largest ships can be docked at Greenock and Glasgow"

Other Scottish M.P.'s—with an eye on their constituency—are eloquently expatiating on Scottish needs and problems. The "Daily Express," February 15th, gave considerable space to a report of a Parliamentary debate on a Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Bill. Thos. Johnston—the mover the bill said: "In the Tradeston division of Glasgow, for example, there are 127 houses or more than 700 persons to the acre." He said: "The measure won't bring a new Jerusalem to Scotland, but would assist local authorities to deal with problems." In short, a confession of impotence unuusal in its frankness. In the came report there is a gem of a phrase coined by Campbell Stephen, I.L.P., M.P.:— "We in Scotland have had a raw deal. Our association with England has not given us an opportunity to deal with housing and industry." Characteristically, however, W. Gallacher, M.P., capped the lot with "Effete Sassenachs were incapable of dealing with the planning problems which confronted them in Scotland and in consequence the Sturdy Scot had been bound hand and foot and dragged behind them in this miserable bill." He then went on to talk about the class war, which, he said, had done a thousand times more damage that the War.

Have the Scottish workers any doubts that Gallacher, Woodburn, Campbell-Stephen and Co., are really interested in working class affairs? Could they have?

Those of them who have, however vaguely, identified Socialism with an international outlook will be bewildered at Gallacher's talk of "effete" Englishmen and "Sturdy" Scots, particularly in view of his later and inexplicable reference to a class war.

They will think of "effete" "Scots," who bide here in Scotland for the "Glorious 12th" and "sturdy" Englishmen who "carry hods" here all the year round.

Supporters of the "Socialist" I.L.P. should feel uneasy about Campbell Stephen's "Our association—hasn't given us an opportunity."—They will, or should wonder who "Our and us" means and conclude that if it was Scottish workers—that is was Capitalism rather than association with England that had been and still is the source of working class problems.

The England, Irish, Welsh and American capitalists with investments in Scottish aviation, building, shipping and transport will applaud the efforts of the Scottish Communist, Labour and I.L.P. M.P.'s.

Kirkwood has already earned the title of "M.P. for John Brown's" among Clydeside workers: now it will be Woodburn "M.P. for Scottish Airways," McNeil "M.P. for Clyde Trust" and Gallacher "M.P. for Arrols and Wimpey's."

What all this has to do with the interests of the working class in Scotland no one knows. Perhaps the M.P.'s could tell us?

It certainly does not require genius or a microscope to perceive that Scotland, like every other country, has a population which is divided into a majority who are non-owning workers and a minority who are non-working owners. And that after centuries of joint development with England that all means of producing wealth are owned and controlled by large concerns whose shareholders are spread throughout Britain and the rest of the world.

Just as certainly it does not need extraordinary intelligence to know that workers in specifically "Scottish" concerns merely receive in wages enough to continue working—barely enough, as for workers everywhere.

The Scottish workers don't have to attend a University to know that the ruling class of Scotland since the days of the Highland "clearances" referred to by Marx in biting terms in "Capital" (Vol. 1), are any less brutal and avaricious than their English counterparts. Or do they?

Thos. Johnston's burning indictments of the Scottish ruling class make curious reading nowadays when he is Secretary of State for Scotland and seems to be on terms of easy familiarity with the present scions. The same remark applies to old copies of the "Forward" during his period of editorship.

There is a story told by John S. Clarke regarding Lenin's estimate of Gallacher in which he described Gallacher as a "_____ fool"; a story which Gallacher repudiated indignantly and inexplicably as "an insult to Lenin." Whether the story is true or otherwise is unimportant but at least reflects a view of Gallacher, increasingly common, among workers with memories and intelligence.

The ability of the Gallachers, Johnstons, Maxtons, Kirkwoods in getting away with their anti working class nonsense and buffoonery rests on the—as yet, political ignorance of the Scottish workers.

Their political and social interests—like their fellows everywhere—are opposed to those of their masters and does not lie in schemes which will enable their employers to wring yet more surplus value from their skill and energy.

The political power that enables the privileged class to retain their social privilege is vested in control of the machinery which has its centre in Westminster.

This fact enables the Scottish, English and Welsh working class to co-ordinate their task of intelligently wresting this supremely vital control of political machinery from the hands of their class enemies—the masters; a co-ordination which has a fit and ready instrument in the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The duty of the Scottish workers—like the workers the world over—is to-day—not tomorrow—to attempt an understanding of the basic nature of their problems and having done so, to organise in the Socialist Party democratically to take over power to establish Socialism.

Capitalism in Scotland, in England, America, Germany, Russia, in every country in the world produces the same set of problems to workers—poverty, unemployment, insecurity, war, and so on.

These problems arise with sublime impartiality as to forms of government, climate and previous political history, they arise in democracies and dictatorships in the two hemispheres and in big and wee countries.

The Socialist analysis and solution is international in scope and outlook and the only way in which the Scottish workers can assist their fellows in India and Greece as elsewhere is to study, understand and organise for Socialism. As they do so, the boloney of the Labour, I.L.P. and Communist M.P.'s will become clearly apparent. "Our" problems are the problems arising from the capitalist nature of Society which is now world-wide and the solution for "us"—World Socialism in which wealth will be produced, controlled and enjoyed by all.

Thomas Anthony.

Voice From the Back: Too many people (2015)

The Voice From the Back column from the August 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Too many people?

While only 59 percent of lay respondents believe that a population boom will become a problem, 82 percent of scientists are concerned about overpopulation (goodtherapy.org, 6 July). Is the world overpopulated? Socialists are convinced there is good evidence to the contrary. Dr. Paul Ehrlich recently opined that women should not be allowed to have as many babies as they want as this is akin to letting everyone throw as much of their garbage into their neighbour's backyard as they want. Does he or most of the scientists surveyed, no doubt seeing this 'problem' through a capitalist lens, not know that half of all food is thrown away or that we could all move to New Zealand and experience a population density less than that of Manhattan?

Sultan Erdogan and his golden throne

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied (Today's Zaman, 3 July) that his gigantic presidential palace is fitted with gold-plated toilet seats. Should we believe him? A more interesting question is what would a socialist world do with the tens of thousands of tonnes of gold currently locked away in vaults? Well, some may take inspiration from More's Utopia and use gold to make bathroom fixtures. We would also have to decide what to do with Erdogan's 1,150-room palace, which was built at a cost of around €490 million when money still existed.

No nations

William Morris wrote ‘While theologians are disputing the existence of a hell elsewhere, we are on the way to realising it here: and if capitalism is to endure, whatever may become of men when they die, they will come into hell when they are born.’ Haiti is certainly one candidate for hell on Earth as in addition to natural disasters and the rule of the one percent, our class there has recently suffered from the attention of the United Nations and Red Cross. The former is responsible for the ongoing cholera outbreak, an epidemic which has killed thousands and hospitalised hundreds of thousands, as well as exchanging food and medicine with over 200 women and underage girls for sex. The Red Cross raised half a billion dollars and built just six homes leaving most of the population existing in shacks made of rusty sheet metal, and without access to drinkable water, electricity or basic sanitation. Now 'some half a million stateless Haitian-Dominicans face mass deportation from Dominican Republic in what's been called an 'ethnic purge.' Poverty-stricken Haiti has condemned the expulsion measures and signalled it is not equipped to deal with the security issues posed by a massive influx of migration' (Telesur TV, 1 July).

Let them eat Campylobacter

Nearly three-quarters of fresh supermarket chicken in the UK tested positive for a food poisoning bug. Campylobacter is the UK's leading cause of food poisoning and a year-long survey by the Food Standards Agency showed 73 percent of chickens tested positive for the pathogen, with one in five (19 percent) within the highest band of contamination (foodqualitynews.com, 3 July)

K.I.S.S.

Socialists are smart. We do not know the answer to life, the universe and everything, but we have the solution to war, pollution, and many other global 'problems'. We are members of the working class, smart enough to run society from top to bottom for the enrichment of the vestigial capitalist class. Until we learn better, even 'the smartest people in the world' will find 'problems of hunger and poverty are wickedly difficult' (grist.org, 2 July). D'oh! As long as capitalism remains so will its attendant 'problems'.

Looks like a duck

So-called socialist or communist states (actually a contradiction in terms) show the hallmarks of capitalism. State capitalist Venezuela and Guyana are in an uncomradely argument over resources:

’This particular border controversy covers an area of some 160,000 sq. kilometers (62,000 sq. miles), which signifies some three-quarters of the territory of Guyana, according to a decree signed recently by Maduro. For its part, Guyana claims that Venezuela modified its maritime borders to include the area in dispute, which includes territory where large petroleum deposits were recently discovered’ (Fox News Latino, 4 July).