The Rich Get Richer (1987)

Book Review from the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Rich Get Richer, John Rentoul (Unwin £4.95).

Who got the highest income from dividends in 1985/6? The answer is David Sainsbury, with over £13 million. And the table of the top ten dividend "earners" contains three other Sainsburys. That same year the highest so-called salary was paid to one William Brown of Walsham Brothers: £1,268,583. Lonrho boss Tiny Rowland had to get by on a salary of £392,285, though that was merely pocket money alongside his £8 million from dividends. The richest family in Britain is not, as you might think, Queen and Company, but probably one of the Grosvenors, Vesteys and (of course) Sainsburys, each of them worth over a billion pounds.

Such are among the figures and information provided by Rentoul, who gives a useful guide to the extent of inequality and to the background and life-styles of the parasitic super-rich. His main point, as the title implies, is that inequality has widened under the Conservative government, though any changes have surely been so small as not to affect the overall picture in any way.

In 1983, the richest 10 per cent of the population received 24 per cent of the total income, while at the same time 20 million people were living on or just above the degradation of the Supplementary Benefit level. With regard to wealth rather than income, the situation is rather different, with the top 10 per cent owning 53 per cent of all wealth. But the starkest contrast is seen by taking even smaller figures: the top one per cent own 21 per cent of total wealth, and an estimated 20,000 ultra-rich own four per cent.

Rentoul claims that there are not two nations nowadays, but three: the "haves", the "have nots" and the “have lots". He argues that (before Thatcher took over) there had been for 50 years or so a trend towards greater equality, with considerable proportions of wealth being transferred from the top one per cent of the population (who had three-fifths of personal wealth in the 1920s) to the remainder of the top half. The bottom half have stayed where they were, owning virtually nothing. He suggests at various points that the "haves” (or "middle class") have many shared interests with the "have lots" rather than the "have nots".

But the overwhelming majority of these "haves" are members of the working class who, like all workers, rely on the sale of their labour power to live and who would be able to survive for only the shortest of periods without working for wages. The altered distribution of wealth does not mean that the members of the capitalist class (those who live off dividends and so on) have become less rich in absolute terms - far from it; it simply reflects the growth of "home ownership". But "owning" a house does not take you out of the working class. Nor is there any significance in the fact that a larger proportion of the population than ever before own shares. Most people's shareholdings are tiny and the top one per cent of the population own three-quarters of all privately-held shares.

We need not dwell on Rentoul's reformist ideas for eliminating poverty, which leave untouched the class monopoly of the means of production. But his book contains useful information to counter the ideas of anyone who believes that the idle rich don't really exist.

Paul Bennett

The future for South Africa (1994)

Editorial from the April 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party has always strongly supported struggle against class and racial oppression in South Africa. We welcome the trend towards democratization of the political process in that country. It is an important step on the road towards genuine liberation for the great majority.

At the same time, however, we are all too aware of the risk of political complacency, born of euphoria. More than ever, now is the time for questioning, for a frank and honest debate about the future. The cultivation of illusions today will sow the seeds of disillusionment tomorrow. In a country where racism and reaction are still in the wings, the abolition of apartheid notwithstanding, this is a risk fraught with danger.

So there is nothing to be lost by constructive and tolerant criticism, and much to be gained. Mistakes made now could prove difficult, if not impossible, to undo later.

There are still some on the left in South Africa who cling to the illusions of a now discredited Leninist ideology. At the time of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Socialist Party stood virtually alone in declaring its opposition to the Bolsheviks on genuinely Marxist grounds.

We predicted then that that revolution would usher in, not socialist emancipation, but the brutal dictatorship of a state-run capitalism. Though scorned at the time for sticking to our principles, rather than courting popularity for its own sake, events since have thoroughly vindicated what we said then.

On the other hand, the collapse of the state-capitalist model of economic development has prompted many in the liberation movement to openly embrace the market. But the politics of so-called "economic realism" are similarly doomed to failure.

Attempts to "woo big business", to make common cause between the interests of capital and those of labour are bound to founder on the reality of class struggle. This should be particularly obvious in a country like South Africa.

The legacy of massive structural inequality cannot begin to be tackled through the market mechanism which works to concentrate wealth in fewer hands, be these black or white. Between the hammer of the state and the anvil of the market, the working class will continue to suffer rampant exploitation and grinding poverty.

It does not have to be like this. There is an alternative which, in fact, has far more in common with the best traditions of African communalism, and which looks beyond the state or the market for the real emancipation of the great majority.

There can be no national solution to the struggles of workers in South Africa because capitalism is itself international. Their struggles are closely linked to the struggles of workers here in Britain and elsewhere; our fate is bound up with theirs.

The Socialist Party therefore urges our fellow workers in South Africa to seriously consider the socialist alternative.

What we seek cannot be brought about by putting our trust in leaders, however enlightened; it must arise from the self-organization of ordinary people, conscious of that alternative, and determined to make it a reality. Together, we can make it a reality. In so doing, we will have nothing to lose but our chains; we have a world to win.

The Easter Rising, 1916 (1966)

From the April 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

An account of the famous Easter Rising, fifty years old this month, from a member of the World Socialist Party of Ireland

On Easter Monday fifty years ago, a group of men stood on the steps of the General Post Office in Dublin.

Their leader, Patrick Pearse, read out the proclamation of the Establishment of an Irish Republic. This was one of a series of incidents which startled Dubliners on that Easter Monday morning, when columns of uniformed and armed men took control of several buildings in the city. The rebellion was being carried out by members of the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army.

After getting over the initial surprise, the British Military Authorities counter-attacked, and Dublin became the scene of bitter fighting. The Rebels resisted all attempts to dislodge them from their positions until a gunboat sailed up the river Liffey and opened concentrated shell fire on the G.P.O. By Friday night the Post Office building was on fire and untenable. On Saturday, Pearse surrendered.

Courts martial were immediately set up to try the rebel leaders. All those who had taken a leading role in the rebellion were sentenced to death by shooting. On 3rd May, the first three were executed, among them Patrick Pearse. The executions continued at regular intervals until protests from English newspapers such as the Manchester Guardian and such persons as George Bernard Shaw, persuaded the authorities to call a halt. In all fifteen of the leaders were shot; the remainder had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment. Among these who were executed was the labour leader and self-styled “socialist,” James Connolly.

Connolly was born in County Monaghan* and, while still very young, was taken by his parents to live in Glasgow, where he grew up. In Scotland, as a young man, he joined the Social Democratic Federation and the Independent Labour Party. Returning to Ireland, Connolly founded the Irish Socialist Republican Party in 1896. He applied himself in an effort to bring about a wedding, so to speak, between Irish Nationalism and his “Socialism.” At the International Socialist Conference of 1900, he claimed separate voting rights for Ireland and a seating at the Conference distinct from the British delegates. Later, he went to America where he took active part in the Industrial Unionist Movement with Daniel De Leon. In the meantime, in Ireland Arthur Griffith—the owner of a Nationalist journal, The United Irishman founded a movement called Sinn Fein. Griffith advocated Irish men and women buying only Irish manufactured goods. He claimed that this would create a demand which, in turn, would create a supply; this would grow into an Irish economy and then the Irish Nationalist members of Parliament would withdraw from the British Parliament and form their own National Parliament in Dublin.

At this time also there was a revival of interest in the Gaelic language and in Ireland’s past history among the young “intellectuals” of Dublin. Prominent was the young school teacher Patrick Pearse.

In the year 1910, Connolly returned to Ireland where he joined with James Larkin in the building of a militant Trade Union, the Irish Transport and General Workers Union. This Union catered chiefly for the unskilled worker. Conditions of employment and the wages of these workers were very bad.

The Transport Union began a series of lightning strikes in an effort to force better conditions from the employers, who in turn began to organise resistance to the Union's tactics. In 1913, the Chairman of the Federation of Employers, William Martin Murphy, owner of the Dublin tramways and the daily newspaper, the Irish Independent, launched an attack in his newspaper on some workers then on strike. The Union replied with a boycott on the Independent. Murphy began organising the employers against the Union. He led the way by dismissing union members from employment in the tramways, and had the workers of Jacob's biscuit factory locked out. When union members tried to prevent strike breakers from working the police joined in the fray. Two workers were clubbed to death by them during a public meeting in Dublin.

The full significance of the class-struggle became very apparent and, in Dublin, the voices raised against the strikers made some very strange bed-fellows. The Dublin Castle authorities with their police and “Orange Order” magistrates were joined by the Nationalist employers and the Roman Catholic hierachy in condemning the “anarchy” of Larkin and Connolly. Griffith, founder of Sinn Fein and one of Ireland’s leading “liberators” (at a later day), demanded that the authorities make use of the military and “drive them back to work at the point of the bayonet.” Great hardship was suffered by the families of those on strike or locked out. An appeal for aid was made by Larkin to trade unionists in Britain. In response a food ship was chartered by the British Trade Union Council and stocked at cost price by the Co-operative Wholesale Society. Workers in Britain offered homes to the hungry children of the Dublin workers. The first party of about three hundred children were on their way to a ship at the North Wall Docks, when they were turned back by a hymn-singing mob led by priests. These good Christians were not concerned about the hunger of these children, but about the state of their “souls” in the homes of the “godless” English workers. After lasting for about six months the strike and lock-out wore themselves out to an inconclusive ending.

The more extreme wing of the Irish Nationalists openly sympathised with the workers in their struggle. This created a loose alliance between this wing and Larkin and Connolly. As a result of the struggle the labour leaders decided that the workers should be organised as an army to protect themselves in future struggle. This gave rise to the formation of the Irish Citizen Army. To collect funds Larkin went to America, leaving Connolly in sole charge in Dublin.

The majority of the Irish people living outside Dublin were hardly aware of the labour troubles in the city. They were mainly concerned with the long awaited Home Rule Bill. This had been promised to the Irish Nationalist Party leader John Redmond by the British government for his support at Westminster. The passing of the Bill had been delayed by the organised resistance to it by, the leaders of the Orange Order in Ulster. These Unionists were led by a Dublin born barrister named Edward Carson. A covenant pledging resistance to Home Rule was signed by over half a million people in the North of Ireland. Also, a volunteer force of eighty thousand men, called the Ulster Volunteers, was raised and armed. When Carson threatened a march from Belfast to Cork the British Government grew alarmed; they issued orders for the British army at Curragh Camp to prepare for military duty in Ulster. This started a mutiny in which fifty-seven high ranking army officers tendered their resignations rather than fight against their “brothers” in Ulster. (A rate significant difference in attitude to that which they showed towards the workers of Dublin when they were fighting for better conditions). At this time John Redmond formed another volunteer force called the National Volunteers to Defend Home Rule. Then started a period of gun-running into Ireland as the rival factions began to prepare for civil war. At this time the Citizen Army started arming and drilling.

Before the strife could commence, a new and major event took place; World War I broke out. The Home Rule Bill was postponed and Redmond called for volunteers for the British Army “to fight for the freedom of small nations”. This caused a split in the ranks of the National Volunteers. A small section insisted that “England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity”. This section was led by a group called the Irish Republican Brotherhood and was a secret society dating from the days of the Fenian movement. The majority of the Volunteers stayed loyal to Redmond but the other section formed a rival force known as the Irish Volunteers. Connolly, speaking for the Citizen Army, said “The war of nation against nation in the interests of royal freebooters and cosmopolitan thieves, stands as a thing accursed.” He also declared, “We serve neither King nor Kaiser—but Ireland.”

As the war in Europe dragged on, Connoly’s paper The Worker's Republic began to grow more and more insurrectionary. In the meantime leaders of the Irish Volunteers laid their plans for an armed rising at the earliest opportunity.

In 1915 the body of an old Fenian leader, O’Donavan-Rossa, who had died in America, was brought to Ireland for burial. The extreme Nationalists staged a huge funeral through the streets of Dublin and a long oration was given by Patrick Pearse in which he stated, that “Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

To establish a German connection, Sir Roger Casement sailed for Germany. Connolly had by this time developed the idea that the masses in Europe would get tired of the endless slaughter of the World War and would rise in a popular revolution. He reached the conclusion that a revolt in Ireland would spark this off. Shortly before Easter Week 1916 a German ship carrying twenty thousand rifles left Hamburg for Ireland. At the same time, Casement left Germany in a submarine, also bound for Ireland. He landed on a lonely stretch of the Kerry coast and was arrested almost immediately. The rebels failed to make contact with the arms ship and after waiting about for three days the German ship was discovered by British naval destroyers and was scuttled by its crew to avoid capture.

Meanwhile Pearse and his fellow officers of the Irish Volunteers had taken Connolly into their confidence and told him that they were going to launch a rising on the Easter Sunday. They planned to do this under cover of a joint week-end route march and military exercises in conjunction with the Citizen Army. When they informed the nominal head of the Volunteers, Professor Eoin McNeill, of their intentions they gave him the shock of his life. The Professor decided that the Rising would fail and in order to prevent it taking place he sent orders to the Volunteers all over Ireland cancelling the week-end manoeuvres. This had the effect of preventing all Volunteers except those immediately under the command of Pearse and his followers taking part in the Rising. Connolly, who was whole-heartedly in favour, brought the Citizen Army fully into the Rising.

After the Rising, on May 13th, Connolly, who had had one of his legs amputated through wounds received in the fighting, was sat in a chair and shot by a firing squad.

The executions of the rebels was applauded in the House of Commons in London by John Redmond and other members of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Murphy, the employer’s leader, had called in the Irish Independent for the execution of Connolly.

To-day, fifty years after, all the Irish political parties, the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, employers and so on, are commemorating the event. They are staging a Nation-wide Three Ring Circus.

The plain facts about modern, “free” and Republican Ireland are—fifty thousand unemployed, several thousand more living under the spectre of unemployment; thousands of old age pensioners trying to live on £2 a week; over one million people who have had to emigrate to England to find work. Perhaps the crowning event for 1966 was the Free Trade Agreement which the Irish Government signed a short time ago with the “Ould enemy,” England!

Connolly claimed to be a Socialist and it is claimed by his present-day followers that he died in an effort to create a Socialist Republic in Ireland. But from his life we can see that he was not a Socialist, just another social reformer. He believed that once Ireland had achieved political freedom from England, social justice would follow. What the Easter Rising did lead to was the establishment of a new capitalist state and the emergence of a new native ruling class, holding sway over the lives of the Irish working-class.

The Irish Republican leaders blamed the dreadful social conditions in Ireland on British rule when in fact these conditions are part and parcel of the Capitalist system of society all over the world. To end them, calls not for a National revolution, but rather for the organising of the working- class all over the world, to replace Capitalism with Socialism.

Timothy O'Sullivan

* Connolly was in fact born in the Cowgate district of Edinburgh, Scotland, but the confusion may have arisen in the article because -  according to Connolly's Wiki page - ". . .  [Connolly] gave his place of birth as County Monaghan in the 1901 and 1911 censuses."

Who is for Freedom? (1988)

From the March 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Democracy is perhaps one of the most distorted concepts in modern political language. The ruling elite of almost every country will claim that the political system which they preside over is a democracy. Certainly the fact that countries such as the USA and Russia, who claim to have totally different systems of government, both also claim to be democracies does seem to make the concept somewhat difficult to define. Such difficulties are multiplied when a brief look at these two countries reveals that the democracy in the USA is limited to the opportunity to vote once every few years and furthermore the choice they have is between two parties which can hardly claim to be basically opposed to each other. In Russia the people are not even given this pretence of political choice, there being only one party to vote for.

The liberal individualist interpretation of democracy stemmed from the liberal tradition based on the “rights of the individual”. According to this theory political authority stems from individuals in society pursuing their own interests. The individual, it is argued, should be released from as many constraints as possible, the role of the state should be that of a referee guiding the competition of individuals in society. This concept of democracy developed in line with the economic theory of laissez-faire as it calls for a minimum of government interference in private and social life and individual enterprise and responsibility. Thus the whole theory is very much connected with, and places very strong emphasis on, private property rights.

This view of democracy, which in theory places much emphasis on individual rights and on liberty and equality, is in reality all about the liberty of the minority at the expense of the majority. Individual rights, or the lack of them and the influence people have over political decisions, stem from how society is organised at its economic base; how wealth is produced and distributed and at this level there is tremendous inequality. This point was emphasised over thirty years ago by Robert Lynd who stated:

Liberal democracy has never dared face the fact that industrial capitalism is an intensely coercive form of organisation of society that cumulatively constrains men and all of their institutions to work for the will of the minority who hold and wield economic power . . . (Robert Lynd, quoted in R. Miliband - The State In Capitalist Society).

The class in society who hold power, (those who own and control the means of production), have ultimate control over the lives of those who have to work for them in order to gain access to the necessities of life. Between these two classes there exists an unequal distribution of wealth and it is through their dominant position in the economic sphere that the owners of wealth production control political power. For supporters of liberal democracy to talk of individual rights and liberty and equality when in reality these can only be enjoyed by a small minority, is to degrade the very concept of democracy.

The pluralist conception of democracy is in many ways an updated version of liberal democracy, replacing the individual with the group. The pluralist theory argues that by organising themselves into groups people have more chance of influencing government decisions. Government policy is thus seen to develop out of a process of bargaining and compromise between different interest groups and the government is seen, in the main, as a referee to ensure that the participants play to the rules of the game. Supporters of pluralism believe that any form of direct democracy is an impossibility in modern industrial society due to its size and complexity; in modern society, they argue, it is not possible to involve large numbers of people in the decision making process and still achieve a consistent, coherent and stable policy making process.

But a group’s ability to turn a desire to act into reality must in the end depend on their access to economic resources. Influence is needed to be able to gain entry to government agencies, political parties and the media. Groups with these kinds of resources can be mobilised for political action but they are likely to be the ones who already wield economic power and who would therefore be already favoured by the existing set up. The only way such a system could operate on a democratic basis would be through the equal allocation of resources to all groups irrespective of their position in society. Within the confines of an economic system where the need to accumulate capital must override all other interests such an idea is completely utopian. Furthermore a fairly recent example of a conflict of interest between labour and capital shows that the state cannot be viewed as a neutral body. The 1984-5 miners’ strike from the point of view of capital was all about making that industry profitable. The fact that people needed coal to keep themselves warm is completely immaterial to a system dominated by the need to accumulate capital. The idea of keeping unprofitable coal mines open to provide employment is quite unthinkable. What in this dispute was the role of the state? Did it act as a referee between the two sides to ensure fair play, rather like a tennis umpire keeping his eye on John McEnroe? To the misguided supporters of pluralism we must point out that far from allocating the NUM equal financial resources, the same state which spent millions of pounds putting forward the interests of capital, in this case represented by the state controlled National Coal Board, through the courts relieved the NUM of hundreds of thousands of pounds of their funds and imprisoned many of their members.

In opposition to the pluralist theory of democracy, elite theorists put forward the view that all important decisions should be taken by a single ruling elite rather than through a process of competing interest groups.

Elite theorists argue that in advanced industrial society direct democracy is impossible; they have therefore replaced it with what they see as a form of representative democracy. However in the elite model, representative democracy itself has been substituted, as an elected elite appoint a second elite which becomes even more powerful. An example of this is the British parliamentary system where the leader of the party elected to form a government appoints the cabinet, which makes all the major decisions. In fact, in this example, this elite is appointed by one individual. Whether an elite is open or closed makes no difference in terms of democracy. For even if it is open it will only recruit from a section of society which has gone through an educational and socialisation process which will have conformed them to attitudes that are acceptable to the existing elite.

One point stands out above all others; until a society has been achieved where all men and women have free access, on the basis of self determined need, to the products and services to live a decent life free from want and thus stand in equal relation with each other, then democracy in its true sense is an impossibility. Therefore the basis of establishing a free and democratic society is a majority political and social revolution where people organise worldwide to convert the means of production and distribution from private or state ownership to common ownership, thus abolishing the class relations of capitalist production. Once democracy is an inherent feature of the material base of society, the level at which the means of life are produced and distributed, then a host of possibilities are revealed. We do not know what conditions a socialist society will inherit from capitalism or have any idea as to the level of technology at the time when a socialist majority has been established. In addition, at the present time, when socialists are in a tiny minority, it would be quite undemocratic to lay down in detail what a socialist society will look like. Rather we should consider the possibilities which flow from the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution.

Common ownership and production for use would mean that all members of society would have free access to all goods and services on the basis of self determined need. Co-operation would replace competition and coercion, people themselves would decide how best they could serve society. Alongside common ownership would run a system of democratic control, which would require that all information be freely available to all members of society.

To opponents of socialism, it is utopian, not allowing for “human nature”. However capitalism has made such a society practical by developing the means of production to the point where the potential exists to produce the necessary requirements of life in abundance. Socialism could use such potential, while production for the market acts as a brake on improving the society we live in. It has yet to be proven that humans are naturally greedy, selfish, and act out of only self interest. Indeed the evidence is that previous societies were based on communal ownership, where production, albeit primitive, was organised for the common good. The problem in forming a democratic society is not one of “human nature” but of human conditioning.

Ray Carr

A loose cannon on the gun deck of state (1987)

From the September 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fantasy of Rambo merged with real life as Oliver North took the stand during the Irangate hearings. Given the box-office success of the film it was perhaps not surprising that Ollie was such a hit with a sizeable proportion of the American people. According to opinion polls at the time, only 58 per cent of the population thought he was telling the truth (nevertheless a better credibility rating than his hapless boss, Ronald Reagan, who only managed to convince 22 per cent of people that he was levelling with them) but that was unimportant compared to his style and the image he projected.

After all here was the real life embodiment of countless celluloid all-American heroes. The super-patriot defending liberty and the American way against the ever-present threat of "communism": "I saw the idea of using Ayatollah Khomeini's money to support the Nicaraguan freedom fighters as a good one. I still do. I don't think it was wrong. I think it was a neat idea". The man of action who took it upon himself to personally defend America from the evil empire because Congress, the State Department, even the Pentagon and the CIA. were too clogged up with lily-livered, dithering bureaucrats to "get things done". The veteran of Vietnam who believed that loyal soldiers like himself had been winning the war but had been stabbed in the back by politicians in Washington, and were now suffering the same fate in Central America. The upstanding Christian and family man whose wife. Betty, is his "best friend" and who is able to resist the temptations posed by his attractive secretary. Fawn Hall: "Ollie North has been faithful to his wife since the day he married her". The controlled and disciplined serviceman with the penetrating gaze, who only hinted at the passion that motivated his actions by the catch in his voice as he spoke of his love of his country and by the misty look in his eyes as he told of the security system installed to protect his family from the terrorist. Abu Nidal. The defiant patriot who. while admitting to lying, shredding documents and engaging in cover-up, nevertheless managed to persuade people that he was doing it. not for personal gain but for the greater good: "I did a lot of things and I want to stand up and say that I'm proud of them". The man who was bewildered by the accusations now being levelled at him: "I realise that there's a lot of folk around that think there's a loose cannon on the gun-deck of state at the NSC. That wasn't what I heard when I worked there. I've only heard that since I left. People used to walk up to me and tell me what a great job I was doing". A man who was now prepared to vindicate himself by telling all: "I came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly. I am here to tell you it all". It was an impressive performance. But although this was real life we had, nonetheless, entered the realm of fantasy and myth.

Firstly there is the myth of patriotism; the myth that persuades workers that they have a country that is worth defending, fighting and even dying for. In fact the working class, world-wide, has no country. Despite differences of nationality, culture, race and language we share a common interest as workers. That potential for global working-class unity is constantly undermined by the propaganda that teaches us to regard “foreigners" as the enemy, whether in economic or military terms, and encourages us to give unthinking allegiance to a nation-state whether it is America, Britain, Russia or wherever, in which we have no stake and which is run, not in our interests but in the interests of the small minority who own and control the means of producing wealth and the weapons of destruction. It is these people who, by invoking patriotism through the use of national flags and anthems, uniforms and pageantry, persuade workers to go to war with each other, to maim and to kill.

The second myth is that of America as the "land of the free". Margaret Thatcher, in a recent visit to America, contributed to this myth when, in a pep talk to the American people, she described the US as "the flagship of freedom and she must sail into the sunset". The metaphor might have been a little obscure but the message was clear: Americans are a free people and only the American system — a combination of free market capitalism, the rugged individualism typified by Oliver North, and "democracy" — can protect that freedom and that of the western world from the evils of "communism". Oliver North apparently believed this myth to such an extent that he thought that any means — whether illegal or not, sanctioned by Congress or not — should be used since they were justified by the end.

But the American people, like workers everywhere, are not "free". They are chained by necessity to wage slavery, forced to sell their ability to work in order to live. Some are wealthy, many live in poverty and insecurity. None experience the true freedom that can only come when workers are in control of their own lives able to make decisions for themselves about all the things that affect their lives; when we work voluntarily for the good of the communities of which we are a part, rather than to profit the capitalist class. In this society of true freedom there will also be real democracy, rather than the sham that exists in America and other capitalist countries today, where workers are given the vote but that is the extent of their influence. Instead, power is handed over to politicians and leaders who, while paying lip-service to the idea of democracy, then engage in the kind of sordid political horse-trading that the Irangate enquiry has brought to light.

The third myth is that of the "hero" — the individual engaged in a selfless struggle, unconcerned by fears for his or her personal safety, to defend liberty, country and family. Oliver North played this part to perfection even though what he was actually talking about bore no resemblance to the myth. What he actually described was an ill-conceived (even in capitalist terms) plan to sell arms to Iran, even though America had only recently taken a stand against countries which supported international terrorism, in order to secure the release of American hostages and thus improve the political standing of the administration — nothing terribly selfless about that. At the same time the profits made on the arms sale (or "residuals" as North termed them) were to be used to fund the Contra guerrillas, by all accounts a ramshackle bunch of drug dealers, mercenaries and reactionary desperados. But North was not acting entirely from principled motives in this regard since substantial sums of this money managed to find its way into his bank account and apparently paid his grocery bills. Finally, the image of Oliver North, the hero, begins to look even more tarnished when we remember that his decision to come clean and tell all only came about because he was promised limited immunity from prosecution.

Oliver North's testimony contributed to a myth accepted by both the Senate investigation committee and a majority of people in America, who do believe that America is the land of freedom and opportunity, the best of all possible worlds, under attack from “communism". While the details of North's testimony — who knew what, and when — were examined, and questions were asked about the legality of some of his actions, no-one questioned either the system or the ideology that creates characters like Ollie. A system that concentrates economic, political and military power in the hands of a few people who use it to defend their interests both at home and internationally and an ideology that encourages belief in heroes — whether it's North or Reagan, Rambo or Superman. Many American workers no doubt believe that North was justified in engaging in illegal, covert actions, some may even regard him as a hero for precisely that reason, but North, the fantasy hero, and the actions of others like him, could lead American workers into a bloody war, whether it is in Central America or, as looks more likely, in the Middle East. (It would be irony indeed if the Arms North sold to Iran were now to be used against American ships in the GuIf). It is unlikely that even those who are attracted to the fantasy North represents would welcome the real life experience of another Vietnam.

Janie Percy-Smith

Man should matter most (1966)

From the September 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The recent years have been times of vigorous protest. The Bomb and World Poverty have been two issues which have sparked off great indignation and organisations such as CND and Oxfam. However, the ability of CND to sustain its enthusiasm has undoubtedly waned. CND has been an organisation built up around what seemed to be a simple answer to a clear-cut problem. On analysis, however, CND undoubtedly asked more questions that it could itself answer. Involvement in its activities was its own invitation to doubt and further criticism. CNDers became embarrassed by the irrelevance of their narrow protest, the Bomb, to the problem of war in general. Other questions they began to ask were—should they act politically, what form of political group or party should their protest take?

At the same time, members of Oxfam have been expressing their own doubts. Inevitably as the years begin to pass, the idea has begun to grow up that Oxfam cannot as a charity organisation begin to solve the problem of world hunger. These doubts were made clear at a recent discussion week held amongst young people at Sibford, Oxfordshire. As one speaker expressed it—“it’s no use feeding 100,000 beggars in Calcutta if next year you still have 100,000. You can't go on just handing round the rice bowl every day and changing nothing."

Also put up at this conference was the idea that Oxfam must adopt a political view. “The choice is crucial—to become just a fund-raking organisation or to accept that we're involved in social change and take steps to facilitate it. We've got to evolve."

The briefest glance at the enormity of the problem of world hunger compared with the efforts of such organisation as Oxfam is enough to show that these self criticisms are amply justified Two-thirds of the world's population have a diet inadequate to sustain good health. Even if aid to under-developed countries were to be increased a thousand times, a figure far beyond the most hopeful dreams of Oxfam, the basic cause of world poverty would not be touched.

But inadequate diet is not a problem which only exists in underdeveloped countries. In the industrialised countries of Europe and America, this kind of deprivation also affects such people as low-income workers and their families and old age pensioners. A recent enquiry by the London School of Economics found that 500,000 children in Britain were deprived. The constant references to the so-called richer nations tends to conceal the facts of poverty in western countries.

These then are the effects of the problem, and until the nature of the problem is defined it is impossible to begin to overcome it. The varying degrees of material deprivation from which the majority of the world's population suffer is due to the failure of world capitalism to provide for human needs.

World capitalism as the dominating system of production and distribution can never be rationally organised in such a way that it serves the needs of the community. Private ownership, economic exploitation and the distribution of commodities through a marketing system with a view to making profit form the barriers that prevent man from making the fullest possible use of his labour, technology and natural resources. This is the nature of the problem of poverty.

Any attempt to deal with world poverty within the framework of capitalist society is bound to fail, since it accepts all the pre-conditions of the problem. The priorities of capitalist society are privileged properly rights and the pursuit of profits.

This is not to say that man has abandoned himself completely to the anti-social values of property society, and the existence of such movements as Oxfam is evidence of this.

The dramatic pictures of starving children who are nothing but hollow-eyed walking skeletons, never lose their effectiveness in moving men to indignation. The tragedy of it all is that in the main, victims are appealing to other victims for charity. The truth is that the working communities of the so-called rich nations are preoccupied with their own struggles, and to appeal for money from men who are harassed throughout their own lives with the difficulties of supporting families and making ends meet is to illuminate the hopeless futility on which charity is based. It must he said that the activities of Oxfam run the risk of being quite ineffective in dealing with poverty, but at the same time, creating the general impression that something is being done.

The 15 million pounds per year private aid collected in this country, even taken together with the larger amount of overseas development aid made available by the government, is a refined irrelevancy in relation to the problem. The task is straightforward. Men mutt produce much more food. This is made to appear difficult because the attempts now being made are conditional upon a profit making system.

Oxfam are right to now question the effectiveness of their own efforts. They are right to begin to think that political action is necessary. But even now, will their ideas develop along useful lines? Some sections of Oxfam are now in favour of bringing pressure on the government to increase overseas aid. The economic difficulties of the government at present completely rule this out. But even if this were not so, no amount of overseas aid that might he practical on behalf of the British or any other government could improve the situation to any appreciable degree. The only effect of this kind of operation would he to further delay real solutions. Any idea that accepts the economic conditions of capitalism is self-defeating.

Inevitably, the idea of birth control has also cropped up. The ability of the so-called theory of over population to divert men's minds from the real causes of poverty seems inexhaustible.

We must constantly draw attention to the contradiction inherent within capitalist society. The problem of hunger cannot be isolated from world poverty maintained year after year by the economic barriers of capitalism. This is not a technical problem: it is not a problem of overpopulation. It is a question of the kind of social priorities that people choose to accept. If it is to be capitalism, it will be production and distribution geared to the private accumulation of wealth by a privileged minority. It will mean economic recessions, unemployment, the curtailment of production at a time when humanity desperately needs more wealth. It will mean that technology will be stifled by the limitations of investment programmes. It will mean that the price mechanism and the market will sometimes result in the stockpiling or destruction of food whilst people are starving. It will mean the waste involved in war and commerce.

If it is to be world Socialism, it will be the common ownership of the means of producing wealth. It will mean the free application of human labour to the earth's resources with the most efficient utilisation and further development of technology. It will mean a productive system built up on relations of social equality and adjusted to the idea that man matters most.

Pieter Lawrence

Letter: Division in Japan (1986)

Letter to the Editors from the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors.

Might I make one or two comments on Ian Ratcliffe‘s interesting article on capitalism in Japan (Socialist Standard, May 1986)?

Unemployment is said to be low in Japan, but it all depends on what you mean by "unemployed". Unemployment was reputed to be relatively low in France during the 1930s (for example, in 1932 there were 273.000 registered unemployed in France, compared to 2.817.000 in Britain and 5.580,000 in Germany). The point was that workers were only judged to be "unemployed" if they qualified for unemployment benefit. Since most workers without a job did not qualify, officially they were not "unemployed”.

Those who manage capitalism in Japan use similar methods to disguise unemployment. One technique among the many used is for companies to offload surplus workers and "set them up in their own businesses" (read "make them redundant”). It is no coincidence that 28.5 per cent of all companies in Japan are "one-man” or "family businesses" (compared to 8.6 per cent in the USA. for example). With a few pieces of machinery installed in the living room or garden shed, such workers engage in contract work (often for the company which formerly employed them) at piece-rates which often make it necessary to work for more than twelve hours per day. seven days per week, in order to survive.

Ian Ratcliffe mentioned the divisions which exist within the working class in Japan, but these are probably deeper and more damaging than even he implies. The media-created image of the Japanese worker who is guaranteed life-time employment and who receives a wide range of "benefits" from the company applies, at most, to about 30 per cent of the workforce who work for giant companies. (It is no coincidence that the rate of unionisation is 28.9 per cent, since trade unions are largely confined to this sector of the workforce.) The vast majority of workers are employed by small- and medium-steed companies, where pay and "benefits" are low. employment is insecure and unions are virtually unheard of. The results are that average wages in small companies employing no more than four workers are only 52 per cent of average wages paid by large companies employing more than 1.000 workers; bonus payments to workers in small companies are a mere 21.8 per cent of those received by workers in large companies.

Even within the giant companies, the workforce is divided. The main reason why large companies can guarantee employment to workers on the "permanent" payroll is that categories of "temporary" workers exist (some of them permanently "temporary"). Such "temporary" workers receive none of the "benefits" enjoyed by "permanent" workers, are not eligible for union membership, and have no long-term security of employment. Even for workers on the "permanent” payroll of giant companies (who are often regarded as an "aristocracy of labour"), life is far from rosy because for every one of them, there are plenty of less well-paid workers who are eager to step into their shoes, they can resist few of the demands which the companies make on them. To give just one example, most workers in this position dare to use only half of the average of 15 vacation days per year which are their due. The rest of their vacation allowance they give up "voluntarily".

As Ian Ratcliffe rightly makes clear, capitalism is a monstrous and degrading system wherever it is found. In Japan, as in all other countries, wage-earners find themselves manipulated, oppressed and exploited. The solution to the problems confronting workers in Britain certainly does not lie in aping the practices of Japanese capitalism. Rather, the solution to workers’ problems wherever they might be lies in a worldwide effort to achieve the objectives which have adorned the banners of the best sections of the Japanese working class: Chin Rōdō to Shōhin Seisan no Haishi ("Abolition of Wage Labour and Commodity Production").

Yours for communism.

John Crump 

Department of Politics 

University of York

Obituary: Prince Vallar (1948)

Prince Vallar
1888-1947

Obituary from the January 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrade Prince Vallar, of Glasgow Branch, died December 1st. Many Socialists all over the country knew Vallar’s sincere comradeship and unflagging devotion to the cause of the working-class. While he did not join the party until 1938 he was for many years before a practical and moral bulwark to the small handful of enthusiasts who kept socialist principles alive in Glasgow against frightening odds. He played a great part in the formation of the Glasgow branch in 1922 with his generosity and unfailing optimism. He sought no reward and was unassuming in his party work. He later had the keen pleasure of seeing his two sons and daughter-in-law become members of the large, virile branch which Glasgow is today. His wife and family have suffered an irreparable loss and the party has lost a staunch member. The working-class owe Vallar a debt, and he would ask that payment should take the form of ever-increasing struggle for the emancipation of the working-class.

C. C. Groves

The Passing Show: Dull and repetitive (1959)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Well-being Promoters, Ltd.

In an article in The Times (Oct. 30th) a discovery was announced which should receive widespread publicity. This is it: “ The purpose of industry is to promote the well-being of the nation." Those of you who thought the purpose of industry was to make a profit out of the labour of the workers in it were, of course, quite wrong. Shareholders do not invest money in a company in order to receive interest on it, but merely to promote the well-being of the nation. Those accounts one reads in the newspapers, of company meetings at which shareholders shout and jeer, baying for the blood of the chairman merely because the company is paying less interest than was expected, are merely flagrant cases of misreporting. What actually happens, it is now clear, is that the chairman comes in and says: "Dear fellow-shareholders, this year we decided that the well-being of the nation would best be promoted by paying our workers the full value of what they produce. This, unfortunately, means that we didn't get any surplus value out of them, so there is no profit, and there will be no interest paid out on the shares." The shareholders then give three hearty cheers for the chairman, sing “Land of Hope and Glory." and go out to queue for jobs at the nearest Labour Exchange.

At any rate, that’s what must happen if we believe the Times article.

Dull and repetitive

The author of the article is said to write ” from experience as foreman and assistant works manager." But even this apologist for capitalism feels compelled to write: "Ninety-nine jobs out of a hundred in factories even today arc dull, repetitive, often physically very tiring, and frequently dirty." Socialists have said this over and over again: but when a man who goes so far in defence of capitalism as to deny even that it is run for profit, when he says this about the conditions of factory labour, then it must carry all the more weight.

Second thoughts

"Yesterday's Enemy" is a recently-produced British film about the British army lighting the Japanese in Burma during the last year. A review in the Daily Herald (14.9.59) describes a sequence in it: —

A British captain  . . .  has captured an informer who, he believes, has vital knowledge of a forthcoming Japanese attack. He threatens the informer with death, but the informer thinks the captain is bluffing and refuses to talk. The captain picks two villagers at random and orders them to be shot. The informer still refuses to talk. The villagers are shot and then the informer breaks down. The captain has his information.

The captain follows up his murder of two innocent villagers by having the informer shot, as well.

Remembering the propaganda with which we were spoon-fed in the last war, about how we were lighting for decency and humanity against the brutality of the other side, you might think that nothing like this could ever have been done by anyone in the British army. But not a bit of it. Major-General A. J. H. Snelling, who was with the 14th Army in Burma said: “I believe incidents like this did happen during the grim retreat.” General Sir Douglas Gracey said: “I heard of similar incidents . . . These awkward situations did arise.” Major-General H. L. Davies said: “This film is absolutely real and authentic.” A fourth high-ranking officer. General Sir Robert Mansergh, was due to speak the film’s praises at its New York premiere.

Very honest of them, now, fourteen years after the war has ended. And no one alleges that war can he fought with clean hands. Bill why did the politicians and generals tell us throughout the war that all the brutality was on the other side?

Morality first stop

To alleviate the distresses of the Indian people alter the recent disastrous floods in India, the Minister for Labour sent out a special train on a “character-building tour.” The Guardian (19.9.59). It carried fifty Himalayan holy men, complete with live hundred disciples. The leader of the party announced: We are going to our countrymen with a begging bowl, but not to ask alms but a pledge to give up vice.” The cause of the floods, then, is revealed: the gods arc punishing India for its “vice.” But whose vice? The floods could hardly have been expected to catch any Indian princes or industrialists, who would have their private planes available, and some of whom in any case would be sunning themselves at that time on the Riviera. It must be the vice of the Indian masses which caused all the trouble. The gods appear to have taken the ruling class view that all misfortunes arc caused by the troublesomeness of the rank-and-file. This won’t surprise Socialists, who have realised for a long lime that the gods arc hand-in-glove with the ruling class.

Well, there it is. The Indian Minister for Labour has seen where the trouble lies. If only the Indian peasants can lay off the palm-wine on Saturday nights, next year the Brahmaputra may stay within its banks!

Alwyn Edgar

French Election - Will the "left" win? (1978)

From the March 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

This month’s french elections could result, if the Left wins, in a new government containing Ministers from the so-called Communist Party (PC). This would not be new, even for France, since there were PC Ministers from 1945 to 1947, but, if it comes about, it will represent the re-integration of the PC in France into normal capitalist politics, taking turns in running capitalism, from which they were excluded at the outbreak of the Cold War thirty years ago.

Compared with Britain, the French political scene offers a great variety of parties but they can be gathered together, and gather themselves together, into two broad groupings, the “majority” and the “opposition”. The majority—the supporters of the present government under Raymond Barre who together had a majority of seats in the outgoing National Assembly—is made up of the RPR (Gaullists), the Republican Party (of the President, Giscard d’Estaing), the Centrists (Christian Democrats), the Radicals (Liberals) and other conservative groups. The opposition is made up of three parties who in 1972 signed a common government programme, the famous Programme Commun: the so-called “parti socialiste” (PS), led by Francois Mitterand, the PC led by Georges Marchais, and the Left Radicals.

This Programme Commun, on which these three parties fought the last general elections in 1973, and lost, is a document promising a long list of reforms ranging from raising the minimum wage to nationalising the banks and 9 big industrial groups. Things had been going smoothly for the Left—they made big gains in last year’s municipal elections—until, at the suggestion of the PC, they tried to update the 1972 programme. Talks on this broke down last September, with the PC accusing the PS of going back to its old policy of seeking to manage the crisis at the expense of the workers and the Left Radicals in effect accusing the PC of wanting to go too far towards State capitalism instead of merely trying to tame private capitalism as envisaged in the Programme Commun.

Actually, this sort of split is encouraged by the electoral system and has appeared also on the side of the majority. In France there are two rounds of elections. In the first round (March 12) anybody can stand but only those who obtain at least 12.5 per cent, of the number on the voters’ roll (or who finish first or second) can, if they want, go through to the second round (March 19). What in practice happens is that the broad political groupings—majority and opposition—agree to field only one candidate in the second round, the one who does best in the first. Thus the first round becomes a sort of primary election in which the parties in the same political grouping compete against each other.

This is essentially what the split between the PS and the PC is about. It is due to electoral opportunism on both sides: the PC hopes to pick up votes from the PS by promising bigger and better reforms while the PS is hoping to pick up votes from those dissatisfied with the present government but who don’t trust the PC.

This disagreement between the PS and the PC might in fact benefit the Left by ensuring them, through the extra votes picked up by the PS, the maximum number of votes in the first round and even an absolute majority of over 50 per cent. But the first round is not decisive; it is the second round which counts and the outcome of the second round depends on the “voting discipline” shown by the supporters of each political grouping, on the extent to which all those who voted for the competing parties in the grouping in the first round vote for the grouping’s single candidate in the second round. Thus the Left, even with over 50 per cent, in the first round, could lose if, for instance, some of those who had voted PS in the first round refused to vote for a second-round PC candidate or if supporters of the PC refused to vote for a second-round PS candidate.

The two-round system also allows the various Trotskyist groups to formalise their facing-both-ways tactic with regard to parties like Labour which we are familiar with in Britain: they can oppose the Programme Commun with their own candidates in the first round and vote for it in the second! The Maoists, on the other hand, because of their anti-Russia position, are urging abstention in the second round. Our sympathisers, as their election leaflet, which they will be distributing in France shows, are advising those who want Socialism to write “SOCIALISME MONDIAL" across their ballot papers in both rounds.

If the Left do win the press will make a big fuss and the American State Department will pretend to be worried. But, as far as the workers are concerned, there will be no basic difference, as is explained in our sympathisers’ leaflet. A Left government with PC participation will be no different from past Labour governments in Britain: a government with reformist illusions which will soon be shed when they are faced with the task of actually governing capitalism. And the President, Giscard, with the extensive powers granted him under the Constitution, will be there to ensure that they don’t make too much of a mess of it (as “leftwing” governments in all countries are wont to).

The “Communists” are not the bogeymen they are made out to be. You only need read their literature to realise that they would find a comfortable place in the Labour Party in Britain. They too don’t know what Socialism is and merely stand for capitalism modified by social reforms and State control. It can even be expected that, in the event of PC participation in the government, the trade union grouping they control, the CGT, would fall into line, like the Labour Party-dominated TUC in Britain, and agree to moderate its wage demands.

Adam Buick

The obsession about Ireland (1987)

From the August 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

- "Socialists stand for a united world society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the resources by all the people."

- "Very nice, but what are you going to do about Ireland?"

- "Ireland is part of world capitalism. Once the workers have the world we'll have Ireland." 

- "But our first aim must be to create a united Ireland."

- "Our first aim is to create a united world, free from all national division."

- "You mean you don't want Ireland to be a united nation?"

- "We want to end nations, not establish new ones."

- "If you oppose Irish nationalism you must support British imperialism."

- "Socialists oppose all imperial aims by all capitalists."

- "Then you should campaign to defeat the British troops in Ireland. ”

- "We want to get rid of troops in all countries."

- "That will never happen. As a socialist you should support the armed struggle by the nationalists in Ireland."

- "As socialists, we oppose all armies, including the IRA; the only differences between the British army and the IRA is that the former are given medals for murdering workers and the latter are given prison sentences; the soldiers are paid for their thuggery and the IRA are conned into volunteering for potential martyrdom. Workers have no country - no country to defend, no country to gain, but a world to win. Think about that before you wave your flag of confusion."

The obsession about Ireland is one which socialists confront all the time. We confront it from leftists who divide their time between paying lip service to the idea of workers of the world uniting and supporting the nationalism of Sinn Fein. We confront it from many Irish workers in Britain whose sense of frustration about the poverty and indignity of working- class life often leads them to a sense of misplaced patriotism about a cause which would do them no more good than it did earlier Irish workers who won the battle and gained the right to be exploited by local capitalists instead of alien ones. We confront it in the republican areas of the North of Ireland where workers are constantly abused and threatened by the armed presence and regard counter-violence as the only alternative to the violence of the British state. In short, socialists can understand why workers become obsessed with the Irish question: now we are asking them to understand why socialists take a world, and never a national, view of society.

The socialist attitude to Ireland is to see it as a part of world capitalism. The poverty of Irish workers, the unemployment and the suffering caused by squalid living conditions which many face, the threat which they share with all workers on the planet of being blown to pieces in a third world war, the oppression which they suffer from the bosses and the state these are all effects of capitalism. If there was no profit system there would be no working class whose social function it is to be repeatedly robbed for profit. The problems of workers in Ireland are the problems of wage slaves everywhere and they will not be solved separately from the rest of the working class.

Irish Nationalism

Irish nationalists have always argued that Irish workers would be better off in their own country, free from British rule. Socialists regard it as an irrelevance whether Irish capitalism is ruled by an Irish capitalist state - as it is in the twenty-six counties of the Republic — or by a British capitalist state —as in the six counties of the North. When Sinn Fein was established, as a party campaigning for Irish national independence, its leaders made no claim to be socialists. Indeed, the early Sinn Fein leaders (and the only ones to obtain widespread support throughout Ireland) were vicious opponents of trade unions, strikes and 'atheistic' socialism. All that they claimed was that Ireland should be an independent capitalist state. As early as September 1907 McManus, writing on The Sinn Fein Policy in The Socialist Standard, stated that

. . .  it is our duty to warn our fellow-workers in Ireland of the futility of the Sinn Fein policy as far as they are concerned There can be no relief for the oppressed Irishman in changing an English robber for an Irish one. The person of the robber does not matter — it is the fact of the robbery that spells misery. National divisions are a hindrance to working-class unity, and national jealousies and differences are fostered by the capitalists for their own ends.
The crowd of hungry "intellectuals" clamouring for jobs both within and without the Irish parliamentary group do not represent the interests of the working class in Ireland. . . .  The national sentiment and perennial enthusiasm of the Irishmen are being exploited by the so-called leaders in the interests of Irish capitalism, and the workers are being used to fight the battles of their oppressors. . . . Let the thieves fight their own battles! For the worker in Ireland there is but one hope. It is to join the Irish wing of the international Socialist working class and to make common cause with the Socialist workers of all countries for the end of all forms of exploitation: saying to both English and Irish capitalists: “A plague on both your houses." For the true battle-cry of the working class is broader, more significant and more inspiring than mere nationalism, and that rallying cry is:
THE WORLD FOR THE WORKERS!

That brilliant piece of socialist analysis appeared in this journal eighty years ago and history has provided us with the opportunity to test its validity. If the creation of an Irish state had led to a vast improvement in the condition of the workers living under that state, or if it had led to increased class-consciousness on the part of those workers, then socialists might have to concede that we were shortsighted back in 1907 and that nationalism had been in the interest of the working-class. But this is not the case. Workers in the Irish Republic are no less robbed than workers in the North. Nor are they any less bullied by the state police, whose thuggish defence of property is notorious. They are no less the victims of religious indoctrination and oppression — indeed, an Irish worker seeking a divorce or an abortion would have reason to wonder how much national independence has chained them to a new dependence upon the medieval bigotry of the Fool of Rome. The reality is that life for the wage slaves in the twenty-six counties is no more free than for those in the occupied six.

In opposing Irish nationalism, socialists make it absolutely clear that we stand in bitter hostility to the arrogant nationalism of the so-called Loyalists, whose pathetic submission to a Queen who would not let her horses live in some of the conditions enjoyed by the loyal wage slaves of the Shankhill Road shows that they are enemies of socialism. We oppose the explicit racism of those like Paisley who expound the cause of white, protestant, unionist Ulster — as if the workers who elect them own any more of Britain or Ulster than the republicans would own of a united Ireland. Above all, we stand in complete opposition to the presence of troops (wage slaves in uniform) and we emphatically oppose the British army just as much as we oppose all armies, including the IRA, INLA, UVF and UDR.

Barricade Romanticism

But still the obsession about Ireland goes on. For many British leftists the war situation in Ireland provides a pleasing scenario, showing that workers are willing to go out on to the streets to fight the state. Avery heroic picture for barricade romanticists to observe from afar, but there is no glory in the sight of teenaged kids risking and losing their precious lives in a war which will never solve their poverty. There is nothing romantic about workers being blown up. And it is a point which cannot be emphasised enough that those who sit in the comfort of British meeting halls passing resolutions in support of armed struggle are conspicuous by their absence when it comes to being at the scene of the action. That the violence on the streets of Belfast or Derry is a picture of the Left's idea of workers in revolution is a condemnation of their conception of revolution.

Other leftists, such as the Revolutionary Communist Party, tell us that we must support any opponent of British imperialism. The logic of that position would have had the British workers supporting Hitler's Nazis in 1939. Others say that Marx supported the unification of Ireland, so socialists should too. Marx also supported war against Russia: should socialists support that too? We are not dogmatists who take a position because Marx instructed that we must. Others tell us that Sinn Fein is a socialist party. This is pure self-delusion. Anyone who read Sinn Fein's official policy would see that it stands for a 'mixed' capitalist economy, i.e. partly private capitalist and partly state capitalist.

The only genuine socialist party in Ireland today — and more and more workers are coming to recognise the fact — is The World Socialist Party (Ireland) whose journal, Socialist View, has vigorously criticised the anti-socialist policies of Sinn Fein — as well as the other capitalist parties of both sides of the sectarian divide. A final reason which is advanced as to why socialists should support nationalism is that imperialism is different from capitalism and that, whereas it is true that an Irish nation will not lead to socialism, it will at least be a defeat for British imperialism. By the term imperialism' such people are referring to Lenin's notion of a plundering economic power (Britain) exploiting the resources of a weaker, colonial area (the North of Ireland). That, however, is not what is happening in Ireland where, as is well known, the British occupation is costing the British capitalists literally billions of pounds in order to subsidise the industry of the province and pay for security. In fact, the irony of the situation is that the British nationalists who proclaim their firm intention of remaining rulers of'Northern Ireland' would like few things more than to extricate themselves from the liability of paying for the Irish problem and would do so were it not for purely political, not economic, considerations. On the other hand, the Irish state, which is formally committed to the long-term aim of a united Irish nation, would like nothing less than for their aim to be realised and for them to inherit the costs and the sectarian politics of the North. Hypocrisy is a notable characteristic of the politics of Ireland.

The World for the Workers

In fact, it is for none of the reasons mentioned above that the obsession about Ireland is as great as it is in Britain. The above- mentioned rationales for nationalism are mere theoretical constructs which are of little concern to the average worker who will insist that getting the Brits out of Ireland is more important than anything else. Irish nationalism — like all nationalist movements adopted by oppressed people — arises from a confused desire to see a united community. The aspiration to have a nation which belongs to you is in reality a desire to have a society which is yours — which you can feel a part of because it belongs to you. The same is true of Scottish and Welsh nationalism: these are not really movements by workers wanting Scottish and Welsh capitalists to dominate them — although that would be the effect of their unlikely success — but of alienated workers who want a society which they can call their own. Workers are right to want a society which we can call our own: a planet which belongs to humanity and local areas which we can take pride in as people who are no longer the tenants in a capitalist-owned world. To workers who are obsessed by nationalism The Socialist Party appeals with all of the passion which the nationalists use in their address to the working class: Come, let us unite as a class which has everything in common, everything to gain, a variety of cultures to develop — let us, indeed, have the world for the workers.

Steve Coleman

Edward Carpenter — a talent wasted (1987)

From the March 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Edward Carpenter was an author, poet and fellow-traveller of the political left-wing and anarchist movement for some thirty or forty years during the Victorian and Edwardian era. His numerous books and essays have been periodically neglected and rediscovered both during his lifetime and since his death in 1929.

Carpenter was born into a well-to-do family in Brighton in August 1844 and educated at Brighton college, France. Switzerland and Germany before going to Cambridge, becoming an Anglican priest in 1870. But Carpenter's beliefs changed as a result of the influence of F D Maurice's "Christian Socialist" ideas and he was increasingly drawn towards socialism while starting to have doubts about his religious convictions. Carpenter's health suffered due to the crisis of conscience he experienced and although a two months' holiday in Italy in 1873 partially restored his health, he resigned from the ministry in 1874.

From 1874 to 1881 Carpenter worked as a lecturer for the University Extension Scheme in the North of England. Although he found that work uncongenial he became acquainted with the manufacturing centres where he was to settle for the greater part of his life and where most of his writing and political activities took place. In 1882 he bought a smallholding of seven acres in the tiny hamlet of Millthorpe in Derbyshire, situated between Sheffield and Chesterfield, with money inherited from his father. With his independence he started to put into practice his ideas of self-sufficiency and living by manual labour. Carpenter was to write later: 

It had come to me with great force that I would go and throw in my lot with the mass-people and the manual workers. From the first I was taken with the Sheffield people. Rough in the extreme, twenty or thirty years in date behind other towns, and very uneducated, there was yet a heartiness about them, not without shrewdness, which attracted me. I felt more inclined to take root here than in any of the Northern towns where I had been. (My Days and Dreams, 1916).

This self-conscious search for the working-class and romantic view of their qualities was also indulged in by Leo Tolstoy in Russia and fifty years later by George Orwell, also in the North of England. But Carpenter, although just as sentimental in his approach to the workers was neither a philanthropic, titled landowner like Tolstoy nor a mere visitor to the North like Orwell; he spent forty years living by manual labour — admittedly with the security of his £6,000 inheritance.

Carpenter's growing interest in socialist ideas led him to join the Democratic Federation, having been inspired by reading Hyndman's England for All, and he donated £300 to launch Justice, the organisation's journal, in 1884. For a period of about twenty years Carpenter belonged to, or was associated with, a prodigious number of organisations: he was a member of the Fellowship of the New Life, a fore-runner of the Fabian Society and in 1885 he joined the Socialist League and helped William Morris with its paper Commonweal in competition against Justice.

In 1886 Carpenter was one of the founders of the Sheffield Socialist Society and in the same year associated with Freedom Press which produced Freedom, the anarchist newspaper. Charlotte Wilson, the first editor of Freedom and Peter Kropotkin were guests at Millthorpe and addressed the Sheffield Socialist Society. Carpenter was an occasional writer for Freedom and provided some of the material for Kropotkin's anarchist classic Fields, Factories and Workshops (1899). From the late 1870s onward Carpenter began to develop homosexual relationships (the suppression of which had probably contributed to his ill-health earlier in his life) and to write extensively about the subject.

After a number of relationships Carpenter finally lived openly with George Merrill, whom he had first met in 1890, on his smallholding at Millthorpe from 1898 and later in retirement at Guildford until Merrill's death in 1928. Carpenter's courage in living openly with a male lover and continuing to write about homosexuality has to be seen in the context of Victorian attitudes to homosexuality; Oscar Wilde had been sentenced to two years' hard labour in 1895, although Noel Greig suggests.- ". . . it was the act of treason of taking working-class boys to upper-class clubs which sealed his fate”. (Introduction to Edward Carpenter: Selected Writings 1984. Gay Modem Press), and Havelock Ellis had been prosecuted for writing Sexual Inversion in 1898.

Carpenter was undoubtedly protected by living quietly in the North of England. He avoided serious difficulties although his regular publisher withdrew his books after Oscar Wilde's trial and a smear campaign in 1909 by a political opponent caused him to lose his seat on the local council. Carpenter was a spokesman for women's rights, anticipating the women's liberation movement of this century. Love's Coming of Age appeared in 1896 and contained some essays which had previously been published. He showed some insight into the nature of sexual relationships under capitalism when he wrote-.

Yet it must never be forgotten that nothing short of large social changes, stretching beyond the sphere of women only, can bring about complete emancipation of the latter. Not till our whole commercial system, with its barter and sale of human labour and human love for gain, is done away, and not till a whole new code of ideals and customs of life has come in will women really be free. They must remember that their cause is also the cause of the oppressed labourer over the whole earth, and the labourer has to remember that his cause is theirs.

It is surprising that despite realisation that human relationships are debased by capitalism. Carpenter persisted in taking part in single-issue campaigns and to belong to reformist organisations, some of which were in opposition to each other.

In 1886 Carpenter wrote England Arise! which was included in his song-book The Chants of Labour in 1888 and was for several years a rallying song for the labour movement until it was overtaken in popularity by The Red Flag and the Internationale. The passionate nature of Carpenter's feelings for the poor can be seen in the second verse:

By your young children's eyes so red with weeping.
By their white faces aged with want and fear.
By the dark cities where your babes are creeping
Naked of joy and all that makes life dear;
   From each wretched slum
   Let the loud cry come;
   Arise. O England, for the day is here!

Although sexual themes, and homosexuality in particular, tended to dominate Carpenter's writing he remained active in a number of organisations until well into the twentieth century. In 1887 he gave evidence on behalf of some of the demonstrators at the Bloody Sunday riots in London and in 1892 gave evidence for, and mustered support to help, the Walsall Anarchists by publicising the case in Freedom. In court Carpenter described himself as an anarchist; a courageous statement to make when it is almost certain that the police used agent provocateurs to secure convictions in the case.

But in contradiction of his public declaration of anarchist principles Carpenter helped in the foundation of the Independent Labour Party in the following year and in 1895. when attempts were made to obtain an amnesty for the Walsall Anarchists, he wrote for the Labour Leader, the ILP's journal.

Carpenter was also a champion of animal rights, penal reform, religious toleration and progressive schooling, having been involved in the founding of the progressive school Abbotsholme in 1889. He was interested in dress reform, having abandoned formal attire and popularised the wearing of sandals. But despite calling himself an anarchist on occasions, he had a seat on his local council and supported syndicalism and the parliamentary Labour Party at the same time. And having lost his Christian beliefs he nevertheless became a devotee of oriental mysticism. William Morris was a close friend of Carpenter's and on several occasions stayed with him at Millthorpe, which became a model for News from Nowhere. Morris wrote:

I listened with longing heart to his account of his patch of ground, seven acres: he says that he and his fellow can almost live on it: they grow their own wheat, and send flowers and fruit to Chesterfield and Sheffield markets: all that sounds very agreeable to me. (E P Thompson. 1955 William Morris: From Romantic To Revolutionary Merlin Press). 

Carpenter continued to write about political topics, editing and contributing to Forecasts of the Coming Century (1897) and a collection of essays: Towards Industrial Freedom in 1917 but he considered his most important work to be Towards Democracy which was published in four instalments from 1883 to 1905 and comprises a series of Whitmanesque prose poems expressing his affinity for oriental mysticism with an occasional, and often moving, declamation against capitalism. In many ways Carpenter epitomises the futility of reformist activity. His participation in reformist movements was neither tactical nor an attempt to gain power or personal advantage but a sincere wish to change society for the better. But society cannot be changed piecemeal: discrimination against different minorities is inherent in capitalism which thrives on weakening workers' power by creating scape-goats and divisions.

Much of Carpenter's work is readable, and some of his poetry is quite moving, although some of his ideas about sexual relationships appear dated. He had some insight into the nature of capitalism from the exploitation he had seen for himself in the Sheffield factories but his political ideas were often confused. He was sincere and courageous and devoted his time, talent and money in the fight for a just society but like all reformists he squandered his gifts fighting the symptoms of capitalism instead of wholeheartedly trying to abolish the system itself and replace it with socialism. Nevertheless it is fitting that one of the most neglected of Victorian writers and workers in the cause of labour should be rediscovered.

Carl Pinel