Capitalism and mental health (1993)

From the March 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

If people are your lifeboat then schizophrenia is not for you. As you may find out, the boats talk back and cannot be trusted. I was living in Hulme in 1988 when I first became seriously ill. It was after a holiday in Greece which turned sour due to my oncoming illness.

We all have a certain amount of paranoia. Generally it is fairly harmless. However when you slowly drift into illusions much like an unconscious dream or like you have taken LSD, then things can get very nasty. Voices and feelings of persecution take over and unlike a dream or an LSD trip you do not recover without drugs, hospital, etc to take the edge from the nightmare-like torment.

Schizophrenia can creep up on anyone ever so slowly. Perhaps if you like yourself, you will not succumb. However if you do like yourself you have further to fall. Presently genone7 is said to be the genetic reason, but whatever the cause schizophrenia can either ruin the rest of your life or if you are fortunate enough to recover it can stigmatize and label you. They reckon one third have only one attack and one third have more than one and one third do not get better even with the drugs.

To recover is often seen as temporary sanity. Many people see the sufferer always through the doors of the asylum. At the moment I am back in Hulme having made a reasonable recovery. I have a job and I feel fortunate considering just how ill I was.

There are many reasons why people end up in mental hospitals. The main one is that they disturb family and friends so much that these are unable to cope.

We all learn from our experiences and "going mad", as it is called by some people, certainly gives you plenty of experiences most of which you certainly would not choose. The way back from schizophrenia—and I can only give a personal viewpoint—is to aim to control things again. Often this is very difficult when you have spent months in hospital but the approach should be gradual; think about the level of support you need and work towards more independence.

The world is often not a very understanding place and there are day centres which can help take the edge off things and fill the time in. As to the drugs which most people are on when they get released from hospital, if you can, get the dose reduced gradually (if that works) as the drugs themselves have effects on your ability to think quickly and they have other side-effects which can usually be controlled.

You do not only lose things when you fall ill you also gain things when you come out of it. You lose things like self-confidence. Often people have this to a great degree which really is a form of acceptable insanity, yet to get a measure of self-confidence back is a good thing for self-preservation. What you gain when you come out of it is a perception about schizophrenia which most people do not understand. You also gain humility and understanding about what it is like to be mentally ill. You may develop a healthy dislike of mental hospitals and psychiatrists. Someone once said if you want to see a psychiatrist you must be mad!

The thing to remember is that you have a reasonable chance to rebuild your life and self-esteem, given favourable circumstances. Not everything is in anyone’s control. More understanding and more help is certainly needed where mental illness is concerned. In general the people who lived in Hulme were supportive when I was ill and after I began my recovery. That counts for a lot.

I am one of those strange people who advocate a democratic socialist revolution to sort out the worlds problems. While we still have present-day society we have to survive as best we can by giving people respect and understanding especially if they have or are having mental health problems.

Looking to the future I hope to stay well like most people, I also hope to enjoy life no differently from anyone else. Mental illness can strike anyone. Not everyone can survive the experience. With schizophrenia one in ten people kill themselves. Perhaps that’s a reflection on the nature of the illness but it is also a reflection on society. Recently a doctor writing in the Observer said if he could give one piece of advice on how to avoid illness he would advise you to be rich. He was not talking specifically about mental illness but illness in general, although I believe it to be sound advice. The only way we can all get rich is to establish a society where we all have free access to what society can produce. Then, perhaps, there will be fewer casualties of all types of illnesses and better treatment. Well it’s worth thinking about, I believe it’s worth working for—what do you think?

D. McLellan

Sting in the Tail: Tory Think Tankers (1993)

The Sting in the Tail column from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tory Think Tankers

Run for cover, folks, there’s some mean-lookin' hombres in town and they're a-gunnin’ for one another!

A scene from High Noon or Gunfight at the OK Corral? No, merely that

Opposing Tory think tanks are set to wage a battle for the soul of the Conservative Party in the coming year. Party right-wingers led by the No Turning Back group are to demand fresh Thatcherite reforms, and the left-leaning Social Market Foundation will seek Keynesian intervention to end the recession.

The Guardian (28 December 1992) 

We know who the Thatcherites are but who are the Social Market Foundation? Remember David Owen and his "social market" guff? Well, the SMF are mainly ex-members of the Social Democrats who have joined the Tory Party.

So no blood will be spilled, only lots and lots of ink, but what a bunch of think tankers all these Tories are when the best they can come up with to save British capitalism are the failed ideas of Thatcher and Keynes with the arch-failure Owen thrown in for good measure!

The Dismal System

You would think that Sainsbury's plan to make its "biggest and best ever” cuts in food prices in January would have been widely welcomed, wouldn't you? No chance. Instead of Sainsbury's competitors accepting this challenge gladly, they all denounced it.

What about the City of London? After all, everyone has to eat, but the City feared that a supermarket price-war would reduce profits so the share-prices of Sainsbury, Tesco, Kwik Save and Argyll all tumbled. Capital doesn’t hunger for food, only profit.

True, consumers were happy at first but came January and "instead of massive savings, the much- anticipated price cuts brought disappointment to shoppers" (The Guardian 4 January). Capitalism may provide events which bring widespread pleasure but not very many.

Not Our Scene

All those who become Involved in the running of any social system based on private property will inevitably find themselves doing nasty things to people.

This particularly applies to capitalism: the holocaust, the bombing of cities and the cynical poisoning of the environment are obvious examples, but there are less dramatic crimes committed by governments every day.

Look at the Israeli expulsion of the 400 Palestinians or the Tories' callous pit-closure programme, but this readiness to inflict misery cuts right across party lines. Labour's record in office is a grim one and we have seen what Lenin, Trotsky and other "communists”all over the world have been prepared to do in defence of their power and privilege.

The truth is that all humans, even if they start with the best of intentions, are capable of such cruelty if they put themselves in the position of having to defend private property. And socialists are no different: it's just that we know better than to get ourselves into that position.

Appeal of Socialism

The whole thing about nationalism is its stupid delight in some accident of language, accent or local behaviour. The whole horror of nationalism is its resolve to hunt, maim and kill any creature in its way if such a creature doesn't share its particular language, accent or local behaviour.

Of course, every human being on earth today enjoys community. We all love to sing together. We all love to dance together. We are human.

This doesn’t mean that we kill those who are different. We enjoy differences. That makes us human. Politicians, generals and other functionaries of capitalism are without community. They exploit our fears to make themselves great. Our brothers and sisters in Iraq, India or anywhere else have our best wishes and hopes.

We are without nationalism, religion or racialism. We are socialists. We are in the process of becoming truly human. That is the appeal of socialism.

Accidents and Cost

As the people of the Shetland Islands count the cost of the oil spill It is worth recalling that like all "accidents" of this nature inside capitalism, cost was the major factor.

The ship was old because It is cheaper to buy an old ship - the ship needed repairs because it is cheaper to skimp on repairs - the route was through an area that could have easily been avoided but it was a cheaper route and of course the crew were ill-trained because that’s the cheapest way to run a ship.

Accidents will occur in socialism but they won't be accidents like the Shetland oil spill which wasn't really an accident at all. It was the logical outcome of trying to operate transport the cheapest and most profitable way.

Twice Bankrupt

We are indebted to a Scandinavian reader for drawing our attention to the following item that appeared in a Norwegian newspaper:

The Finnish communist party went bankrupt yesterday after having lost millions on the stock exchange . . . The economic trouble of the communist party is due to unsuccessful speculation on the stock exchange - capitalism's stronghold - with many hazardous investments. Among the more exotic investment objects was a fashion shop in Helsinki and a stable of racehorses called "The Hot Trotters"

Aftenposten (16 November 1992) 

This financial bankruptcy is of course matched by the complete Intellectual bankruptcy of all the Leninist parties.

The Dying Game

Socialists spend a great deal of their time pointing out how awful the buying and selling system of capitalism really is. But surely even the most dyed in the wool defender of capitalism must be concerned at the following information that appeared in The Independent (12 January):

Life assurers are paying out 10 times more on suicide than they were 12 years ago, raising fears that the way policies are written may be encouraging people to kill themselves to ease their dependants' financial worries.
According to a report published today in Money Week, the payouts on suicide-related claims, increased from £4.3m in 1979 to £44.6m In 1991.

The desperation that leads workers to committing suicide can only be guessed at. The crass ignorance that leads workers to support this crazy system can only be wondered at.

Sting in the Tail: Food for thought (1993)

The Sting in the Tail column from the January 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Food for thought

Fancy a nice juicy steak? The Meat and Livestock Commission want to make sure that you do and have issued a booklet to assure us that eating meat is both physically safe and morally sound.

The booklet (available in supermarkets) dismisses most vegetarians as either bogus or having "a misconception about a healthy diet”. This doesn’t help veg sales but supermarkets know that people spend a lot more on meat than they do on veg.

We are then told that meat is good for just about every part of us, and be warned -

Britain has the highest rate of heart disease among EC countries, but the second lowest meat consumption per head.

No mention is made of the 74,000 cattle which have died in Britain of mad cow disease since 1985.

All this we can expect from any organisation trying to boost sales but just look at what follows under the heading "Does eating meat deprive the third world of grain?" - 

There is already a world surplus of grain and so if it was simply a matter of availability of grain supplies then there would not be a problem. THE PROBLEM OF HUNGER LIES IN POVERTY AND NOT AVAILABILITY (their emphasis).

THAT we don't expect, but we welcome having the socialist case against capitalism backed-up and especially from such an unlikely source.

False prophets

After the Tory election victory the British holiday industry's market forecasters were convinced that the foreign holiday market would grow again because of the expected boom, so more hotel rooms and aircraft were booked.

Sadly, the boom went bust and Thomson, the biggest package holiday operator, estimated in June that there were 500,000 too many holidays on sale.

Yet only five months later the industry reported a 5% increase in demand in 1992 (Ceefax 15 November). Having- been let down by the boom that- wasn't they had been saved by . . . the recession!

Apparently, many redundant workers are spending their redundancy money on a foreign holiday in the belief that it may be their last for a long time.

Can readers think of a more futile job in capitalism than market forecasting? Answers on a postcard please to Scorpion, address at the bottom of this page.

Raving Mad

The news that 5 young people have died in Greater Manchester since 1989 from dance floor dehydration and heatstroke accentuated by drugs such as Ecstasy, has alarmed the local city council.

Their concern is understandable when it is realised that one of the contributory factors has been the dance hall owners trick of charging £2 for a drink of water.

The money conscious entrepreneurs turn up the heating, cut off the water supply in the toilets and wait for the dehydrated drugged dancers to stump up the two quid for a glass of water.

If the dehydrated youngsters can't afford the two quid and drop dead - well, that's just market forces at work, isn't it?

Useless Money

Currency speculators have been on the rampage recently with "runs" on the pound, the French franc and several other European currencies.

Nowadays the world's money markets have immense sums of money at their disposal. Ex-Labour chancellor Dennis Healy estimated that only one fiftieth of this money is required for world trade settlement ("Greed" Channel 4, 8 November) so the rest is available for speculation.

So any "weak" currency is singled out for attention and the speculators know they will win. Sweden lost almost all of its foreign reserves trying to defend the Krona while the Bank of England lost £11 billion of "our” foreign reserves in a bid to defend sterling. The attack on sterling was led by the City of London and there wasn't a patriotic scruple in sight.

And after all the frenzied activity in which millions had been won and lost, society had not one whit more food, clothing, shelter or health care to show for it.

A Star Is Born

And now for our showbiz update! The word is that professor J.K.Galbraith, Keynesian economist and new comic genius, was a smash in his London one-man show.

The Guardian (25 November) reports him joking that in future "the social left" must give up "socialist principles” and is "no longer in search of an alternative economic system" to capitalism! His deadpan irony would have any audience in stitches.

The prof, surely had them rolling in the aisles when he hit them with such show-stopping vote catchers as "reasonably full employment", "more equitable distribution of income" and "needs of the underclass". Only proves once again that the old jokes are the best jokes!

Ben Elton, Rowan Atkinson, Paul Merton and co., have one hell of an act to follow!

A Royal Mess

The Queen has had a pretty shitty 1992. Well, we’re sorry to hear it, but then it was hardly a wonderful year for the rest of us either.

Commenting on the Joseph Rowntree Trustee report on what a family needed to live on, The Independent (15 November) noted that a single parent bringing up two children under 11 on income support received £25.12 less than the Low Cost Budget of £110.72. This Low Cost Budget was reckoned to be the basic minimum necessary to live in 1992.

The newspaper reported the position of Kathleen Elliot who receives £85.60 to bring up Kirsty eight and Stacy three in a working class estate in Gateshead.

"Some nights I just cry myself to sleep. We live in a three bedroomed house, but at this time of year we all sleep in the same double bed and throw Kirsty's duvet on top as well. It's warmer that way. I can't afford the heating. . . .  I just buy essentials like bread, tatties, beans. Can’t afford meat, though sometimes I get sausages."

Not only are Kathleen, Kirsty and Stacy living in abject poverty and misery, but even the Queen is pissed off. Let's get rid of capitalism for all their sakes!

Redundancy strikes again (1991)

From the November 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Where are you going, daddy?" asks my daughter.

“Daddy’s off to be exploited. sweetheart". I reply.

I make my au revoirs and set off on the daily return to wage slavery. Return to wage slavery? When were the working class ever away from it?

The day begins badly. As do most days in a society where work is an economic necessity and not a function carried out for the benefit of society as a whole. When things are bad they can only get worse. Trade union officials tend to smirk when they say that their members are revolting. If our class consciousness was sufficiently developed, we certainly would be. Let’s be honest about it The working class worldwide puts up with a lot from capitalism But begin to present said members with the facts of their economic exploitation by a minority ruling class and you rapidly come to a deep and meaningful understanding of the term banging your head against a brick wall.

For the moment, even the mildest of my fellow band of wage-slaves has transformed into a militant. I can’t take any credit for this outbreak of class solidarity and outrage at their capitalist masters. If a fraction of the fervour generated on this occasion were channelled into understanding and fighting politically for the socialist alternative, we would all be casting off the fetters of capitalism today.

My colleagues' revolt is a short-lived-one. In the face of the overwhelming economic power of the bosses, it is decided that there is no choice but to accept the imposition of cashless pay.

Sacked

“In the sixteenth century Nostradamus looked into a bowl of water to forecast events with some stunning successes. In 1990 economists using all the latest techniques in economic modelling did not forecast the recession at all”. (Share tip sheet).

Perhaps someone, somewhere, is already engaged in producing an academic dissertation upon the use and effect of the euphemism in late capitalist society. In the status-conscious times in which we live, where millions prefer to call themselves middle class (a sociological definition) rather than admit to the reality of belonging to the majority, propertyless working class, it is thought preferable to be “unwaged” rather than unemployed. Whether made redundant, let go, or sacked, the effect upon human lives in a society based upon production for profit, not need, is a devastating one. As I and my fellow wage-slaves were about to discover.

Considerable time, effort and money is expended by the capitalist class in persuading the rest of us that the present system of society is now, was then, and always will be. The effectiveness of this strategy is self-evident. Despite creating society’s wealth, and running society from top to bottom, the working class continue to allow economic and political power to remain in the hands of a minority class. Not even capitalism’s slumps and recessions, which occur with an unavoidable regularity, appear to dent the continuing support for a social system responsible for most of the worlds ills. Without an understanding of the economic exploitative nature of capitalism and, as importantly, an understanding of the socialist alternative, workers continue to view life from a distorted perspective.

Low esteem

Faced with the prospect of losing our jobs altogether, the issue of not being paid the price of our labour power in cash, assumes insignificant proportions. The prospect now is of finding ourselves having no money at all with which to pay the mortgage, pay for food, heat, light and shelter. The previous assent to the notion that businesses close because of “greedy" and “lazy” workers no longer applies. The prospect of being on the dole horrifies my colleagues. They themselves still hold to the myth that thousands enjoy a life of luxury and ease on unemployment benefit. This is, of course, perfectly true. But those enjoying the fruits of others' labour belong to the minority capitalist class whose unemployment benefit is known as profit.

In a capitalist society self-esteem, and the respect of others is determined by the amount of money you have. When, as a member of the working class, your only sellable asset, your labour power, is no longer required, your self-respect is one of the least things you stand to lose. “You lift sixteen tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Brother don’t you call me I can’t go. I owe my soul to the company store” (Folk song). You work sixteen years and what do you get? Redundancy.

The capitalist class knows where its interest lies. When “boom” times reappear they will still be the only individuals to really benefit from it. How long will it be; how many slumps will the working class have to endure before it decides to make capitalism redundant?

“The nationality of the toilers is neither French nor English nor German; it is toil, free slavery, sale of self. His government is neither French nor English nor German; it is Capital. His native air is neither French nor English nor German; it is the air of the factory. The land which belongs to him is neither French nor English nor German; it is a few feet under the ground” (Karl Marx).

Dave Coggan

Greasy Pole: Thatcher: the voice is stilled (2002)

The Greasy Pole column from the May 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thatcher: silenced at last

The nation did not mourn at the news that Margaret Thatcher had been forbidden by her doctors to make any more public speeches. There was no sense that something we all valued will now be missing from our lives. Of course the nation might have marvelled at the bravery of those doctors, doing something her political colleagues never managed – stopping her making those drawn out, haranguing monologues for which she was once so notorious. Thatcher herself probably mourned; she was never averse to the sound of her own voice and then there is the effect of her silence on her income. All those after dinner speeches and so-called lecture tours (she was due to embark on one in America when the doctors intervened) yielded staggeringly generous fees for the regurgitation of some assorted delusions and prejudices.

When she won power in 1979 Thatcher promised a revolution – a word often misused by politicians when what they intend is to re-arrange some of capitalism's shortcomings. Outside Number Ten, glowing with her triumph, she quoted St Francis of Assisi:

"Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope".

That just about covered everything, except that Thatcher had already indicated how she saw things as far as harmony, truth and faith were concerned. “As Prime Minister,” she had said a little before she got the job, “I could not waste time having any internal arguments”.

Revolution 

Like most new governments, the Tories had encouraged the assumption that their “revolution” would succeed because it was based on principles which had somehow eluded all those in the past. In fact things went on much as before and Thatcher's ministers quickly found that they were as tightly in the python-like grip of events as their predecessors. British capitalism was in economic crisis; the chairman of the Confederation of British Industry economy committee revealed the flavour of a current survey of business optimism – or rather the absence of it: “As gloomy a picture as it is possible for anyone to paint and I fear things will get worse before they get better”. But Thatcher had to insist that her policies were effective and needed only time and patience. At the 1981 Tory conference that year she made her famous “The lady's not for turning” speech, which had the grassroot Tories convulsed with obsequious laughter – and Ted Heath, who accepted it as a sneer at his government's embarrassing change of tack when under pressure, reacting grumpily: “it was an absurd caricature to describe the limited policy changes which had to be introduced between 1970 and 1974 as a 'U-turn”.

The revolution was not, so far, working. Unemployment was rising and expected to reach three million in the near future. In February 1981 Thatcher received a memo from Ian Gow, her Parliamentary Private Secretary and most devoted acolyte, telling her that there was “a noticeable deterioration in the morale of our back benchers” due partly to “increasing concern about the extent of the recession and unemployment”. He said nothing about the effect of unemployment on the morale of the people who were actually experiencing it, floundering in the deeper poverty it imposed on them. To some extent they had their say later, in the riots that year in Brixton, Toxteth and Moss Side. The Tory leadership was anything but united; on 23 July 1981 the Cabinet had what Thatcher later described as “one of the bitterest arguments on the economy, or any subject, that I can ever recall taking place at Cabinet during my premiership”.

Ministers like Heseltine, Walker, Pym, Gilmour, Hailsham and Soames made a formidable opposition. Hailsham, to show that he was a Fellow of All Souls, took an historical stance, reminding everyone that in the 1930s unemployment had been effectively exploited by the Nazis and had severely damaged the Republican Party in America. Soames, Leader of the House of Lords, was a particularly grand landed aristocrat who lived by the principle that everyone had their place and should learn to keep it – it was just a matter of chance that his place was somewhere near the top. He had emerged from Thatcher's first Cabinet meeting in a state of shock: “I would not” he confided to another minister “even treat my gamekeeper like that”. He was angry, in a grand kind of way, when Thatcher sacked him; her impression was that “he felt the natural order of things was being violated and that he was, in effect, being dismissed by his housemaid”.

Falklands 

It was fortunate for Thatcher that early in 1982 the Argentinian scrap dealers should choose to start their work on South Georgia, which provided justification for a good, old fashioned colonial war. The upsurge in hysterical patriotism was a convenient diversion from the damaging fact of unemployment. At the time the war was hailed as a triumph of British professional militarism. Now, twenty years after, there has been a more sober assessment, a recognition that it was a close run thing and that many of the more romantic accounts of the campaign were myths. For Thatcher it was crucial; if the British Task Force had failed to re-take the islands she would probably have gone down as well.

Having seen off General Galtieri and the Belgrano and some hundreds of soldiers and sailors Thatcher could turn her attention to her other enemies. First there was the 1983 general election, when the so-called Falklands factor was so favourable to the government. She seemed unstoppable, invincible and the voters agreed. An election majority of 144 wiped out anachronistic Michael Foot, not just as hopeful Prime Minister but as Labour leader as well. Then it was time to take on the coal miners, who had forced her into a strategic retreat in 1981 over the issue of pit closures. The intervening years had been well used by the government, to build up coal stocks at the power stations and to organise a more effective strike-breaking force in the police, who had been outflanked in previous disputes by the flying pickets. There was also the fact that demand for coal was down by a third since 1973/74 and that a breakaway union, the UDM, kept some pits working during the strike. The NUM under Scargill held on grimly until they were forced back to work; their struggle went some way to make the name of one Kim Howells, who is now an ardent Blairite minister and, even for New Labour, a notable traitor to what he once called his principles.

It was after the 1987 general election, when Neil Kinnock was added to the list of miserably beaten Labour leaders and Thatcher gave the impression that she intended to live, and be Prime Minister, for ever, that the Tories began to have doubts again. The poll tax was widely unpopular, the stimulant to serious public disorder short of riots. There were some spectacular by-election defeats and damaging resignations – like Lawson (who told the queen that his 1988 Budget would have to be his last because Thatcher “was making the conduct of policy impossible”) and Howe (who had once told a Tory MP that “I would draw my sword for” Thatcher).

Turfed Out 

Some of this dissent was to do with the fact that she was too preoccupied with her concept of her own invulnerability to notice that she was autocratic and out of touch with her Cabinet. Much of it was to do with the growing realisation that she had become an election liability. Nothing concentrates an MP's mind so much as the fear of losing their seat. Late in 1990 it was time for her to go and the men in grey suits lined up to tell her so. She never got over the fact that after winning three elections she was turfed out of office by her own party. She applied her talents to sniping at her successors—Major (who, she said, was “grey” and had “no principles”) and Hague, who she derided for his juvenility. Now, after the intervention of her doctors, if she wants to let us know what she thinks of Iain Duncan Smith it will have to be in writing.

With her going there was something like a sigh of relief in the parliamentary Conservative Party. No longer would ministers be physically sick before seeing her for what promised to be one of her handbaggings. No longer would they be so overshadowed by her that the very name “Maggie” was synonymous with their party. We had eleven years of her premiership and then another seven of her party in power. So we had her revolution and the end effect was no different from the experience of all the other capitalist parties. In 1997 millions of people were so dispirited with the Tories that they turned to the alternative capitalist party of Blair's New Labour. When Thatcher was at the height of her power there were psychiatrists who assessed their patients' contact with reality by asking them who was prime minister. If they named someone other than Thatcher the psychiatrist knew they were a difficult case for treatment. It says something about Thatcher's brand of capitalism, that her very name was used as a measure of insanity.

Ivan

Hiroshima & Nagasaki—The Background (1959)

From the September 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

“We take no pride in being able to massacre millions of our fellow human beings, to poison the air, to cripple the children of the future. We find no safety in weapons designed only for wars that nobody can win. . . "

These words from the leaflet announcing the second Aldermaston March, expressed the feeling of the idealistic element of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Heard above the suave evasions of politicians, and the arrogant threats of generals, this call, to those enchanted, seemed the golden echo of truth itself; promising in victory, a finer and happier life for Man.

How and why did this protest arise? What has it achieved? Will it set the foot of Man on the long-sought path of Peace and Happiness?

To answer these questions one must go back to see how it came into being and how it has grown.

THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB

On July 16th, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, the Los Alamos scientists successfully exploded the first atomic device. Reports of this were hurried to President Truman at the Potsdam Conference. After consulting his advisers he gave authority to an air force group, in special training since the autumn of 1944, to prepare to use the atomic bombs.

In the early days of August, from a warship in mid-Atlantic, Truman gave the final order to begin the atomic bombing of selected Japanese cities. At the earliest indication of clear weather over Hiroshima, a B-29 was dispatched. A uranium bomb, assembled in the air on the way to the target, was dropped. Hiroshima on the morning of August 6th, 1945, became the first atomic crematorium. The “new weapon of special destructive force” which Truman had casually mentioned to Stalin, was a secret no longer.

The Russian government, fearing a belated American attempt to deprive it of some of the spoils of Yalta, hastened to declare war on Japan. A right to participate in the final share-out of the Far Eastern loot; a desire to safeguard their sphere of influence, these were the main concerns of the Russian rulers. No protest at a sickening outrage. No sorrow expressed at the agonies of the Hiroshima victims, the seared, stunned survivors; the radio-active remnants of what had been men, women and little children! So much for the party of Lenin and Stalin in the glorious fight for Peace!

Truman's other allies, the British ruling class, their interests now in the care of a Labour Government, watched, from afar, the results of their joint scientific and industrial enterprise. Three days after Hiroshima, Attlee’s representative, Group Captain Cheshire, was present at the bombing of Nagasaki, where a plutonium bomb, operating on a new principle, was used.

Public awareness of the circumstances in which the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan has always been limited by the facile myth that these bombs were necessary to break the back of Japanese resistance, thereby saving Allied lives. Japan was, in fact, on the verge of collapse.

A GRUESOME EXPERIMENT?

Was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, towns on a carefully selected list of possible targets, a gruesome experiment? A callous scheme of sections of the American military, designed to discover the respective merits of different kinds of atomic bombs when used against densely-populated industrial centres?

Was the atomic bombing a practical demonstration of American technical superiority in warfare to warn the Russian rulers against expansion which might further encroach upon American spheres of influence?

Whatever answers posterity may yield, however intricate the web of truth, to Socialists, there is no word, no line, to justify this deed. Nothing can excuse the roasting of the newly-born or the incineration of infants at play, the slaughter of thousands.

Whatever may have been the reasons, political, economic, military or personal, that may have moved the principal actors to speak the lines and play the parts they did, to Socialists one thing is the essential point. This war and all its misery and fire, was rooted in capitalism.

It is not the villainy of militarists, the schemings of armament kings, the bellicosity of dictators, the ineptitude of statesmen, that is the cause of war in the modern world. It is not deceptions practised upon honest by dishonest politicians.

It was not the manoeuverings of Roosevelt and Churchill nor the embargo placed upon raw materials for Japan in 1941 and all the machinations on both sides of the Pacific leading up to the “surprise” attack on Pearl Harbour that were the causes of war in the Far East.

STRUGGLE FOR MARKETS 

Basically, the cause of the war, which led to the bestiality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was the conflict between the different national groups of capitalists, each aiming to improve its position in the relentless struggle to maintain or expand its control over markets and sources of raw materials. Little territory or resources, easily exploitable, remained to the nations such as Germany, Italy and Japan which had come late to the table.

To satisfy their growing appetites, arising from industrial and commercial expansion, the senior predators, they thought, must yield to them a large share of the economic fruits of earlier piracy.

The Japanese forces slowly advancing into Indo-China were a menace to American, British, Chinese, and Dutch interests in the islands and archipelagoes of South East Asia, fabulously rich in raw materials. Rubber, tin, nickel, oil and the like were never absent from the calculations of all concerned. The Japanese sought to control the Chinese mainland and to bring all South East Asia under their economic and cultural sway, by force of arms, if necessary.

In the West, if Germany over-ran Europe, the American rulers would find their long-term interests threatened, by a collossus commanding vast technical and industrial resources. A bitter struggle therefore ensued. The bomb and the bayonet became the means to convince where the honeyed modulations of sleek and urbane ambassadors had failed.

The attack on Pearl Harbour, the possibility of which American admirals had been discussing since the early thirties, helped to persuade the ordinary American people, who like people everywhere else, had no desire to become involved in war, that war was necessary in the interest of the nation as a whole. The Pearl Harbour attack roused the American people to a fury; they were in the war before they knew what it was all about. To the American man in the street the atomic bombing was a justified reprisal for the Japanese attack four years earlier. Thus does violence breed violence.

RUSSIA

It must not be thought that Russia comes into conflict with the other powers because of ideological reasons; because its social system is alleged to be “Socialist.”

Russia is a capitalist country. All the basic features of capitalism exist there; class monopoly of the means of production, backed-up by a powerful state apparatus, the dominance of commodity production and the profit motive, the subjection of the majority to wage-labour, the “anarchy of production” called “state-planning”; all are there.

All modern nations have these basic attributes. They may have particular features arising from the different national and economic backgrounds from which capitalism developed in each country. Each emerging capitalist class was born into a certain historical situation. The new industrial capitalists of England in the nineteenth century had the world at their feet; the later arrivals to the capitalist jungle, while having advantages in being able to learn and apply the latest techniques, found themselves surrounded by already entrenched rivals.

It is not what men think or say about themselves that is crucial to the analysis of a social system. It is how they are related to other men about the means of production, what role they play in the productive process, what, in fact, they do. In struggling with the traditional capitalist groups of the world, the top-ranking Communist Party bureaucrats, and politicians, the military, and industrial senior executives, in short, representatives of Russian capitalism, are different in no fundamental way. They are all as helpless to prevent war, and all as ruthless in its prosecution when diplomacy has failed.

FOR SOCIALISM

Socialists want no part of this nightmare world. Socialists are opposed to war, whether nuclear or “conventional" weapons are used.

The solution however, does not lie in the banning of a specific kind of weapon. Weapons are only necessary in a world of capitalist competition. The real enemy is the social system that breeds it. Our task is to keep the issue clear. To insist on the need for a society without privilege, poverty, or war. We take our stand solely for socialism.

B.

Appended at the bottom of this article in the original issue of the Socialist Standard:

Lord Attlee and the Bomb

"He [Mr. Truman] had to take the decision about the atom bomb. It is questioned sometimes. In my view, in the light of the knowledge we had at that time, he was absolutely right."

Lord Attlee at a Pilgrims' Dinner (July 21st, 1956) reported in "Daily Telegraph" (July 22nd, 1956).

Letter from Wales (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The fault lies in the system and it is natural that individuals should re-act as they do when such an occasion arises." I pricked my ears up. The speaker was one of a small group of men waiting in the local doctor's surgery.

It is always good to be in on any discussion about Capitalism and so it was not long before I found an opportunity to contribute. The topic that drew the above remark was actually concerned with Roy Paul, the Welsh international footballer admitting to having accepted a £500 bribe. From there on we continued to probe deeper into the “carryings on," the actions and statements of important people and organizations in the news.

For example, the Ebbw Vale Election. Though there are four contestants, two only—Labour and Plaid Cymru appear to interest the electorate. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party, is being aided by its pirate radio station “The Voice of Wales." They are also introducing “ colour" in the form of music at their meetings—items on the harp. They continue—as in previous elections —to “harp on the theme" “ Ruddid i Gymru" (Freedom for Wales).

Another topic was the C.N.D. March. Cardiff was recently chosen as the venue for an attack. Much excitement prevailed, not the least being the closed doors of the Temple of Peace in the face of the marchers (which were later opened to allow them entry). A prominent Communist leader was roundly accused of attempting to make political capital out of the proceedings. This should be a warning to all that the true C.ND’er may be all for peace as long as you accept the view that the struggle against was has nothing to do with political ideology!

W. Brain

Cameron's EU Deal (2016)

From the SPGB's Discussion Form

Came across an old pamphlet from the time of the last Common Market referendum in 1975. At that time the TUC and half the Labour Party were for coming out though the Wilson Labour government was in favour of staying in (as was the Tory party).

Here's Roy Hattersley, a junior minister,  for the REMAIN side dealing with the "loss of sovereignty" issue:

Mr. Hattersley accepted that sovereignty would become a major issue once the new terms were known.  He questioned, however, whether the British Parliament really did have the power any longer to influence world events that vitally affected the British economy.  'No matter how many resolutions we pass or laws we enact, Britain's domestic interest rate (which affects every aspect of our life from the control of inflation to the cost of school building) will be more affected by decisions taken in Zurich, Bonn and New York - and now in Teheran, Jeddah and Caracas as well - than by anything done by the House of Commons' . . . 'In or out of the EEC, our economy will be influenced, judgments made beyond these shores'.  The best protection was the economic power to withstand foreign pressures.  Close alignments, like membership of the EEC, clearly involved some pooling of sovereignty, Mr. Hattersley went on.  But if the Community gave each member State increased economic strength in return 'we become more free not less so'".  (Financial Times, 7-1-1975)

And Peter Shore, a Cabinet Minister allowed to put the case for LEAVE, dreaming of having his cake and eating it:

Peter Shore recognises the need for Britain to continue trading on a large scale with the EEC, but argues that this could be done by concluding a trade agreement with the EEC such as Sweden is trying for. The trade agreement would offer access to the EEC and nothing more.

I don't whether the current debate is plus ça change or history repeating itself a second time as farce.

Access, free and not free (1991)

From the October 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

In moments of exhilaration, we socialists have been known to indulge in some highly optimistic assessments of our importance in the order of things. In our more commonplace moods of despair, we are prone to underestimate the impact we have on public opinion and social affairs. It is not surprising, therefore, that we have given only limited attention to the extent to which some of the brighter sparks amongst the advertising fraternity have found it opportune to take over some of our dreams and to filch our terminology for concepts they can harness to their merchandising schemes.

Of course, we are all too familiar with advertising which trades upon the everyday fears of working people to sell us insurance or a multitude of products we are led to believe will obviate the shortcomings of their market rivals. A recent feature article in the weekend supplement of the Guardian dwelt upon how a go-getting PR woman clawed her way to success by utilizing the phraseology of the ecological movement to sanitise her sales efforts on behalf of clients. This prompted me to ponder the even more cynical plundering of socialist ideas which had been going on over the past few decades with similar purposes in view.

For all the efforts of our opponents to find us guilty of association (by their reckoning) with Russia’s “communist” tyranny—although they and not us were Stalins war-time allies—it remains generally true that when someone gives an objective hearing to our aims and democratic, non-violent methods it is more likely than not they will be received very favourably, albeit with the reservation that we are excessively "idealistic" and expect far too much of so-called “human-nature”. It is quite rare for us to be criticised for advocating some kind of totalitarian nightmare. In my opinion, the professional publicists have quite shamelessly purloined the most attractive single feature of the sane society we propose, namely "free access" to what we require from the socialist community’s pool of resources.

Since the high-street banks have been concerned to sign up most of us for their credit-card method of money-lending (my own comes with the blessing of my trade-union) their advertisements referring to a "cashless society" have borne an ironic resemblance to socialist aspirations. Surely it is possible that the adoption of the name "Access" for the name of the best-known UK credit-card was a direct consequence of some bright spark in the advertising industry listening to one of our open-air meetings and carrying off the phrase as class-war booty? And. for that matter, where did John Major latch on to the notion of a “classless society” if not around Clapham High Street in his days as a Tory councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth?

E. S. Grant

Who can read Marx? (1972)

Book Reviews from the May 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Concept of Nature in Marx, by Alfred Schmidt. Published by NLB. £3.25.

Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society, by Bertell Oilman. Cambridge University Press. £4.

These two books by professional philosophers are very different in approach, yet both seem to have been chiefly inspired by two manuscripts of Marx: the Grundrisse and the Paris Manuscripts. In these, Marx’s debts to other writers, particularly philosophers, are much more evident than in Das Kapital, and it is much easier for scholars to get to grips with the feelings which motivated him and the principles which governed his thinking. Neither writer believes that Marx altered his attitudes in anything more than detail or emphasis later in life, and they trace the development of certain ideas from the earlier to the later works.

Socialists will approach both books with a measure of caution, because they are tacitly welcoming Marx back into the philosophers’ fold from which he was at pains to escape. Alfred Schmidt, in the doctoral dissertation which forms the main part of his book, sets out to show that, in spite of Marx’s avoidance of philosophical terms in Das Kapital, the work contains a considerable amount of implicit and explicit philosophy which is a natural development of his earlier ideas about the interaction of man and nature and whose origins lie in Hegel and Feuerbach. Schmidt’s scope is more limited than Ollman’s: he is principally concerned to set the record straight as regards Marx’s philosophical respectability and consistency. This involves the painstaking dissection of a number of Marx’s followers as well as his critics. Although Lenin emerges unscathed, the generality of

Soviet philosophising is repeatedly criticised. Kautsky, Plekhanov, and even Engels are shown to be less consistent and rigorously honest than Marx; and the chimera which leads most of them astray is the dialectic. Schmidt examines dialectics in some detail and shows that Marx was judicious in his use of it, whereas Engels, in Dialectics of Nature was led into silliness by his enthusiasm for it, and the Soviet thinkers who have followed him almost up to the present day have made a new metaphysics of it.

The most refreshing thing about Schmidt’s rather turgid book is its scholarly manner, which never gives way to the point-scoring partisan writing on Marx with which socialists are so tiredly familiar. Its most valuable attribute is the documentation of Marx’s scrupulous caution in employing ideas in the effort to understand and describe what exists. Oversimplifications, such as the one some of us slip into when we talk of the development of stages of society, are laid against the considerably more sophisticated explanations used by Marx, and we are reminded that the critics, even to the present day, are in the main [much] less intelligent than the writer they are criticising, and only half aware of what he said.

Bertell Ollman is very much aware of critics, and lays about him with considerable vigour. His is a much more lively book than Schmidt’s, and sets out immediately to challenge the reader with a new approach to Marx’s writing which is to make everything clear. Perhaps it is because he really has an established reputation that he speaks with such scholarly authority and does not think it necessary to substantiate his contentions with many or with very substantial quotations; but it may be simply due to the fact that he is American. When he takes it for granted that the workers in "imperialist” nations have benefitted at the expense of the colonial workers, or suggests that, because the workers of the world have not attempted to bring about a communist revolution, they must therefore have a character defect preventing them from acting in their own best interests—such glib assumptions make one wonder whether the main thesis of his book is any more reliable than these.

Ollman’s contention is that Marx is largely misunderstood because he used language in a special way. He had adopted, says Ollman, the philosophy of internal relations, so that a thing was never regarded as itself pure and simple, but a plexus of relationships viewable from many different angles. Marx could only tackle the enormous job of describing the interrelated and changing elements of capitalist society, without distorting the picture, by using such an approach. The result is that his words have different meanings at different times. This is a degree of subtlety which has led critics like Karl Popper to make fools of themselves, according to Ollman, because they have tried to pin Marx down to a more naive terminology in which things are stationary and mutually exclusive.

Ordinary socialists have never found it difficult to think of capital as money at one moment and a factory full of machines, materials and workers the next, or to regard the process of production as also one of consumption. This may be at the root of their steady contempt over the years for the ‘what-Marx-really-meant’ brigade of writers. Nevertheless, if this erudite explanation of how to read Marx is what is necessary for the avowed experts, then Oilman’s book could have a salutary effect on the level of Marxian criticism.

Ollman’s second thesis is that Marx’s experience of philosophy convinced him that it was impossible to state a fact without incorporating a value judgement in the statement . Accordingly, any such study as Das Kapital was bound to set out from a point of view and to incorporate the relevant value judgements. And the point of view that Marx adopted, says Ollman, was that of alienated man—particularly the alienated worker —whose life and whose self were so much inferior to what they might be in a communist society. This is why Ollman entitles his book ‘Alienation’. He regards it as the most meaningful way to study modern society.

On the whole, Ollman’s approach is very convincing. It illuminates the labour theory of value and the role of religion with equal relevance, but his Critical Evaluation which sums up is very disappointing. It is not his pessimism which disappoints, or even his introduction at this late stage of the notion of “character structure’’ to account for working-class apathy, but the strong impression he gives of making reservations about Marx’s work simply in order to seem impartial. In this it echoes the Introduction to the book, but is quite out of keeping with the enthusiastic eulogism of the main text. Perhaps the fact that the Ford Foundation helped to finance the writing of the book has something to do with it, but it does add further doubts about Ollman’s integrity. It also points up the fact that readers who are not considerable Marxian scholars have very little chance of detecting the flaws in clever cases built up on selected quotations. Only a steady scepticism on our part, and the repeated testing of the ideas against our own experience offer any protection. Occasionally we shall have the added advantage of watching the professionals fall out amongst themselves, as these two do to some extent. In his Preface to the English Edition, Schmidt says

It will help the English reader to understand this book if from the outset he bears in mind its polemical aspect. It was one of the first attempts to draw on the politico-economic writings of middle-period and mature Marx . . .  for a ‘philosophical’ interpretation of Marx’s life-work. In doing this, the book opposed the widespread Western European, often neo-Existentialist, tendency of the 1950s to reduce Marx's thought to an unhistorical ‘anthropology’ centred on the alienation problematic of the early writings . . .

Which is largely what Ollman is doing.

Ron Cook

About Ourselves (1932)

Editorial from the July 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present world depression is like all the depressions that have gone before in the effect it is having on the workers and their organisations. During a depression events move fast, and opinions are quickly changed when adversity stimulates interest in political and economic theories. Capitalism during its crises presents its more deadly aspects, and the most optimistic exponents of the “getting better and better” type of self-deception become apologetic and admit that there is something amiss. It is then that the Labour parties have their testing time. And how they have fallen! The world is strewn with the debris of reform programmes and reform parties.

In this universal destruction of jerry-built political parties, the truths of Socialism come into their own. The Socialist Party of Great Britain has in consequence enjoyed a period of relatively splendid expansion. We had a record influx of members in 1931. The sales of the Socialist Standard have increased steadily and encouragingly during the past two years. More interest is shown in our case, as is evidence by the attendance at meetings and the inquiries we receive. Interest has not only grown in amount but has extended to new foreign fields where in the past we have been unknown or ignored. We have found a bigger demand for pamphlets. In short, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the increasing effect of our propaganda.

We are, however, well aware, that our expanded activities are only the expansion of a very small effort. What we can do is so far tragically small in relation to the vast problem of converting the workings class to Socialism. Events tend in our direction, but the difficulty of getting our attitude to the workers is only a little less than it was: it is still very great. The disturbance caused by the crisis and by the discovery that the old theories were worthless has a double effect. It sets men's minds in a ferment, but it calls forth increased activity from the hosts of political quacks who formerly shouted their wares in obscurity. A glance over the shelves of bookshops which cater for working-class students of politics will show that the present period is like the crisis of ten years ago in respect of the multiplicity of groups and propaganda papers seeking to attract interest in untenable theories—land-taxers, bimetallists, inflationists of all degrees and kinds, anarchists, direct actionists, and peculiar religions and philosophies without number. The depression helps us, but it also plagues us with this swarm of freaks, frauds and cranks.

We are doing what we can to seize whatever advantage the opportunity offers. In September, when the new year begins for the Socialist Standard, we are producing it with a somewhat larger page and are making improvements in its appearance. We are publishing this month a pamphlet which will help to fill a big gap in our propaganda. We have developed our advertising in order to get at workers to whom formerly we were unknown. That is our contribution. Now what of yours?

The larger Socialist Standard will involve a considerable increase in expenditure. In a comparatively short period we have gained 1,500 new readers. If you will help us to gain as many more, that will pay for the extra outlay. We also need to reprint other pamphlets. A 20,000 edition of “ Socialism ” is nearly exhausted, and will need re-printing. Other pamphlets are either out of print or nearly so. If we are to make the most of the present favourable situation we need money urgently. We ask all our readers to do their utmost during the coming summer propaganda months to extend the sales of the Socialist Standard and our pamphlets and those who can to help us with donations.

Disasters: who's to blame? (1991)

From the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Events which leave one sickened seem to be everyday if not twice-a-day occurrences lately. Switch off the horror films, view reality instead.

The pace of life and the power behind that tempo are aspects of modern society to which we close our minds, except when a tragedy hits the headlines. The way we distance ourselves is by never imagining that the latest horrific accident will happen to ourselves or our loved ones. Nor do we think that we are in any way responsible. Usually the fault is laid at “their” door, “they” didn't do the job properly, “they” caused those people to drown, be burned or poisoned and “they” should do something about it. But if "we” think that a society operated by money and the wages system is the only way to be—if time is money and cutting corners a way to make more— if this is acceptable then so must be the Kings Cross fire, Hillsborough, Zeebrugge, Chernobyl, Bhopal, Seveso, Three Mile Island. Sellafield— the list could go on and on, and it is “we" who must share the responsibility.

What all these “accidents” have in common is that they are all related to the profit-making system of society that is capitalism—and its imperatives—and have all been attributed to human error. The Master of the ship the Herald of Free Enterprise (the name is a herald of foreboding) goes to sea with the bow doors open. The operators in the Three Mile Island disaster were said to have a "faulty mental model" of the system. The fire in the reactor at Sellafield/Windscale, in October 1957, was the result of certain control operations being performed too soon and too rapidly. In 1974 a DC10 plane crashed after taking off from Orly Airport near Paris killing 346 people: an overworked baggage handler had failed to secure the cargo doors, which subsequently blew out. The Torrey Canyon oil tanker ran aground when the captain who was trying to negotiate a difficult route through the Scilly Isles in order to meet an unrealistic schedule, failed to switch from auto pilot to manual control. At a critical moment, he turned the wheel hard and nothing happened.

The nature of the technology determines the scale of the disasters and human error is involved—but the error is the collective error of those who support present-day society rather than that of the individual workers. If the next terrible happening was to be in our own backyard, if our own child were to die of radiation-related leukaemia, surely we would say enough is enough, no more pain or grief over totally unnecessary events. There must be a better way of providing the necessities of our daily lives and, given collective responsibility, there is.

Janet Carter

Raising of the school leaving age (1972)

From the April 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Teacher writes . . . 

Over the past twenty years or so education has become one of the most popular discussion topics among pundits, practitioners and participants alike. Following the 1944 Butler Education Act, and the resulting tripartite secondary system of grammar, technical and modern schools, there has been much heated argument about early selection and the relatively privileged position of the grammar schools. This in turn has been followed by a movement towards comprehensive schools and their gradual and partial replacement of grammar schools. But the concept of “equality of educational opportunity" has meant many things to many people in the past, not least among supporters of the comprehensive movement who saw in such schools the opportunity to put into practice such ideas of equality. The publication of three "Black Papers" on education by anti-comprehensive writers, and indeed other writings by some who support the idea in principle, has shown that much of the expected outcome has not been fulfilled, and the ethos within these schools today seems to hold little promise of a more egalitarian structure in education. As Dennis Marsden point out, in Education For Democracy, the early supporters of comprehensives looked to these new schools to provide a solvent for class barriers and inequality. They urged the abolition of grammar schools on the grounds of social exclusiveness, narrowness and rigidity of academic curriculum. By contrast, many of the later supporters of the comprehensive schools have wanted merely an extension of the grammar school traditions with a higher proportion of the population benefiting. Also, instead of the proposed unstreaming and the common curriculum, with flexible teaching methods intended to promote a new co-operative atmosphere especially geared towards the average or less-able child, the existing competitive streamed and specialised structure has for the most part been retained. The measure of success is still the number of GCE passes, university places and the more efficient use of scarce science and maths teachers.

Accompanying these arguments have been other equally passionate themes such as forms of examinations, school organisation and size of classes, changing pattern of sixth forms, abolition of free milk, and as a reminder that teachers are very much part of the class struggle there has been regular recurrences of teachers’ pay negotiations. Now comes the latest controversy in this long line of reform, namely the raising of the school leaving age, or ROSLA as it has become popularly known. From next year pupils whose fifteenth birthday falls on or after 1 September, 1972, will have to remain at school for one year more than they would otherwise have done, although it must at once be made clear that many children already stay on at school quite voluntarily. In fact there is an average of some 60 per cent of the age group throughout the country already doing so. This figure must, however, be considered further to establish precisely where the problems are likely to arise. It does not follow that 60 per cent in every area stay on at school; the incidence varies from about 68 per cent in Greater London and the South to some 42 per cent in the East Midlands.

The concern among practising teachers and administrators is directed towards the group of pupils who would normally leave at fifteen, and although these represent a minority of the age group there is a feeling that these “reluctant learners”, as they have come to be called, will cause disruption disproportionately to their numbers. An indication of this concern can be seen in Enquiry I, a Government Social Survey undertaken as part of the Schools Council’s programme for helping teachers prepare for the raising of the school leaving age. Around 3,000 teachers were interviewed.

The majority had some reservations about the advantages of keeping at least some of their pupils at school for the extra year, and one union — The National Association of Schoolmasters — views the plan with considerable apprehension. During the debate on the proposal at its Easter Conference, older delegates said their life expectancy was being shortened by five years by the stresses of coping with unruly teenagers in large urban schools.

Britain, of course, is not alone in this desire to extend education beyond the current school leaving age. Although there has been something of an explosion of pupils between 17-18 in schools there is still only 19 per cent of the age group getting full-time education. This compares with 24 per cent in France and Italy, some 38 per cent in the Netherlands and Belgium, over 70 per cent in Japan and nearly 90 per cent in America and higher proportions will soon be internationally commonplace. Yet some are asking if these figures are justified even by present-day standards, when one considers the type of education churned out for these increasing numbers. Does capitalist society need the technologists, and if so are the schools best fitted to train them, and should, in fact, that be the purpose of mass education? One writer, Paul Goodman, in his book Compulsory Miseducation, uses the following argument to question the value of extended education.

It is claimed that society needs more people who are technically trained. But informed labour people tell me that, for a job requiring skill but no great genius, a worker can be found at once, or quickly trained to fill it. For instance, the average job in General Motors’ most automated plant requires three weeks of training for those who have no education whatever. It used to require six weeks; for such automation has diminished rather than increased the needs for training. In the Army and Navy, fairly complicated skills e.g. radar operation and repair, are taught on the job in a year, often to practical illiterates.

The argument here is not that there should be no education for the mass of people, but rather what type of education, and to whom should it be orientated. Goodman argues that it is time we stopped using the word "education” honorifically, and that the present type of compulsory schooling under the present administrators, far from being extended, should be sharply curtailed. He feels that schools should become less institutionalised and much more flexible, with opportunities to return to education in later years as the desire or needs demand.

The purpose of this article is not to oppose the raising of the school leaving age, though it is clear that there has been a lack of preparation to meet the obvious demands this will make on an already overburdened educational system. And there are many in education today who have serious misgivings as to whether reforms like this will be an improvement. Evidence of this doubt can readily be seen in the new books dealing with the aims and values of modern schools, books such as Paul Goodman’s Compulsory Miseducation, Everett Reimer’s School is Dead, Ivan Illich’s work on the school as an institution, and many others searching for alternatives in education. So much of their description is correct, but the prescription is lacking, and while education today is restricting, limiting and narrow in every sense, putting this right can only be done in an alternative society, and for this reason we direct our efforts towards the establishing of Socialism rather than concerning ourselves with advocating or opposing reforms such as the raising of the school leaving age. As a practising teacher, very much in the front line of action, and like so many other teachers up and down the country, I shall endeavour to face the realities of the situation and work out a series of solutions and compromises, at the same time making the extra year as profitable and as enjoyable to the young people in my care as I possibly can. Perhaps one good feature about the whole scheme is that many adolescents are becoming more informed about world problems, and discussion groups within the schools are allowing them to become aware that the solutions to social problems such as war, poverty, unemployment and pollution can only be found through the establishment of a non-competitive society. (We have recently been invited to talk to groups of senior pupils within the schools, and the response to our case is encouraging).

Education in the seventies will continue to develop along the lines that it has for the past century, and to the same purpose, that is producing workers capable of manning the machinery of production and distribution, who are paid in return sufficient wages and salaries to reproduce their energies. The fact that some workers progress beyond this stage is due to their own efforts rather than the educational system, just as it was during the last century in Britain and just as it is today in many of the underdeveloped countries throughout the world. The Times "Turnover” article (29 April, 1964) pointed out that "Strictly speaking the hottest political debates about education are not about education at all. They are about national investment, national competitiveness, social justice and above all class.” The discussion, in other words, is about educational reforms within the context of capitalism. Real freedom and a truly liberal education can only come about in a cooperative and non-competitive society. Socialists look forward to the day when education will be genuinely for the individual, and when the development of creative talents will replace the pre-packeted, mass-training that sadly passes for education today.

Ronald.

Trade Unions (1970)

Book Review from the March 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Trade Unions, by Peter Lane. (Bastford. 18s.)

This book is supposed to be a simple history of trade unions for use in secondary schools.

With illustrations on nearly every one of its 90 pages, it traces the rise of trade unionism in Britain from the early days of small craft and local unions to the Trades Union Congress of today. Lane merely expresses the orthodox role of the TUC today: as a body more concerned with the well-being of the British (capitalist) economy than with the interests of the workers. He manages to avoid any mention of unofficial strikes.

He also gives a misleading idea of the views of Robert Owen and William Morris. Owen is made out to be a militant syndicalist who believed the unions should overthrow capitalism in a general strike and then themselves run industry. Morris, on the other hand, is supposed to have held that trade union control of industry “might be won peacefully’’ and to have founded, along with Ruskin, the so-called Guild Socialist movement.

Lane would have been nearer the truth if he had reversed the roles he assigned to Owen and Morris, only neither of them advocated syndicalism or trade union control of industry. Owen stood for a federation of producer co-operatives (“the cooperative commonwealth") to be achieved gradually and peacefully. Morris was a Marxian socialist and stood for the common ownership and democratic control of industry to be achieved by revolutionary political action (which he believed would most likely be violent).

It should not be too much these days to expect accurate facts to be given to schoolchildren.

Adam Buick

Activities in West Ham: Labour Party shirks debates. (1931)

Party News from the February 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is becoming increasingly evident that the districts of both West Ham and its eastern neighbour, East Ham, are not going to be such happy hunting grounds for the activities of the vote-catching political confidence tricksters as they have hitherto been. Slowly, but surely, the workers here are learning the real position. This encouraging state of affairs is mainly due to the efforts of the West Ham Branch. Our propaganda meetings have been held regularly throughout the season; outside Forest Gate Station, and at the corner of Kempton Road, East Ham, on Wednesday and Sunday evenings respectively.

So successful, indeed, have the meetings at the latter place been, that the branch members have decided to continue them throughout the winter, whenever the Clerk of the Weather is in a favourable mood. Another gratifying feature is the steady increase in the sale of the S.S. and pamphlets. Many newsagents here are now recognising that our paper is in demand and are giving prominence to the S.S. contents poster. There is every justification for the optimistic feeling that prevails concerning the growth of support for Socialism.

Already the local Labourites are getting anxious. For instance, in East Ham, we have made efforts to engage in public debate the two M.P.s for the district. But although Miss Susan Lawrence verbally agreed to "debate with anyone" on the subject, “Is the Labour Party worthy of the support of the working class?" and accepted the challenge made on behalf of the S.P.G.B., no reply was forthcoming when a letter was sent to the local Labour Party with the object of fixing up the details. Another letter, sent a few weeks after, was also ignored. In East Ham South the Labour Party have been more courteous. They, at any rate, did answer our letter, but they also shirked a public debate with a Socialist.

Their letter, dated October 4th, and signed by their Secretary, H. Restarick, East Ham South Divisional Labour Party, reads as follows :—

Dear Sir,—Replying to your letter of 29th ult., I fail to see what useful purpose would be served by Mr. Alfred Barnes, M.P., engaging in public debate with a representative of the S.P.G.B.—Yours, etc.

Of course we are quite aware that no useful purpose would be served to the Labour Party, and are consequently not surprised at their avoiding such a debate. We should like to explain, however, that a very useful purpose could be served in showing an audience the difference between the organisations.

But the Labour Party have backed another loser by their attitude in this matter, for their refusal to debate and defend themselves is being used with effect by our local speakers.

Our readiness to discuss and defend our case is being rewarded by having large and orderly audiences. When we have gained the understanding and approval of our listeners, we of the West Ham Branch will be glad to sign them on at 167, Romford Road, where the branch meets every Thursday at 8 o'clock.

The Hammer.