Ignoble art (1986)

From the June 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since 1939 there have been approximately 360 deaths throughout the world as a result of professional boxing and each time there are renewed calls for its abolition.

Supporters of boxing claim that many other popular sports are potentially hazardous and that the nine or ten deaths worldwide each year due to professional boxing are low compared with them. It is further claimed that boxing is organised under strict medical supervision and that if it was banned then unlicensed fights would flourish without such stringent controls and the risks for boxers would be greater.

To claim (correctly) that the fatality rate for boxing is lower than for a number of other sports disguises the fact that injuries in sport usually result from accidents or breaches of the rules, but injuries in boxing arise from the application of the rules. Boxing differs from other sports in that the contestants engage in an activity — fighting which is normally considered to be illegal. Indeed, in the early days of prize fighting the legal position of the emergent "sport” was precarious.

In the old prize ring days the sport survived not only because there were not enough police to subdue it but because it was supported by so many influential people. Indeed, the position was slightly ludicrous, for although the sport was banned by law and scorned upon by the church it was never surprising to see a few church dignitaries or Parliamentarians at the ringside. (Golesworthy. M. [1983] Encyclopaedia of Boxing. 7th Edition. Robert Hale. London, p. 142)

Professional boxing has been legalised in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and most of the United States. But the ability of boxing to flourish in Britain without legal backing is typical of the way that the law can be conveniently ignored when business interests are involved and also how powerless the law can be when confronted with overwhelming public demand.

Bare knuckle prize fights continued until about 1895 and the conditions under which many of them were fought were quite barbaric. Fights often lasted for several hours and prize fighters were shamelessly exploited to provide money for promoters and profits from gambling. In May 1833 James Burke fought Simon Byrne in a contest which lasted three hours and six minutes before Byrne was defeated. He died three days later; Burke was tried for manslaughter but acquitted. Earlier, in 1741, when George Stevenson died in a contest with Jack Broughton, a charge of manslaughter was not brought against the winner but, as Golesworthy points out, Broughton's backer was the Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, whose influence was used to override the law.

The use of gloves to protect the hands became increasingly popular towards the end of the last century but little else was done to protect boxers, who continued to take part in very long fights. In 1893 Andy Bowen and Jack Burke fought a contest, wearing gloves, of 110 rounds lasting seven hours and nineteen minutes, which was declared no contest because neither boxer was knocked out.

Gambling has always been an integral part of boxing and this has led to a number of attempts to manipulate the results of contests. The earliest record of a bribe being taken to fix a fight was when George Meggs was beaten by Bill Stevens in March 1761 and admitted that he had accepted money to throw the fight. During the 1920s boxing in the United States was controlled by the Mafia who made large sums of money from gambling. As a consequence many fights were fixed according to the betting and in 1930 the New York State Athletic Commission was forced to introduce the "no-foul rule" which prevented boxers from winning bouts because of being struck low blows. Before this many boxers had lost by fouling their opponents but safeguarded the racketeers' money because bets were not paid out on fights ending in disqualification. Although fortunes were made by mobsters, promoters and managers in the early days of boxing many professional boxers struggled to earn a satisfactory living even for the few years that their careers usually lasted: Digger Stanley died in poverty in 1919 in spite of being British bantamweight champion in 1913.

The number of bouts fought by some boxers was remarkable: Abraham Hollandersky is believed to have had 1,309 contests between 1905 and 1918; Battling Levinsky fought three contests in one day - 1 January 1915; Tommy Burns defended his world heavyweight title twice in one day on 28 March 1906, against Jim O'Brien and Jim Walker in San Diego. The New York State Athletic Commission was formed in 1920 and the British Boxing Board of Control in 1929 because it was recognised that over-exploitation of boxers could ruin profits. Professional boxers, particularly if they had championship potential, were valuable and needed to be protected from overmatching and unnecessary physical injury. It must also be remembered that as boxing had no legal recognition in Britain concessions had to be made to the pressure of the abolitionists.

Professional boxing in Britain is probably the most stringently controlled in the world because of its precarious legal position and the need to be able to claim to be "safe". But there has been an anomaly in the operation of boxing booths in fairgrounds for, although the boxers are licensed by the British Boxing Board of Control, the booths are owned by members of the Showmen's Guild of Great Britain and there are no checks made on people who try their luck against the professionals.

Racial prejudice has also been an ugly feature of boxing throughout its history. Golesworthy states:

Several notable coloured boxers who might well have become world champions never even got a chance to fight for the title. It is also a well known fact that many of the coloured men who did achieve world honours had to be satisfied with smaller purses than their challengers. (p.59)

Coloured boxers, although eligible for Empire titles, were prevented from competing for British titles until 1947. when the British Boxing Board of Control lifted its ban. Racial tensions were deliberately exploited, to boost attendance at fights, by dubbing white boxers, particularly in the heavyweight division, as "great white hopes" when matched against coloured boxers.

Supporters of boxing would claim that most of the exploitation and barbarity of the early days no longer apply; punch-drunk boxers are rarely seen because of stricter medical controls; mobsters no longer control the betting; racism is not now condoned by boxing's controlling bodies; boxing champions have chances of earning vast amounts of money. But although controls have certainly improved there are still a lot of problems: the British Medical Association states unequivocally that all forms of boxing are dangerous and that even participation in amateur boxing, which is very strictly regulated. leads to brain damage. Besides brain damage a form of Parkinsonism, with slowing down of movements, difficulty with walking, slurred speech, memory lapses and personality changes - boxers risk cuts and bruises, eye damage and fractures and osteoarthrosis of the hands.

The business interests of professional boxing has led to less stringent controls being applied there than in amateur boxing and, consequently, professional fights are of longer duration and less likely to be stopped because of cuts or knockdowns. The longer the bouts that professional boxers participate in, the fewer boxers are needed to provide an evening's entertainment. With fewer boxers to pay, the higher the profits for promoters. Gambling remains as prominent as ever in boxing and, although Mafia involvement has been kept in check, bookmakers' profits are expanding.

Racism and nationalism remain firmly entrenched; white boxers are still regarded as "great white hopes" when fighting coloured boxers and although boxing's controlling organisations no longer officially support racism they manage to turn a blind eye while such attitudes continue to sell tickets although recently they had to take disciplinary action (because of the risk of being discredited) when two boxers went too far and brawled in a London street over racial abuse each had voiced against the other.

A few top boxers earn enormous amounts of money - but this is true of the elite of any sport. At amateur level and the lower echelons of the professional ranks boxers are not only encouraged, but trained, to risk their health and that of their opponents by engaging in a brutal and dangerous occupation in the hope of earning glory and big purses from trying to injure their fellow workers.

The lack of legal status has not prevented boxing from flourishing. When abolitionists appreciate that any activity, however barbaric or dangerous, can be condoned under capitalism as long as it is profitable then perhaps they will abandon reforms.

Carl Pinel

A New Religion for China (1964)

Book Review from the February 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Centre of the World: Communism and the Mind of China by Robert S. Elegant, Methuen, 42s.

China is the latest recruit to world capitalism. The ruling-class there have taken over a whole bag of tricks from their fellow ruling-classes of the West and brought them up-to-date for the ruthless exploitation of their workers, both civilians and soldiers. They have used the technique of convincing the Chinese that the system of society there is communistic and that the government is a workers' council acting for the workers. They have used expert propaganda to train their workers, or at any rate some of them, to be super-patriotic and ready to fight and die for the motherland; Chinese workers are now trained to believe that they are a kind of master race and that the rest of the world are barbarians; they have become super-employees, working fantastically long hours with many doing two jobs. School children and students, in addition to their classes, have to work long hours on farms or construction jobs.

China, the land where compromise was for centuries the order of the day, has now gone to extremes in almost everything imaginable. No more of those succulent meals, at least not for the working-class. Every place of employment has its canteen, including the communal farms, where small portions of rice and vegetable gruel are served, occasionally with a microscopic amount of meat. But money talks there as anywhere else, and for the wealthy there are black-market supplies at the usual high price. There is food rationing throughout China. The Chinese family, for centuries the closest- knit in the world possibly, has been broken-up, the children taken over by creches, the parents separated from each other and forced to sleep in dormitories near the job. All this they are being trained to view as more important than the family.

The agnostic Chinese have also been given a god—Mao-tse-tung; a bible—the collected works of Lenin, Stalin and Mao-tse-tung; priests, the omnipresent Communist Party cadres who supervise the workers politically not only on the job but in the street committees, trade union meetings, etc.; and an inquisition more gruelling than anything the Jesuits ever devised. Like the Christians in the West, they have a heaven that will never materialise; the Chinese pie-in-the-sky is the Socialist State towards which they are supposed to be going via this vale of tears. Tighten your belts a bit more, the Chinese workers are told, and you will be one step nearer the promised land. This exhortation seems to ring a bell here! But all this is for the workers only—the ruling-class do not need it.

Mr. Elegant in his book goes back to Confucious in his research on the unique Chinese conviction of superiority, as he terms it. He traces the history of China from 1600 A.D. and describes in detail the past decade, analysing such aspects as the Peoples' Communes, Mao and the other leaders, the Sino-Soviet dispute the structure of both the Communist Party and the Peoples’ Republic. Here, in a fascinating portrait of a powerful new force in the world today is a blending of scholarship, journalism and political commentary. This reviewer was most impressed in face of the vast and detailed knowledge of the author but, despite the fact that Mr. Elegant is a newspaper correspondent and perhaps should be expected to know better, he does not understand what make the society we all live in tick.

He doesn’t see the world as it is, divided into opposing groups, the workers and the ruling-class, whose interests are diametrically opposed. He sees the world divided into good people and bad people, good leaders and bad leaders. He sees two opposing systems of society, the free world of the West, and he is on their side and they are good; and the dark satanic world that lies behind the iron and bamboo curtains. That he regards as bad, and he hates their social system, which he mistakenly believes to be basically different from the capitalism of the West. This view colours his comments throughout the book, which can only be regarded as just one more addition to the muddle-headed spate of pro-capitalist propaganda with which we have to cope in the meagre columns of the Socialist Standard.

It is little wonder that non-Socialist readers who peruse books of this type are induced to loathe the very connotations of the word Socialism, not knowing that China is the latest example of a backward country, pitchforked by events into the maelstrom of a world of capitalism already developed, and using the quickest method of catching up with the others. It is not Socialism that they arc criticising but the growing-pains of this youthful capitalism.

Frank Offord

Party Notes. (1908)

Party News from the July 1908 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Branch continues to go “great guns,” and the local S.D.P., I.LP., and other reform organisations must be heartily wishing our members with their inconvenient truths anywhere but where they are—and that is mainly where the reformers make their own public pitches. Being beaten whenever they allow themselves to be drawn into discussion upon the position and tactics of their own parties, they now refuse to answer questions from any of our speakers (following a line that has offered a way of escape elsewhere) and when forced into some recognition of the S.P.G.B., have recourse to the customary misrepresentation of our attitude, and vilification of some of our membership.

—++—

The latter course, however, does not always pay, as Mr. Watson, of the S.D.P. Executive, found when he ventured to level charges at our comrade Baritz, who at one time was secretary of the Cheetham Branch of the S.D.P. The charges related to Baritz’s conduct while acting in that capacity, as a result of which, it was alleged, he was expelled. Baritz had no difficulty in proving Watson’s statements to be untrue, and after many miserable attempts to struggle out of the difficulty his attempt to blacken our man in the eyes of his audience had landed him into, Watson was obliged to admit his “error,” and reluctantly apologised.

—++—

Apart from there brushes with the enemy, the Manchester Branch has held many meetings, with audiences running sometimes into four figures, and has effected large sales of the Party literature. More power to them.

—++—

Another branch of the Party has now been formed in Lancashire. Burnley has opened fire, and in the district specially affected with Dan-irvinism. The members may be reckoned upon to make their presence felt. So the organisation that four years ago was given three months to die in, grows. It must be very annoying to the prophets.

—++—

At Watford a round table meeting, to which members of the local S.D.P. were specially invited, was held, when Fitzgerald gave an address on the reasons for the Party opposition to the S.D.P. Several S.D.P.’ers turned up, and their principal platform member undertook the rather unhappy task of defending his organisation’s work. Whether the meeting results in any immediate conversions or not, it doubtless has had the effect of opening the eyes of some of the S.D.P. men present to the methods by which their society is run, as well as to the only attitude which a working-class party can adopt. As their presence was an indication of a desire to get at the truth, the final outcome must be to the advantage of the only Party expressing working-class interests—the S.P.G.B. It is fairly certain that if the honest, earnest member of the S.D.P., I.LP., and the rest (and there are without question, of course, many such), could be got at, and the issues squarely put and thoroughly discussed, a large proportion would, sooner or later, recognise the weakness of their position and come over. The difficulty is that the forces at work to prevent such discussion, coupled with our comparative weakness numerically, make any meeting impossible. This is unfortunate for the growth of the Socialist Party in England, perhaps, but we can only keep on with our work while keeping a watchful eye upon any opportunity that offers.

—++—

Will any member who is willing to devote any part of his holidays to provincial propaganda work communicate at once with the Head Office, giving dates and district? The biggest glutton for work can be fully satisfied. Verily, the field is great and the labourers few.

—++—

Two debates have been held with the S.L.P., one in Manchester and one in Finsbury Park. On each occasion the position of the S.P.G.B. was easily maintained against the position put up against it. By the time this appears another debate will have taken place in Islington. with F. Montague, the organiser of the I.L.P. in North London.

—++—

Not only have these debates been held by the Islington Branch with representatives of the “Labour movement," but the Liberal Party has been met on June 18th, when our comrade Fitzgerald met Mr. Theedham, of the Central Finsbury Liberal Association. Any member of any political party outside the S.P.G.B.  can always be accommodated by communicating with us.

Exposed: What Militant really stands for (1985)

From the February 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

When an organisation comes on the scene claiming to stand for the interest of the workers it is necessary to examine its principles and policies critically and responsibly. There's no point in believing everything a political organisation says about itself; after all, the Labour Party has claimed for years that it stands for the workers' interest and look what happened. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not, of course, give credence to the pronouncements of the mass media: to do so would be to accept the Militant Tendency as a Marxist organisation, committed to working for a socialist revolution. We wish that the media were right, because we would describe ourselves in precisely that way. But there is evidence to show that the Militant Tendency is far from being either what it claims to be or what the capitalist media says it is; that it is in fact just another front for the very capitalist system it sloganises against.

We expose the Militant Tendency as reformist. not in a spirit of animosity towards our fellow workers in the organisation, but because the need for socialism is now more urgent than ever and there can be no time lost in diversions. Last September we were passed a letter addressed to the Political Editor of Militant, written by a worker who had been selling and supporting the paper for two years. The following extracts (which we publish with the writer s permission) make clear what he had learnt in the period:

  Having read What Militant Stands For and having come across so many Militant supporters in the Labour Party Young Socialists. I come to the conclusion that Militant does not argue for "bold socialist policies" as I had mistakenly believed. The ideas of Militant, together with the equally reformist Labour Party and LPYS do not constitute a real socialist alternative to the decaying and anarchic capitalist system.
   Clause IV (part 4) refers to the “. . . common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange". Surely if there is common ownership, so that everyone owns everything, then there is no need for a means of exchange, i.e. there is no need for money. This is a fundamental principle of what Marx himself advocated. Socialism is, I think you would agree, the establishment of a system of society where production is based on the needs of the majority producers of wealth and not on the private profit of the minority owners of wealth. If we are to renounce the profit system, it follows then that the possession and acquisition of money in exchange for goods and labour will be totally unnecessary.

The letter ended with a request for a response from the political editor of Militant and an expression of hope that readers of the paper would write in with their reactions. But readers of Militant were never given a chance to read the letter. The leaders decided that these arguments were not for the consumption of the rank and file. No reply was received from the political editor. Hardly surprising: earlier in 1984 the Islington branch of the Socialist Party challenged the Militant leaders to debate their ideas in public. Their reply was that there is no point in "socialists" debating with each other we should be spending our time fighting the real enemy, the Tories. But we don't think the Tories are the main enemy: we think that all capitalist parties are the enemy, including the Labour Party and the Militant Tendency.

The writer of the letter from which we quote was given the privilege of a private reply. A letter (dated 24 September) was written to him by Dave Carr, the regional organiser for the Militant Tendency in his area. In it Carr attempted to spell out what his organisation meant when they called themselves socialists. A copy was sent to us and we were given permission to use it. Not being in favour of private debates, we have decided to make Carr's comments public, answer them, and leave our readers to see the anti-socialist nature of the Militant Tendency's position. For reasons of space we have cut out from Carr's letter one or two of the more wordy passages, and for convenience we print sections of it followed by our reply.

THE TRANSITION PERIOD
“The main confusion in your analysis (in which I see the dead-hand of the SPGB) is that you don't distinguish between socialism and communism. The implication being that it's possible for a workers' revolution to go from capitalism without any intermediate stages to communism. This is mistaken. Marx and Engels stated that the overthrow of capitalism wouldn't result in the abolition of class society immediately. That's why they advanced the slogan of the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat', i.e. the working class control state power, resting on state ownership of property . . ."

The idea of the transition period was developed in the last century when it was feared that the political will for socialism might precede an advance in productive potential sufficient to make a society of production for use and free access to all goods and services immediately possible. Now, with the aid of advanced technological know-how, the human race is capable of solving the problem of productive scarcity as soon as there is a political will to do so. There is no reason why a society in which each produces according to ability and takes freely according to self-defined need could not be established in a short time, without any transition period, if a majority of workers decide in favour of the socialist alternative. When Marx and Engels were writing this might not have been the case, but why should we accept the conditions of the nineteenth century as our political guide when we have only to look at present conditions to see the immediate possibility of socialism?

The distinction between socialism and communism was not made by Marx and is not accepted by socialists. It was Lenin and his small vanguard party in post-1917 Russia who popularised this false distinction: they called state capitalism (which Lenin admitted the Bolsheviks were setting up) socialism and promised socialism (which they called communism) at a future point in history, to be arrived at after the "socialist" transition period. The Russian workers are still waiting for the transition to end.

Over which class does the Militant Tendency think that the "workers' state" will dictate? Are workers going to be dictators over the capitalists who exploit us? The notion is ridiculous. Clearly, workers must democratically conquer state power in order to abolish classes and the state. In a classless society there will be no ruling class and therefore it will not require a state to coerce people on its behalf. As Engels put it: “The first act by virtue of which the state really constitutes itself the representative of the whole of society — the taking possession of the means of production in the name of society — this is. at the same time, its last independent act as a state" (Socialism: Utopian and Scientific). According to the Militant Tendency, society will take possession of the means of production and they will become state property. The factories in Russia are state property; so are the British mines — and the Polish shipyards. The Militant Tendency wants state ownership of the entire means of wealth production and distribution. So. during their transition period there will be state owners to whom the majority of people will have to sell their labour power in return for wages and salaries. What they are proposing is wholesale nationalisation, not common ownership where no individual, company or state monopolises the means of life. And where there is a state there are police, prisons, armies, and all the other features of class coercion. Has the Militant Tendency worked out detailed plans for how such coercion will be managed? (For example. will there be capital punishment under their new state; will the "socialist" police be armed with rubber bullets; how long will prison sentences be for those whose behaviour is out of line with state policy?) If such plans exist, why does the Militant Tendency not publish them and let workers know what life will be like under the new "Militant" state? If. as we suspect, the Militant Tendency has no idea how their new state will be run, but expects the workers to believe that "state ownership of property" will not mean what it has in Russia, China, Albania and the other dictatorships over the proletariat, we are confident that the vast majority of workers will continue to regard the Militant Tendency’s plans as just so much Leninist nonsense.

“Under socialism capitalist laws of production (albeit in a modified form) would still exist. Yes. the wages system which conceals the creation of surplus value would be overthrown but workers would continue to receive wages. Money would continue to be used to regulate exchange and the economy. Basic goods, including many foodstuffs, could be given away but other commodities would continue to be bought and sold. Under socialism, the state and money will begin to disappear. Socialism will mean, that historical moment when the state turns into a semi-state and money begins to lose its magic power."

Is he barmy or are we? What a load of confused and illogical nonsense! If the laws of capitalism will still exist "under socialism” how are we going to know that we are not still living under capitalism? There will be no wages system, but there will be wages. What in the name of Groucho Marx does this mean? Either workers are forced to sell our labour power to an employer in return for a price called a wage or salary, or we are not. The Socialist Party contends that in a society where there are no exploiters and exploited the human ability to work will not be sold at a price, but contributed voluntarily. According to the Militant Tendency, workers will still sell labour power in return for wages "under socialism", but this capitalist process (the wages system) will be called socialism. What is a semi-state? Does it mean that the new "socialist" cops will walk around with one leg on the ground or that the government will pass half-baked laws? We are told in one paragraph that "socialism" will rest on "state ownership of property" and then that the new state will be "a semi-state". How will money "begin to disappear"? Does the Militant Tendency intend to phase out coins, one by one? No. obviously there must either be a system in which wealth does not belong to the workers who have created it. so they must buy access to it with money, or there must be complete free access. Common ownership, if the term has any logical meaning, must involve the abolition of exchange and monetary relationships. But the Militant Tendency does not aim to establish common ownership: it stands for state ownership, under which wages, money and all the laws of capitalist production (albeit in a modified form) would still exist. Why don’t they tell that to the workers in the next issue of Militant?

NATIONALISATION AND REFORMS
“Militant argues that the material basis for such a planned economy must be the state ownership of the major monopolies (the top 200 in our agitation). Are you saying that this measure, carried through by the working class, wouldn't abolish capitalism? Of course, the Labour leaders have no intention of nationalising the top 200 monopolies. That's precisely why we pose that demand. To expose their rottenness, while explaining how reforms such as minimum wage, shorter hours, public works programme etc. can be financed.” 

The nationalisation of the top two hundred companies in Britain would not lead to the abolition of capitalism, but to state capitalism. Indeed, this point is accepted in a passage quoted earlier which states, quite correctly, that the capitalist laws of production, in a modified form, are all that Militant means by socialism.

Why advocate a measure because the leaders for whom you vote and canvass support will not carry it out and so be exposed as rotten? This seems to the Socialist Party, in our non-Leninist innocence, to be a dishonest and confused political strategy. Let’s follow it through: come the next election Militant Tendency will go round the houses telling workers to vote for Labour leaders. "Why should we vote for them?” ask the workers. "Because they stand for nationalisation which will be good for you.” But while telling them that you’re laughing inwardly and thinking "Silly suckers. They’ve got to vote for these leaders to find out just what sort of swines they are.” Why not start out by telling the workers what you know that the Labour leaders are rotten? Answer: because, as Leninists, you think that workers are too stupid to understand what you’ve understood, so you've got to trick them into doing the wrong thing so that they learn by their mistakes.

Socialists don't want minimum wages, we want the abolition of wage labour. The capitalist class will hardly be trembling when they hear that Militant's "revolution” amounts to little more than the provision of Keynesian financing for a few reforms of capitalism.

“. . . Trotsky, in The Transitional Programme, argued that a revolutionary should advance demands within the working class movement that link the day-to-day struggles of the workers on economic issues etc. to the need to change society. These are described as bridging demands, designed with flexibility, to raise the combativity and consciousness of the working class. In fact, Marx and Engels went to some lengths to castigate both the reformists who merely put forward a programme of reforms under capitalism and those who simply called for revolution aloof from the struggles of the working class. Both groups of 'socialists’ were sectarian."

Marx and Engels rightly held that simply to advocate a list of reforms of capitalism is a waste of workers' time. We also agree that it would be sectarian for socialists merely to preach about revolution, "aloof from the struggles of the working class". That is why the Socialist Party adopts neither of these approaches: we do not propagandise in an abstract way about how nice socialism would be but relate our analysis to the day-to-day struggle of our class; neither do we waste workers’ time merely putting forward a programme of reforms of capitalism.

Now let us look at Militant and its policies, which well live up to the description of being "designed with flexibility". The Militant Tendency does not fall into the error of simply calling for revolution — it is too busy urging workers to vote Labour so that they will realise why they shouldn't. But does the Militant Tendency "merely put forward a programme of reforms under capitalism"? If we consult pages 2 and 3 of the pamphlet, Militant—What We Stand For we find a list of eighteen reforms of capitalism. For example "Reversal of all Tory cuts and a massive programme of public works on housing, education, the health service etc."; "Opening of the books of the monopolies to inspection by committees of shop stewards, housewives and small shopkeepers"; and, of course, "Abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords". These are mere reforms of capitalism. How will the struggle to implement them "raise the combativity and consciousness of the working class"? Indeed. how have they, because reformist workers have been fighting for these things for decades and such activity has simply diverted their minds from socialist ideas. Even if the Queen was sent to work in the corner shop and allowed to inspect the books of the big companies, the capitalist system would still exist. In short, the Militant Tendency presents itself to workers as an organisation with a list of reforms of capitalism which it wants to implement. They may be radical reforms, but then Militant can afford to advocate the most radical of reforms because they have only the faintest chance of ever implementing them as a capitalist government. Trotsky and other tricksters were wrong: if you want socialism you talk to workers about the need for socialism — you don't waste their time with a lot of paper radicalism about reforming capitalism.

CAPITALIST DEATH AGONY?

“Militant consistently points out that the social and economic problems facing the working class are a product of capitalism in its death agony."

Capitalism will not die; it has to be killed. When capitalism is passing through one of its periodic economic recessions there are usually confused people on the left who imagine that quite normal features of capitalism in chaos are indicators of the system's imminent demise. For example. W. Paul, a prominent member of the Communist Party, asserted in 1922 that "The most important fact in modern history is the breakdown in capitalism . . there is the greatest possibility that the social revolution may take place in the immediate future." (Labour Monthly, 15 February 1922.) The revolution could happen soon, but not until the majority of non-socialist workers, including members of the Militant Tendency, understand it. want it and organise for it in a democratic and conscious way.

THE PARTY AND REVOLUTION 
"So, how does a revolutionary party break the workers away from its bankrupt leaders? As Marxists, Militant comrades fight alongside the working class. We strive to be the best workers, the best class fighters. We win the respect of the rank and file. We counterpose to the reformist leaders a socialist programme of demands and challenge the leadership to fight for them. In doing so, it exposes in the eyes of workers the rottenness of their leaders. We also show our preparedness to contest the leadership of the trade unions and Labour Parties to contrast Marxism with reformism."

What, in reality, does the Militant Tendency do? It works within the capitalist Labour Party, like agnostics trying to infiltrate the Vatican. It advises workers at election time, when the state is up for grabs, to waste their votes on electing rotten leaders.

The Militant Tendency has failed miserably to get the leaders of the Labour Party to fight for its demands. The only Militant policies Labour now accepts are ones which it has always accepted for the sake of radical appearances. Indeed, such respect has the Militant Tendency won from the rank and file of the Labour Party and the unions that its leaders were kicked out of the party in 1983.

Ted Grant. Peter Taaffe and the rest of the Militant top men want to be the new leaders. They think they can run the system better than previous Labour leaders. But. when scrutinised, the would-be leaders' policies consist of nothing more than sterile old reforms and a long-term plan to introduce state capitalism. Is it any surprise that most trade unionists would rather watch a good football match than listen to Ted Grant ranting on about what a great leader he would be?

"The SPGB argues that only the working class can achieve socialism, yet it refuses to ‘dirty its hands' in fighting for an alternative leadership in the working class. In short, it adopts an ultra-left, sectarian position . . . Let's be honest — it's simply not good enough to say socialism is production for need, not profit. We all know that. It's not good enough to say we should renounce capitalism. We all do that. The question is . . . How is capitalism to be overthrown? As Marx, Engels. Lenin and Trotsky explained time and time again, socialism has to be consciously constructed. That's why Marx, Engels. Lenin and Trotsky attempted to build revolutionary parties and revolutionary Internationals to lead the working class to power. It’s no good dodging the issue. The only conclusion a serious Marxist can arrive at is the need to build a revolutionary party. Militant represents the beginning of such a party, disciplined and based on the ideas of Marxism.”

Like Marx, the Socialist Party stands for the emancipation of the working class by the working class, not by leaders who will do our thinking for us. Together with other parties around the world holding the same principles. we stand for working-class revolution. Our role is simply to spread socialist ideas and to be used as a political instrument by conscious workers. It would be arrogant for us to think that we can lead our fellow workers or that anyone else should. That is why we are hostile both to the present leaders and to would-be leaders and would not dirty our hands in the opportunist business of appointing top dogs.

How is capitalism to be overthrown? The Principles of the Socialist Party make this quite clear. Lenin and Trotsky, who were leaders of the Bolshevik dictatorship over the proletariat, did not hold the view that revolution had to be constructed consciously; they took the view that workers are incapable of achieving socialist consciousness and must be led by professional intellectuals from outside the working class. Leninist parties reflect this elitist attitude. Leninists think that their historical role is to lead workers who could not possibly see what they have seen. Leninist parties, including the Revolutionary Socialist League (which is the real name of the Militant Tendency), are hierarchical, secretive, often dishonest organisations. usually dominated by a handful of demagogues who hand down orders to the inferior ranks in accordance with the Leninist theory of "democratic centralism", or control from the top downwards. The Third International, which was the undemocratic, Moscow-dominated body in which Lenin and Trotsky participated, was as unlike Marx's First International as the Militant Tendency is unlike the Socialist Party.

Members of the Labour Party who have told Militant members to get out and form their own Trotskyist party have got a point: the average Labour voter wants straight reformism. of the kind that Neil Kinnock is so expert in offering. Reformist workers don't want the same old dish served up with a queer Trotskyist sauce on it. Still, that's a problem for the Labour Party, not for socialists. As far as we are concerned neither Neil Kinnock (the opportunist with a chance) nor Ted Grant (the opportunist without a chance) should be treated with anything but contempt and hostility.

The Militant Tendency serves as a dangerous instrument for confusion. It may not do so intentionally — but then few confused people do. It is not only incapable of leading workers to socialism (socialism, by its very nature, will not be the product of leaders and followers), but it is also hopelessly ignorant about capitalism, socialism and the path from one to the other. We are always ready to debate these issues, for there can be few things more important in the working-class movement than open, clear and critical debate. But so far the Militant leaders have refused to expose their ideas to such public criticism. Supporters of the Militant Tendency should think carefully about their case and ours and, having done so, follow understanding to its logical conclusion.

Steve Coleman

Milner Tries To Excuse "Intervention". (1919)

From the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Government are now making a frantic effort to throw dust in the eyes of the people on the question of what they are pleased to call the “British intervention in Russia.” The Secretary of State, Lord Milner, claims to have received a letter on the subject from a correspondent, and whether this is a put-up job or not, his statement purporting to be an answer to this letter is such a wishy-washy production as to be little else than a subject for derision and laughter.

Lord Milner states that:

    . . the Bolsheviks, whatever their ultimate object, were in fact assisting our enemies in every possible way.
    It was owing to their action that thousands of German troops were let loose to hurl themselves against our men on the Western Front. It was owing to their betrayal that Roumania, with all its rich resources of grain and oil, fell into the hands of the Germans.

These are deliberate lies. The facts are plain enough to view. Russians were beaten to a standstill under the regime of that advanced and enlightened ruler whom our bosses’ papers at that time referred to as “our Gallant Ally,” and some time previously had honoured with the name we still love to know him by—Bloody Nick.

It was under Nick’s generals that the “Russian Steam Roller” was reduced to impotence. The poor, unlettered moujik played his unwilling part in the war “according to plan.” He was the cheapest cannon-fodder in the whole arena, in the sense that there were enormous numbers of him, and he was probably the only soldier in the whole conflict who could be driven half armed and ill equipped into the slaughter merely as a stop-gap, a. mass of quivering, valueless flesh to keep the "enemy” busy while rival generals and statesmen squabbled over the questions command, and personal and “national” dignity.

So, in spite of the Allied liars who are casting about for excuses for attacking those who are threatening capitalist interests in Russia, defeat, complete and irretrievable, was the legacy left the Bolsheviks by their feudal and capitalist predecessors. Even had they desired it; even had the capitalist revolution not completed the ruin of the giant Russian military machine, the Bolsheviks had not the means to carry on the war against the powerful, victorious, and perfectly equipped German host. Already, under the capitalist Premier, Prince Lvoff, in 1914, the Russian forces had begun to melt away. Skulking Kerensky and his fellow butchers tried to keep them together by the usual means of wholesale slaughter, but their failure was ignonimous. It was not for want of the will to murder that they failed. “General Kornlioff is given orders that deserters and runaways are be shot,” declared the “Daily Chronicle” on the 24th July 1917. The war-mongers had their opportunity, and their failure proves beyond all refutation, that peace was the ardent desire of the Russian peoples. The very success of the Bolsheviks is based on this almost universal desire of the people of Russia for peace. No honest man with a knowledge of the facts can contend that the Bolsheviks find their chief support among those who understand Bolshevist principles. They found a war-sick people—a people who had been driven to war by organised military brutality and tyranny—they promised them peace and—wonder among politicians!—kept their promise. And this our British capitalist apologists call treachery, and "helping the Germans.”

The fact is that neither the Bolsheviks nor the Russian people ever made any promises to the Allies, or entered into any compact or treaty with them. All such contracts were entered into by the Tsarist gang. These ghouls did not represent the people, and the Allies knew it. They did not worry in those days about “only negotiating with governments representative of the people,” nor did they think it “an obligation of honour”—what language from one of the central figures of the South African outrage) “to save” those with whom they entered into the treaties. For they rushed to congratulate those who overthrew their allies, co-plotters, and partners, Bloody Nick and his circle. It never entered into their heads when they expressed gratification at the downfall of their partners in this awful crime, that “it would be an abominable betrayal, contrary to every British instinct of honour and humanity” to, “simply cause our own immediate purposes have been served, leave them to the tender mercies of their enemies.”

All the Allies' reasons for invading Russia, as put forward in Lord Milner’s letter, since they turn on the alleged German exploitation of Russian resources, cease to afford any pretext for the continued occupation of Russian territory by the Allies in view of the present military position of Germany. The only shred of excuse offered is that they must not leave the “thousands of Russians” who, ‘in the course of this Allied intervention" have “taken up arms and fought on the side of the Allies,” to “the tender mercies of their enemies before they have had time to arm, train, and organise so as to be strong enough to defend themselves.” This cant might go down but for the light shed upon it by other events. These (probably mythical) Russians are not the only people who have fought on the side of the Allies. To use a phrase Lord Milner is very fond of, “I say nothing of the poor, cast-off crippled soldier at home abandoned to the tender mercies of private charity. There are others. The Armenians, for example, they fought on the side of the Allies, yet the latter have not scrupled to abandon the poor remnants of an agonised people to the tender mercies of their enemies, the vengeful official Turk.

What Lord Milner really means can be read in his reference to the arming, training, and organising of the Russians who have fought on the Allied side. These Russians are the Russian capitalists and their hireling butchers. It is to arm and aid these, and to establish capitalist rule in the vast domains now under Bolshevik administration that our lads are now being kept from their homes. It is to assist in crushing out a working-class rising, that British sailors are firing at Bolsheviks on the shores of the Black Sea.

A. E. Jacomb

Communist Measures? (2017)

From the June 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Guardian (10 May), Ellie Mae O'Hagan wrote of Marx, 'plenty of his proposals – just as radical when he wrote them – are common sense today. These include free education, abolition of child labour, a progressive income tax, a national bank, and closing the gap between town and countryside.' This is true but these, taken from the Communist Manifesto weren't what he meant by 'communism', as we explain here.

The main thing to realise about the Communist Manifesto is that it isn’t. It was originally published in German in 1848 and its title was Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (Manifesto of the Communist Party). The Manifesto was issued in the name of the Communist League, a loose grouping of German refugees in London, and no author was credited. In the previous year the Central Committee of the League had commissioned Marx to write a statement of general principles and issued him with editorial guidelines. The Central Committee then authorised it for publication. There was no Communist Party as we now understand that term but there can be little doubt that their Manifesto was a rallying cry for such an organisation.

The Manifesto was published in late February 1848, at about the same time as the revolutions of 1848 began – first in Paris, then in Berlin and many other European cities. The occurrence of widespread uprisings throughout Europe owed nothing to the Manifesto, though members of the League were not alone in anticipating such an event. The contributory factors were food shortages and starvation brought about by the spread of potato blight, chronic unemployment and falling wages caused by recession, frustration at the feudal bastions of reaction in government and revolutionary nationalism. In most cases it fell to members of the ‘petty bourgeoisie’ (shopkeepers, artisans, small farmers) to organise revolution. They had suffered economic hardship in the last few years, had the most to gain from a more progressive regime and potentially had the political clout to bring it about. The big capitalists had no such incentive, having done well in the recent capitalist industrialisation sweeping Europe, and so tended to ally themselves with the forces of conservative reaction. It was in this context that Marx and the League issued their Manifesto.

In the Chartist weekly newspaper Red Republican, in 1850, Helen Macfarlane produced the first English translation — only they gave it the title ‘German Communism: Manifesto of the German Communist Party’. To the Chartists, at least, the insertion of ‘German’ twice in the title indicates that the purpose of the Manifesto was obvious. In Macfarlane's translation the Manifesto begins: ‘A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe’. After 1848 it was soon translated into numerous languages and in different countries. It was again translated into English by Samuel Moore (who had translated volume 1 of Capital) and ‘revised in common’ with Engels for the ‘authorised’ 1888 edition. In that edition Engels claimed joint authorship, but he was not involved in writing the Manifesto. In the ‘authorised’ edition the opening declaration ‘A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism’ was something of an exaggeration. Marx borrowed this already well-known imagery from Lorenz von Stein's book on communism in France, published in 1842.

The Manifesto claimed to ‘not set up any sectarian principles of their own’. But what about Chartism? Chartism was a mass working class organisation demanding universal suffrage and other reforms. The Manifesto argued that ‘Chartists are infinitely closer to the communists than the democratic petty bourgeoisie or the so-called Radicals’. And yet, at this point, while the League did see themselves sharing some common ground, they were sufficiently different from Chartism to form a separate organisation. Despite what the Manifesto said, communists could be opposed to other working class organisations if there were important issues at stake. In fact the League had a communist objective which was not shared by Chartism, though some individuals in that organisation did share that objective. At this early stage of their political career, Marx, Engels and others used the term communism for their objective. Later they would use socialism and social democracy, but they all meant the same thing.

The theoretical concerns of the Manifesto are universal, but the concrete demands of the Manifesto were German. In the Manifesto, the League ‘turn their attention chiefly to Germany, because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution.’ That is the context within which the Manifesto was issued. Later in 1848 the Central Committee of the Communist League issued its ‘Demands of the Communist Party in Germany’. This seventeen-point programme updated the Manifesto's immediate demands to the changed German conditions. It argued: ‘It is to the German proletariat, the petit bourgeoisie, and the small peasantry to support these demands with all possible energy.’ In short, Marx, the League and the immediate measures in the Manifesto were encouraging a bourgeois-democratic revolution.

In the circumstances of the time it seemed logical to Marx and the League that they should accept that for the moment their interests coincided with those of the bourgeois democrats, until such time as the absolutist regimes had been overthrown, and should then continue their struggle against the new bourgeois regimes. It was assumed that ‘the bourgeois democratic governments’ could be placed in the situation of immediately losing ‘all backing among workers’ (Marx's Address to the Communist League, 1850).

At the end of its second section the Manifesto lists ten measures which ‘will, of course, be different in different countries’. And when the Manifesto was reprinted in 1872, Marx and Engels stated in the Preface that ‘no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section 2. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today.’ Germany had become a unified bourgeois state the year before. In fact, some of the measures at the end of Section 2 have since been implemented within clearly capitalist and state capitalist regimes.

Many commentators on the Manifesto only have eyes for the historically specific reformist demands (‘A heavy progressive or graduated income tax’) and are blind to the universally specific communist demands (‘the Communistic abolition of buying and selling’). For instance, in his Introduction to the Pluto Press edition of The Communist Manifesto (2008), while purporting to be sympathetic, David Harvey argues for the universal applicability of some of the reform demands while ignoring communism entirely (Socialist Standard book review, November 2008). His one word response to our astonishment was: ‘Predictable’.

Understanding context is important when reading historical documents. We will never know how history would have turned out if Marx had not written a Communist Manifesto, but the Manifesto of the Communist Party continues to create confusion as well as enlightenment.

Lew Higgins

New Pamphlet Out Soon (1968)

From the March 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

LABOUR GOVERNMENT AND SOCIALISM 1s. 3d (post free) Details below 

LABOUR FAILS AGAIN

Why are so many Labour voters disappointed? Why is there a swing to the other parties at by-elections? Why do more and more people not trouble to vote?

Why do so many people become cynical about politics and say that nothing makes any difference? Why have some trade unions that are affiliated to the Labour Party threatened to withhold contributions and to form an independent ‘trade union party'?

This new 36-page Socialist Party pamphlet, out soon, answers these questions and exposes the uselessness of this and previous Labour governments. It shows too how Labour’s avowed aim of ‘making capitalism work' leads them to support wage restraint, unemployment and profit-making.

"Experience proves beyond question", says the pamphlet, “that the position of wage and salary earners is the same whether capitalism is administered by a Conservative or by a Labour government. Some workers believe that this need not have happened if the Labour government had chosen to follow a different course. The Socialist Party of Great Britain does not take that view. What we have experienced has been the inevitable consequence of perpetuating capitalism. Within capitalism there is no escape from its economic laws".

You can order copies of this topical pamphlet by writing to the Socialist Party (Dept. SLG), 52 Clapham High Street, London, S.W.4.

What Marx Did Not Mean (1967)

Book Review from the July 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

Essential Writings of Karl Marx edited by David Caute, Panther, 8s. 6d.

David Caute, we can safely say, is unable to understand what he reads. It is now fashionable to cast Marx as some Great Humanist Philosopher and to use this to challenge his claim to have adopted a scientific approach to the study of society, history and economics. Needless to say, Caute jumps on this bandwagon. In his introduction and notes he emphasises Marx’s early philosophical attitude to Man, the proletariat, capitalism, communism and the state. It is quite true that Marx was greatly influenced by the German philosophers of his day such as Feuerbach and especially Hegel. It was in fact his study of the implications of their theories that led Marx to take up the study of society and political economy. His theories in these fields should be judged on their merits and not dismissed out of hand because of his philosophical background.

Caute, as we have said, is ignorant. Let us give a few examples. He says that, in Marxian economics, “the value of a commodity was to be measured by the quantity of labour-time embodied in it”. As everyone who has the slightest knowledge of Marxian economics will know, this is not so. The value of a commodity is fixed by the amount of socially-necessary labour embodied in it. Even Caute is forced to add that Marx “made some qualifications(!) such as the concept of “socially necessary” which Caute then dismisses as “nebulous” (no reasons given).

Another example of Caute’s slip-shod method is this passage in which, to make any sense of it, the word “labour” has to be understood in two very different senses (and even then it's not what Marx wrote): 

Defining labour as variable capital, Marx calls the ratio of surplus value to variable capital the rate of exploitation. A reduction in the length of the working day need not reduce the rate of exploitation, because new machines may extract more labour in a given time.

No wonder Caute is unable to grasp the crucial difference in Marxian economics between “labour” and “labour power”.

Caute attributes to Marx the view that “a falling rate of profit is one of the symptoms of a decaying capitalism” without quoting at all from that part of Volume II of Capital where Marx discusses what he calls “the law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit”. But, having read this far, this is what you will have come to to expect from Caute. In this case he's clearly arguing against the vulgar pseudo-Marxism of pre-war fellow travellers. Perhaps the best distortion is this one:

Nor did he (Marx) regard all labour as productive of value. He excluded the labour of the capitalist, the banker and the merchant. This suggests that his theory of value was not simply, as he claimed, ‘the scientific expression of economic relations of present-day society’ but was also a moral theory.

Quite apart from the fact that Marx was trying to show how people like capitalists, bankers and merchants who did no work were still able to get a living from society, it is no contradiction in Marxian economics to say that if a factory-owner worked in his factory he would be producing value. The case of the merchant and the banker is a little more complicated since the wage-worker in these businesses themselves produce no value but only realise it for their employers. So, if only Caute knew it, some capitalists could produce value while some workers don't, somehow, if Caute ever read that far. If he wishes to get some idea of what Marx’s theory of value is we suggest he read an article in the LSE journal, Economica, of August 1963 by one of his more academic colleagues Thomas Sowell, entitled “Marxian Value Reconsidered”. Besides, Caute's bibliography shows that he is not aware of L. Boudin's Theoretical System of Karl Marx or of Kautsky's summary The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx.

There are many other inaccuracies in the presentation of Marx’s views: that what you think depends on what class you’re in; that surplus value exists outside capitalism; that there is increasing “pauperization” of workers; that there was no state or ruling class in Oriental society; that Marx worshipped violence; that a harsh dictatorship would follow the overthrow of capitalist rule; that crises get worse and worse. Caute also thinks that a “Marxist-Communist” revolution triumphed in Russia. It would take a book to sort out all these errors.

This selection of writings of Marx and Engels, like all of them, suffers from the defect that no attempt is made to evaluate the importance and significance of their various writings—the early manuscripts, letters, unpublished notes, publisher works, popular pamphlets and so on. Yet if you want such a handy collection don't get this Panther Book but get instead the Pelican Karl Marx. Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy, edited by T. B. Bottomore and Maximiliein Rubel, at less than half the price.

Adam Buick

The Imperialist Victory. (1919)

From the January 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capital’s Coalition has swept the country at the election. According to reports the Coalition Unionists number 334, Co. Liberals 135 and Co. Labour 10—a total of 479 out of 706 members. The rest consists of 28 Liberals, 62 Labourites, 50 Unionists, 73 Sinn Feiners, 7 Nationalists, and, about 7 Independents. The Sinn Feiners are pledged not to take their seats, so they can be deducted, while 50 Independent Unionists may be counted on to support the Government on most occasions. By adding these to the Coalition and deducting the Sinn Feiners from the Opposition, we get 529 Coalitionists against a total combination of 104. 

Even this does not complete the tale, for several "official” Labour men like Hodge, Clynes, and O'Grady, are strong supporters of the war and the Coalition. The Coalition thus has the largest majority ever returned to Parliament.

The most striking feature of the Election is the almost complete destruction of the Liberal Party as represented by the followers of Asquith. Leader and lieutenants alike have been swept aside by the Coalition flood. To cover up this crushing defeat Liberal newspapers are claiming that the Coalition possess seats far in excess of the proportion of votes cast for their men, and that in numerous instances candidates have been elected by a minority of the votes cast. True, but when has a Liberal resigned his seat because he (as in several cases) did not obtain a majority of the votes polled?

On behalf of the Labour Party Philip Snowden and Ramsay Macdonald point jubilantly to the  great increase in the votes cast for Labour Party candidates, forgetting to mention that the number of voters on the new register is more than double that at the previous election, and secondly that a much larger number of Labour Party candidates were put forward than ever before. When allowance is made for these facts the figures lose much of their seeming significance. Nor is this all. A large number of the “Labour" votes were given by opponents of the Labour Party’s programme. During the brief campaign the “Daily News" repeatedly urged the Liberals to vote for the Labour man where the fight was between a Labourite and Coalitionist, and in constituencies where a Liberal and a Labourite were opposing a Coalitionist, to vote for the best man, irrespective of label. In some cases Liberal and Tory combined to make the Labour man a present of the seat, as in the case of Crooks, O’Grady, Clynes, Wardle, and others who were returned unopposed. “Colonel’' Will Thorne had the support of the official Liberal and Tory parties, and only had an “Independent” to fight. Hodge at Gorton, Walsh at Ince, Tyson at Westhoughton, and Wilkie at Dundee were free from official Liberal or Tory opposition. J. Jones, C. W. Bowerman, J. Sexton, F. Roberts, R. Young, J. Guest, J. Davison, W. Bromfield, A. Onions, and W. Adamson had no Liberal opposition to face, while Capt. Smith, G. Spencer, R. Richardson, W. Carter, T. Grundy, G. Hirst, J. Williams, F. Rose, C. Edwards, and W. Graham had no official Unionist candidate run against them. This absence of a straight fight against the other parties shows how little the  votes cast for these candidates can be claimed, with any justification, as Labour votes.

Neil Maclean, one time Secretary of the S.L.P., now a member of the I.L.P., owes his seat far more to his position as organiser to the Scottish Wholesale Society than to any “Labour” principles he may have professed.

To show it had no “class bias” Holland with Boston returned a “Labour” man—W. S. Royce— who twice previously had contested Spalding as a Unionist and who is a wealthy landowner in the district, though at the moment of writing it is not clear whether he had the official endorsement of the National Labour Party. Anglesey returned the first titled “Labour” man to the House in the person of Brig. Gen. Sir Owen Thomas. We are getting on! We shall have “Labour” Lords next if the “widening process” of the Labour Party succeeds.

To have secured 62 seats out of 368 contests, and that only with all this arrangement and assistance from the capitalist parties, shows how small is the influence and power of the Labour Party.

Despite its affiliation with the Labour Party the I.L.P. has done even worse, for out of 50 candidates that it claims only three were elected. Like its pal the Liberal Party it has lost all its leaders—Snowden, Macdonald, Jowett, Anderson. This shows how much the leaders depended upon Liberal votes for the seats they held.

The intense disappointment felt by them at this is shown when Macdonald declares—

  Unfortunately the Labour Party lacks in men . . who would enable it to perform the functions of an official Parliamentary Opposition.—'Manchester Guardian.’

That is adepts in Parliamentary trickery and bargaining like himself, Snowden says of the new men:

  There are amongst them some of the most reactionary of the Trade Union leaders. There are amongst them men who have been most prominent amongst the Trade Union leaders in supporting every reactionary proposal the Government put forward.—“Labour Leader,” 2.1 19.

And as the I.L.P., by its alliance with the Labour Party, has supported these men in their actions, it is clear that the real trouble is not the reactionary character of these men, but the fact that they are “in” while Snowden & Co. are “out.”

The National Socialist Party—the Hyndman-Lee section that broke away from the B.S.P. on the question of the war—claims eleven candidates, of whom six were returned. But with the exception of Dan Irving, these successful candidates were run by the official Labour parties. They are J. O’Grady, W. Thorne, J. Jones, Ben Tillett, and A. Hayday. All are prominent T.U. officials, ran as “Labour” men, and the N.S.P. had no influence whatever on their return. Irving’s long career of trickery and bargaining in Burnley has at last been rewarded. He will, of course, obey the orders of his political masters, the capitalists.

Both Liberals and I.L.P. are stating that Lloyd George did not desire so overwhelming a majority as it places him completely in the hands of the Unionists. Our Ejection Manifesto had already pointed out that he was the tool of the Imperialists and was completely in their hands before the Election, and therefore he will be only continuing in the same position in the new Parliament. The “Daily Mail” admits this when it says (31.12 18):—

  Sir George Younger Lord Downham (Mr. Hayes Fisher) and Mr. Bonar Law have manoeuvred our gallant little Welsh wizard into a position in which he is almost entirely dependent upon the votes of those whom he so vigorously denounced at Limehouse a few years ago.

No one knows this better than LI. George himself, but he hopes to persuade some people that he is independent, and repeats the trick he played in 1906 of threatening to resign if 'the "great” measures promised, are not carried through. Speaking at Carnavon on Jan. 1st he said

  If the Government did not do their best to fulfill the promises made he would no longer be head of the Government, but would go back to the people and ask for a renewal of their confidence. -“Daily News," 2.1.19.

This is just as much cant and humbug as his similar statements in 1906. The last Government broke all its pledges, but it had the vigorous support of LI. George in all its dastardly actions. The same will be true in the future. Whatever his paymasters order him to do he will carry out, no matter what promises are broken or what crimes are contemplated.

This Election has been a great victory for the Imperialists. Riding the wave of relief and excitement consequent upon the signing of the Armistice, they have regained political power with a largely increased majority, and will be able to carry out their schemes practically unhampered. The workers will presently see their new position is worse than the old one, that the masters are more strongly entrenched than ever, and that the struggle to retain the old standard of living will be intensified and more bitter than before.,

When they apply this knowledge they will set to work to return a majority of their own representatives to Parliament for the purpose of wresting power from the master class and using that power to establish the common ownership of the means of life, whereby all will be able to enjoy life in the fullest sense of the word.

Jack Fitzgerald

The Meaning of Freedom (1973)

From the May 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is liberation? The words which need most careful use are, usually, those which are thought to be above it. In an essay on George Orwell published in 1948, George Woodcock remarks how Orwell continually talked of brotherhood, justice, decency and so on without ever giving specific meanings: they spoke for themselves. A minute’s thought over the everyday corruptions of those terms will show that they do nothing of the kind. Freedom is another. Assumed to be self-explanatory, it is all things to all men: hope, delusion, inducement, trap. What became of “the Four Freedoms”? Freedom fighters, where are you now?

In fact, freedom by itself is an insignificant word. Its importance comes with its expansion — freedom from what, or to do which. Freedom from may be considerable; its range can cover merciful release from some private burden, to the abolition of a political restraint. Nevertheless, freedom in that sense remains negative and limited to shifting a particular evil. It is, of course, the most popular sense, and the argument is often made that to pile up these removals of restraint (“extending areas of freedom”) must in the end lead to total and therefore positive social liberty.

The Line Drawn

However, the pursuit of the piecemeal does not work like that. The man who has obtained relief from a disability or restriction is simply released into the general slavery of his fellow-men. That is why rulers seldom mind, in the end, giving freedom from: liberation is a means of creating more slaves. The cracker-motto “freedoms” set out by Churchill and Roosevelt in the war were of this kind. Leaving aside that they were part of the sham currency of wartime promises and so unlikely to be taken seriously when the fever was over, it is worth observing that freedom from hunger and insecurity is had, more or less, by people in prison. In the days of mass unemployment, down-and-outs frequently committed minor offences to get regular food and beds for the winter.

Nobody pretends that freedom from privation is worth having on such terms, but the terms accepted in ordinary life are often surprising. The usual paternalistic saying is that society can approve “liberty but not licence”, and it is interesting that “licence” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “excessive liberty”. What is being said, therefore, is that you may have liberty but not too much. The line of excess is drawn, inevitably, by the ruling class; and the liberty thus prescribed is already restricted to the limits of freedom from. Thus, to suppose that slices of freedom can be gained within capitalism and put together to make a free society is naive in the extreme.

Choice and Responsibility

The context in which "freedom” takes on positive meaning is freedom to. Individually, innumerable extensions might be given: what they add up to socially is freedom to choose. This is the all-embracing denial made by the authoritarianism of a class-divided society. Under it, for the ruled, choice is directly refused or made impossible. One’s station and way of life, loyalties, duties, means of expression are selected and hung on one. A free society is definable as such only in this way; in it, individual choice is sovereign.

All sovereignties have boundaries, however. The alternative point of view, the Stirnerite one which disfavours society itself for inhibiting the ego’s absolute demands, is still practised by a number of anarchists whose cult it is never to answer letters, keep appointments etc., as proof that they are free and spontaneous individuals not responsible to anyone. When the doctrine is stated like that, both its absurdity and its perniciousness are plainly visible: this is not freedom at all, because it depends on mutilating someone else’s freedom. Freedom is relative always to the fact that man exists only as a social creature.

In simple everyday experience, every relationship or contract voluntarily made is a limitation on freedom. A person joining a political group or a recreational organization has “tied” him- or herself by the acceptance of obligations, including the recognition of rules and majority decisions. Much has been written recently about growing numbers of couples who set up their homes and raise families without the formalities of marriage. Those who explain their viewpoint always emphasize that, so far from being rejected, the responsibilities and restraints generally are undertaken more deliberately. The fact that this is some people’s preference is not beside the point: it is the point.

The Way to Go

Freedom, then, means a state in which contracts are entered and obligations accepted, but by one’s conscious choice not a predetermined one. The comparison to be made is between a free society and the authoritarian system where the obligations remain while somebody else imposes the choice. What must be recognized, however, is that the obligations are there in both cases. Indeed, freedom implies responsibility where servitude does not; having the choices imposed and the decisions made for one is tolerable to many people because it is easy. Part of the tyranny of capitalism is to make a virtue of that kind of mental laziness and extol bromides like “liberty not licence” to try and keep responsible thought in check. 

Given comprehension of what freedom is, how is the free society obtained? The lack of freedom is not just a question of holding wrong outlooks. It derives from material conditions as much as from legal and moral restraint. The irony of the old saying that everyone is free to dine at the Savoy has innumerable applications. A poor or ill-educated person is not free to choose his work, or where he will live, or even whom he will mix with. Badly-housed people are restricted sexually, intellectually, and in a dozen other ways. Financial worries, insecurities, hostile circumstances of all kinds are obstructions to freedom.

But it does not follow that reforms of circumstances are the answer. That takes us back to the realm of freedom from, where capitalism's nature is to turn apparent gains into equivalent losses; at this, you can’t win. The creation of a free society can be accomplished only by changing the structure of society. The disabilities and oppressions which are everywhere are aspects and consequences of the basic enslavement by capitalism, the class-ownership of the means of living. To replace them with freedom of choice and make responsibility instead of imposition the keystone of social life, common ownership is the pre-requisite.

Socialist Emancipation

This is the failing-point of the various “liberation” movements which are pressing for attention today. The impulse which leads black people, women, homosexuals and other groups to organize in the face of their special problems is understandable, of course. Nevertheless, the belief that those problems can be solved by legislation, or exchanging rule by Them for rule by Us, can lead nowhere except out of one cage and into another. The fact is that we are all caged by capitalism. The indignation and energy now going into those protests should be used fruitfully in the Socialist movement which works for “the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex”.

Freedom is the natural — and immediate — concomitant of the establishment of Socialism. Nor is any abstract judicial freedom meant. The economic condition of Socialism, production for use, means free access by everyone to the material wealth of society. That is emancipation, and from it arises the freedom to choose the sort of life one wants. That is liberation.

Robert Barltrop

Incentive Under Socialism (1940)

From the November 1940 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people are genuinely puzzled by the Socialist contention that production will go on under Socialism without the existing privileges and inequalities. “How," they ask, “will people be induced to work except under the incentive of wages and the possibility of getting into a higher-paid grade or of escaping into the ranks of the propertied class, who can live without working?" They are not much impressed with the answer that normal healthy human beings who have been educated to an understanding of the social system, and trained to perform useful work do not want to escape working. They want to work and need no more inducement than is given by the knowledge that work must be done to keep society going, and that they are playing their part in it along with their fellow men and women. One curious thing is that it is never himself that the questioner has in mind. He never says that he won't work, but will try to sponge on those who do; always it is some other fellow who will do this. The same blind spot exists when the defenders of capitalism try to justify their system and its supposed “principles" of distributing rewards. In the abstract they defend capitalism on the ground that it is good and necessary that each individual should be looking after himself and trying to get or grab as much as he can, but when it comes to particular cases (always concerned with the other fellow) they repudiate their own principle. Notice how they object to the unemployed receiving a miserly dole without having to work, but never object to the millionaires (most of them in that position through inheritance) being able to live in luxurious idleness. Read the angry letters in the Press objecting to certain workers having changed their jobs in war time in order to get more wages—letters usually written by men whose income is far higher than the one they complain about.

Of more interest are the attempts to state some kind of principle to justify the present system. In the course of a letter to the Times (June 27th, 1940), Mr. Maurice Hely-Hutchinson, M.P., laid down one such principle: —

  It seems unlikely that mankind will ever move forward except on the twin foundations of reward for accomplishment and of personal responsibility. It is axiomatic that there must be a hierarchy of incomes if there is to be a hierarchy of responsibility. 

At a superficial glance it may appear that that is a correct description of the present order of things since some attempt is often made to weigh up the responsibility of grades of workers working alongside each other in the same organisation. The foreman usually gets more pay than the men he orders about.

But what is this “hierarchy of responsibility," and why is it axiomatic? Always the responsibility is responsibility which goes up grade by grade to the owners of the business. That responsibility may conflict and often does conflict with responsibility for the safety of the workers and the responsibility for the interests of the population in general. Why is it axiomatic that the responsibility to the profit-seeking owner should over-ride other responsibilities? Why should the man who supervises road transport drivers and tries to speed them up be paid more for his responsibility to the owners than the careful (but possibly not so speedy) driver who is impressed with his responsibility to pedestrians?

When we leave the individual concern and look at capitalism as a whole the practice is equally at variance with any such principle. How does anyone decide that the head of one of the railways is worth £14,000 a year for his responsibility to shareholders when the train driver or signalmen, who have great responsibility for passengers' lives, receive about one-fiftieth of that amount?

On what principle do our millionaires enjoy their vast unearned incomes? Why does the President of the American concern of Lever Brothers receive a salary of £117,500 a year (News Chronicle, July 2nd, 1940); and does Mr. Hely-Hutchinson think that the responsibility of Shirley Temple, as indicated by her income of £76,750 in 1939, is all that much greater than his own as indicated by his £600 a year for being an M.P? Why, in the Post Office, does the Director-General get a higher salary than his own chief, the Postmaster-General? According to Mr. Hely-Hutchinson this goes dead against the axiom. And would he say that the responsibility of the £5,000 a year (“plus generous expenses”) directors of the Suez Canal is greater than that of the men who run the canal on the spot—the directors, by the way, perform their “responsible” functions in Paris?

Altogether, those who take it upon themselves to explain and apologise for the capitalist system put up a remarkably poor show. Before leaving the matter just observe the Daily Express. That journal is ordinarily energetic and unrepentant in its advocacy of capitalism and ridicule of the supposed impossibilities of Socialism. Often it has dealt with this question of incentive and argued that the only satisfactory incentive is the prospect of making money. But on November 2nd, 1940, its editorial was concerned with the urgent need to find a means of overcoming the night air raiders over London. Instead, however, of being consistent and urging the Government to give large sums of money to whoever would discover the answer to the problem, the Express urged that "the public should be given the names” of the scientists who are at work on the problem. “ Remember,” said the Express, “scientists are human beings. They, too, will flourish under a nation’s praise.” So here, when it comes to the point, the Daily Express is going to rely on mere praise as an inducement to scientists to work hard and fast on a critical problem.

That should be remembered when next the Express argues that Socialism will not work because of lack of incentive.

Edgar Hardcastle