Class Interests, Not Morality, Determine Policies (1958)

From the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the Sunday Times on the 10th August Rebecca West wrote an article in a series “The Destiny of Man” that commenced with an article by Julian Huxley.

We are not here concerned with her contribution to the discussion apart from a particular paragraph in her article. After referring to certain statements of Ovid on morality and comparing them with statements by Julian Huxley, Rebecca West makes the following comment:

   “Sir Julian is perfectly right; this idea is bound to inspire men to mighty moral and intellectual efforts; and that is just what it has done, People throughout the centuries have gone on and on, lending an ear to the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount and the pagan moralists, building hospitals and homes for the old, treating children kindly and trying to establish justice, instead of taking the easy path and turning into handsome young bulls and going off after Europa.” (The last phrase is a reference to Ovid’s statement.)

Now let us take a glance at these “mighty moral and intellectual efforts.” But before doing so let us make it clear that we are concerned with what has in general happened, and not with the well-meaning efforts of a few people here and there who have been inspired with a desire to help humanity to better things.

In the early years of the present century Lloyd George, a British cabinet minister, admitted the shocking conditions of the aged poor in what he called the richest land under the sun. The origin of hospitals was largely due to the need to renovate soldiers wounded in battle so that they could rise and fight again. When Britain was undergoing the industrial revolution that made it the most powerful country of its time children of tender age were working long hours in factories that have been described as veritable hells. Every capitalist government, as well as those on the way to being such, have claimed, when embarked upon imperialist policies, that they were “trying to establish justice.” But what justice was meted out to the hundreds of thousands of Africans that were transported in coffin ships to America and elsewhere during last century for the profit of slave-owners and slave-traders? Where do the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount apply there?

Coming to more recent times we may ask what moral motives were behind the two wars that have devastated the world, or the Korean war, or the other instances of armed savagery that have devastated vast areas and brought misery to millions of the earth’s inhabitants..

On the same page of the Sunday Times the Prime Minister of Australia, R. G. Menzies, has a defence of the sending of British and United States forces into the Middle East. He uses the old threadbare argument that it was “purely defensive.” Every nation taking armed action makes the same claim. It is true they are defensive actions, but not in the sense that Mr. Menzies wants us to believe. They are actions for the purpose of defending the profit hunting of sections of the capitalist class.

The United Nations Charter was supposed to provide an assembly that would settle disagreements between nations and thus prevent the recourse to armed conflict. All disagreements were to be submitted to this body before action was taken. In fact the opposite has happened ever since the Assembly was founded.

Mr. Menzies, who claimed to be aiming at true national independence and ordered peace, makes the following statements in his article:

    “That Great Britain and the United States had a right, without any violation of the United Nations Charter, to send forces for purely defensive purposes into the Lebanon and Jordan is, I think, clear. The reasons for this view are essentially practical, and are affirmed by many actions already taken by leading members of the United Nations, without challenge in that body. . . . With the invitation or consent of the established Government of the receiving country, it is quite clear that the 'sending in’ of forces is completely legal and proper.”

That let's out Russia's action in Hungary and also shows what a complete fraud the United Nations Charter is. But it also shows up the hypocrisy of the propaganda by Western official spokesmen in favour of national groups oppressed by a tyrannous government. For instance it would be “completely legal and proper” for the Western powers to send armed forces into Russia at the request of the Russian Government to quell any rising against the Government of Russia! But of course Mr. Menzies would probably reply. “Ah. that’s different!”

The ex-president of the United States, Mr. H. S. Truman, also made a contribution supporting the armed intervention in the Middle East. In an article in the Daily Express, 21st July, 1958, he said:—

  “The President has made a momentous decision and proclaimed a policy which every citizen of the United States should support."

In his enthusiasm he goes further, stating that it ought to be made clear to Nasser and the Arab leaders that the Western nations were not going to be blackmailed because of their need for oil.

   “The fact is that the free world now has access to ample oil resources outside the Middle East, from which they can supply all their industrial, domestic, and strategic requirements.”

Behind this statement is the fact that America has a surplus of oil—but American capitalists are still determined to keep a firm grip on Middle East oil, and any other sources they can get their hands on.

He slipped up on one point, however. He says:—

   "Nor is there any hope of a better future for the Arabs if, on the pretence of freedom, so-called republics are set up by brutal military coups such as occurred in Iraq.”

Since he wrote that the Iraq republic has been recognised by the U.S., Britain, Italy, Japan, and others. With cold-blooded cynicism the British Government stated its recognition two days after the memorial service to King Feisal. The reason for the speed? According to the diplomatic correspondent of the Express (Daily Express, 2nd August, 1958) the reasons were as follows:—

   “The first is that Britain wants to give every chance to the new regime to prove its loyalty to 'international obligations,’ like oil agreements and membership of the Bagdad Pact. The second is that the Government is determined that Britain shall not be beaten by Germany—one of the first to recognise the new regime—Italy, Japan, and other countries in the trade race in Iraq."

There it is in a nutshell without any humbug. The kind of inspiration that is behind the policies of all capitalist nations. As another correspondent put it, even more bluntly, the matter of prime importance is “ to keep the oil flowing.”

Rebecca West’s moral uplift moves in curious ways. Another illustration of them is contained on the same page of the Sunday Times from which we have already quoted, but this time in its editorial column.

Commenting on the cruise of the “Nautilus” under the Polar ice, the editorial column has this observation:—

   “The strategic implications of the voyage are revolutionary and will fundamentally alter concepts of global warfare,"

Historically Rebecca West’s idea of moral uplift may be fantastic but there is a moral in all this; that as long as the actions of governments are determined by economic class interests there will be cynicism, brutality and war. The only way to remove these evils is to abolish the source of class interests—the private ownership of the means of living. Only the establishment of Socialism can do this—there is no other way.

Gilmac.

WPA Strikes (1939)

From the December 1939 issue of The Western Socialist

Karl Marx, in his writings, predicted that some day the capitalists would have to take care of their slaves; that they would be forced to feed and otherwise keep alive an ever increasing army of unemployed workers. Modern capitalism has fulfilled this prediction with a vengeance.

In this era of chronic depression millions of workers are forced to remain idle. Their mental and physical energies cannot he utilized in a society based upon production for profit. These unemployed workers and their dependents must be either left to starve or be given a handout in the form of a dole or work relief. Handouts become the order of the day because the exploiting class cannot kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Furthermore, it is impossible to place these millions of workers in cold storage until they are again needed. The problem of what to do with these "useless” slaves would be rendered much simpler to the capitalist class if a few million were killed off in a war. (It must he remembered, however, that the capitalist nations do not wage wars with the object of getting rid of the unemployed.)

The following "solution" was actually proposed by John D. C. Weldon in the Magazine of Wall Street, Dec. 1935, who said. "Ten million potential workers and a total of possibly 30,000,000 people are outside the circle of work, production, and income. They are not only a burden — they are an economic loss — to speak with grim realism, the country would be relatively prosperous if they were annihilated.”

One of the mockeries of capitalism is that in the midst of this growing reserve army of unemployed, there exists a shortage of skilled workers. This is quite conspicuous in Great Britain and Germany. Only this month the N. Y. Times has been carrying British advertisements for skilled engineers. Thousands of industrial workers and farmers are being shipped into Germany. Even in the United States, there exists a shortage in many trades, notably airplanes. shipbuilding, and toolmaking.

Experience demonstrates that the old method of private charity can no longer cope with the conditions resulting from widespread unemployment, and thus the government is forced to administer relief. Though many capitalists oppose relief expenditures by the government as “wasteful extravagance” “harmful to business’, and that vague abstraction, “demoralizing the recipients”, unfolding events compel the capitalist class, through its executive committee, Congress, to hand out a dole. Buying off the discontent of hungry workers is more efficient than maintaining an enormous police force or employing other repressive apparatus to keep the workers in subjection. Disorders, riots, and possible insurrections of desperate workers are thereby averted.

Despite the realization by the property owners and their political representatives of the effective role that government-sponsored work relief and welfare play in the continuance of the status quo, their efforts are directed toward the reduction of the cost of relief. Economy measures are pushed in an effort to reduce the amount of dole paid welfare recipients and work relief employees, tending to bring the payments down to the bare subsistence level. Added to this is the old attempt to discourage the taking of welfare by placing a moral stigma thereon. The most recent application of this policy manifested itself in reduction of the rolls by quota cuts, extension of the work month to 130 hours, pay slashes and "30-day starvation furloughs.” These, together with the red tape, and the contemptuous attitude adopted toward welfare clients and WPA workers, are the typical methods employed to rid the relief rolls of idle workers. The result of these constant harrying attacks is to impair the precarious and already too low economic standing of the workers.

The tendency is to drive the standard of living towards and below the subsistence level. Yet, at the same time, for obvious reasons, they must see to it that this standard of living does not fall below the starvation level. There does arise, however, a point where the workers must and do resist. Through their limited WPA unions and unemployed organizations they attempt to withstand the pressure. This determination not to submit is inevitable and is the result of necessity and experience. Success can and has been obtained for the limited objective of resisting this pressure. Resistance has taken on various forms of activity including mass demonstrations, delegations, work stoppages, and strikes. In regard to the A. F. of L. strikes on the WPA in July 1939, there arises an interesting situation. The capitalist government ruling the U. S. A. refuses officially to recognize strikes on the part of WPA workers on the trumped-up grounds that "the people” can not strike against themselves. F. D. Roosevelt said, "You can’t strike against the government.” This statement becomes absurd in the face of the antagonism between workers and capitalists.

The real objection by capitalists to strikes of this kind is that they indicate a tendency that may develop into a threat to the capitalist state. This situation can be compared to the sit-down strikers disregard for private property. Though it is not a clearly formulated threat to the capitalist system, it does constitute a definite measure of loss of respect for the sanctity of the state. Confronted with these WPA strikes, the New Deal government loses some of its glamour and "benevolence.” The F. B. I. investigations, threats of arrest, removal from jobs, and the barring of home relief to WPA strikers betrays the real character of the New Deal. Whenever it becomes necessary, the capitalist state, as employer, confronting recalcitrant workers, is quick to strip off the velvet glove and wield its naked iron fist.

In view of this fact, it become apparent that victory for the working class depends upon control of that power, the state, which now strives to keep the workers in subjection and attempts to allay their discontent by offering them work relief and doles, which are. as other reforms, insufficient. The capture of “state power”, rather than the resisting of "state pressure”, must become the objective of the workers.

The concessions in the nature of reforms given to the workers under capitalism may temporarily alleviate but will never eradicate the misery of the working class. The continuation of capitalism with or without relief will only serve to perpetuate the hardships and suffering of the workers, both employed and unemployed. Capitalism has to have relief in order to exist. Ridding society of capitalism with its inevitable unemployment is the only solution. It can be seen that no amount or variety of reform will ever be able to abolish the workers' discontent. On the day that this discontent becomes crystalized into socialist understanding, we will see the end of capitalism and all its evil effects.

Peter Martel

Whip Crackaway (1958)

From the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

One morning midway between my tea and cornflakes my attention was arrested by an announcement in a programme on the radio that scientists had carried out an investigation to find out why a whip cracked when it was flicked. Moreover, one of them was about to make a statement on this phenomenon. I listened with, breathless interest while a wise, grave voice poured out a mass of scientific detail about supersonic sound barriers being broken and other effects. The whole thing seemed quite fantastic. Surely a group of scientists didn’t carry out a detailed study just to find out why a whip cracked.

The idea began to present some fascinating possibilities. Perhaps a vast research station somewhere in the Nevada desert. Rubber gloved and masked technicians cracking whips by remote control. Huge areas cordoned off, concrete shelters erected, complicated machinery recording every effect. Then later, the dramatic headlines, “The United States has cracked its biggest supersonic whip to date.”

From there, inevitably the Whip Disarmament Committee. Demonstrations at Trafalgar Square. Momentous statements by Mr. Bevan and the Archbishop of Canterbury—and what will Donald Soper do now, poor thing? Later, public spirited citizens will call for the pooling of whip-cracking secrets and international control. The Russians offering Ike a conducted tour of their whip plants in Siberia. The whole world waiting tensely for talks at the summit. Tass Agency issues the statement that Russia has cracked a supersonic whip with a small dog attached to the end. An American Lieutenant-Colonel announces that the United States will carry out their experiments with an even bigger dog.

What a panorama unfolds of State visits, high and low-level conferences, broken treaties, falling shares, the Queen “Bless this whip and all who crack it.”

I can see the whole stupendous drama culminating in the biggest crack of the biggest whip—but quite incidentally, why on earth does a whip crack?

John Higgins

Aladdin Safes for Everyone (1958)

From the November 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The press had an unusual story of a locked safe which was bought for 30s. and when opened, out tumbled a jewelled tiara, a collection of antique silver and plate, gems mounted in gold and other jewellery, very much like the contents of Aladdin’s cave. Many newspapers throughout the world spread the news and some published photographs of this unique find. The news obviously caught the imagination of the public and the lucky purchaser was seen on two television programmes, and the whole process was featured in a Gaumont-British film, and even broadcast over the French radio.

One newspaper, using a clue found in the safe, was able to locate an old retainer of the family which had once owned these jewels. He remembered the splendour of their regency home, the big parties they held and the magnificent silver laid for dinner. Also that the mistress would drive along the front at Brighton with her coachman in livery.

They had a large house in fashionable Bryanston Square, London, and would spend two months of the year there. She was a fine regal woman and when she visited the Theatre Royal she would be magnificently dressed with diamonds at her throat and a gleaming tiara.

This was clearly a ruling-class family and it might be both interesting and useful at this point to discuss why it is that jewellery and plate are so closely connected with the lives of these people.

Of what use are gems?

That class who live by the exploitation of working people, have, from historical times, been proud of their privileged position in society which they advertised by displaying the insignia of their wealth, the ownership of which sets them apart from the mere plebians.

Employing workers to wear livery is one method of display, for livery indicates that the wearer is unable to take part in industrial money-making employment, and this, in turn, indicates the wealth and therefore the reputable degree of the employer on whom is conferred blameless social standing.

Jewellery has also played its part for centuries as a distinguishing badge of the upper-class. Gratification derived from the use and contemplation of costly and supposedly beautiful products, is, in great measure, a gratification of our sense of costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. The fact that some precious metals and gems do have a measure of intrinsic beauty is incidental. Great as their sensuous beauty may be, their rarity and price adds an expression of distinction which they would never have if they were cheap. The chief purpose of valuable jewellery is to add distinction to the person of the wearer by comparison with those who cannot afford such things and have to do without. The marks of expensiveness come to be accepted as beautiful features of expensive jewellery.

And, incidentally, this display sets an example to those in lower stations of life and acts like a carrot before a donkey’s nose, goading him on to ever greater effort. This, in turn, rebounds to the benefit of those who own the means of profit-making and thus is completed the happy circle for those who own the means whereby we live.

Indianapolis Star, 12 Sep 1958, Friday

How mad can capitalism get ?

A little reflection will reveal the waste of human labour used in spreading the news of this find, which is of no real help or use to any of the readers. The national press employ large staffs of reporters, on duty day and night, to sift the items of news coming in, with the idea of blowing some of them up enough to hit the headlines, which have to be filled if the papers are to fulfil their main function of profit making. These individuals, though they are professional writers, fritter away most of their time, not on straightforward writing, but on the tricks of their trade, waiting all night outside the house of someone in the news, in order to get a little more information, usually of a senseless but highly personal nature, or, as in the Aladdin Safe story, taking infinite pains in trying to trace the family mentioned on the flyleaf of the bible found in the safe, just to get those people’s reactions to the news. Then there is the paper-pulp for the newspaper itself and its transport across the world and the vast army of photographers, engravers and printers, to say nothing of the fleets of motor-vans racing round the streets delivering the papers to those who have the job of selling them.

Following our particular item of news through, there is the waste of schooling and training of the lawyers engaged in sorting out the ownership of the find—whether it should be the old bedridden lady of 77 who should have the tiara and other jewels, or the man who found them, or the firm that sold the locked safe. The more we consider it, all the more glimpses we get of how mad and wasteful this Capitalist society is.

Why the story of Aladdin is so popular

The question also arises of why the story of Aladdin is so popular. Aladdin was a poor boy who found a cave of jewels and through these riches was able to care for his poor mother and who eventually married a beautiful princess. Any man who suffers from insecurity (and who doesn’t in a class-dominated society) can easily put himself in the position of Aladdin. Any woman can put herself into the position of Aladdin’s bride or mother. No wonder the story has become a hardy annual for the pantomime season. There does not seem to be any reason why the popularity of this story is likely to diminish, at any rate, not for the time being.

The tragedy behind the story

But behind the story of this modem Aladdin there should also be tragedy. While the great moguls of the press, cinema and television are prepared to devote plenty of publicity to an irrelevant story of a purely chance find, where no intelligence, forethought or imagination is involved, there is no space available, whether in the so-called Labour Press or elsewhere, for a sensible analysis of a society which enables an individual to come into possession of wealth produced by others in society. For such an analysis of the news would contain revolutionary implications.

But what should be the greatest news item in the world today gets no publicity, except in the columns of the Socialist Standard and companion papers. And that is that Socialism, a system of society where all wealth is owned and controlled in common, by eliminating war and insecurity, can confer on everyone even greater benefits than can be obtained from safes full of jewels.

Frank Offord

Editorial: Russian Riddle Explained (1958)

Editorial from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Winston Churchill, in one of his little oratorical exercises, once described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” If he meant that it is hard to foresee where Russian internal strains and stresses will thrust out next, and the precise form they will take in foreign policy, it could have represented his true opinion. But on a rather larger scale he was doing himself an injustice. With his background and outlook, and his own easy disregard for political party shibboleths and loyalties when British capitalist interests are concerned, he could have no difficulty in understanding long-term Russian state policy and actions: one representative of aggressive imperialism can hardly fail to appreciate his opposite numbers in Russia.

But if Churchill chose to write himself down as more ignorant than he is, there are many others who claim to understand about Russia much more than they do.

These reflections are provoked by an article by Emanuel Litvinoff, reviewing E. H. Carr’s Socialism in One Country (Manchester Guardian, 14th November, 1958). Carr’s book describes developments in Russia in the years 1924-1926. His theme is that “Mother Russia was digesting the Bolshevik Revolution.” “As the Soviet. Government became more and more openly the heir of Russian state power and attracted to itself traditional feelings of Russian patriotism, it proclaimed its mission in terms which conveyed to sensitive ears unmistakable echoes of the Russian past  . . .  the cause of Russia and the cause of Bolshevism began to coalesce into a single undifferentiated whole.”

It is on this theme that Carr explains the passing of the “Westerners,” Trotsky, Lunacharsky and others and the rise of Stalin with his isolationist slogan “Socialism in one country.”

Emanuel Litvinoff accepts this proposition and opens his review by recounting a remark made to him by a Communist friend who is troubled about the Russian tyrannies. He said: “For me the important question now is whether these arise out of something inherent in the Communist movement, or whether they are specifically Russia.”

Carr and Litvinoff and the “Communist” friend are all wide of the mark. Of course, different countries have different histories, different geographical features, different institutional developments and different traditions, but in their study of these the men we are criticising have been so obsessed with the detailed differences that they cannot see the underlying capitalist development that marks Russia and the West, and the whole of the modem world of Capitalism. They cannot see that the democracies of Western Europe had a history that mirrors Russia’s present stage of institutional evolution. They have been so busy studying the varieties of leaf and flower that they cannot even see the trees, let alone the wood.

What basis is there for their repetition of the popular misconception that Russia is “Socialist,” or for their new misconception that Russia is not Capitalist but ‘‘Russian.”? Apart from the political dictatorship—which they could study in the past of Britain and Western Europe—where are or ever were these so-called Socialist features of Russia? Commodity production, the production of goods for sale and profit, the existence of a great propertyless wage-earning class, the huge national debts and bond-holding, the banks and insurance institutions, the inequalities of income and the complex taxation systems, the preoccupation with Capitalist investment, foreign trade and the military struggle for territories and the control of trade routes—these are the features not of Russia as such or America or Britain as such, but of world-embracing Capitalism.

Their defence for their unsupportable notions always is that Russia has gone further in State intervention, in the form of the great nationalised industrial and commercial monopolies. This, of course, is the crux of the question and the source of their confusion. These features are not Socialist, but Capitalist: State Capitalism is not Socialism and cannot be shown to be anything else, but a form of Capitalism and one familiar enough in all countries.

And if thrown out of that indefensible position, they retire to their second line of defence, i.e., that “Socialism” now means “State Capitalism,” because they and so many others profess to think that it does, they have to explain away the fact that the early Bolsheviks in Russia never held that view, but always lined themselves up with the Marxian conception which flatly rejected it.

What has happened in Russia is not the mere continuation of Russian tradition under another name, nor the development of a different “Socialism” (which would be like deciding to call chalk, cheese), but the emergence of Capitalism, growing more marked with the passage of time, in place of feudalism. Russian evolution is Russia’s delayed version of the Revolution which brought Capitalism to supremacy in France a century and a half ago.

The turn of events in Russia is not the failure of Socialism or its corruption by Russian tradition, but the total failure of the Bolsheviks to impose Socialism on an unready country, against the wishes of the population who were not and are not Socialists.

The S.P.G.B. foretold this failure at the start, forty years ago. How long will it take the Carrs and Litvinoffs to see the riddle as it really is, no riddle at all?

News From The U.S.A. (1941)

Party News from the September 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

We feel sure that news of the activities of our Companion Parties abroad will prove interesting to our readers.

A recent letter from the Headquarters of the Workers' Socialist Party of the U.S.A. contains information which reveals that their activity and influence are expanding steadily.

In recent months, for instance, W.S.P. speakers have successfully debated with the representatives of Harvard University, Federal Union, Social Justice Guild, America First Committee, and other bodies, all of which are attracting a great deal of the American public's attention just now.

The Boston, Mass., branch reports large attendances at their indoor meetings, and that their outdoor meeting are breaking all records, especially in regard to literature sales and collections. In addition, they state, “audiences are unusually attentive and orderly." Also two Marxian study classes are conducted weekly, and mid-week discussion meetings are another successful feature of this live branch. Reports from New York, etc., also reveal increased activity.

Publicity Drive

Perhaps the most significant news is the W.S.P.’s intense efforts to advance the sales of the Western Socialist, which is the joint organ of the W.S.P. of U.S.A. and the Socialist Party of Canada. Despite a severe setback to its circulation, resulting from Customs restrictions in Canada, the sales and. influence of the Western Socialist continue to grow in the rest of the Western Hemisphere.

“We are constantly making new contacts throughout the country," they inform us, “far more than at any time in our history." Scores of City and University libraries in all parts of the country now display the Western Socialist, and a campaign is in full swing to multiply the number.

Our comrades in America are indeed full of “ pep." Simultaneously with the drive to step up the sales of the Western Socialist, they launched an advertising campaign to increase the circulation of The Socialist Standard in the U.S.A. In connection with this, we have received a two-column clipping, taken from the Boston Daily Globe, which describes vividly for the American public the activities of the (Socialist Party of Great Britain in war-time. Frequent quotations from The Socialist Standard appear in the article, together with details of our recent successful meetings, etc.

This will perhaps convey to our readers something of the interest with which our comrades in America are following our activities in these significant times.

They, like us, are alive to the immense opportunities which post-war conditions are likely to provide for the development and strengthening of the real Socialist International, which at present comprises the Socialist Parties of Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and, of course, the W.S.P. of U.S.A.

“The Western Socialist”

A few words about the Western Socialist. It is a worthy counterpart of The Socialist Standard, and has been fittingly described as the “Journal of Scientific Socialism in the Western Hemisphere." No Socialist or student of the working-class movement should be without it. The articles it carries are informative, and, in the light of the role which the American capitalist class is playing, and likely to play in the present world conflict, this searchlight of Socialist knowledge and understanding is invaluable.

To our readers in Great Britain, and our many , subscribers in all parts of the world, particularly those in the U.S.A., we, of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, urge you to become readers of the Western Socialist. You will not be disappointed. Below are details of the subscription rates, etc.

How about sending your order, right now ?

H. G. Holt,

Foreign Secretary, 

S.P.G.B.

“Western Socialist."

Subscription Rates.

Great Britain : —

        3 issues (post free) 1/-

6 issues (post free)  2/-

      12 issues (post free) 4/-

Send your order to: —

S.P.G.B., 33, Gloucester Place, London, W.1.

U.S.A., Central and South America, British Dominions and Foreign: —

       18 issues (post free)    1 dollar

       12 issues (post free)    75 cents

         4 issues (post free)    25 cents

(Bundle rates on application.)

Send your order to: —

     Workers’ Socialist Party, 12, Hayward Place, Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

Reconstruction: A Lesson from the Last War (1941)

From the October 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

The act of putting ideas into words should be a means of achieving greater clarity and understanding, for writer as well as reader. It should help to clear the way for action, but often smooth words and rounded phrases serve only as a brake on action. If anyone doubts this he has only to read again some of the optimistic plans for a new world which were being drafted in great number a quarter of a century ago. They promised a world without war, without want and without insecurity. Little or nothing came of it all. Precious years were wasted while the world drifted to another war and now a new generation of sentimental (or sometimes cynical) planners are at work who have seemingly learned nothing and forgotten everything. In international affairs it is only necessary to recall the League of Nations. Hardly a hand is raised in its defence now and the Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill did not trouble to mention it.

In the matter of social reconstruction compare the Labour Party’s recent pronouncement, “The War and the Peace," adopted by 2,430,000 votes to 19,000 at the Labour Party’s annual Conference at Whitsuntide, 1941, with an earlier Report, "Labour and the New Social Order," adopted by the Labour Party in 1918. The comparison brings out many interesting points. Much of the new document reproduces the arguments and assumptions of the old. Other parts are different but the difference often reflects not an advance of thought towards Socialism but an adaptation to new trends in capitalism.

The New Order, 1918

The Labour Party’s 1918 plan, "The New Social Order,’’ suffered from three fatal defects. It started off from a wrong belief that the year 1918 was witnessing if not the death, “at any rate the culmination and collapse" of capitalism. “The individualist system of capitalist production," said the Report, “may, we hope, indeed have received a death-blow." Its second error was in assuming that the battle for a new order was already more than half won, based on a belief that one of the main pillars of the Labour programme (called “The Universal Enforcement of a National Minimum") “had already gained the support of the enlightened statesmen and economists of the world" (page 6). This belief was buttressed by a curious confidence that a plan was bound to be accepted if it could be proved that it was based on the teachings of “political' science. " Time and time again this idea crops up in the 20 pages of the Report.

The third defect was that the Labour Party had not a practical alternative to offer to capitalism and one that would be understood and accepted by the electorate. The Report was so worded as to imply in a rather guarded way that the remedy was Socialism. Thus it opened with the statement that “what has to be reconstructed after the war is not this or that Government Department, or this or that piece of social machinery; but, so far as Britain is concerned, society itself," and on page 4 is a reference to the “socialisation of industry." But in the rest of the Report it was clearly shown that the Labour Party was far from being finished with capitalism. It desired to control but not to abolish it; hence, for example, the remark in connection with taxation, “we are at one with the manufacturer, the farmer, and the trader in objecting to taxes interfering with production or commerce, or hammering transport and communications" (page 10). They could hardly be at one with these sections of the capitalist class if their intention was to eliminate them.

All of these assumptions were groundless. Capitalism was not dead. Once the war was over it resumed its course, not much different from what it had been in 1914. The employers, and of course their “enlightened statesmen and economists," soon showed what they thought of the plan and of its detailed proposals when the post-war unrest had to be dealt with. Nor would the Labour Party’s proposals stand serious criticism. They did no doubt appeal to a large number of electors and this enabled the Labour Party to take office in 1923-1924 and again in 1929-1931, but those two Governments found that the administration of capitalism left them no time or inclination to introduce the main parts of their own programme. The Labour Party had by then forgotten its pledge of 1918 that it would “certainly lend no hand" to the revival of capitalism.

It is a melancholy thought that in 1941 most of these assumptions can still be cherished by the Labour Party.

“The Four Pillars of Reconstruction"

The “four pillars" of the 1918 plan were (a) The Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum; (b) the Democratic control of industry; (c) the Revolution in National Finance; and (d) the Surplus Wealth for the Common Good.

There was to be a national minimum wage of 30s. a week (to be revised according to the level of prices), and this was also to be the basis of payment to the unemployed, the sick, the aged, and the victims of industrial accidents.

Industry and the land were to be nationalised, starting immediately with the mines, the railways and electric power, followed by the “expropriation" of the insurance companies. There was to be democracy in industry as well as in Government, with “the progressive elimination from the control of industry of the private capitalist" (page 12).

Taxation was to be changed and a capital levy introduced, both based on the principle of a very high levy on the highest incomes. The phrasing of these proposals throws light on the outlook of those who drafted the Report and of the delegates who accepted it. Taxation was to rise “up to 16s. or even 19s. in the pound on the highest income of the millionaires," and the capital levy was likewise to start at a small deduction from the wealth of people owning more than £1,000 “and a very much larger percentage from the. millionaires." There seems to have been an idea here that while the very rich must be “soaked" they must not be extinguished, and this presumably is what was meant by the aim defined as “a systematic approach towards a healthy equality" (page 4). Evidently “healthy equality" was a roundabout way of retaining a fairly large measure of inequality of wealth and income though nowhere was there an attempt to explain or justify this.

Among the specific demands were the retention of war-time Government control of industry and of the minimum wage of miners and land workers, “equal pay for men and women," an extended scheme of unemployment insurance, educational reforms and a school leaving age of 16, “complete abolition of the House of Lords," various extensions of the franchise, and the organisation of schemes of public work to even out and to reduce the amount of unemployment.

Among a very large number of other proposals was one for a League of Nations and the peaceful settlement of disputes between nations, and another for the development of international trade.

Nothing Came Of It

It will be seen that hardly any of the proposals came to anything, and those that were adopted have left capitalism essentially unchanged and unregenerate. It is true that the franchise was extended, unemployment insurance was made general, and the League of Nations was set up, but apart from these and a few social reforms neither the Labour Governments nor the Tory and National Governments did anything to carry out the plans. The House of Lords is still with us, enriched by some Labour peers, unemployment has been greater than ever before, taxation on the rich has been increased but without any marked effect on the production of new millionaires, there has been no national minimum and the war-time Minimum Wage Acts for miners and landworkers were soon repealed after the war. No industries have been nationalised.

The inequality of wealth, the national minimum wage and nationalisation of industry are three questions worth a little more attention. Here are two statements on inequality, one from the 1918 Labour Party Report, the other from an article by a prominent Labour Party supporter in World Digest, June, 1941. They show how little capitalism changed.

  Meanwhile innumerable new private fortunes are being heaped up by those who have taken advantage of the nation’s needs; and the one-tenth of the population which owns nine-tenths of the riches of the United Kingdom, far from being made poorer, will find itself, in the aggregate, as a result of the war, drawing in rent and interest and dividends a larger nominal income than before.—(1918 Report, page 19.) 

That was 1918; now for 1941:— .

In Britain on the eve of this war for democratic principles, nearly half the total national income went to 10 per cent, of the people; 80 per cent. of the total capital belonged to less than 6 per cent. of the community. . . .  At one end of the social scale twelve million people earned less than 50s. a week. At the other end there were many thousands with incomes of over £200 a week and some with incomes of over £1,000 a week.—(Mr. Francis Williams, former editor, Daily Herald., World Digest, June, 1941.)

The National Minimum Wage and Nationalisation

In 1918 the Labour Party demanded a national minimum wage for everyone. They thought it had the support of “the enlightened statesmen and economists of the world." On August 18th, 1919, the Lloyd George Government introduced a Bill to set up a Royal Commission “to inquire into legal minimum time-rates of wages," but the Bill was not proceeded with. Then on March 4th, 1924, when the first Labour Government was in office, a Labour motion was put down and carried that “in view of the practically universal acceptance of the principle that a living wage for all workers should be the first charge upon industry . . . this House urges the Government to proceed without delay with the Bill introduced by the Government of the day in 1919, constituting a Commission to inquire into and report upon legal minimum time-rates of wages."

The Labour Government whole-heartedly accepted the principle of the resolution but pleaded pressure of business which would have to be cleared away before anything could be done. The opportunity did not arise before the Labour Government was defeated and left office. Nor was it done in the second Labour Government, and when on March 31st, 1931, Mr. Kirkwood asked the Minister of Labour, Miss M. Bondfield, if it was the intention of the Labour Government to introduce legislation for a minimum wage in mining, steel, textile, engineering, agriculture and other industries and in the railway and other services, her reply was a blunt “ No, sir."

At the present time the idea is given little attention in Labour circles, and minimum wage schemes seem to have been replaced by schemes to pay allowances to families with children.

Then there was the idea of nationalisation, on the lines of the Post Office. It was urgently demanded in 1918 but was pressed with less and less enthusiasm until in 1930 it was quietly allowed to die. In its place came the demand for public utility corporations like the London Passenger Transport Board. This was due not so much to a change of heart but to the recognition that capitalism was moving in a different direction. As has been pointed out by Mr. Geoffrey Crowther, editor of the Economist—

The choice now is not between individual competitive enterprise and centralised organisation by the State; it is between centralised control by the State and by private trust.—(World Digest, September, 1941.)

The Lesson to he Learned

One or two lessons should be plain. Even from the narrow point of view of trying to do the best possible for the workers within the framework of capitalism the 1918 Labour. Programme was wrongly conceived and far too ambitious. If instead of aiming to legislate on everything it had concentrated on a few simple social reform demands it would obviously have had a better chance of achieving some results. Instead, it dissipated interest and energy on all kinds of impracticable projects for reorganising industry when it ought to have realised that any Government facing the post-war troubles of capitalism would be far too busy to want to risk its position by a policy of troublesome and not very popular interference with existing arrangements.

From the wider standpoint of solving the social problems instead of trying to patch things up the Labour Party was in a false position. It wanted to be drastic but had not the understanding or desire to come out for Socialism. Neither the leaders nor the rank and file understood the limitations of their position. They were not prepared to face the fact that there could be no Socialism until the hard and long task of winning over a majority to Socialism had been completed but equally they were not prepared to struggle for those limited things that a non-Socialist majority might have supported. They needed the support of Liberal and Tory and unattached workers if they were to be at all effective but they were forced by their own vague desires for the drastic reform of capitalism to put forward demands which only antagonised large groups of capitalists and groups of workers in the industries affected. They confused two different conceptions, that of a working class struggling to maintain and improve its standards under capitalism and that of a Party aiming to take over the reins of Government and administer things on a different principle. They forgot that capitalism if it is to work at all forces the hands of those who think to control it. Then as now the only alternative to capitalism run on capitalist lines is Socialism, there is no tenable half-way position.

Edgar Hardcastle

"Equal Sacrifice" (1941)

From the November 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some time ago an article appeared in these columns; it was called “In the Front Line.” It was a description of working-class life in one of the great industrial belts of Britain. The story was one of poverty and drabness, but the writer does not think he exaggerated the grimness of the scene, nor the sordid existence of the people. 

Here is the other side of the picture.

It is a pretty picture—at least, nature has done its best to please the human eye. It is a place not very far from the Metropolis, and in the days of peace the Mecca of many a trip by working folk in search of a day’s fresh air.

To-day the small town has swollen to almost twice its former size. Crowded trains draw out of its station early every morning, taking with them hundreds of men and women, many still “nodding” through lack of sleep. Their jobs are in London, but they have come here in search of safety in the night. To them, “Pretty-town,” as you may call it, means just a bed away from the bombs. When they come home in the evening they are usually far too tired to do much else than have their supper and go to bed. The week-end is the long-awaited chance for a "lay-in,” and so the charm and soothing quiet of the country-side is lost to them.

Then there are the official evacuees. Women with their offspring, thousands of them, were literally dumped upon the place with little thought of caring for them once they had got here; for the problems in accommodation, food and other items of welfare.

Of course, these evacuees belong to the working class; the wealthy do not have to rely on the tender mercies of officialdom to provide refuge for their wives and children.

It is easy enough to distinguish this human flotsam; all are shabbily dressed, and can often be seen wandering about the main streets aimlessly. In this town, where ”cleanliness and godliness” are the twin virtues, a slovenly appearance causes much comment, but these intolerant disciples of Jesus should bear in mind that the slums of London’s dockland are not good training ground for clean habits. And the local authorities do nothing to encourage self-care; they have shown their regard by putting large numbers into houses long since condemned, where they are herded five and six persons to a room.

Others are billeted on the local working class, who live mostly in small council houses dotted around the outskirts. There is no use in glossing over the hostility which exists between “guests” and “hosts”—it is deep-rooted, and, even if the differences in outlook and up-bringing could be overcome, there still remains the problem of squeezing two families into the narrow walls within which it is difficult enough for one average-sized household to move.

But all these are the small fry among God’s children. Let us leave them and follow the stream of motor-cars continually passing to and fro the centre of this little city. Their destination is a different quarter in the neighbourhood, the wooded hills which overlook the valley like sentinels of nature. Climb up the leafy avenues, and, when you can turn your gaze from the colourful view of the many-coloured carpet of fields below, peer through the long line of trees and the high hedge rows beyond.

Here, discreetly hidden from all but very prying eyes, is the heritage of England.

Often you will not even then be able to see the abode of the fortunate owner, so spacious are the grounds, the vast stretches of carefully tended lawn, of elaborately planned gardens, the miniature forests.

No fancy names on wooden boards will give you any due as to whom you are seeking; the “Mon Abri’s,” and such-like products of fanciful minds, are left to the envious but impotent hangers-on, the self-styled middle-class.

Coming from the poorer quarters of the town, with its crowded streets and shops, the contrast is startling. Such is the spacious comfort in which this elite has its being, that the passer-by, used to the noise and jostling of working-class existence, may be left with a curious impression of desolation. Never do you hear the noise of children playing, certainly not evacuees; the notion that you are in a country at war, ”fighting for its life,” seems fantastic.

Occasionally a car speeds up the drive and into the buildings beyond. You get a brief glimpse of the occupants, quite ordinary looking persons they appear, and then they are gone, as aloof as their impressive habitation.

It is quite impossible to associate what you see here with the urgent problems which you are told are facing the country to-day.

Lack of food, shortage of man-power, people without homes—all these and a multitude of other difficulties may be agitating your mind, making you a chronic victim of anxiety and fear (the deadliest foes of happiness), but here everything speaks of comfort, of leisure, a sense of economic security that has no inkling of the ceaseless struggle for existence that goes on below.

Vats of boiling steel, over which men, sweating though stripped to the waist, are standing, shaping the metal; miners hacking their way along the labyrinth, hundreds of feet below ground; women stumbling home through the black-out after a long day of machine tending; screaming sirens and a mass of human bodies huddled together in filthy basements—merely the sinister shadows of another world.

For you, food is a “munition of war," to be obtained by scrambling, queueing, begging the shop-keeper of regretfully paying double the price you can afford. It is a fuel for vitals which have been emptied by the day’s strenuous labour. But to this other class such concern for food is unknown. Never are they seen at the shops lining up for goods in short supply, war-time restrictions appear to hold no terrors for them. And is it possible to imagine their dining-tables served with a small piece of cheese and a pat of margarine by the butler (“three servants kept in pantry ”— recent advert.)?

To what magic does this class owe its favoured living—what remarkable gifts of mind and body assure them a social and economic standing quite inconceivable by the average working-class brain?

The clue can often be found in the City of London, the “richest square mile in the world.” Stacked in the vaults of banking firms or in the offices of the big joint-stock companies are the documents that “prove,” according to law, the right of this privileged minority to possess and use the best in life which the productive resources and human labour can offer. Mere pieces of paper, but backed by the entire force of the State—what gangster ever had better protection? Not that these people are gangsters—they are the most law-abiding citizens to be found anywhere.

Those documents relate to copper mines in Rhodesia, to tea plantations in India, the cotton mills of Lancashire, to the stock yards in the Argentine; in every corner of the British Empire and beyond are to be found the well-shaped predatory fingers of the richest ruling-class of to-day.

Property that is never seen—labour-power by the million, black, brown and white, pay the tribute which enables these persons in the Home Counties of England to live in splendour and seclusion.

You may well ask: What active share do this class take in this process of wealth-production? The answer is, None. Their sons go to the public school and universities, and from there, if minded, for “public duties,” fill the benches of the Conservative parties in Parliament or other public bodies. Here their intellectual and socially useful qualities can and have been judged. Others have gone into the diplomatic service; their record is now being expunged by bombs and guns. Many others, more discreet, keep an eye on the source of their incomes by “sitting” on the boards of numerous undertakings as “directors.” If you go to the local railway station here at an early hour in the afternoon, you will see some of these “captains of industry” alighting from a London train and hurrying to their waiting automobile—surely an early hour for leaving the factory in these days of twenty-four hour shifts? You are mistaken, reader; these gentlemen are “somebodies” in the "City.”

Many have, of course, joined the armed forces; they have the consolation of knowing that they are defending a real “stake in the country,” not an imaginary one. In this connection it is worth noting that the local working-class have a very strongly developed sense of property: It is their house and their garden, whereas a few weeks without payment of rent would quickly put an end to this hallucination. Admittedly, rents are low compared with towns, but so are wages—the capitalist class know how to even things up.

It is the rule for workers to model their outlook on that of their masters; ”Pretty-town” is no exception. The capitalist caricature of the old manorial system poisons the whole locality with its prejudices and reactionary foibles. Jews (of the poorer type) and revolutionaries are their pet aversions; a former town clerk is now imprisoned as a fascist.

Fortunately for the prospects of Socialism, these “pocket boroughs” can have little influence on the march of ideas, otherwise the future of mankind would indeed look gloomy.

Sid Rubin

Notes By The Way: Should Women Have Equal Pay with Men? (1941)

The Notes By The Way column from the December 1941 issue of the Socialist Standard

Should Women Have Equal Pay with Men?

The propaganda of the organisations which favour equal pay for men and women doing the same job has made much progress recently and a poll organised by the British Institute of Public Opinion showed a majority of over two-thirds in favour. (News-Chronicle, November 17th, 1941.)

The main reason for the change of attitude this poll indicates is, however, not propaganda, but the fact that under war conditions there is a limitless demand for women’s labour. As the Economist says: “. . . temporarily, at any rate, the war has done the reformers’ work for them. The demand for women workers has increased; and the number of occupations into which they are eagerly admitted is growing. But in spite of the greatly increased number of women coming forward, there is still a shortage . . .”—(Economist, November 29th, 1941.)

It should not be imagined that the propaganda for equal pay is new. It was in full swing 40 years ago and was, for example, commented on in The Socialist Standard for December, 1904. Apart from the war-time demand for women workers the problem has only changed in the past 40 years in one respect, that there are now a larger number of occupations in which it is normal for women to be employed. The claim that the job should carry the same pay whether done by a man or a woman is still a mere tinkering with the real problem of the working class, both men and women. Short of getting rid of the wages system and the employing class, as under Socialism, the whip-hand is always that of the employing class. They will always seek what is for their particular concern the cheapest labour and will always use unemployment as a lever to force down wages towards the minimum of subsistence. The advocates of equal pay who imagine that the acceptances of the principle by the employers will make any material change are overlooking the easy loophole it provides. If an employer accepts the principle of equal pay for a certain grade of work and then finds that there are plenty of unemployed women able and willing to do the job for a lower wage, all he has to do is to take all the men off that work. The work then becomes a purely woman’s job, and the principle of equal pay ceases to have any application.

Douglasites Repudiate Douglas

The following paragraph appeared in the Daily Telegraph (November 17th, 1941): —

   Three persons have been excommunicated this weekend by the Green Shirts. They are Major C. H. Douglas, who invented Social Credit, the Dean of Canterbury and the Duke of Bedford.
  This information I obtain from The Message from Hargrave, the weekly sheet of foolscap expounding the views of the “Social Credit Party of Great Britain,” which I have been receiving since I announced, last July, that Mr. Augustus John had become a Green Shirt.
   I read that the Social Credit Party repudiated the "authority and directives” of Major Douglas in July, 1938. He is now once more repudiated for “confusing his own economic logic by developing an anti-Semitic propaganda.”
   Dr. Hewlett Johnson’s excommunication is for becoming that “quite ridiculous thing—a Christian Bolshevik.” The Duke of Bedford, who, as I read, is even better known than the dean for his advocacy of Social Credit, is placed under the ban for his out-and-out advocacy of the views he holds on the war.

Under-Feeding Among Edinburgh Workers

The Weekly Scotsman (July 5th, 1941) summarises the result of a recent inquiry into the income and expenditure of a number of families on the ”unskilled labourer" level of income.

  Out of 75 families whose food bill was investigated, only 8 were spending enough to buy an adequate diet. From various causes none of the families was in fact getting a diet adequate in every respect. There are figures of the large slice of their income which some families spend on hire purchase or sickness and burial insurance. Over half the families were living beyond their incomes and running into debt; in particular, “it was found that a high percentage of Service families were in part dependent upon hospitality from relations.”

Restrictions on Political Propaganda

On November 27th, 1941, the News-Chronicle published the following: —

                                                        POLITICS BANNED.

   While the war is on, politics are to be banned in the factories (writes the Labour Correspondent).

   The T.U.C. has agreed with the Government that political parties shall not be allowed to propagate their policies inside the establishments of private firms, as well as Government factories and dockyards.

    This does not apply to trade union meetings.

Probably, though it is not stated, the justification offered for this ban is that political discussions interfere with output.

A Question to Federal Unionists

Reviewing a book (“Scum of the Earth," by Arthur Koestler), Mr. A. J. P. Taylor, writing in the Manchester Guardian, puts a pertinent question to supporters of Federal Union. Koestler, who supports Federal Union, had recounted some of the brutalities he witnessed in French and Spanish jails. Mr. Taylor asks: —

   "Koestler believes in European Union. Why should the police of the Union be any improvement on Koestler’s French or Spanish gaolers . . . ? In short, why should European Union—even if it ended wars—end man’s inhumanity to man?”

It is a good point because it brings out one of the fallacies of Federal Union. Is the world out of joint because of the way frontiers are drawn or because of the existence of a class-divided society, with oppression of one class by another, behind each frontier?

Socialists carry Mr. Taylor’s question further and ask whether Federal Union will end wars or only alter and enlarge the frontiers of the warring powers.

Echoes of the People’s Convention

It is an old saying that new converts are more zealous than old believers. The People’s Convention since its overnight conversion to war on the night of June 22nd is now a whole-hogger.

   The Peoples Convention, which in January wanted immediate peace and an appeal to the German people over Hitler’s head, now presses for intensified war effort and. the creation of a second front.
    At an Anglo-Soviet rally in Friends' House, Euston Road, London, yesterday, every utterance in favour of our more active participation in the war was loudly cheered.
    “We are letting the golden days go past,” said Dr. Hewlett Johnson, Dean of Canterbury.
   “If we had invaded the Continent in June the Dneiper Dam would still be working and Russia would have retained most of her lost industries. We have lengthened the war immeasurably.”—(“Sunday Express,” November 2nd, 1941.)

Mr. Pollitt, in his new role, writes as follows : —

   Russia is working, fighting and dying in a manner unknown in world history. So must we in Britain. So we can in Britain if the Government sets out to command the unstinted support of the people by proving by every one of its actions that Russia and Britain are in a real alliance, in which we take our full share and make the same sacrifices that the victory over Hitler is demanding. —(“Workers’ News.”)

Communists Support for Conservative Candidates

The Communists have a simple faith : Whatever the Russian Government does is right, whether it be Pacts with Hitler or war with Hitler. Whatever helps the Russian Government is right, whether it be denouncing the Labour Party for associating with Conservatives or voting for Conservatives.

Viewed thus there is no inconstancy in the recent Communist support for Conservative candidates at Lancaster and Hampstead. At Lancaster, where the National Conservative candidate was opposed by an Independent Liberal and by Mr. Fenner Brockway of the I.L.P., "a Communist deputation visited the Conservative campaign headquarters in Lancaster this afternoon and offered to work for the return of Mr. Maclean, the National Government candidate."—(Daily Telegraph, October 14th, 1941.)

At Hampstead there were four candidates, all with the same policy, vigorous prosecution of the war and aid for Russia. The Communists supported the official Conservative candidate, Flying Officer Charles Challen, who won the seat.

An interesting sidelight on the Lancaster election was the statement made by the I.L.P. candidate to the Manchester Guardian : —

   Mr. Brockway himself told the writer that a number of Labour voters who did not wholly accept his views about the war had told him they would vote for him for “old acquaintance sake ” and as a protest against “too much Toryism in the House of Commons."

Edgar Hardcastle

Credit and Debt (1959)

TV Review from the January 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is television worth while? An appalling question, this; but it happens to be the important one. There have always been the disapproving few who would permit it only for education in gloomy authoritarian utopias. Warmly, one would reply that entertainment and fun should be part of life as well.

The awful fact is, however, that the small screen lives and is memorable mainly in its rare instructive moments. Steele of the Spectator told his readers that when the paper was dull there was always a purpose in it; on the TV, when the programmes are dull (which is most of the time) there is never a purpose in them at all.

All this is brought to mind by a half-hour which was purposefully educational, and single-handed—certainly unaided in the last four weeks—showed the television to be worth while after all. This was Dr. Bronowski’s New Horizons account of atoms and energy. Wonderful.

But what’s even more wonderful is the thought of this coming into a quarter of a million homes. The casual question here and there, next day, discovers several who were “going to turn it off” and were still drinking-in at the end. The adversaries of television should consider this. So, too, should all the snobs and ignoramuses who like to think the working class can understand nothing. Would anyone have conceived, only a short space of years ago, of the quantum theory being expounded to council-house tenants

That is the credit side. There are debits innumerable, of course. What is more, fresh ones keep appearing. The newest and worst horror is Keep it in the Family: the heart turns as heavy as lead to see respectable suburban families being wildly acclaimed and sent home with refrigerators because between five of them they know the names of five poets or six rivers.

The interesting thing, however, is that the producers, compères and general overseers in the rubbish factory from which all this comes belong without exception to what are considered the educated layers. University men preside in panel games which are low, vulgar and humiliating; while in the commercials public-school chaps and men known to public life for their forthright integrity give specious eulogies of advertisers' wares.

The obvious moral is that even the educated will do anything for money. But that leaves one important question unanswered. This is also the group from which all the sneers at working-class “ignorance” come. Granted, the dog Prolus may look unattractive with televisual tin-cans on his tail—but who keeps tying them on?

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: Shorter Hours For What? (1959)

Editorial from the February 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some of the longest and hardest struggles of the trade unions have been to secure agreements reducing hours of work. Hours were brought down from 10 a day to 9, and then to 8—each time against the complaint of the employers and their tame economists that this would ruin industry, price British exports out of all markets and produce millions of unemployed.

The last general movement towards shorter hours was after World War II, when the 44-hour week became fairly general for industrial workers. (The first World War had been followed by the movement that brought about the 48 to 47-hour week.)

Now a number of unions, including miners, and engineering and shipbuilding workers, are trying to get a further reduction. They are asking for shorter hours without reduction of weekly pay (that being the way hours were reduced on earlier occasions in the past 40 years). With persistent pressure, they should have some success.

It is, however, impossible to pass over without comment the seeming change of attitude that has taken place in recent years towards shorter hours. In the earlier movements the demand for shorter hours meant what it appeared to mean, but in recent years the nominally shorter hours have been used very often merely as a means of getting additional overtime pay while working the same hours as before. In manufacturing industry average hours of work in 1938 were 46½ a week and in 1946 46⅕. In 1947 the standard working week was generally reduced by agreement from 48 or 47 to 44, but the hours actually worked began to rise again, and in 1955 were only very slightly under 47. In August, 1955, out of about 6,000,000 workers covered by the Ministry of Labour inquiry, over one in four was working overtime, the average overtime of these 1½ millions averaging 8½ hours in the week. In November, 1956, there were 1,600,000 workers doing an average of 8 hours overtime a week, in the manufacturing group of industries employing about 6 million.

Of course, with the rise of unemployment and short-time working the numbers doing overtime have dropped, but at August, 1958, in the same manufacturing group of workers there were still nearly 1,200,000 doing overtime.

We shall therefore again see the trade unions in the somewhat odd position of going to the employers to state a case for a 40-hour week instead of 44, knowing that large numbers of workers are doing upwards of 50 hours.

Of course, it will be said that hundreds of thousands of workers simply cannot make ends meet on their bare pay; for them overtime is a necessity. In a sense this is true, but it is really a dangerous half-truth. If that attitude had been taken up in the 19th century the battles for shorter hours would never have been fought, but workers then did not take up that attitude. They took the more correct line of fighting both to press up the wage for the week and to reduce the weekly hours of work.

But they also set their face against the working of overtime as a normal practice, which is what it now often is. 

The hours of work problem raises other issues besides the number of hours spent in the factory or office. As the years go by it is increasingly bound up with the number of hours spent travelling from home to work and back again. Workers have long been forced to move further out from the centre of the big cities, which has meant giving up more time to travel the greater distance. With modern aggravation of the problem of how to keep the traffic moving, it is now also becoming a question of spending more and more time to travel the same distance.

50 Years Ago: Who Wants a Man? (1959)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

A leading New York daily paper has just advertised a man, warranted sound in mind and limb, for sale. He describes himself as 43 years old. He says he understands machinery and is a good mechanic, but has been out of work for nine months, and is willing to sell himself for food, clothing and lodging. If no purchaser is forthcoming he will be knocked down by auction to the highest bidder. . . . Before the American panic the man had been earning £5 weekly in a machinery shop, but since then, despite applications at over 200 machine shops, which advertised for men, he has failed to secure a job.

From the Socialist Standard, March, 1909.

Correspondence on John Strachey (1959)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cwmbran.

Mon..

5th March, 1959.

The Editorial Committee

"The Socialist Standard"

London, S.W.4.

Dear Comrades.

In his writings prior to Contemporary Capitalism John Strachey had displayed his lack of understanding of Marxism and his desire to tailor the theory and practice of “Socialism” so that it fitted both Social-Democracy and Leninism. In Contemporary Capitalism he surpassed himself and asserted that. “Marx in fact taught that not only was it impossible for the wage earners to raise their standard of life under capitalism: he went further and announced that their standard must steadily decline.” (Page 101.) Page 95 has it that Marx. “ . . . predicted that real wages could never rise above subsistence so long as capitalist relations of production continued . . ." and page 90 assures us Marx held that, ". . . the standard of life of the mass of the population . . . never rises; indeed, as we shall see, Marx believed that it would actually fall below subsistence.” Strachey is quite dogmatic about this. He tells us that, “The crucial passages leave no doubt that Marx took this view”, then calmly stating, “It may be sufficient to quote two of them . . . ” (page 101) he displays for us the famous “pauperisation ” quote from the Communist Manifesto and the equally famous “increasing misery” quote from Capital, Vol. I. which in the faulty Eden & Cedar Paul translation (dealt with by Jack Fitzgerald and Riazanov, Socialist Standard. Vol. 1932) becomes happily for Strachey “increasing poverty.”

The real significance of these two passages has been dealt with in the Standard and it has been shown that they lend no support whatsoever to Strachey's case, but what of the other “crucial passages.” the ones that Strachey doesn’t quote, but keeps up his sleeves? The truth is that these other passages just don’t exist, that Strachey is unable to advance any proof to back up his wild claims, that Strachey was, when he wrote this book, on his own admission, ignorant of the real position taken up by Marx on the living standard question which is in fact the very reverse of the position fastened on him by Mr. Strachey.

Mr. Strachey’s admissions were made publicly at the Transport Hall, Cardiff, where on February 10th, 1957, he held, under the auspices of the N.C.L.C.. a one-day school to discuss the scope and findings of his Contemporary Capitalism. I took to that school all the works of Marx and Engels available in English at that date, thus making sure that any defence offered by Mr. Strachey could be accurately examined on the spot and thus eliminating the chance of an alibi based on “writings not on hand."

During the question and discussion periods I gave Mr. Strachey the opportunity to prove to the hundred or more people present that his analysis of Marxism was correct. With every book that he could need to prove his case on hand, Mr. Strachey was unable to produce any evidence to back up his assertions other than the two quotes already mentioned. The celebrated “crucial passages” failed to materialise, not even a clue could be given as to their whereabouts!

When I read out to the school the many passages in which Marx clearly shows that the working class could increase their living standards under capitalism, Strachey admitted that he was not acquainted with any of the extracts quoted. He stated that the passages I had advanced showed that Marx had held views contrary to the ones attributed to him in Contemporary Capitalism. He also said that it looked as if he had over-emphasised (!) one aspect of Marx’s ideas and neglected others. He was also not aware of the faulty nature of the Eden and Cedar Paul translation of Capital, Volume 1, from which his chief piece of “evidence” was taken. Since my quotes were mainly from Wage Labour and Capital and Capital, Vol. 1 (the majority of these quotes can be found in the January, 1957. S.S.), which are works as basic as one can get. Mr. Strachey s admissions arc pretty damning.

Later, in the presence of the organizer of the school. Mr. Strachey complimented me on my “Marxian scholarship” and speaking of Marx said: “It looks as if I’ve done the Old Man an injustice.” Scholarship is an odd word to describe a mere basic knowledge of a subject and it is intriguing to think of a term which, continuing this same picturesque tradition, will describe Mr. Strachey’s lack of knowledge!

I was prepared to wait for the promised second volume by Strachey before writing anything about this encounter, but I now learn that Mr. Strachey has been acquainted with the articles written by E. W. (January, February, March, April. .S.S..) on Contemporary Capitalism and is trying to dismiss their incontrovertible arguments as mere differences in “interpretation” of Marxian theory. This is dishonest of John Strachey. It is not the position he took up at Cardiff and it is not a position that he can maintain if he is bold enough to meet the Socialist Party in public debate. Though not a member of the Socialist Party at the time of this meeting with Strachey, the position I then took up is the same as that held by the Party. I therefore challenge Mr. Strachey to meet a representative of the Socialist Party in public debate and I can promise him that he will be very fairly treated, though 1 cannot promise that his cup of happiness will be overflowing or even full.

Yours fraternally.

Melvin C. Harris.