Organisation of Production

The following piece, written by the late Pieter Lawrence, is the seventh chapter of his 2006 work, 'Practical Socialism - Its Principles and Methods'.

Link to Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Organisation of Production

It is often argued that because in socialism the free market will be replaced, production would have to be organised through a system of central planning.  This idea is wrong, and is one which results from the false association of socialism with state capitalist systems as they have operated, for example, in Russia and East Europe.  Certainly those state capitalist economies were run extensively through central state planning but this has nothing to do with the ways in which production would be maintained in socialism.

Of course, planning, in the various spheres of life would have an important part to play in socialist organisation.  This would be especially true in its early days when there would be so much to do by way of re-organisation and development.  However, development would be from a basis that would be mostly self regulating. We can describe this as a practice of “self regulating production for use.”  I first proposed this in two articles published in the “World Socialist,” a journal issued by the Socialist Party of Gt. Britain, in April and Winter 1984.

There is, of course, nothing new about production for use.   It is a self evident fact that every form of society must produce goods for use or consumption, otherwise we could not live.  In socialism, naturally, this would be continued but after being liberated from the economic constraints that dominate useful production in capitalist society.  

It is true that the free market system is mostly self regulating but this is not due, as some imagine, to economic factors such as exchange and the use of money.   It is self regulating as a result of the interaction of the materially useful parts of production.   This is to say the application of labour and the order and supply of worked up materials and final products throughout the structure of production and distribution.  For example, the order and supply of manufactured goods and their worked up components throughout the production system begins with an order from a final user and is passed on from shops to places of final assembly; then to the manufacture of components and further to industrial processing of materials and finally to the mining of raw materials.

Whether it is capitalism or socialism, production units would respond to the communication of required quantities of things without the need for a centralised planning authority.   So, in arguing that this would be continued in socialism as a system of self regulating production for use we are not arguing from a theory of anything new.  The ways in which production in socialism could be organised would, in principle, be a continuity of existing practice but free from the limitations of the market system.

Free market mythology

Theorists of the free market have not been content to simply emphasise its once progressive role in history, they want to make us believe that we could not exist in the modern world without it. It is acknowledged that the growth of trade and the development of the capitalist system swept away feudal society in Europe. It revolutionised our powers of production and distribution; vastly increased productivity of labour; created administration, instant global communications and some limited democracy. It can be accepted that the productive relations of wage labour and capital provided a social basis for a new and dynamic society which once took communities out of the hideous relations of feudal overlord and serf

Whilst this is not denied, the change from feudalism to capitalism only replaced one exploitative system with another.  Since capitalism became the dominant world system its productive relations of wage labour and capital have remained fixed and although it has created great powers of production, the constraints inherent in the market system prevent these powers being used freely for the benefit of all people; this is the main reason why it now acts as a barrier to the solution of problems. 

But some theorists of the free market have taken their arguments much further than proclaiming its dynamic part in historical change. They say the free market system is not simply a means of making profit but is the most efficient way of making modern production work. It is said that given the complexities of modern world production which result from the many decisions and dispersed factors that are involved, it works best when the self regulating features of the market system are allowed free play. For this reason it is argued that the market system achieves more than a viable method of producing and distributing goods, it is said to be the best practical way of running modern production in all circumstances.  It is even argued that the abolition of the market system would make modern production impossible.

These arguments centre partly on the use of cost pricing which it is said allows millions of different factors of production to be reduced to common unit of measurement which is money. In this way cost/pricing provides a market language that enables a world wide system to be co-ordinated without any kind of overall plan; it allows comparisons, and therefore decisions to be made, selecting the most efficient production methods which maximise labour productivity. It thus enables society as a whole to make the most use of productive resources which in turn provides for optimum supply of consumer goods. It is true that cost calculation can be a means of making economies in a particular business but the object of this is to maximise its profits. In general, the market system dissipates its productivity gains by creating a vast number of wasteful employments which do not in any way contribute to the real needs of the community. (See chapter 8).

But it follows from these arguments that any attempt to either abolish cost/pricing or the countless millions of economic decisions made by individuals and companies who run world production as a self regulating system, would impair the operation of the free market system in ways that would lead to inefficiency or breakdown. In this way its admirers have idealised the free market system, criticised any kind of centralised planning, and claim to have predicted the breakdown of command economies such as in Russia and Eastern Europe.

As has been emphasised, in no way are socialists in favour of government intervention or state economic management. These have mostly been a disaster for working people, but we also note that when production was expanded in the Britain of the 19th Century with trade more or less free, its benefits were hardly shared by all. A small class of capitalists took on average about 50% of national income. Some individuals became immensely rich whilst the desperate plight of many in poverty continued.   Then, as in later years, the free market system lurched from crisis to crisis, culminating in the Great Depression which continued throughout the last two decades of the century.

The free market system collapsed again with the 1920/30’s slump and it was these problems and the ravages of the trade cycle that caused people of various political persuasions to take up the name of John Maynard Keynes.  It was his theories of government intervention and economic management that suggested that the market system could be steered on an even and steadily expanding course for the benefit of all. In retrospect, it may be thought that if the benefits of the free market had been so obvious, presumably, Keynes would have gone unnoticed.

Instead, his interventionist views were taken up by many governments; his theories dominated the politics of Western Europe during the post World War II period, with even the British Conservative Party becoming converts to the Keynsian cause. Eventually Keynsian theories were mostly abandoned.  For example this happened in Britain under the Labour Government of 1974/9, when recession again bit deep into the economy.

During the 1980’s, free market theorists enjoyed renewed popularity but again it should be noted that even with Frederick Hayek a great exponent of the virtues of the free market, advising the Thatcher Government, unemployment soared to over 4 million in the early 1980’s which is a very curious way indeed of seeing how the free market system can ensure the maximum use of productive resources for the benefit of the whole population. 

It is also significant that during the 1930’s, with Western economies desperate to recover from deep recession, under the administration in America, which included many “new deal” Keynesians, and under the British Government which was more committed to laissez faire policies, both economies performed in similar ways.  Both began to emerge from the world slump at a more or less even rate. This indicates that various theories of economic management have little influence over the performance of the market system which operates according to its own economic laws. As we have emphasised the laws of the market are not susceptible to close political control.

It is true that the state capitalist economy in Russia eventually collapsed with the consequent collapse of its East European empire and this has been attributed to the absence of a free markets system.   But again it is doubtful if this was caused solely by faults inherent in state control. These were all countries with deeply demoralised work forces, living under tyrannies run by gangster regimes.  The economies suffered appalling problems of waste, distortion and corruption. It is likely that the breakdown of the state system in Russia was not solely economic but due more to political and social causes.  We also have the different example of the World War II economy in Britain, 1939/45, which was certainly state capitalist with almost complete central control and yet was highly successful in converting industry, manufacture, agriculture, etc., with great speed to its war objectives. 

Left to the free market this could never have happened. Within the limits of the war budget which paid for production, having decided what arms, aircraft and increased food were wanted, industry, manufacture and agriculture were organised to produce them. The normal operation of the free market was suspended. Although this example of the British  war economy may seem perverse, and as a command economy could not be applied in a socialist system, it does indicate what can be achieved when production and distribution can be organised directly for given production targets and when it is free from the constraints of market forces.    

But the fallacies of free market theories mostly arise from a misunderstanding of the function of its economic features. Even a cursory look at how the market system operates indicates that, for example, cost/pricing has little to do with the practical organisation of production. Quite the contrary, the mechanisms of sales for profit work as barriers at every stage of production and distribution. 

When it is said that cost/pricing is an indispensable means of co-ordinating the many thousands of material factors that make up a world production system, this is simply wrong. When it is said that market forces result in the most efficient use of resources for the production and supply of consumer needs, this is simply not true. Neither of these two alleged pillars of the moral and material worth of the free market will stand the least scrutiny when tested in the real world of capitalist production which, as we have noted, staggers from crisis to crisis, unable to use our immense potential powers of production directly for the needs of people.

It is useful here to apply our method of making a distinction between the socially useful, material factors of production which tend to facilitate production and the economic factors of the market system which tend to inhibit production.  When it is said that the use of money and cost/pricing enables consumer choice to be communicated to production and therefore activates it into supplying that choice, this is not what actually happens. Signals to produce may well pass from consumers through the shops to relevant parts of production but not as economic signals. In reality, it is every day experience that a customer will go to a shop or store and ask for an article of use. In the case of a television set a consumer may approach a salesperson and say, “I’m looking for a television set.” The salesperson will then say, “Certainly,” and after offering various models will add, “this one will cost you £250.00,” – or whatever may be the price. 

A television set is a complex thing. It would be very difficult indeed to trace and identify the productive history of every component. Its basic materials are glass, plastics and metals. So at the beginning of the sequence of order and supply, the customer asks for a model of his or her choice.  If the sale is agreed, the television will be supplied from stock or perhaps ordered from a nearby wholesaler. Then, according to the wholesaler’s stocks, more sets will be ordered from the manufacturer whose function will mostly be the final assembly of sets from their component parts.  Again, according to stocks the manufacture may order more components from his suppliers.  The work of producing components will involve glass and plastic moulding, metal casting, wire production and cutting, and circuits. From this point in the sequence, the ordering of supplies extend to the oil industry for plastics, the glass industry and the various sources of metals where these are mined and processed throughout the world distribution of raw material deposits. 

What is apparent in this network of productive links is that the order and supply of goods begins with a consumer choice which is eventually transmitted throughout the entire structure of production, first as a finished product and then on as worked up materials. At every stage the information being communicated consists of required quantities of material things. But the notion that this network is co-ordinated by the communication of economic, cost price signals is wrong. In reality, cost pricing is not passed from users to producers. The sequence of economic signals is in the opposite direction, from producers to users. For this reason, they could not possibly be signals to produce, nor can they have any practical part to play in the co-ordination of production. The idea that cost/pricing is a means of integrating modern production is free market mythology. 

But of course, cost/price signals do have a function but it is not a practical or useful function. Contrary to what market theorists believe as part of their idealisation of buying and selling, the cost/price signals that pass from producers to users act as a barrier against the free use of productive resources. When a consumer wishes to order a television set it may be an instruction to produce. But this depends on whether the would be user has the money to pay for it.  Clearly, the television salesman is not in the business of providing goods directly for people’s needs. He or she is in the business of selling television sets with a view to making profit. So goods may well be distributed for use but only on condition that distribution takes the economic form of a sales transaction from which the seller makes profit.

If we trace the sequence of production from extraction of raw materials, through  industrial processing, manufacture of components, final assembly and transport to stores, we find that each addition of labour throughout this sequence not only brings the work forward, it creates an expansion of value in the various commodities that is expressed as their prices. These prices are specified on invoices for the worked up materials or finished goods and if the bills are not paid, distribution of the goods stops. Distribution is dependent on payment not on any indication of a particular material need. The general rule of the market is “no profit – no production.”

Moreover, this economic determination of production subjects the market system to cyclical break down. If a particular market becomes over supplied or sales decline, cut backs take place, workers are sacked, machinery and equipment becomes idle and if the knock on affects become extensive, production can sink swiftly into general break down. This happens irrespective of whether there may be a real need for the goods that could be produced.

Examples of profit before needs are all around us; they are a normal part of our every day life. But a particular example that was both cynical and tragic occurred during the 1980’s when the world prices of cereals had fallen to unacceptable low levels for profit hungry agribusiness. The response of the government in America, an important source of cereals, was to arrange with farmers to take 83 million acres of farmland out of production.   This resulted in increased prices at a time when according to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, over 435 million of the world’s population were seriously undernourished. 

The power of the market system to maintain its existence is ubiquitous. For example it has sometimes been argued that different kinds of production units such as worker’s co- operatives could better work for the benefit of their communities. But this in no way could avoid the economic pressures that would compel it to work as part of the market system. Nor would its work arrangements matter.  It could be a kibbutz or a co-operative taking decisions collectively; it could be a monastery producing pottery, honey or herbs; in whatever way they may be internally organised, authoritarian or democratic, and in whichever scale they may operate, as a part of social production, they could only function as part of the economic circuits of the capitalist system.

In buying in its machinery, equipment, materials, premises and transport; and in paying its rates, any unit, including worker’s co-operatives must pay all these costs.  A generating company is not going to supply electricity free simply because a production unit declares itself to be working for the benefit of the community. The running costs of any unit include the profits made by all other units previously involved in the production of the materials, machinery, and power supplies, etc., which are bought in.  In addition, the people working in the unit must have income to cover personal living costs such as rent or mortgage repayments, food, clothes, leisure activities, and so on.

It is elementary that the pressure of economic selection determining the existence of production units exerts itself as daily book-keeping. Regardless of any aspirations to operate on principles different to those dictated by the market system, production units can only exist whilst they remain economically viable, that is, where income exceeds expenditure.  If expenditure exceeds income then sooner or later they must disappear, as the constant number of bankruptcies well attests. It is these pressures of economic selection, which cannot be set aside, that maintain the market system as an exclusive, self-perpetuating capitalist structure.

It follows that the economic pressures that compel production units to operate on a profit making basis rule out any possibility of combining the productive relations of capitalism with the relationships of socialism. This also indicates that a socialist system can only be commenced with the removal of the economic factors from production as a result of a democratic and politically conscious act.

Self Regulating Production For Needs.

The description of production in socialism as being for need is not strictly accurate; this should be expressed as production “solely” for need.  This recognises, as is self evident, that every social system must produce useful goods for consumption. So, even with all the economic constraints imposed by production for profit, the capitalist system does operate as a system of useful labour producing useful goods for consumption. What follows from this is that when we come to look at how production will operate in a socialist society, we do have something of a working model in front of us. This is the reason why we can say that our proposals for the organisation of production in socialism arise from experience and not from theoretical or futuristic speculation

It is true that modern production could not be run according to a world wide plan laid down, in advance, by a central planning authority. But the point is hardly worth making because the question does not arise. We have acknowledged that production embraces activity across the world as a vastly extensive network of links. It depends on millions of independent decisions and actions by individuals, small units, and large organisations. Its interactions are complex and fast changing in ways that constantly change the patterns of the whole system. It can only operate in a self regulating way with all its parts being self adjusting to the whole as a result of information being communicated to them.

But we have discounted the false notion that the structure is co-ordinated by economic factors such as cost/pricing. In fact it operates with the order of finished goods, worked up components and raw materials being communicated throughout the structure from points of distribution to final assembly and on to mining and processing of raw materials.  This stream of material information also calls up requirements of transport and energy supply and is not confined to industry and manufacture but also applies to agriculture of every kind.

We have illustrated this with the order and supply of television sets but perhaps a less complex example is with glass. A main producer of glass in Britain is the firm of Pilkingtons in St. Helens, Lancashire. Its various glass products are distributed throughout Britain and overseas for a wide range of construction, manufacturing, horticultural and domestic purposes. In socialism, whether or not it will keep its name, Pilkingtons Glass would be commonly owned and the workers and technical staffs who run it would be freed up to respond directly to the requirements of the users of glass. The orders for glass would be registered and therefore the total quantities of required glass would be known.

Materials for the making of flat glass include silica sand, soda ash, limestone, magnesium oxide, aluminium oxide, potassium, so3, and iron oxide. Given that the requirements for glass would be known in an area of supply, it follows that the materials required for the making of that quantity of glass would be known and these would be communicated to the suppliers of those materials. In practice the lines of communication would extend beyond these eight units to their own suppliers. However, the example outlines the means by which all the materials required for final glass production would be known throughout all relevant parts of the structure of production. Each unit would know its position. If orders are high in relation to stocks, this would indicate that production should be increased. If orders are low in relation to stocks this would indicate that production should be reduced.  This would be a self  adjusting system of stock control indicating to each production unit what needs to be done to supply consumer requirements and also to maintain the various stages of production in more or less  even balance.  It would be a basis for a system of self regulating production, solely for use.

In practice it would use the same self regulating mechanisms which now maintain the market system as a self regulating system.  This is the communication of required quantities of finished goods and worked up materials throughout the structure of world production.  The difference being that in the market system we have profit motivated production in anticipation of sales.  In socialism production would be a direct response to needs. The motive of sales and profits with its uncertainties and destructive effects prevent production being a controlled social effort, carried on by communities directly in their interests.

Pieter Lawrence

Link to Chapter 8.

The Review Column: Rhodesia (1968)

The Review Column from the December 1968 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rhodesia

Harold Wilson, who knows where the votes come from, has never lost any sleep over upsetting his left wing. So we know what to expect from any negotiations over Rhodesia.

It was clear that the stands originally taken in both London and Salisbury left no chance for discussion. Something had to give, if the two sides were ever to talk to each other again. In other words, some promises would have to be broken, some vows once fervently taken would have to be betrayed, some fierce political infighting take place.

Smith’s political problems were severe, only partly solved by the purge which got rid of men like Lord Graham and by the Rhodesian Front’s recent by-election victory. The big advantage he had was that the Rhodesians could make concessions which were more apparent than real.

Wilson’s problem was to drop the albatross of the original pledge that there would be no agreement to independence without some copper bottomed guarantee (to use one of the Prime Minister’s favourite phrases) of majority African rule.

The "No” in Nimbar was as unrealistic as Lennox Boyd’s famous “never” over Cyprus independence. Wilson quietly abandoned NIMBAR and suddenly most of the newspapers were telling us that this once-sacred principle was foolish and unreal. Of course the left wing fumed but who cared about them? None of the M.P.s who protested went so far as to risk their career on the principle by resigning their seat. The left have always stopped short of that.

Wilson went on governing and the negotiations continued by his man George Thomson in Africa. At the time of writing the talks have reached deadlock and Thomson is back in London, although it was clear that both sides were straining to reach agreement. Even so, now that there is this apparent readiness to abandon what were once called principles, there will probably be further efforts in the future.

After all, capitalists in Rhodesia and Britain, as well as the Rhodesian farmers, have a lot to gain by the resumption of friendly trading relations. They will not let a little matter of the suppression of a few million people obstruct the noble enterprise of profit.


Troubled Air

The British Eagle pilots were really very foolish if they ever thought that, because they were earning several thousand pounds a year, they held a secure and privileged position in the working class.

In fact, their fat pay packets were a reflection of what it takes, in terms of social labour and organisation, to put a multi-million pound jet into the air with a man at the controls who is trained and fit to avoid the expensive business of pushing its nose into the ground.

Basically, this is exactly the same way as the wages of all other workers—dustmen, miners, engineers;—are determined.

But of course wages, high or low, are paid only so long as it is profitable for an employer to buy labour power. The glamour of a pilot’s job may obscure the fact that it is all done to make profit, but that is the way it is.

The employees of British Eagle could not escape from this although as the glamour faded around them it was clear that their understanding of what was happening to them was no better than that of the average dustman, miner, engineer.

They simply trod the well-worn class path of seeking a scapegoat—in this case the state airlines and in particular BOAC, which has successfully opposed the granting of licences to the independent lines for the more lucrative airlines of the world. But BOAC are themselves not free of troubles.

Their chairman, Sir Giles Guthrie, complained that a half year’s profit of £8.2 million had been cut in half by the 17 days’ pilots strike last summer. These figures take a bit of swallowing but if they are correct then they are an indication of the importance which BOAC’s workers have to the line’s operations.

Striking workers are constantly being blamed for financial troubles and social disorder (although this was one excuse British Eagle could not use). The only thing this proves is that wealth is made by workers and that they, and not those who directly or indirectly receive the profits, are the useful, productive class.

It's Nixon

Richard Nixon’s victory in the American Presidential election came after a long campaign—over twenty years long, in fact — during which he won a reputation for being ready to say or do anything to win political advantage.

This is one possible interpretation of Nixon’s early campaigns for the House of Representatives and later to the Senate, during which he rode on the widespread American neurosis about Communist activities. It also could explain a lot of his work while in Congress —for example his zealous pursuit of Alger Hiss.

The surprising thing is that the. allegation of a ruthless political ambition should be used against Nixon—that he almost alone among big time capitalist politicians should be condemned as the man it would be unwise to buy a used car from.

For where would any of capitalism’s leaders be without ambition? How far would he get, without a ruthless determination to exploit every fear, every prejudice, every facet, of mass ignorance? Would it have been wise to buy a used car from Lloyd George? Macdonald? Baldwin? Macmillan? Wilson?

Nixon is very much a political man, which means more than that he is ready to lie. It also means that he will approach the problems of American capitalism, to use a current word, pragmatically. He will not be tied by the emotions he has roused in his supporters; a lot of them are probably in for a shock.

The Republican campaign gave the impression that Nixon would be tough on demonstrators, would push a hard line on Vietnam, would cut back federal power and interference. This classical Republican image has never had any more reality than its opposite of the Democratic Party.

Faced with a situation which must be judged in terms of the interests of American capitalism, Nixon will find in many cases that he has no more power to keep his election promises than any one of his predecessors.

This will cause him no lost sleep. Presidents have to be even harder and more cynical than car salesmen.

Exhibition Review: Savage Ink - the Cartoon & the Caricature (2018)

Exhibition Review from the February 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political and satirical cartoons have been around since at least the second half of the eighteenth century. An exhibition ‘Savage Ink: the Cartoon & the Caricature’, on at the People’s History Museum in Manchester until the middle of May, provides many examples from the work of William Hogarth down to contemporary comic books and graphic novels. A quote from former Tory minister Kenneth Baker makes the point that for a politician to be caricatured shows that they have arrived on the political scene.

A variety of cartoons are shown from over the years, from Hogarth’s attacks on electoral corruption to Steve Bell's criticisms of Thatcher in his ‘Maggie’s Farm’ series. Many cartoons have involved opposition to the political and economic establishment: a particularly powerful example from 1830 shows a wealthy absentee landlord haunted by the ghosts of his Irish tenants who had starved to death. In 1805 James Gillray depicted Pitt the Younger and Napoleon carving up the globe between them (a much-copied illustration), and in 1830 George Cruikshank showed Great Britain as a beehive, with Victoria as Queen Bee at the top and having nothing in common with the worker bees at the bottom.

But Cruikshank also had some very unpleasant views. He attacked Robert Owen, and the title of an 1819 cartoon needs no commentary: ‘Universal Suffrage or the Scum Uppermost!!!’. In another example of nastiness, in 1924 the anarchist Emma Goldman visited Britain, and one cartoon shows her having been beaten up, possibly by Ramsay MacDonald, who is shown in the background.

An anonymous cartoon from 1812 is a vicious sexist depiction of women reformers at a public meeting, where a member of the crowd says, ‘Come home and get dinner ready, you old baggage.’ There is no reason to think that this is criticising those who opposed women’s involvement in reform movements, but sometimes a cartoon can be, at best, ambiguous. For instance, a New Yorker cover from 2008 showed Obama dressed as a muslim and his wife as a fighter with a gun: did this satirise the scare tactics used against him (as its author claimed) or just reinforce prejudices?

An interesting exhibition with a range of cartoons, mostly focusing on individuals but sometimes addressing more general issues. 

Paul Bennett

50 Years Ago: The Political Organisation of the Working Class (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Political Organisation of the Working Class

When the worker has learnt his lesson; when be knows he must rely upon himself and upon his fellows what is he to do? How is he to apply his knowledge to matters of everyday importance to him? It is evidently futile for him to assert his independence of the other political factions if he is independently to strive for measures which those factions advocate. It is also useless for him to organise himself into a party which is unable to agree upon a working programme and a common line of action.

To us as Socialists it is clear that, the Liberals and the Tories having been thrown over as parties, the principles for which they work must also be thrown over, and that, therefore, anyone holding the opinions either of Liberalism or of Toryism must be left outside the workers’ party. The party of the workers has interests which have no common bond with Liberalism or Toryism, and the party of the workers must, therefore, steer clear of anything which is in any way allied with these parties.

The political party of the workers must be the reflex of the economic interests of the workers who are the propertyless class, in the same way as the other parties reflect the economic interests of the propertied class. We are then driven to the necessity of searching for the economic interest of the worker. And this we find in the principle that the working-class having created all the wealth of society are the rightful owners of that wealth. Every man should receive the product of his own labour, but as in modern society it is impossible to determine the portion which any individual adds to the value of the articles he helps to create, we must be content to let all those who labour remain joint owners of the aggregate product.

This, however, is not what obtains in modern society where the reverse is the case. In modern society to-day the non-producers of wealth are the joint owners of the aggregate amount of wealth produced. In this fact we have surely the true differentiation of the party of the workers from the party of the property-owners. And the first object of the political party of the workers, therefore, should be the securing for workers as a class the fruits of their own labour.

If they can only secure this they will have no need to worry about limiting the hours of work, securing a legal law of minimum, or returning to the status quo ante Taff Vale. These trifling matters will soon adjust themselves when the workers take as their own the product of their own labour. And resulting from this would come the necessity of the present property-owners, unable longer to live on the fruits of other men’s labour, working so as to secure their own livelihood.

English Hypocrisy and Russian Outrages

The huge wave of indignation that has lately been sweeping over the country on account of the massacres in Russia is typical of the hypocrisy of the capitalist-class and the ignorance of the man in the street. Big headlines and stirring articles have proved effective in arousing a strong and quite unjustified feeling against Russia. The English attitude towards Russian affairs has for long been intensely pharisaical, and its real origin, imperial and commercial jealousy in Asia, has been quite lost sight of by the public. . . .

This feeling is quite unjustified from a capitalist point of view, and further it is only hypocritical, for no one, except a Socialist, can with honesty support the working-class in its efforts towards freedom. Yet we find the same people that would cheerfully starve out English strikers or shoot them down if more convenient that ignored the fearful outrages in Colorado, and that approved the recent shooting of strikers in Italy, pretending to be horrified at the actions of their fellow-capitalists in Russia!

(From the "Socialist Standard," March, 1905)

50 Years Ago: The Cry of the Workless (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

These results arise naturally from the conditions of employment to-day. The owners of property are ever on the look-out for means of augmenting their possessions. They employ their capital in industrial operations simply for the purpose of deriving from its use profit or interest. So long as they get their profits increased they care little for the conditions under which the work in their factory, in their mine, or on their railway is carried on. They never seek to know whether those working for them are living happy and contented lives. For them the worker is an abstraction—the materialisation of some portion of their capital in exactly the same way as another portion of their capital shows itself as raw material, as auxiliary material, as factory building, or as finished product. He sees the worker figuring on his periodical balance-sheet as “Wages,” and cares nothing that “Wages” means so many sentient human beings capable of thinking, loving, functioning even as he does.

Why then should he hesitate, when the markets are glutted, when his “wages” have been transformed into more goods than the market can consume, when goods cannot be sold because hungry men and women have not the wherewithal to buy food, when ill-clad children cannot have clothing provided for them because there is too much in the shops, to turn adrift those he no longer wishes to employ because they are no longer profitable?

And the result is invariably that, during periods when the markets are teeming with food and clothing, the workers are sent adrift and cannot purchase the things of which they are so sorely in need.

The only solution to this state of affairs is to abolish Capitalism. The whole trend of events is in the direction of Collectivist production and the inquirer into things political and economic can see that the capitalist, having ceased to be useful, is using the whole governmental machinery to safeguard the interests of his class. 

The worker must learn that he has to look to himself and his fellows to work out the emancipation of the working-class. Only by combining to capture the political machinery and to use the power thus acquired for the overthrow of Capitalism can he hope to obtain, once and for all, a full and complete solution to the unemployed problem.

From the April 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard.

50 Years Ago: A Travesty of Trade Unionism (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the May 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent sends a packet of literature explanatory of the objects and methods of the Railway Clerks’ Association. It is claimed that this Association will serve to secure some betterment of the conditions of clerical workers on railways. It is a Trade Union for railway clerks.

Now a trade union is an organisation rendered necessary by the pressure of the capitalist or exploiting class upon the class they employ and exploit—the working class. This pressure is the result of the constant endeavour of the capitalist-class to squeeze ever greater profits from the labour of the working-class, and expresses itself in the prolongation of working-hours, in the reduction of wages, or if an increase of hours or a reduction of wages are not possible, in the maintenance of both in. so far as is possible, a stationary condition, irrespective of the increase in the productivity of labour.

In exercising this pressure the capitalist-class are but functioning as a class of exploiters whose wealth is derived solely from the labour of those they exploit. In combining in a Trade Union to prevent, if possible, any reduction of their standard of comfort, any hardening of their conditions of life, or to obtain, where practicable, some larger share of the wealth they create, the working-class are but taking the precautionary defensive or aggressive measures natural to an exploited class.

The capitalist-class are fighting to increase or maintain their powers and privileges; and as these can only be maintained or increased at the expense of the working-class, their greatest concern is to keep the latter in subjection; to prevent them improving their position, except in-so-far as that improvement is necessary to capitalists. On the other hand, the working-class are fighting for the best conditions they can get; to improve those conditions if possible, and to prevent them being adversely affected in any event. And as they cannot improve their position, or for that matter maintain it, except in opposition to and at the expense of, the class above them, they are in necessary conflict with that class.

Obviously then, the antagonism of interest existing between these two classes must prevent any intermingling except in conflict. It would be absurd for the officers of one army to be in the innermost councils of the other. Hitherto, although the working-class combined in English Trade Unions have been very far from conscious of their class interests, a sense of hostility has kept them from fraternising with their natural enemies to the point of admitting them to an intimate acquaintanceship with the internal affairs of their fighting organisations.

The idea of employers being admitted to membership of Workers’ Unions has ever appealed to the most hard-headed, hide-bound and mentally atrophied trade unionist as absurd—and the clearer the comprehension of class-interests, the greater the growth of class-consciousness among the working-class, the more grotesque must the idea appear.

How then may we designate the working-class organisation that, coming into existence at a time when the antagonism of interests between the classes was too sharply defined to escape the notice of any man with an eye to see, yet admitted to the domination of its affairs, the representatives of the very class it came into existence, ostensibly, to fight. The Trade Union of the clerical workers of the railways of the United Kingdom (the Railway Clerks’ Association) has done this. Its President and Vice-Presidents are of the capitalist-class, several of them company directors, with at least one railway company director.

From the May 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard.

50 Years Ago: A Retrospect (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 12th of June witnesses the first anniversary of the formation of the Socialist Party of Great Britain. It thus affords a meet opportunity to review our year’s work to ascertain whether our hopes have been fulfilled and our efforts justified.

The formation of a new party was rendered imperative by the falling away of the S.D.F. from the path of political right doing. Those who formed the new party had, almost without exception, been members of the S.D.F., the primary and for many years the only Socialist organisation in Great Britain. During many years of its life it had held aloft the banner of uncompromising Socialism in this country and many of us hoped that it would continue to work along the lines of no compromise with other political parties which is dictated by the existence of a class struggle.

Some years ago, however, when reaction dominated every sphere of thought—political or scientific—throughout Europe and America, new ideas were introduced into the S.D.F. by members of the organisation whose Socialism was rooted in sentiment rather than in scientific knowledge. Looking around them in the political world they saw that organisations of the half-way house character were obtaining a larger measure of support than was their own organisation. Unwitting that such must needs be the case in the present stage of capitalist development, they set themselves to the task of winning their own organisation to a similar position and to the adoption of a similar line of action. In this they were highly successful and the manner in which the S.D.F. adapted itself to its new way of looking at political events is of exceeding interest, and at a more convenient season we shall unfold the manner of its development from a no-compromise organisation to an organisation believing in and accepting entangling alliances.

The falling away of the S.D.F. from its traditional method was viewed with the deepest regret by those members of the organisation who still adhered to the ideas of uncompromising Socialism. They hoped against hope that their organisation would be recalled to a sense of its wrong-doing—that once again it would return to the path of Socialist progress and weld itself into an organisation deserving the support of every Socialist.

Such was not to be the case. Reluctantly there was forced upon them the opinion that the organisation to which they had hitherto given a whole-hearted support was unworthy, and they decided to withdraw from its ranks and form a Socialist organisation into which they could throw their entire energy and untiringly work towards the making it into a strong political organisation.

This, then, was the idea of those who, in June 12th, 1904, decided to form the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

The Editorial from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard.

50 Years Ago: Ethics and the Class Struggle (1955)

The 50 Years Ago column from the July 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The victory of the Socialist working-class is the only possible ending of this great struggle. This, however, does not mean the subjection of the Capitalist class by the workers: it means the abolition of Capitalism and the end of classes, for the great unprivileged masses cannot secure equality of opportunity without abolishing class privilege, and privilege is based on private property. The triumph of the great working majority thus involves the emancipation of all from class oppression, for the interests of the toiling masses are fundamentally the interests of humanity.

Socialism, is then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary economic foundation of a national code of morality. The interests of the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed working-class in its struggle with Capitalist domination. As it has very truly been said: “Militant, the workers’ cause is identified with class; triumphant, with humanity.”

From the July 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard.

Proper Gander: On The House (2018)

The Proper Gander TV column from the February 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘When we live in a house, we’re just passing through. People have occupied it before us and others will take our place when we leave’.

The interesting documentary series A House Through Time (BBC2) tracks the history of a single town house in Liverpool from when it was built in the 1840s onwards. Presenter David Olusoga pieces together the lives of 62 Falkner Street’s past residents from clues in legal documents, newspapers, the census and Gore’s business directory. A property in Liverpool was chosen because, as Olusoga explains, ‘more than any other British city, Liverpool’s ride on the rollercoaster of national fortune has been a bumpy one. No other city has been more buffeted by the cycles of boom and bust and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the place that once proudly saw itself as the ‘second city of empire’ suffered more than any other when that empire suddenly evaporated’(Guardian, 31 December). In the middle of the 19th Century, Liverpool’s economy and population were expanding due to the increases in trade centred around its docks. Ironically, although much of the city’s wealth came through the port, those living in the area were among the city’s poorest. The houses on Falkner Street were built for the developing merchant sector who wanted to live away from the dock’s cramped squalor. So, when it was built, 62 Falkner Street would have been something similar to the well-kept, expensive town house it remains today.

The address’ first resident – Richard Glenton – was a ‘louche bachelor’ who worked in the Customs department at the docks and supplemented his income by taking in lodgers. A few years later, James and Ann Orr moved in after achieving the rare feat of leaving domestic servitude. James became a manager at a Gentleman’s Club (the sort where businessmen went to read newspapers) and died leaving £16,000 (£1.5million in today’s money) to his widow. Olusoga says that the house’s early residents were ‘strivers’, who benefited financially from the increases in trade as capitalism expanded. Like Glenton, many of the house’s residents worked in businesses which centred around the docks, such as cotton trader Wilfred Steele and his wife Eliza who moved there in 1853. By then, a quarter of a million tons of cotton passed through Liverpool each year, most of it coming from slave labour plantations in the American south before being transported on to the textile mills of Manchester and Lancashire. As Olusoga notes, the cotton trade was ‘steeped in blood and exploitation and evil’ because of its reliance on slave labour. The trade boomed until an economic crisis in America which had a knock-on effect in Britain. Steele went bust and was sent to a debtor’s prison, later leaving his family to travel to America, where he returned to the cotton trade and also fought in the Civil War. Olusoga is surprised that he fought on the Union side, whereas his links to the slave trade would have perhaps made him more likely to fight for the Southern states. Other residents’ livelihoods were also shaped by wider events. Edward Lubin sold space for cargo on ships until his trade was hit by the Long Depression of the 1870s; by 1875 he was declared bankrupt. And one of the lodgers during the 1890s – Nathan Hart – sold tickets for the cramped bunks in which emigrants would spend weeks during their voyage to America, until a cholera outbreak limited travel and he changed jobs to become a ‘financial agent and picture dealer’.

The lives uncovered by Olusoga’s research would otherwise have remained forgotten in dusty old archive rooms. He says ‘the version of history I was taught at school was largely one of great men and great deeds, a history that took place in palaces and battlefields. It was silent about our shared, inner and domestic histories, the stories of the rest of us, the ungreat, who live quietly and privately in anonymous terraced houses’. (Guardian, 31 December). The ‘great man’ view of history is still prevalent, including on TV. Every week on BBC4, there seems to be another documentary about the monarchy, usually an excuse to film in telegenic stately homes or for presenters like Lucy Worsley to dress up as Elizabeth I. And of course this perspective has its place, to describe the effect which people in authority had. But it’s still the history of the ruling class, told in a way which downplays the economic forces changing society. Exploring the past through the lives of people without much status has only really been a strong tendency among historians for around fifty years. This approach - social history - tells us a lot about societal changes by the impact they had on the majority. As historian G M Trevelyan wrote, ‘without social history, economic history is barren and political history unintelligible’ (English Social History: A Survey of Six Centuries from Chaucer to Queen Victoria). The characters in A House Through Time were shaped by major events such as economic downturns, cholera outbreaks, wars. Past events come to life when they can be related to the people who lived through them. For Olusoga, empathy is an important part of his research: ‘it is all too easy to start caring about figures from the past if you find yourself reading the documents that record their lives while sitting in what was once their kitchen. Or having just walked up a staircase, holding the wooden banister that their hands once gripped’(Guardian, 31 December). Studying history - or doing it vicariously through programmes like A House Through Time - reminds us that we’re all part of a longer story, and subject to wider economic trends whether we like it or not.

Mike Foster

War Exposures (2018)

Book Review from the February 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Vest Pocket Kodak & the First World War.' By Jon Cooksey (Ammonite £7.99)

The first war photograph dates from 1846, and there were further photos of the Crimean War and the American Civil War. But the technology was cumbersome, and the scenes often had to be staged. Then in 1912 Kodak produced a smaller portable camera, the Vest Pocket Kodak or VPK (‘vest’ being American for ‘waistcoat’). This became extremely popular, including among those in the armed forces in the First World War. Never one to miss a marketing trick, the company advertised it as ‘The Soldier’s Kodak’.

Soldiers photographed scenes from the trenches and of actual fighting with their VPKs, but of course it was never going to be an uncontroversial or straightforward activity. The first action shot published, in November 1914, was doctored with a bursting shell added to increase the apparent danger to soldiers who were under shrapnel fire. In June 1915, a private from the Liverpool Scottish Regiment photographed soldiers advancing on a captured German trench near Ypres. When it was published the following month, an image of a German soldier (lying apparently dead) replaced that of a dead or wounded British soldier.

The Christmas Day truce of 1914 was depicted in some blurred photos of soldiers from both sides chatting and exchanging cigarettes. This did not go down well with the powers that be, as it made the Germans look human, and a limited ban on cameras was extended in March 1915 to cover all operational theatres, though it was not enforced as strictly as it might have been.

Cooksey also includes a photo (of unknown date and location) of ‘what appears to be the summary execution of a suspected spy by two British army officers with service revolvers.’ 

Paul Bennett

Bald and Unconvincing: Also "There are others". (1920)

From the January 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

That Fine Thing — Opportunity.

Capitalist cant and humbug still manifest themselves at every turn, and the Bolshevist movement still supplies them with some of the finest opportunities for such manifestation. Almost weekly some female member of the class who kept Russian soil soaked with blood (working-class blood, of course) for generations, escapes from the “clutches” of the Bolsheviks, and brings her troubles to these shores. Invariably she has a harrowing tale of the atrocities of “the terror.” She usually has managed to pick up a document of fearful import —Bolshevik army orders relating to the taking of women and girls for sinister purposes are the moat common; we all know how carelessly the “Reds” leave such things lying about the streets! —which is very thoughtful of her, for it enables her perhaps otherwise unconvincing narrative to be published with illustrations.

Unfortunate Lack of Evidence

But also invariably, when the Russian Countess (all the princesses have long since been laid in their nameless graves, with unmentionable accompaniments) has told her tale of horror, she has nothing to show in substantiation thereof except her ropes of pearls and her jewels (which the “Reds” might have found had they taken the trouble to search her) and precious document —which might quite possibly be a forgery. Invariably she has no mangled limbs to display before the public whom she expects to swallow so much. She does not hobble along on one leg as do so many poor fellows of the working class in this country and others. She gets about very well, thank yon; and if she did lose forty pounds of fat owing to the Bolshevik horrors (and not, mark yon, because she had to fare as other people in a land which she herself describes as starving) she soon finds it again among her fellow parasites in the West End. For, happily enough, all these horrors which she relates (even to people of “birth and breeding” being compelled to work) have happened — to other people!

The Latest Witnesses —

Not Russian countesses, but two Irish “girls,” are the latest to escape from that other “distressful country” that is not Ireland. They come with the same wearying tale of atrocities that have been inflicted upon—others. They have (the “Daily Chronicle” of Jan. 3 informs us) “a number of terrible photographs, showing the horrors of the Red regime.” And “It is impossible henceforward to hope that such stories of the Red Terror may prove to have been exaggerated; the credibility of these new witnesses is beyond question.”

And yet—there are some strange features about their narrative. One might start with those “terrible photographs.” It is a strange; thing that they do not publish them. What have they brought them to this country for, if they are not to be seen? Is it in order to talk about them, and to add to the famous Government collection of Russian photographs which are not fit for publication—for fear somebody should identify them as pictures of outrages perpetrated upon Russian workers under the Czarist regime ?

— Have the Old Falling.

It is strange reading also that two ladies, one of whom had “lost 40lb. in weight as a result of her sufferings," and the other of whom looks, from her published photograph, as though her sister’s loss has been her gain, could “run for five miles,” as the “Daily Chronicle” reports that they finally did, to escape the Red Terror. 

It is strange, also, that one of these women could lay (sic) on her “bed with the door barricaded” while “ten Bolsheviks occupied the room next to mine. . . . There night after night they carried on drunken orgies of an unspeakable character,” and yet be able to say (as both she and her sister do) that she was “never subjected to personal violence.” It is strange again how she knew the exact number, when there were so many, of Bolsheviks in that room if she had to hide herself away from them, or that they could be bo very terrible if she did not.

It is strange yet again that if the iron of these dread doings had bitten so deep into her soul --not to speak of her “weight"—the lady had a thought to spare for the observation which is replaced with prints in the above quotation. That observation was: “There was a beautiful drawing-room full of beautiful furniture.” If the fact that Bolsheviks ware holding “drunken orgies” in rooms and among furniture where only the rich had carried on theirs, is a crime of the Bolsheviks or a trouble of the lady, we may judge at once the standard by which she appraises both the villainy of the “Reds” and the depth of her own “sufferings.”

It is strange, farther, that these two ladies “have been in Kieff during each period of Bolshevik rule.” One would have thought that one experience of this “nightmare” was enough, and that they would have seized the first opportunity of clearing out of the danger zone. But they appear to have cleared out only when one of them was detected in hiding Russian officers, in other words taking an active part in the struggle against the Bolsheviks. A similar participation in warfare in any other country has its prescribed penalty. The ladies were wise to scoot.

And now for the particular horrors which the “credibility of these new witnesses” puts beyond question.

When the Reds had departed one of the ladies went to a sort of human slaughter house, where “in the garden 127 nude and mutilated corpses, including those of some women, were flung into a hole.” Obviously, she could not count these 127 bodies all flung into one hole, so it is clear that the unquestionable credibility with which the capitalist editor of our capitalist contemporary so lightly guarantees the unconvincing narrative must be made to cover even second-hand information.

Such, indeed is shown to be the case as the story proceeds, for we are told that “the man who removed the bodies from the shed told a horrible story of what he described as the staircase of death. “It seems [seems, mark you] that the victims first had to strip and then form up in line with arms folded.

“First one line had to lie on their faces, and they were then shot.

“Then the second row filed in and took their places, just behind the first row; and so row after row of corpses was piled up until there was what he describes as a staircase of bleeding bodies reaching almost to the ceiling of the shed,”

So the lady’s credibility is to guarantee the truth of what another party told her, even!

But there is a fly in the ointment, for it is obvious that the proceeding as stated could not result in “a staircase of bleeding bodies reaching almost to the ceiling of the abed.” The geometry of the thing is all wrong.

However, it matters little what the trimmings were. It would be strange indeed if the Bolsheviks, at war and pressed on every hand, did not find occasion to put some backs up against a wall. And stripped of all its embroidery, that is all it amounts to. In the reports of their opponents parallel cases are thus sententiously recorded: "Many Bolsheviks were captured and executed.” Ana it ill becomes those who took part in the filling of ten million graves all over the world, to whine because the process which they set in motion does not cease at their command.

But the seal is placed on the hypocrisy of the ruling class by the facts revealed by the inquiry into certain happenings in India, and the cool and even callous way in which those facts are accepted by our masters’ Press. Nothing that has yet been alleged against the Bolsheviks in any way compares with or rivals for sheer ferocious animal brutality the confessed and even vaunted butchery of 500 natives by a British officer. In a country where that awful specimen of bloody-minded savagery had no other right at all to be save the right of the “mailed fist,” and in their own village, some thousands of people demonstrated in defiance of their conquerors’ orders. How the British apostle of “frightfulness” hurried to the scene eager for the bloodletting; how he deployed his men on a neighbouring hilltop, and in a few brief seconds had them pouring “rapid fire” into the crowd; how he ceased the butchery, not when the crowd dispersed, not when 500 fell dead and 2,000 wounded, but when he ran out of ammunition; and how he then marched his men away from the scene without attempting to give any assistance to his victims (it was not his business, he said): all this is told in the capitalist Press. We have no need to resort to suspect sources for that information. And these revelations come to hand at the opportune moment to form an effective reply to the tales of Bolshevik barbarity. 

A. E. Jacomb

Items of Interest in the Election. (1924)

From the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

Though it is a matter of minor importance, I must confess to a feeling of unholy glee at seeing that Winston Churchill failed again.

Ben Tillett, the strike breaker, succeeded in crawling into Parliament along with J. Sexton, a fitting chum.

Frank Hodges, who assisted to defeat the railwaymen in 1921, is still climbing; he is now a Labour M.P.

Col. John Ward, a deserter from the Labour Party, put up as an Independent against a Labour candidate and just managed to squeeze in.

A few who were one time “sturdy Democrats” tried a change of party but were too late—they backed the wrong horse. Among these were G. H. Roberts, Victor Fisher, and J. A. Seddon.

G. H. Roberts, Labour Party representative in the Coalition Government, put up as a Conservative but was ousted.

Victor Fisher, a onetime member of the Social Democratic Party and friend of H. M. Hyndman, put up as a Conservative and failed to get in.

J. A. Seddon was another Labour mislcader who put up as a Conservative and failed to get in.

Fellow workers, take note of the above and refrain from trusting in Leaders. Trust in yourselves in future and changes of policy by Leaders will work you no harm.

Punchinello

Socialism and Law

The following piece, written by the late Pieter Lawrence, is the sixth chapter of his 2006 work, 'Practical Socialism - Its Principles and Methods'.

Link to Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Socialism and Law

We may anticipate that the function of law would be different in a socialist society.   This change would reflect the change in social relationships. Throughout history a main function of law has been to uphold and regulate property relationships.  In protecting and enforcing property rights it follows that in all eras of propertied society the various systems of law have favoured the dominant economic class.  In socialism this historic function of law will end.   In a society based on common ownership   and voluntary cooperation the sole object of law would be to serve the needs of individuals and interests of the whole community.  Such law would provide a framework of freedom, enabling individuals to live out their chosen lives. Law in socialism would express the values of equality and democracy.

Even in the age of Pericles, Athenian democracy was practised exclusively by male citizens on a foundation of slavery that was sanctified by law. Similarly throughout Europe, under feudal law, the serf and his family were bound for life to the Lord of the Manor. Runaway serfs were flogged, branded or worse.  In Capitalism, wage slaves are free to change their employers but still remain locked into a life of making company profits. This is the modern form of economic bondage, the routine of dept and wage working to get the money to pay the mortgage, the rates, gas, electricity and the many other bills,   all regulated by law.

The relationship of worker to employer is based on great differences in property ownership which again are upheld and enforced by law.   This is not just in the corporate ownership of the means of life, that is, natural resources, mining, industry, manufacture and transport, it is also in the ownership of land.   For example, if we look up the web site on “Who Owns Britain” we find that in “England and Wales” almost 26 million acres of land is owned by just over 150,000 families or individuals.   This is 0.28%  (a quarter of one per cent) of the population, who own 64% of the land.   If we take land owned by the Dukes of Buccleuch, Westminster and Northumberland we have just three individuals who jointly own 531,500 acres valued at just over £14 ½ bn.

At the bottom end of the scale, according to the Economist (23/02/03) for the years 1999/2000, the number of children in Britain living in poverty 4.1 million. (As stated above, poverty is defined here as children living in families receiving less than 60% of the average wage.   What this means is sub-standard housing, poor conditions of life, poor diets and cultural deprivation).  A study published by the Rowntree Foundation has said that 8.3 million of our population live in these circumstances and this is not improving with time. This 8.3 million living in poverty was 100,000 more than in 1996/97.    If we needed reminding, these figures tell us that we continue to live in a deeply divided class society, which is regulated and kept in place by law.

In viewing these vastly unequal property relationships and the part played by law in their development throughout history, some schools of political thought assert that a society based on equality and cooperation would abolish all law.  In particular this is an argument of put forward by anarchists. It is also true that such 19th Century socialist visionaries as William Morris and even Engels took this view.   However, the idea that all law would be abolished should now be relegated to the irrelevant spheres of anarchist utopianism (as outlined in chapter 3 above).  The reason for this is that the abolition of all law is problematical to the point of being not just wholly impractical, but would be in direct opposition to the principles of socialist organisation.   For example, the abolition of law against paedophilia or rape would ignore the safety and well being of children and others; this would be unacceptable in any circumstances.  To come to a very different example, it would be impossible to run a modern democratic society without constitutional law.

This brings us to the question that the subject of socialism and law is part of the wider question of social democracy.   A basic working tool of democratic practice is the making of majority decisions. However, the very mention of a majority assumes a minority of people who did not agree and probably voted against.  Democracy means that minorities also have their rights, not just the right to vote against but the freedom to persuade and bring a majority over to its view.  In a society based on voluntary cooperation any who disagreed with a decision would be free to abstain from any action that might flow from a decision.

However, it is well to remember that minorities are not a particular human type who are always in the minority.  On other issues they may well be part of the majority and in these circumstances they would not take kindly to dissenters taking action to prevent the wishes of the majority from being carried out.  So, it would be a condition of democratic practice that no individual or group may take action against a majority decision, except within the bounds of democratic conduct.  In socialism, this basic principle of democratic organisation would be applied in practical ways within a framework of democratic law. 

Beyond the article of faith, that in a socialist society, absolute social accord will be absolutely guaranteed, without law and solely as a result of self-regulation, what we would have in practice is the absolute right of the individual to do what he or she wants. This would not only be the opposite of democracy, it would be the negation of freedom itself. This is not to dismiss self regulation. Even now, and certainly in socialism, it will remain a most important way of achieving decent human relations. But we should not take this up as a dogma, saying that self-regulation will be the only way to achieve a safe, stable and democratic society.

It can of course be argued that such cases as crimes against the person, which may be more difficult to relate directly to property relationships, are in fact, at the end of a sequence of causes and affects which begin with the psychologically destructive pressures of life under the capitalist system. There can be little doubt that the emotions of stress, anxiety, insecurity and frustration, which are inherent in the system and which blight the lives of many people, can distort patterns of reasonable social conduct.

However, in proposing to take society forward on a socialist basis we cannot assume an immediate perfect world; we begin with the real world as we find it. To quote just one case from a long list of crimes that have destroyed the lives of many families, it took eight years to catch the serial child killer, Robert Black. Thirty-eight police officers and 24 typists worked on 50 computer terminals linked to the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System. 60,000 statements were taken and 185,000 people were interviewed. Robert Black was a lorry driver and was convicted in 1994 of three child murders.  It is likely that he raped and strangled more.

Abhorrence is a natural response to such crimes but it is regrettable that it is often accompanied by superficial judgements of the kind that blame the crime solely on the evil nature of the perpetrator.  In such cases it is often possible to find a background story that suggests a wider, social responsibility.  In reporting the trial of Robert Black the “Independent” (20/05/94) also gave some details of his life.

“Although Robert Black enters the record books as the worst child killer Britain has seen, little is known about his motives or mental make up.   What is clear is that he had a disturbed, loveless upbringing, seemed unable to make proper friends and appeared unattractive to those who knew him. Black was born in Falkirk Royal Infirmary in April 1947, the illegitimate child of a Grangemouth woman.   After being abandoned he was placed with foster parents in the small highlands town of Kinlochleven.   His foster mother died when he was 13 and Black went to a hostel for the homeless in Musselburgh near Edinburgh, where he is said to have been sexually abused.   He was neglected. Had virtually no friends and often inspired intense dislike.”   “At work he was “Smelly Bob”; at home he kept a vast library of paedophile material.”

It is true that pre-occupation with personal struggles reduces our time and thought for the problems of others, even so, it should be asked, where was care of the community when this lonely and abused child needed the love and affection of a secure upbringing?   Given that, when young, we learn from example, what moral lessons was he able to take from a childhood of rejection, violence and sexual abuse?  We should expect that it taught Robert Black little more than deep feelings of bitterness, resentment and a psychopathic inability to appreciate the feelings of others; attitudes well expressed in Shakespeare where MacBeth interviews two murderers on their credentials for the evil task he had in mind.   One reassures him, “I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world have so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world.”

Our knowledge of the causes of crime points overwhelmingly to adverse social conditions. For example, according to results of research by the Home Office published in “The Independent” in 1990,  “The study, which will add to the Government’s embarrassment over the economy and the crime rate concludes that ‘economic factors have a major influence on trends in both property and personal crime.   During recessions or periods of economic stagnation, the number of thefts and burglaries tends to grow’”  The paper also reported (9/4/94) “The Association of Chief Officers of Probation released an internal survey of 30 probation areas showing that almost 70% of a sample of 28,000 offenders … were unemployed.”   “Bill Watson, general secretary of the association, said it was ‘absolutely unmistakable’ that unemployment featured in offending patterns.”   On the previous day it reported, “… A recent review of 397 research studies on young offenders, both in Britain and abroad, showed that the single most effective intervention (in the crime rate) was the provision of employment to offenders.”

The well proven link between crime and economics adds great force to the argument that the conditions of life in socialist communities would greatly reduce crime. The welfare of all citizens would be the first objective of social organisation and this would be achieved through cooperation, and would provide a secure standard of living for every person. Its relationships would reduce psychological damage and would be more conducive to a healthier pattern of personal conduct. In place of economic individualism, exploitation, competition and social exclusion, all of which contribute to the conditions in which crime thrives, there would be social integration and equal standing amongst all members of the community.  Seen in this light we may assume that not only would crime be greatly reduced but with it, the machinery and administration of law. 

This is not to wander too far on to the ground of economic determinism.  People will always have choices but under the pressure of psychological compulsion the proper choices ones are not always easy to make. Also, there seems to be no direct evidence for saying that capitalist productive relationships cause people to commit the crimes of child abuse, rape, child murder or domestic violence. There is no evidence for asserting that all people in socialism will at all times be models of democratic virtue. On the contrary, the evidence from this life is that socialists can behave badly and even engage in child abuse.  It is also apparent that some socialists are just as likely to behave in an undemocratic manner as anyone else. So, from crimes of the utmost seriousness, that threaten life and limb, to lesser kinds of anti-social behaviour, the unfair treatment of individuals, democratic accountability or the abuse of positions of civic responsibility, all these matters could only be administered in an orderly, predictable and democratic manner in a socialist society through legal procedures endorsed by the whole community.

The method of practical socialism to be applied to this question is in principle the same as the method for selecting any useful feature of present society that would be continued in socialism.  The criteria we apply to useful production, useful decision making bodies and useful means of administration, apply equally to law.  In the case of law it is a question of identifying the existing features of law that could continue to play a useful part in civic organisation together with the useful institutions that administer such law.   Socially useful law should be distinguished from law that is concerned solely to uphold, regulate and enforce the economic relationships of the capitalist system. 

It follows from the retention of useful law that institutions for administering it would also need to be retained.  The administration of law in socialism would continue to respect the right of any person accused of an offence to defend him/herself. This means being able to call witnesses, to question evidence and to put a defence before a body, independent of those bringing the charges. Such a person should also be entitled to a right of appeal. This means that subject to perhaps modification along more democratic lines, the present court system would also be retained. 

It is impossible to run a capitalist system without an accompanying prison system. The problems of crime cannot be solved. In a few cases the administration of law does make some attempts to treat some offenders with sensitivity aimed at helping with personal problems. Mostly the imposition of law is authoritarian, brutal and concerned with punishment and deterrence. The numbers held in prisons continue to increase.  Over the past twenty five years the prison population in the UK has doubled.  In 1994 the number was 52,830.   In 2003 the number was 76,146.

Similarly, in Germany, the prison population increased from 49,658 in 1994 to 62,594 in 2003.  Russia imprisons around 900,000 of its people. The United States has the highest proportionate prison population of any reporting world nation For the most part, the U.S. rate is five to eight times that of the Western European nations with a staggering 2,166,260 of its people in prison in 2003.

In the UK many prisoners are locked up for 23 hours a day in overcrowded cells and are subject to  violent assault by prison officers and other prisoners, male rape, suicide and persistent self harm.

From any civilised viewpoint, the confinement of large numbers of population in prison “hell holes” is itself a legalised crime carried out by the state.

The use of law in socialism will be a means of safeguarding individuals and the community against dangerous or other anti-social behaviour.  It would be humanely administered with the sole object of solving problems without any kind of punishment. The vile prisons as we know them would be abolished.   On the assumption that it would still be necessary to hold some persons in places of secure confinement these would allow occupants to lead dignified lives in pleasant conditions. But the use of law in socialism would not only be concerned to avoid dangerous or anti social behaviour, it would also be practised for the regulation of democratic administration and would provide procedures for accountability.

In making a distinction between socially useful law that would be continued and law that could have no function in a socialist society we begin with the fact that much of present law exists to uphold and enforce property rights, to regulate the wage labour/capital relationship, and to mediate between contesting parties over monetary or other property disputes.   However, over the past two centuries, legal systems have expanded enormously, partly into socially useful areas which are not directly to do with the protection of property rights.                                           

For example, laws regulating foetal experiments, abortion and the age of sexual consent, whatever we may think of them, arise from moral or ethical questions.  This kind of law has changed over time within states and varies enormously between states in ways that have little bearing on economic relationships. Similarly, we have laws on drunk driving, professional qualifications, licences for drivers, air line pilots, ship’s captains; laws on assault, murder, rape, child abuse, public nuisance; laws on planning and constitutional law which defines the boundaries of decision making amongst public bodies. All these examples arise from the organisation of civil society and would continue to be necessary.                                              

Company law and income tax law would be redundant together with civil law for processing disputes over contracts, money transactions and property. Criminal Law deals with theft, fraud and assault etc., and so before the courts there is a sad parade of burglars, muggers, bank and building society robbers, car thieves, credit card fraudsters and drug offenders. But courts also deal with many cases which are less directly connected with present economic relationships.  The law on this side deals with drunk driving, speeding and other traffic offences such as unlicensed or dangerous driving.   When eventually arrested the courts deal with the paedophile who moves from district to district, using different names, posing as that “nice man” who helps out at the youth centre. They deal with the rapist, the violent schizophrenic, the psychopath, domestic violence and occasionally, but with predictable regularity, as we have noted, they deal with the child killer.

Planning law would continue to regulate housing, the use of buildings and industrial/manufacturing development in accordance with social policy.  As at present, neither individuals or nor any public body would be free to develop a site without following the procedures of planning consent.

Family law would be continued.  Just as night follows day it is certain that couples will continue to fall in love and have families.   Sadly, it is equally certain that some will fall out of love.   Family courts would not need to decide matters such as money maintenance, but this still leaves plenty of scope for disputes in which courts would need to arbitrate.  It is unlikely that any society, however conducive to reasonable behaviour will succeed in removing the emotions of jealousy and bitterness that are inherent in family fall outs. This would be where couples cannot agree on questions such as who should leave or stay in the family home, custody of children, hours to be spent with one or the other parent.   There is always a point where a relationship is over, despite this, it is sometimes the case that one of the couple refuses to accept that it is “over” and becomes a persistent nuisance, with a risk of violence.  Here again is a situation in which the community through the use of appropriate law would need to intervene to protect the victim.

Housing is also an important area where new arrangements would require the backing of new law. Without a housing market, and housing mobility made possible by buying, selling and rent, the alternatives in a socialist society could vary, but one possibility is that the housing stock would be commonly owned with security of tenure held by occupants in the form of a lease from the community.  Such leaseholds would have the backing of housing law.

What would be possible is that to begin with occupants would be granted leaseholds to the houses or flats they occupy.  When moving house leaseholds could be swapped, either directly between leaseholders or through a local housing authority.   This would mean that all rents or mortgage payments would cease and freehold ownership would be replaced by legal rights of occupier use in the form of a permanent lease.  Residents taking on new homes in an area or when moving to a different area could be granted leaseholds to empty premises by an appropriate local housing authority.   

This is not to suggest that the afore mentioned Dukes of Buccleuch, Westminster and Northumberland would be granted continued legal rights of exclusive occupation of their present   531,500 acres and the houses thereon.   As fine examples of architecture, fine art and crafts, their great houses would pass to the community with the National Trust a ready made institution for the management of such heritage homes.   Any sentimental attachment by these dukes to their former properties would have to be satisfied with perhaps occupation of a suitable gate house or game keeper’s cottage!

However, this does not remove the unavoidable fact that to begin with there would be considerable inequality in the use of homes.   Under such proposals, leaseholders of terraced houses in the inner suburbs of big cities would have to accept that other leaseholders a few miles away would enjoy the better facilities of perhaps four bed roomed homes in the leafy suburbs.  The plain fact is that in socialism, any policy concerning the relationship of town and country would present many complex problems that would take a considerable time to sort out. 

Constitutional Law

As now, Constitutional Law would regulate procedures for the election and running of public bodies such as Parish, District, County and Metropolitan councils as well as Parliament.   This would define the freedoms and the boundaries of decision making and action both in and between these various spheres of public organisation.   Constitutional Law would also provide rules for the running of public services such as hospitals and schools; the democratic structure and management of units responsible for the production and distribution of goods.  

Violent Reaction

It is prudent to anticipate a possible violent reaction to the capture of political control by a majority of socialists and the enactment of common ownership of all resources and means of production.   This would be action by a recalcitrant minority.   The history of great social change does not bode well for a peaceful transition.  From this record we should assume that at least some sections of society with a great interest in things staying as they are, would be unlikely to respond with calm acceptance, even in the face of a popular and democratically organised movement.

Nor would such a recalcitrant minority have any difficulty in finding a justification for any violent reaction.   In the tradition of contriving moral authority for upholding sectional interests, and perhaps borrowing from some dubious 18th Century philosophy it could be argued that the private ownership of land, natural resources and means of production is a natural human right that is integral with a democratic society. It would follow from this that the dispossession of an owning minority would be an undemocratic action against the natural rights of a social minority by a tyrannical majority.   In these circumstances, it could be argued that violent reaction would be justified. 

There would of course, be not the slightest prospect of reversing a decision by a majority of people to commence the organisation of a socialist system.   The barriers to the establishment of Socialism exist in the minds of most people who do not yet accept the ideas of socialism.  With the growth of the socialist movement to the point where a majority exists the consequence will be the capture of political control and with it, the entire machinery of government.   The conversion to common ownership will be legislated as a legal enactment and from this point on the entire framework of law will be adapted, enabling the formal enactment of common ownership to be applied as action throughout society.

To reverse the process, the majority of people would have to be reconverted to support for the capitalist system by means of propaganda. The ruling groups would already have lost the battle of ideas, their social influence will have gone, together with their monopoly of the means of life.   To suggest that at some point individuals will be able to take over socially owned property and force members of the community to work for wages and the profits of companies is a complete abandonment of logical reasoning.  To argue that the same result could be obtained by violent minority action is equally absurd.   This is not to suggest that a recalcitrant violent minority could not fight a desperate rearguard action whilst blindly unaware of the futility of their actions.   The irrationality of such actions is possible but this could not be described as a serious attempt to destroy socialism and restore the capitalist system.   Socialism could not be forcibly overthrown.  

Acts of violence, sabotage or any other form of anti-social activity could only be carried out by renegade groups acting outside the law.   This would not be tolerated at any stage.  If the hypothesis includes a residue of people "at war with society" who make mindless attacks endangering the well-being and lives of other people then the means to deal with them would exist and would be used as necessary.  Such situations already exist under capitalism, but with this difference, that while capitalism has no solution because capitalist conditions create the problem, for socialist society the problem would be a passing phase of short duration.

On the assumption that we are speculating about acts of violence mainly during the post change over period, obviously, force would be used if argument and reason failed. With the capture of political control the machinery of government, including every section of the armed forces would come under the control of the new democratic administration.   Implicit in this is the recognition that, in the period of changeover, control of the armed forces would be continued for as long as necessary in the light of conditions then existing. In view of the possibility of violent reaction by a minority it could not be guaranteed that that simultaneously with gaining control the armed forces would at once be wholly dismantled. 

This does not mean that armed forces would have to be used.   Control of armed forces by Parliament would prevent their use by any renegade group and would act as an effective deterrent without these forces necessarily having to be used.   The conditions for the success of the change over from capitalism to socialism will have already been completed before the winning of a majority in Parliament through the ballot box.

The achievement of a socialist majority will mean that socialists will be in the majority throughout every section of production, distribution, services, administration and government departments.  From this basis, cooperation to run society directly for needs would be commenced.   It is inconceivable that the police or armed forces would remain outside these developments or would act against the tide of democratic events.  It is against this background that the hypothesis of possible violent obstruction by an undemocratic minority has to be considered.

Not all of the hypothetical minority working to restore capitalism would be prepared to take violent action for that purpose.  This will present no problem to socialism.  It is likely that diverse political groups will be active in trying to influence social policy.   In line with democratic practice, a group wishing to return to the capitalist system will be free to propagate their views and to organise democratically to win over the majority.  They will of course, operate against the tremendous disadvantage of advocating a return to an outdated system of exploitation, economic chaos, waste, destruction and war. 

Administration of Law in Socialism

The practical ways in which the structure of law and its administration could be adapted to serve the needs of communities in socialism is far beyond the competence and scope of this book.   Indeed, the subject is so extensive it could not be attempted in any single book.  As well as its complexity, law has also evolved with great local and regional variations and no doubt this would continue.   A single unified system would be neither possible nor desirable.

However, we have been able to suggest the general methods that we should apply to the question.   In principle, the reasons for the adaptation of law in socialism would be no different to the way in which law, throughout history, has had to adapt to new situations in line with developing society.   As in all societies, law in socialism would have the job of upholding the general aims of the new society and of setting out the procedures through which it could achieve those aims.

We define a socialist system as one based on common ownership, voluntary cooperation, production solely for needs and democratic organisation.   Having been enacted as legislation, the relations of common ownership would have the force of law and this would be the legal basis on which all means of production and all resources would pass into the common property of the whole community.  From this point on, people doing socially useful jobs would carry on doing them as voluntary cooperation in production units under democratic management by workers themselves.   

It is in these important fields of production and distribution where many of the existing functions of law would become redundant, for example company law and law regulating the wage labour/capital relationship.  It is also here where new law would be required to coordinate working relationships between public decision making bodies and the actions of production units in implementing policy decisions.   Together with new law a great deal of existing law would be continued.  The test to be applied is whether or not any existing law can continue to serve the needs of individuals or the wider community.

The administration law would be humanised. The present hierarchical, authoritarian procedures which govern the structure of the legal system would need to be democratised.  The present use of juries and lay magistrates, drawn from a wide social background, and acting under legal advice from qualified legal officers offers an acceptable basis which could be extended.  However, such anachronistic procedures whereby judges are appointed by a Lord Chancellor, and in some cases by the Monarch on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, would hardly be compatible with the principles of democratic organisation.  Perhaps, after nomination, persons making judgements could be elected by a ballot of all barristers and solicitors.  Rotation of office would also be a healthy practice.  For the same general reasons that apply at present, including the practice of democratic accountability, it would be important that the entire practice of law, though not beyond public criticism, should continue to remain independent of all other public bodies. 

Finally, it should be emphasised that a fully democratic society, in which all citizens would be able to cooperate on equal terms around a common interest, would achieve a vast reduction in crime.   This would be both a moral and material basis for decent human conduct.  We also have every reason to trust that all public bodies would work conscientiously within their terms of reference according to the rules set by Constitutional Law.   This being the case we may anticipate that overwhelmingly, in every sphere of life, conduct of people will be self regulating, without a need for society to intervene with the use of law.

 Pieter Lawrence

Link to Chapter 7.