The American Scene (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

To properly understand the American scene today, a perspective is necessary that goes deeper than the celebrities and events noted by the newspaper headlines. Superficially, the news seems to be the talk and posturing of the ‘big shots'. When people ask what is going on in the USA they tend to think of these things. Will Bobby Kennedy be able to make enough political capital out of Johnson's slip in popularity to be nominated by the Democrats in 1968? Who will be the Republican nominee; Romney, Scranton, Reagan, or Nixon? These are thought to be the political questions concerning the American political scene. As for the economic scene, that concerns whether there will be a recession or an inflation. The social scene—why that involves whether women’s hemlines are going up or down. Most people in the USA do not care very deeply—and rightly so— for life will go on pretty much the same.

For those who care about the political questions, it is widely agreed that the answers hinge on the Vietnam war. If, as seems likely, the war continues unabated then Johnson, although he will win the nomination, will lose the election to the Republicans, with Romney a likely standard bearer for the winners. If a truce is reached in Vietnam, then Johnson will win. But insight into the dynamics of American social and political life will not be gained from these ‘newsworthy' events. The vast majority of the American people, the working class, realise this and give only scant attention to the antics of the professional politicians and their games because they are of only minor entertainment value. Changes in the political bosses of workers are of no more concern to them than are changes in the bosses of the corporations for which they work.

Workers feel powerless to deal with the important questions affecting their lives. So they ‘participate’ in politics only to the extent of investing some emotional energy by identifying with some personality whose victory will give them some vicarious satisfaction. The workers’ sense of powerlessness with respect to events also makes them unconcerned with policy issues concerned with proposals for reform. Middle-level bureaucrats, editorial writers, intellectuals, and all species of ‘middle class’ reformers frequently advance proposals that are intended to solve, within the confine of capitalism, such problems as racial conflicts, riots, decaying cities, unemployment, air pollution, and foreign policy dilemmas. Such people often bemoan the lack of interest among workers for these proposals. Workers, through their experience, have developed a cynicism about such promises and they feel “let those who get paid for it worry about it”.

Outside the small strata of the decision-makers for capitalism, little serious attention is given to the stuff that is served up by the news media as the subject matter of politics. Thus, in one sense, the American scene remains unchanged. The frivolities and gossip that pass for political and social issues are discussed by a small number of those concerned, the masses apathetic; businesses keep on making profits that are quietly pocketed by the ruling capitalist class, and everyone continually faces the problems which the capitalist mode of production makes inevitable. From this perspective American capitalism, like capitalism everywhere, has not changed fundamentally in the past hundred years—only the problems have gotten larger. War, for instance, now threatens to annihilate the human race. Political class consciousness, the conscious desire for Socialism, is still all but non-existent. The American scene, for all its noise, is quiet about Socialism.

Yet this discouraging sameness of the American scene is deceptive. Beneath the surface, the forces that shape American society are at work, ceaselessly changing the foundations. It is not merely that machinery improves, workers become more skilled and new commodities are marketed while capital accumulates. Men’s ideas also change as their conditions of life change.

Ideas about social conventions change — customary formal dress and bathing attire are trivial examples. Ideas about right and wrong change—the propriety of chattel slavery, birth control, and tobacco smoking by women are illustrations. However, so far these changes in ideas have stopped short of rejecting the assumptions of capitalist ideology. Before there can be a change in ideas basic to a society, there first must be a crisis of confidence in which the ability of accepted ideas to explain events is disbelieved. There is some evidence that the USA is just starting to enter such a crisis of confidence.

America is the strongest and wealthiest nation in the world—in fact it is the strongest and wealthiest in the history of the world. Its resources and technology are the wonder of the world. By all its own standards US capitalism should be a veritable Utopia. Its propagandists often do talk as if it is a utopia. Yet everywhere there are signs of a growing uneasiness—an increasing realisation that something is deeply wrong. Americans who, in the past, have overwhelming believed that the 'American way of life' was the highest goal possible for humanity are now having second thoughts.

Those who speak for capitalism see a shiny future of more consumer gadgets, more and bigger autos crowding more and wider highways at ever-increasing speeds, hurrying more and more people to more box-like houses in the suburbs. This philosophy of more and more of the same is all capitalist ideologists have to offer. More and more people are beginning to wonder if, even were this continuous spiralling of abundance possible, it will provide the answers.

The truth of the matter is that, however successful and secure American capitalism looks at first glance, it is plagued with deep contradictions. These contradictions revolve around the inability of American capitalism, despite its wealth, technology and power, to satisfy human needs. On one hand there is fabulous wealth, on the other hand the most basic of human needs go unsatisfied. Scientists will eventually put a man on the moon but American society cannot perform the simple ask of getting a hungry man with his face pressed against a shop window into contact with the food he needs. Children die of rat bites within sight of the world's marvels of engineering. The illiteracy rate and the rate of infant mortality of the US are above that of far less advanced nations. Farmers are paid not to produce food while millions in the world are starving.

America is a sick society and this is becoming more apparent with each passing day. An assassin kills a stranger merely because the stranger wanted to help people to vote; the assassin is found guilty, then is given a public welcome as a hero, and then runs for governor of the state! In the world’s most advanced civilisation the city streets are not safe at night. A model ex-marine and boy scout commits mass murder. In spite of massive government effort, rumours concerning the last president's assassination are given widespread credence. Violence and threats of violence are a continuing part of American life. Police savagely assault and even kill poorer citizens with impunity. Desperate men fight back by striking out at anything within their reach. Large scale armies are regularly deployed in the major cities in the summertime to preserve property and 'law and order'—the same law and order which created the conditions in the first place. This capitalist ‘utopia’ is becoming a hell of hatred, despair, and violence. This can no longer be ignored and so people, or at least some people, are beginning to lose confidence in the reasonableness of the system.

One of the phrases that is being heard more frequently is the 'credibility gap'. It originally referred to the disbelief of the government's statements about the Vietnam war and was then extended to refer to the gap between the pretentions of what the capitalist American way of life stands for and the deeds and actions of that same society. The truth about the war, about the Kennedy assassination, about the relation of cancer to cigarette smoking, about CIA involvement in labour and student activities—or about anything, will not be found in what officials say to the public.

The inability of U S capitalism to solve its contradictions is slowly undermining people's confidence in its ideology; this is the first step. In the middle ages, feudalism began to crumble before developing capitalism when men became sceptical about the accuracy of its world-view. Don Quixote, the famous book ridiculing feudal values, marked the stage when feudal ideas were being rejected to prepare the way for capitalism. In a similar way, capitalist values are being first weakened, then disbelieved, and finally ridiculed.

In the middle ages it was segments of the intellectuals, lower clergy, and tradesmen who first became disenchanted; today it is mainly segments of the youth. One small stratum, those known as 'hippies', have openly rejected, in their disgust, most of the traditional values of bourgeois society. A somewhat larger segment, the 'new left’, has undertaken political action avowedly against the system; although, unfortunately, it does not understand the system well enough to take effective action against it. But beyond those observedly alienated from capitalist ideology, there are widespread misgivings among almost all youth. There is a growing crisis of confidence about capitalist ideology.

This is not to say that all these doubts have led any significant numbers of people to explicitly reject capitalism and to become socialists. This is where we American socialists come in. The great challenge of the times is in hastening the development of a socialist consciousness that is the prerequisite of Socialism. The SEVEN DAYS FOR SOCIALISM will find us carrying on as usual with our propaganda activities in Boston, New York, and a few other scattered areas. We have accomplished no momentuous things, nor do we expect to do so in the near future. We take heart with the thought that, although our numbers are insignificant, our ideas will triumph. The intellectual bankruptcy of capitalism— and its phoney ‘radical’ critics—assure our success.

William Jerome

The Canadian Scene (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

Like all nations that dazzle the world with their riches, Canada is well to the fore in such displays—and less forward in showing its poverty.

But riches and poverty go together, as also do the defenders of the one and the champions of the other, who are in fact less far apart than they suspect.

No less so in Canada than elsewhere, Mr. Diefenbaker, the ex-prime minister, waxed eloquently on Canada’s greatness—and raised the old age pension. Mr. Pearson, the present prime minister, is not less rapturous in flag-flapping and boosted the pension a bit more. Mr. Douglas, the aspiring Prime Minister, would keep profits in Canada away from Americans and give the old age pension another hoist.

Only Mr. Thompson, erstwhile top banana of social credit, fond of his country though he is, had nary a mite for the pensioners —and was dumped by the wayside. Canada then is just another capitalist country. It is a giant in size, in industry and agriculture. It ranks among the first half-dozen producing nations, despite a sparse population of twenty million. But it exploits its wage slaves as much as the traffic will bear, searches the world for outlets for its commodities, and takes sides in international squabbles, having been involved in nearly all the talking and fighting adventures of this century.

It has its demands for higher wages and better working conditions which are sometimes made to stick; a wearisome burden to government and industry, whose appeals for moderation in the national interest have not always convinced workers that low wages are a mark of distinction.

It has its mods, its diggers, its hippies, its peace meetings, freedom marches, petitions to Parliament and all the churning, raging, futile produce of a world turned away from the vital need to really know its own nature.

It is just another capitalist country.

French Canada

Canada was originally taken from the Indians by the French and English, the latter then dispossessing the former, the descendants of both presently snarling at one another over their respective tongues’, ‘cultures’ and other ‘differences’ as vital as the output of the representative ‘love-in’. French Canada, located almost entirely in Quebec, has been prodded by the church and Quebec capital for many years for reasons less than altruistic, and has been belted and catered to by English Canada with motives of no greater merit.

Traditionally, the Quebec political scene has been dominated by the Liberal Party which has had to tread warily to offset the work of ‘nationalistic’ elements in the province. Liberal influence has waned in recent years, provincial politics becoming dominated by the Union Nationale Party, an organisation existing entirely in Quebec and aiming at almost every kind of ‘independence’ for the province, short of complete separation from the rest of Canada. On the federal field the Quebec Liberals have been weakened by the rise of a group originally part of the National Social Credit Party which broke away from the parent body and established itself as an independent social credit party. The reason for the breakaway is believed to be the need to reflect Quebec nationalism, a must these days for all parties searching for votes in Quebec.

None of Canada’s five social credit groups having federal or provincial representation is interested in social credit, or even talks about it.

Liberals and Conservatives

The Liberal Party, patterned after the Liberals of Great Britain, controls the Ottawa Government but without an overall majority and can retain hold on power only with the support of one of the other parties. Sometimes this support comes from one or both of the social credit parties and sometimes from the New Democratic Party. Its hold on power has not been seriously threatened, opinion being that no other party feels confident of strengthening its position in another election.

The Conservative Party (or Progressive-Conservative Party, as it has preferred to be called for some years now) is the Canadian equivalent of the Conservative Party in Britain. It is the leading contender for power if this should be lost by the Liberals. These two parties, in fact, have alternated in power since confederation, surviving a number of political windstorms without damage.

There is little to distinguish between the Liberal and Conservative parties. With minor differences on how best to run the affairs of the capitalist class, they have never been divided when these affairs have conflicted with the interests of workers—who have suffered this unity and have so far learned little from it.

The New Democratic Party
The ‘party of labor’ is the New Democratic Party. It is the result of a deal between the former Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the trade union movement, the latter deciding a few years ago that the time was ripe for labor to come to power. Successive elections, despite considerable trade union support, did not bring ‘labor’ to power and trade union enthusiasm, even, interest, has declined. The initial gain through trade union support was matched by the loss in farmer support that had formerly gone to the CCF, leaving the NDP parliamentary representation practically unchanged from that of the CCF.

Socialists were critical of the CCF through all the years of its existence. Coming on the scene professing Socialism as its aim, it spread a number of wrong ideas in the name of socialism. In its later years it came to the view that its advocacy of ‘socialism’ did not help its election chances and it dropped the use of the term and all suggestions that it held any aims that could not be approved by Liberal and Conservative supporters. It was then ripe for a complete break with its rebellious past and the New Democratic Party was born. This body, if anything, is an even more watery collection than the British Labour Party, reaching its odious depth in the 1963 anti-American crusading of its leader Mr. Douglas.

There are other parties that run candidates for Parliament, two social credit groups being among the successful one, although their combined representation is less than that of the NDP. All in all, the ruling class has little to grumble about, being represented one way or another by every member in Parliament.

The Socialist Party of Canada

The Socialist Party is of course also on deck, working always to keep the message of Socialism to the fore. Its membership now reaches from Montreal to Victoria and although still not numerous we would record the reply of the lion when told brashly by the rabbit of its numerous offspring, “But each of my progeny is a lion”.

Jim Milne

The Irish: Scene—yesterday and today (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

At the turn of the century the ruling class in Ireland were united in the classical sense in which capitalists are united throughout the world: North and South of the country Catholic and Protestant capitalists found unanimity in their desire to promote and maintain that system of economic organisation based on the exploitation of the country’s wealth producers, the working class.

Unionist and Nationalist, Sinn Fein and Labour, ALL stood UNITED on this issue: capitalism would be the way of life irrespective of the Party that administered it, or the colour of the rag that flew at its political masthead.

As far as the working class were concerned they were not offered a choice nor had they then (or now) the degree of political understanding to make a choice. But, as elsewhere in the domain of capitalism, they were given the fiction that the personnel and location of their government had some bearing on their way of life—that life under Paddy Murphy’s lash was preferable to life under John Bull’s whip, or vice versa.

Real Issues

Needless to say, the Action was suitably embellished with promises on one hand and threats on the other. The ‘British way of life’ vied with a ‘prosperous Ireland controlling its own destiny'; ‘Popish plots’ opposed ‘Orange tyranny’. The seeds of hatred were cast around with abandon of necessity and hatred and violence were necessary weapons in the real issues, AND THE ONLY ISSUES WHICH WERE REAL WERE THOSE THAT DIVIDED THE CAPITALIST CLASS.

Here was the real motive behind the bigotry, viciousness and carnage, the hate propaganda, the ‘national’ struggle and the baloney over flags: Irish capitalism, UNITED in its purpose was DIVIDED in its means.

As the nineteenth century, with its memories of struggle and famine, retreated into the sad past of Ireland’s history it left its peculiarly malformed economic off-spring in the form of a native capitalism, healthy and virile (for the capitalists, of course!) in the north-eastern portion of the country, faltering and weak throughout the rest of Ireland. In north-east Ulster some prosperous descendants of earlier English and Scottish ‘planters’, using the wealth derived from their conquest of the native resources and their direct affinity with their class cousins in Great Britain, had accomplished a high degree of industrialisation.

The Belfast shipyards and the Ulster textile industry (which included the manufacture of textile machinery) was on a par with anything found elsewhere and, of course, other ‘service' industries had developed accordingly. The owners of these resources were culturally, economically and politically at one with British capitalism, enjoying the benefits of a parliament skilled in the artifice of class deception and the markets accruing from Britain’s position as a world power.

In the rest of the country the position was different. Those who had been the victims of earlier English tyranny, allegedly because of their religion, had, after years of struggle, thrown off the yoke that militated against their accumulation of wealth. By the turn of the century the Catholic ‘businessman’ had ‘arrived’ in sufficient numbers to engage in political struggle against ‘English domination’ that enabled their ‘favourably placed’ English competitors (including the powerful and entrenched Northern Irish industrialists) to keep them, the fledging entrepreneurs of the south, in a disadvantageous position.

One of their chief spokesmen, Arthur Griffith, founder member and leader of Sinn Fein, states the motive behind their ‘principles' quite simply:

   “It is a comparatively simple matter for English capitalists to crush out their Irish competitors and we must know that this is too often the fate of Irishmen striving to promote the manufactures of this country.
  “Under Sinn Fein policy such a deplorable error could not occur . . . and no possibility would be left as far as Sinn Fein were concerned for a syndicate of English capitalists to crush out the home manufacturer and home trader.” Arthur Griffith, Sinn Fein Policy; 1917.

Double Dealing Diplomacy

Thus, briefly, the conflict between the rival sections of the capitalist class: in the North industry was sufficiently strong to resist the encroachments of English competition, while enjoying the wider market and system of economic preference resulting from their association with Great Britain. In the South a fledgling capitalism needed the exercise of protectionist policies in the exploitation of the limited home market—against the time when it could meet competition on a wider field.

Interwoven into the fabric of lies and deceit used by the political manipulators on both sides to gain the power of the working class to their cause, was the double-dealing diplomacy of the political flunkeys of the British ruling class. Concerned with their direct economic interests, their allegiance to their fellow-robbers in ‘Ulster’ and the (then) strategic importance of Ireland as an Atlantic base in the event of war, they used all the dirty weapons in the arsenal of capitalism in pursuit of their ends.

The only issues which were real were those differences that divided the opposing sections of the master class. Aside, however, from their differences there was a unanimity of purpose that revealed itself in the miserable exploitation of the working class THROUGHOUT IRELAND and in the manner in which Unionist and Nationalist elements of capitalism closed ranks to prosecute and persecute the working class and its organisations.

The outcome of the struggle is well known to us today. The investment in blood of the Irish workers—for, as always, it was the workers who gave and the masters who got—is seen in the reality of the two statelets in Ireland.

Since their inception both statelets have shown a marked similarity: the governments of both areas have scarce failed to conceal their detestation of organised labour and both have introduced legislation frankly loaded against the working class. Both, each from its respective point of view, have used the ‘partition’ of the country as a propaganda gimmick to arrest the attention of their electorates from such issues as poverty, slums and unemployment. Spokesmen for each area rebut criticism by drawing attention to the same conditions in the other area!

Things Are Changing!

But things are changing! Changing with a rapidity! that would have seemed almost indecent a decade ago. Now we are in the era of ‘bridge building’, of forgetting yesterday. Now we are advised about the importance of a ‘public image’. Why?

The short answer is that the factors that divided our masters, the factors that demanded the sacrifice of workers’ blood, have now changed.

Industry in the Republic of Ireland, nurtured behind tariff walls and import quotas and infused with ‘foreign’ capital, now feels the need for an expanding market at a time when the convenient European market is trying to introduce a super-protectionist policy.

Similarly in the North, with the decline of the traditional industries and the growth of the light export- orientated industries—often financed by the same companies or corporations which have invested heavily in the South (in both instances, as a springboard, so to speak, to Europe)—there is the need for the expanding continental market.

Yet, more important still—despite ‘principles’ and the resulting struggles of yester-year—is the fact that the economy of the country, NORTH AND SOUTH, is still tied to the British market and with that country begging an entry to the Common Market, the ‘principles’ of both sections of Irish capitalism must be scrapped—under, of course, a smoke screen of new ‘principles’!

Irrelevant

Unfortunately for the governmental servants of capitalism in both areas, the change, necessarily rapid, has brought about its problems. After sowing the seeds of bitterness and bigotry—instruments of policy in the North, inevitable consequences of policies in the South— for half a century it is too much to expect, even from a docile populace, an immediate unanimous response to the new policies of the ‘bridges builders’.

The Protestant bigot, Reverend ‘Dr’ Paisley, and those of his kind, have no difficulty sanctifying their actions with suitable quotations from the government spokesmen of yesterday—even if such spokesmen now sing a different tune—and the Irish Republican Army, likewise, can quote political scripture from the gospel written yesterday in blood by the now ‘great men’ of the Southern Irish’Government.

For the working class the whole game is as irrelevant today as it was in the past. Yesterday they had the example of workers in other countries with their ‘own’ government sharing the same poverty problems as the Irish workers. Today we have the example of European workers STILL WITH THE SAME WORKING CLASS PROBLEMS living in the Common Market. As Socialists, knowing full well the nature of capitalism, knowing that that system cannot operate IN ANY CIRCUMSTANCES in the interests of the working class, we feel safe in prophesying that our problems, the problems of the working class, will remain with us whatever the demarcations of capitalism’s market.

Political Parties
Space does not permit an examination of the records and attitudes of the political parties in Ireland. At any rate we are not too concerned in the niceties of their political separation. Suffice to say that they have all lent support to one or other side in the political chess of capitalism.

Whatever their title, Unionist, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, Labour or ‘Communist’, they have all put forward the ignorant assumption that they possess the policies and personnel to make a buying-and-selling system, a capitalist system, operate in the interests of ‘the people’.

The fact that it has not worked in the interest of the working class ANYWHERE, under ANY government or ANY political party, whether in the guise of ‘western democracy’ or ‘peoples' democracy’, bears eloquent testimony to their ignorance of the nature of capitalism.

Unlike our opponents we in the World Socialist Party have no plans for running—or being run by—Irish capitalism, petitioned, united, inside or outside the Common Market. We have no urge for taking over the role of government, nor can we claim that, given the opportunity of ‘taking over the government’ (or governments) of Ireland, we could administer capitalism fairly and in the interests of all.

Banish Government 
On the contrary, we affirm that no political party, irrespective of its title or aspirations, can run a system BASED ON THE EXPLOITATION OF THE WORKING CLASS THROUGH THE WAGES-MONEY SYSTEM IN THE INTERESTS OF ALL.

That is why our role in the political cocktail of Irish politics is the political education of our fellow members of the working class to the end of achieving mass understanding of why capitalism must always operate against us and why we must choose the Socialist alternative—a wageless, classless society of production for use.

With such understanding achieved, our purpose will not be to ‘take over the government’ but, rather, to gain, democratically, the use of its executive authority and, in concert with our fellow workers throughout the world, to banish such government—along with the system of class privilege that gave rise to it.

Richard Montague

A Look at Jamaica (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

It is now five years since this sunny island has been independent. During this time the relative unimportance of independence is quite obvious to everyone who has to work for a living. The new Jamaica that was promised is still a promise, with no signs of fulfilment.

This island, with one and three-quarter million people, is basically agricultural. This occupies over 30 per cent of the labour force. Sugar cane, bananas and citrus are the chief crops. Sugar enjoyed a brief period of prosperity on the world market some time ago but during the past three years prices have remained constantly low. There is a strong plea from the estate landlord for mechanisation to reduce cost, but with the unemployment situation never falling below 150,000 it is politically dangerous for the politicians to endorse this. Thousands of small farmers have deserted the land over the past ten years, to live in Britain or America, and right now there is quite a food shortage. They say too much that is imported could be grown here. The government is planning a tax on unused land and is constantly promising land reform. They played this up greatly during the recent election, although nothing has been done so far about it.

The Jamaica Labour party won the recent election in February by a clear majority. They soon lost their leader, Sir Donald Sangster, who died shortly after. After much scheming and compromise Hugh Shearer emerged as the new Prime Minister (a man who spent twenty-seven years in his party’s union). True to form, on assuming office he barked out about the laziness of the workers and demanded hard work. In the same speech, he reassured the capitalist class that they had nothing to fear from him. He was going to carry out the same policies of his predecessor. The shift from union leader to government leader is not a new one here. Bustamante did it, and successfully maintained an image as a friend of the ’small man’. There is a unique feature of Jamaican politics: the Labour Party which admits to the free enterprise system, more in line with the British Conservative Party, gets most of its support from the low paid workers and rural peasantry. While the Peoples National Party (PNP) who make some claim to ’socialism’ (advocating nationalisation, and other state control measures along the line of the British Labour Party) is strongest among the professional and so-called middle class. This is due mainly, perhaps, to Bustamante’s image. He did everything from breaking strikes to bulldozing people’s houses but could always convince the workers it was done for their benefit!

The PNP, under its leader Norman Manley, is now going through a re-examination of itself, after its crushing defeat in the election. Their vote-catching programme of land distribution, and a solution to the unemployment problem never quite got over. By calling its capitalist policies ‘socialism’, the PNP created a feeling of mistrust—particularly among the rural voters. The mere mention of any ism is regarded by them as a plot by the devil. They have described the elections as bogus, and not without some justification. The government had introduced a very complicated system of voter registration, whereby voters are finger printed, and in the town areas are photographed. Many never got round to doing either, and most of these people seem to be PNP supporters; just what the ruling JLP had hoped. Less people were able to vote in the February election than at any time since adult suffrage in 1944!

Both parties dominate trade union activity, each having its affiliate union. There are very few skilled workers to make possible unions based on trade. Rivalry is very keen and clashes are frequent, as in a strike not long ago at the Gleaner Company, publishers of the only daily, where one union accepted the company’s proposal while the other rejected it! They are joint representatives of the workers, because both have failed to win a clear majority vote. There is a growing suspicion among workers in light manufacturing industries about the affluence of the unions’ officials, and we often hear cries of “sellout”. The unions contribute nothing towards workers’ education. It is distinctly to their advantage to maintain this state of ignorance.

Britain’s possible entry into the European Common Market is giving cause for great concern. The protective markets for sugar, bananas and citrus are threatened. Countries in South America can sell bananas at about half the price Jamaica is getting from Britain. American citrus is again much cheaper, and there is an adequate supply of beet sugar produced in Europe. So the ruling class here are very much up against it. There are cries how Britain is abandoning the Commonwealth, and everyone has suddenly found out how deeply they feel about the old flag. The harsh reality of capitalism is quite evident. Britain will do anything for its economic survival and couldn’t care less about sentimental ties.

The problem of crime is giving the capitalist class of all countries quite a headache; Jamaica is no exception. Murder, robbery, rape, and all the other features of a property society, are on the increase.

Population increase among the poor is quite alarming. There is now quite a strong campaign to get the ideas of family planning across. The pulpit is constant every week, in telling us how irresponsible Jamaican men are for subjecting their women to constant child bearing, and without the means of supporting them. They paint all sorts of gloomy pictures for the future if this does not stop.

Modern capitalism is catching up fast in this part of the world. What it is doing in moulding people's behaviour is very sad indeed. The realisation that a better world through Socialism is possible, right now, perhaps makes it all the more sad.

Jamaican Group

Socialist Movement in Britain (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

When the Socialist Party of Great Britain was formed in 1904, the members agreed upon an Object and a set of Principles that have guided the Party ever since. Adherence to these Principles has prevented the Party from losing its way, as so many have done who professed to be socialists, in the search for remedies to solve problems that are insoluble whilst the present capitalist system lasts.

When the Labour Party was formed in 1906, saddled with a reformist programme, it was greeted as the harbinger of social change and its supporters were convinced that it would not desert the class struggle. We contended that reformism would kill any aspirations for Socialism that might be possessed by some of its early members. Events have proved us right. Its members have departed so far from the ideas of some of its founders as to argue that State capitalism is Socialism.

When the Russian upheaval occurred in 1917 the radical parties welcomed it as a socialist revolution, though demurring at its support of dictatorship and its cold-blooded brutality. We pointed out at the time that Socialism was not then possible in Russia because the mass of the people neither understood what Socialism implied nor wanted it. All they wanted was peace, bread and land, and this was an insurmountable barrier to those Bolsheviks who genuinely desired to establish a new system. It drove them instead to build up a capitalist state under an iron dictatorship. Again history has proved that we were correct in the assessment we made based upon our principles. Russia has grown into one of the two most powerful capitalist states in the world.

In the two World Wars we pointed out that all modern wars are capitalist wars, and as such did not justify the shedding of working class blood on the battlefields. That they should be of no concern to the workers no matter with what idealist sentiments either side cloaked their real aims. That the only way to abolish wars was to abolish the conditions that gave rise to them, the buying and selling system that was behind the pursuit of markets, trade routes and sources of supply. We sent out Manifestoes to the workers in the belligerent countries stating that we had no quarrel with the workers of any nation and pledging ourselves to work for the triumph of Socialism.

We accept the fact that there is a class struggle in society—but that its solution lies in the hands of the workers to take political action for the establishment of Socialism when they understood and want it. Consequently we have put forward candidates in the parliamentary and local elections for the purpose of taking control out of the hands of our capitalist rulers in order to clear the way for the establishment of Socialism.

We hold that all people in the world, regardless of colour or nationality, are capable of understanding Socialism and its implications. There is no fundamental difference in mental capacity of different groups of mankind, only differences in their stages of social development which has nothing to do with a difference in mental capacity. On this, as on other aspects of our attitude, we have published pamphlets explaining our outlook.

We are a Marxian party. That is to say we base our outlook on history and economics on the theoretical researches of Karl Marx. On the basis of Marxian economics we have pointed out that there is no solution for booms and slumps as long as capitalism lasts. That booms and slumps are inevitable products of capitalism and will always be a part of it. On the basis of the same principles we have shown that the huge rise in prices since the thirties have not been due to the rises in workers’ pay, but have mainly been due to the devaluation of currency. This in spite of the new machinery and methods introduced which were alleged to cheapen costs of production.

We have always insisted upon the capture of political power before any fundamental change in the social system can be achieved. Political power is the centre of the capitalist citadel, though the workers place this power in the capitalists’ hands at election times. But no fundamental change is possible until the majority understand and want it. We have also been opposed to reform policies and have kept unswervingly to the pursuit of Socialism as our sole objective.

Finally, just as capitalism has spread all over the world, bringing similar conditions of frustration, poverty and insecurity to all peoples, so also the seeds of discontent and the yearning for something better has become a part of life everywhere. Unfortunately this discontent takes wrong turnings and has led to riots and nationalist uprisings that, in the long run, have helped nobody but the ruling class of capitalists or budding capitalists. The solution is the same everywhere, for Socialism is an international movement involving the workers of the world, whatever their colour. It is not possible to establish Socialism in one country alone, in the midst of a wilderness of capitalism. That was a fiction spread by the Russian Communist Party and their servile followers. But just as capitalism has spread, so have socialist ideas. Socialist parties and groups with similar ideas to ours have developed in different parts of the world and form a Socialist International movement; such parties have arisen in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Ireland and a group in the West Indies.

We therefore urge the workers of the world to unite in the world-wide socialist movement which has already begun, because Socialism is the only solution to the social ills of mankind. Socialism is a system in which there will be no privileged class, as everything that is in and on the earth will be the common and equal possession of all mankind.

Gilmac.

New Zealand—affluent society! (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

People have some odd ideas about New Zealand. For some it is ‘God’s Own Country’. Others regard it as ‘the workers’ paradise of the Pacific.

A few years ago Mr. H. H. Innes, a Hamilton Councillor and Chairman of Innes Industries Ltd., described New Zealand as an ‘affluent desert’ whatever that may be. He deplored the fact that:

  ‘New Zealanders bet an average of £20 each on racing and trotting horses; bought 28s. worth of Golden Kiwi Tickets, and donated an all-time record of 2s. 8d. each on Corso, the main expression of giving to the less privileged people of the world’.

We surmise that from Mr. Innes’ position it may be difficult for him to visualise that in New Zealand there are also a considerable number of ‘less privileged’.

The daily press abounds with evidence of wide-spread poverty in New Zealand. In giving a few instances we hope to convince the like of Mr. Innes that the condition of a large section of the working class in New Zealand is anything but affluent. The findings of a survey of aged beneficiaries in Auckland by ‘The Crusade for Social Justice’ organisation, in conjunction with the Auckland Combined Housewives’ Association, were published in 1962. Of the listed 29,000 aged couples, after paying rent, many “were in fact reduced to the barest necessities. They stated that these necessities did not permit of a nuritious diet”.

In Wellington, welfare workers told a similar story. Letters of indignation to the local press, protesting at niggardly increases in the age benefit; an appeal to abolish the blight of poverty among age-pensioners, testifies to the poverty-stricken condition of this discarded section of the wealth producing class. Poverty however, is not confined to the age-pensioner in New Zealand.

In 1965 the Conference of the Federation of New Zealand Housewives’ Associations held at Whangarei, dealt with an inquiry into “the causes of, and remedies and penalties for ill-treatment of children”.

One delegate, Mrs. A. W. Gragies of Hastings, said: 

   ‘A welfare officer in her district once told her there was more poverty in New Zealand than in London because some families had too many financial responsibilities. They could not cope with modern living and took their frustration out on their children. Another delegate stated that married women were now forced to work to help family income in many cases'.

This, no doubt, is a reflection of the hire purchase system most workers are forced to resort to in order to maintain a home. So, incidentally, their wage packet is mortgaged for months, even years ahead.

Let us take another aspect of working class poverty : the housing problem.

Consider for instance, the report in 1965 of the Petone Borough Council health inspector who described Petone’s sub-standard housing as a “colossal problem”. 

  “Owners of these houses care little about the comforts of the occupants but are prepared to take up to £20 weekly in rents.” Asked what was the greatest number of persons he had found sharing a room he replied, “Ten”.

These conditions are not confined to Petone. Cases of rack-renting and deplorable slum conditions are revealed by investigators and welfare officers in other parts of the country.

For instance, Mr. Kirk, Leader of the Labour Opposition in Parliament attacked slum housing and offered to show the Minister of Health, Mr. McKay, how some people in Wellington lived.

In October 1966 the Press carried pictures of Mr. Kirk inspecting the hovels some pensioners live in. His remarks in reply to an interjection are recorded: 

   “There are people living in Wellington and in the Member for Wellington Central’s own electorate, in conditions that no human being should have to endure”. (Evening Post, 6 October 1966).

Unkind critics of Mr. Kirk and of course government members, accused him of electioneering for the November General Elections. It is true that these slums have existed for a long time. They were there when the Labour Party was in office. It seems ironic that nearly 30 years after the Social Security Act came into operation in April 1939, poverty is still rife in New Zealand.

What a mockery of the words uttered by the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, the first Labour Prime Minister in New Zealand to age-pensioners: “In the eventide of your lives, I will not let you down.”

However, words uttered by well-meaning old gentlemen of pelf, and place-seeking politicians make no difference. Poverty remains an essential feature of capitalism.

The reorganisation of working class poverty, and its gathering under one roof as it were, into a State department has made no essential difference to the workers’ position in New Zealand.

Ron Everson 

Socialist Party of New Zealand

Get out of the darkness (1967)

From the Seven Days for Socialism! International Supplement (August 1967)

Measured by capitalist yardsticks the economy has been working quite well for some 15 years. In that time great wealth had been created, productivity and profits increased enormously and, in keeping with the interests of capital, wages were kept as low as possible. Two ways above all were used to keep wages low: one was by ‘controlled’ inflation, the other by the propaganda smoke-screen. At this point the trade unions must be mentioned. With the cheap phrase of ‘partnership’ they have consciously prevented the workers’ struggle for ‘a larger slice of the cake’. It follows without saying that trade unions such as these are not in a position to help their membership to a higher level of thinking in political economy.

The majority of trade union bosses call themselves socialists. It is impossible to say why they do so. From 1945 the trade unions had allowed their entire activity to be guided by the interests of the capitalist economy. The largest trade union, that of the metal workers and miners, expressly professed support for the capitalist system.

For some three years now the pretty picture of ‘our economy’ is showing some serious spots. More and more ‘partners’ are getting into difficulties. In the first place there is the mining industry. The miners are being given promises from all sides—and nothing else; unless the organising of petitioning deputations by the trade unionists to be considered a particular achievement. Things are well and truly going downhill fast, from partner to petitioner!

For more than 20 years the representatives of the trade unions and the so-called Socialist Party of Austria (SPA) had been in the Government. Time and again they declared that this time things were different and that, besides, today’s capitalism was no longer as dangerous at that which, for example, Marx had described. With which they connected straight away the insidious criticism of Marx of the present time. The essence of this criticism is the claim that in his time and day Marx had no doubt been right, but today . . .

Right to the last days of their government activity the SPA and the trade union leaders have endeavoured to make the ‘spots’ appear to be not all that dangerous. “You just give us your vote and we will straighten things out.’’ This calculation did not work out, however. The workers of course did not have a clear view of things; this must be stated quite clearly. This is why they failed to see any clear alternative to the shameful S P A and trade union policy. But where was a clear view to come from? Twenty years of intensive smoke-screening with the aid of every conceivable medium (television, radio, press, films, etc.), could not fail to have effect.

The voice of Socialism is still much too weak in this country to stand up to the tremendous din of the smoke-screen apparatus.

Even if the workers did not see any alternative, they did recognise that the ‘workers’ leaders’ had to be given a lesson. The SPA had to realise that they could not reach for the sky and they were removed from the Government.

From one day to the next there was a change in the language of these gentlemen. Astonishing what discoveries they made. Under the slogan ‘insolence prevails’ they simply disregard the fact that for two decades they had busily helped to brew what workers are given to swallow today!

We know full well what workers have to expect from the Austrian People’s Party; nothing good! We must refute any attempt however of the trade unions and the S P A at vindicating themselves! The ills which threaten us today do not in any way result from the absolute power of the A P P but they spring as always from the capitalist system! And in Austria this system was ‘reconstructed’ with the energetic co-operation of the SPA, the Communist Party and the trade unions.

Wherever these ‘socialists’ are doing ‘practical’ work they do not deny in their deeds with what system they are allied. Let us take the high cost of living. The Vienna Transport Board has increased fares enormously. Public transport to work alone costs a worker 500 schillings more per annum than it used to. In many trades this is the equivalent of a week’s wages. The reason given for this increase was the same that all capitalists advance: “We must put our fares up because the price of everything is going up! ”

That is to apply to all prices and fares, with one exception. The price for the commodity labour-power is to remain the same or even to be reduced. In fact, the trade unions did not in any way react seriously to the latest great wave of price increases.

The employers make virtue out of necessity. They say they do not welcome the crisis but that it has many good side-effects. The famed-infamous ‘workers’ morale’ would increase, absenteeism would decline and the ‘partner’ would regain a clearer sense of proportion in which his partnership could find expression. This is how things look on the ‘branch’ which Böhm-Schani and his disciples have so warmly commended to us. However, at the same time, it has shown up in its full light the true format of these ‘great leaders and statesmen’.

We socialists see in all these phenomena the symptoms of the disease of our time. This disease however, rotting capitalism, is not going to disappear of its own volition. Ours is the choice of being shaken by its shivers of fever for the whole of our lives or of using our brains and using successfully the only antidote, fraternal co-operation. Socialism!

Only then will man be able to live truly as man. Only then will it be no longer necessary for workers to have to beg for an opportunity to work and for men and women to be forced, after a life of labour and want, to have to drag themselves along to protest meetings in order to be able to keep some part of their standard of living.

Peace and prosperity will then be truly secured as a matter of course. Man will step from the darkness of the jungle into the bright light of the landscape of culture.

 Workers! women and men!
The future lies in the hands of the workers.
“We want no condescending saviours to rule us from a judgment hall.
We workers ask not for their favours, let us consult for all ”

Apartheid: Divide and Rule (1982)

From the May 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

   Apartheid is essentially a pre-capitalist form of oppression; it is an attempt to impose the colour patterns of a frontier community onto a modern industrial economy. It will never work properly because what the government is trying to separate, the economy keeps bringing together. (Socialist Viewpoint, SPNZ, Sept-Oct. 1981.)

A traditional feature of apartheid has been a legally sanctioned colour bar broadly restricting skilled work to whites. The underlying racial prejudice upon which this was erected can be traced back to the days of slavery, when manual labour was held in contempt by Europeans. The prohibition of slavery in 1834 was a significant factor behind the Great Trek, a mass migration of disgruntled Boers beyond the reach of British jurisdiction. According to Freda Troup:

  The assumption that non-whites were the labouring class had spread across the land with the trekkers. Only in the Cape where Malay Slaves had from early days formed an important section of the artisan community had the colour line between skilled and unskilled worker largely been smudged and ignored. [1]

White penetration of the interior dispossessed many of the original occupants of what had been their tribal land, forcing them into various forms of servitude on white farms. The disruption of the tribal subsistence economy through the influence of tax and trade was intensified by the discovery of gold and diamonds in the second half of the nineteenth century. Vast numbers of Africans were sucked into the burgeoning towns to form a pool of unskilled labour while immigrant uitlanders, mainly from Europe, comprised the bulked of skilled labour in the mines. This pattern of employment reflected the prevailing differences between distinctive cultures—one, technologically primitive and agrarian; the other, advanced and urban-based. In time, however, it became fixed by custom and reinforced in legislation.

In the first decades of this century another stream of rural peasants poured into the towns: the landless Afrikaner. The devastation of the Boer War, periodic depressions and the shortage of land aggravated by the old Roman Dutch law of inheritance which subdivided farms into units too small to be economic, all contributed to the dispossession of thousands of Afrikaners of their traditional means of livelihood.

Lacking the skills of an urban proletariat and resentful of the wage-depressing influence of competition from low paid blacks, this substratum of “poor whites”, numbering 160,000 by 1923 (10 per cent of the white population), became a thorny political issue. In 1910 the two ex-Boer republics and the Cape and Natal provinces became one state under a single parliament, with the franchise largely (later completely) in the hands of the whites—a prerogative they readily exercised to entrench their privileged position. One of the first pieces of legislation introduced by the new union parliament was the 1911 Mines and Works Act which enforced a colour bar on the mines. The ideology of the Afrikaner farmer was thus transplanted into industry, as indeed were many small farmers themselves:

   A new social and economic frontier had taken the place of the old frontier of land and settlement. Where once the natives were excluded from good land and ample water, now they were kept from skilled labour and high wages. [2]

The mining companies did not in general welcome this intrusion of a backward ideology into the market place. But in their efforts to overcome the restrictions of the colour bar they met with the well organised resistance of the white trade union movement and a South African Labour Party which bitterly opposed the replacement of white by cheaper black labour.

In 1922 this issue came to a head when, following a big fall in the price of gold, employers were compelled to contravene the colour bar and employ blacks in semi-skilled work to cut costs. The strike that followed escalated into open revolt. Trade unionists, communists and nationalist Afrikaners combined under the odd-sounding banner “Workers of the world fight and unite for a white South Africa”. The “Rand Revolution”, as this was called, was mercilessly crushed with the loss of 230 lives. The miners were forced to accept a pay cut and the companies were left free to increase the proportion of cheap black labour, though technical advances enabled many of the jobs open to blacks to be fragmented and reclassified as unskilled work.

Two years later, the unpopular Smuts government which had sided with the employers against the white miners was defeated by a Labour-Nationalist coalition led by Hertsog. In a sense, what the pact symbolised was an alliance between the white farmers and the white working class:

   Cresswell (leader of the Labour Party) devoted his whole political life to ousting the blacks from the mines. Hertsog’s party on the other hand wanted cheap and servile Africans on the farms. The exclusion of Africans dovetailed with the farmers' insatiable demand for labour. This compatibility formed the economic basis of the partnership between white landowners and the labour aristocracy. [3] 

The Pact government represented a watershed in South African history in that employers no longer offered serious resistance to the tightening stranglehold of racism on the economy but concentrated instead on making the best possible use of the system to which they had resigned themselves. Job reservation was vigorously reinforced on the mines in 1926, extended into the emerging manufacturing sector and subsequently set concrete hard over the course of several decades. To counter the possibility of unemployed white workers finding common cause with blacks, a “civilised labour” policy was pursued which gave preferential treatment to, and dramatically increased the proportion of, whites in state run services such as the railways. From 1924 onwards, in contrast to the preceding quarter century of almost continuous industrial turmoil, there were virtually no serious disputes in the mines.

In return for their compliance with these policies the government, which relied heavily on the mines for its revenue (vast sums of which went to subsidise white agriculture), assisted the mining companies in their efforts to hold down black wages and obtain labourers. Indeed an adequate supply of unskilled labour which had been a vital requirement of the mining industry became even more so under the Pact government. The colour bar tended to perpetuate the labour intensive nature of gold mining and hence the need for plentiful labour; the sheer scale of mining meant that working techniques and the balance between labour and capital intensity were fixed at the beginning of a mine’s life and could not be significantly altered thereafter. But holding down black wages to such low levels threatened the supply of unskilled labour which was attracted by higher wages and better conditions in manufacturing. However, the mining companies could not raise wages without jeopardising the life of marginal mines (which comprised half the industry) and hence the employment of many white miners. Thus influx control was tightened, indirectly compelling blacks to seek work on the mines or white farms. This still did not ensure an adequate supply of labour for the mines, which operated below capacity in the period 1924-30. Consequently, the mines with government backing recruited extensively from abroad so that by 1973 79 per cent of black miners were foreign contract workers. (Political developments since then in countries such as Mozambique have, however, disrupted this source of labour causing black wages to rise.)

By the 1960s a paradoxical development in the South African economy had become glaringly apparent: an acute and growing shortage of skilled labour alongside high black unemployment (even amongst the more educated blacks). An important factor behind this was the shift away from labour intensive farming and mining industries—the traditional pillars of the apartheid economy—towards the more capital intensive manufacturing industry. This in turn placed a growing strain on the colour bar. In 1945 the market value of mining companies was R972m while that of non-mining companies was R754m. By 1965 the positions had been reversed, with the former rising to R3664m and the latter R5399m. Ironically, the government played a vital part in this trend by encouraging the growth of a local manufacturing industry during the war by means of protectionist measures and by setting up various state corporations such as ISCOR (iron and steel) VECOR (heavy engineering goods) and SASOL (oil gas and chemicals from coal). Indeed the development of the mining industry itself was a powerful stimulus for manufacturing.

Growing concern over the economic bottleneck which the shortage of skilled labour had created has led the government’s own Manpower Commission to state recently that “South Africa will not be able to realise its full developmental potential if it persists in attempting to secure its high level manpower requirements mainly from the white population group”. [4] Political reform had become economically imperative.

The government’s response at first was one of greater, if cautious, flexibility: 

   Inevitably non-whites unofficially—job reservation and colour bar regardless—infiltrated traditional white spheres of employment: coloured postmen, Indian railwaymen, African drivers on non-white buses, non-white clerks and typists. Especially were non-whites more and more to be found doing skilled and semi-skilled industrial work, generally at wages well below the white minimum. “There is no doubt”, commented the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, “that employers in general are keen to develop the skills of Bantu workers”. [1] 

By 1965 the Deputy Minster of Labour reported that 39 per cent of the economically active Africans were operatives or semi-skilled workers.

Yet still the shortage of skilled labour persisted. Accordingly, the government itself has moved from passively condoning breaches of the colour bar to actively lifting restrictions on the employment of black labour. The Muldergate Scandal of 1977 brought to power a new prime minister, and marked a shift in the balance of power from the verkrampte (conservative) to the verligte (liberal) wing of the ruling National Party and prepared the ground for further liberalisation. By late 1980 Fanie Botha, Minister of Labour, proposed new legislation allowing more skilled job training to be opened to blacks. But despite the evidence of job reservation rapidly crumbling round the edges, there remain big obstacles in the path of this trend that arc essentially a heritage of history.

The first of these is the remarkable resilience of the traditional hostility of whites towards black encroachment of what are regarded as white spheres of employment:

    although the statutory colour bar has been formally scrapped, nine out of ten times it is imposed by closed shop and apprenticeship agreements with white unions and these are still in force. The white unions have been staunch defenders of apartheid, using their muscle to preserve white supremacy and to block the advancement of Africans. [5] 

Nowhere can this be seen more vividly than in the mining industry, described by Freda Troup as the “inner sanctuary of the colour bar”. Recently the Mineworkers Union threatened industrial action if the government permitted blasting certificates to be issued to blacks. This, together with the threat of more whites defecting to the ultra right-wing Herstigte Nationale Party, which made spectacular progress in the 1981 elections, has forced the government to act more cautiously.

Another obstacle to the disintegration of the colour bar is black education. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 which brought all Bantu education under the control of central government, was defended by Verwoerd on the grounds that the mission schools through which many blacks received their education were unsympathetic to the government’s policies and that:

    By blindly producing pupils trained on a European model the vain hope was created among natives that they could occupy posts within the European community. This is what is meant by the creation of unhealthy ‘white collar ideals’ and the causation of frustration among the so called Educated Natives . . . There is no place for the Bantu in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour. [1] 

This discriminatory view of black education was reflected in the allocation of funds. In 1969-70 Bantu education received a mere R39m—a tenth of that spent on far fewer white pupils. Illiteracy is still high and the poor quality of education received by blacks in overcrowded schools lacking in facilities leaves many ill-equipped for work. According to a recent estimate, well over 100,000 jobs are unfilled because the necessary trained workers are not available.

In 1979 and 1980 spending on black education and training rose by 30 and 50 per cent respectively. Such large increases were made possible by the rocketing price of gold, which in the period 1970-80 meant a huge inflow of R3.9 billion into the government coffers. Although the price of gold has since slumped, the ending of South Africa’s apparent seclusion from the world recession has not been seen as an entirely unwelcome development:

   Nationalist politicians are looking to a recession to ease the skilled labour shortage, to reduce the differential of black wages (with the politically sensitive erosion of white differentials) and to stem the flow of urbanisation. [4]

Finally, what will be the consequences of a crumbling colour bar? One area where it is having an effect is black trade unionism, which has become a force to be reckoned with since its resurgence in the 1973 Durban strikes. Increasingly, a high proportion of strikes are being won, partly due to more effective organisation but also because of the penetration of black workers into semi-skilled and skilled work:

  In companies whose black workers are more skilled, unions are often in a stronger position. Companies like Ford in Port Elizabeth and Volkswagen in Uitenhague found during strikes that the option of mass dismissal and quick replacement was not open to them because skilled workers are in such short supply and that “we would eventually have had to hire our own people back”, as one company spokesman said. [6]

More fundamentally, the demise of the colour bar will serve to clarify the class structure in South Africa and to undermine the racial bigotry that traditionally divides its workers. Then shall they begin truly to make history and not be imprisoned by it.

REFERENCES:

[1] South Africa: An Historical Introduction. F. Troup.

[2] A History of South Africa. De Kiewiet.

[3] Class and Colour in South Africa 1850-1950. H.J. & R.F.. Simons.

[4] The Economist. 19 September 1981.

[5] City Limits. 12-18 March.

[6] New Statesman, 15 January 1982.

Robin Cox

War and Why (The Cause and the Remedy). (1912)

From the July 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ethics or Pelf ?

“But what they killed each other for I could not quite make out” says Jasper in one of our school poems.

And some leading lights of the capitalist class have lately been investigating a similar problem by enquiring—or pretending to enquire—into the ill-feeling existing between England and Germany. In considering the “forces that make for Peace” Lord Weardale quotes from Mr. Norman Angell that “it is perhaps necessary to divert ourselves from those broad ethical principles which the champions of international peace have hitherto used, perhaps too specifically, as their main line of argument, and insist with greater emphasis on the economic considerations.” (Manchester Guardian, 10.6 12.)

Those “broad ethical principles,” however, seem to have been having a rather bad time of it. For instance, in the same journal for May 30th appears the following:

  It seems that Lord Haldane, a few weeks ago, approached the Rural Dean of Willesden with the request that he would ascertain what would be the opinion of his Rurideconal Chapter of an offer to appoint a Church of England chaplain, with certain pay and allowances, in return for each hundred men whom the Church could persuade to enlist. Apparently the offer was well received by the clergy, and the condensed report that I saw of the discussion does not reveal a single dissentient.

Surely the great regard for “economic considerations” shown here by the followers of the “Prince of Peace” should satisfy even Mr. Angell.

But the latter says that wars do not pay; that not even the winner gains by the fight! Against this Mr. T. Lough, M.P., says when describing the animosities between England and Germany:

   A further factor was soon added, in the shape of the interests of the capitalists engaged in the construction of warships and war material. Supported by immense financial resources, this particular branch of industry has taken to inciting international feelings of mistrust and hatred.
  Should international peace be established their orders would fall off and their dividends would disappear.

The Internationalism of Capital.

Mr. Lough, as a wealthy capitalist, should be a better authority than Mr. Angell as to what “pays” and when. A more general statement is made by Sir Alfred Mond in this discussion:

  In all countries the great world of commerce knows no national bounds and tolerates no interference with its labour by such limitations.

Exactly. White men or black, Chinese or Britisher, all are fish for the capitalist net, and as the wealthy Liberal says, “no interference” is tolerated that hampers the robbery of the workers, wherever they may happen to have been born.

“The relations between the captains of industry of all countries,” continues Mr. Mond, “are getting more friendly every day, and exhibit a growing mutual respect and inclination to cooperate on a labour-saving basis.” (Manchester Guardian, 10.6.12.) An awkward admission, this, for the stupid Anarchist who argues against the concentration of capital, and the revisionist of the I.L.P. and Fabian type, who tries to maintain that Marx’s analysis was in error.

Even more specific was Professor Ludwig Stein, who says we are to prepare “by means of a détente between England and Germany, an understanding between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente which would allow us Europeans to act as allies in the work of partition of our planet in the Far East, instead of destroying each other as enemies. There are at present such great things at stake that our little jealousies and political feuds must sink to a quantité négligeable in face of the necessity to assert and secure the Imperialism of our civilisation, the world dominion of our system of culture.”

Whose is “our civilisation,” “our system of culture”? Not the working-class’s for the spokesmen are all representatives of the employers—the capitalist class.

Tankee You for Noting.

And what a “civilisation” and “culture” is their’s! One where-in growing misery and insecurity of life for the working class accompanies increasing powers to produce wealth, increasing wealth produced. Paralysing paradox where one sees misery in the midst of plenty and want where wealth abounds. And this is to be extended to the Far East, for the workers there to enjoy. Should they resist then the “great world of commerce” will tolerate no “such limitations" but will batter down that resistance with the 13.5’s, the machine guns, and the magazine rifles.

Ignoramuses like Mr. Norman Angell will talk about putting aside “broad ethical principles”—as though they had ever been really concerned with these—and insisting upon “economic considerations” as though they had ever been absent or were not the fundamental cause of all modern wars.

To serve the economic interests of capitalism the war drum will be sounded by the “atheistic” Blatchford and the “religious” rural dean, while the capitalist class control power. The forces of war will be used to crush less—capitalistically—developed nations, or, if necessary, to wipe them out of existence.

But, after all, this is but the secondary use of the fighting forces. “The great world of commerce” will not only not “tolerate” any limitation by nationality; it will not tolerate any limitation by members of the same nation. Inside every nation is a far more important division than that separating nation from nation.

The Class Line.

The division between the wealth producers—the working class—and the wealth-owners—the capitalist class, is one concerning the very means of life themselves. True, the working class have failed to understand this yet. But their strikes and struggles over the question of living tends to show them more clearly every day how they are dominated in society.

In the Transport Workers’ Strike Committee’s first manifesto protest was made against the use of soldiers and policemen to accommodate the employers. The Daily News for June 15th states that two hundred seamen and firemen belonging to the French Navy were going to man the Atlantic liner “Provence” in place of the men on strike. Sir George White used the military to unship coal at Gibraltar when the men went out on strike shortly after the South African War.

This is the fact that explains the utter farce and failure of all the “Peace Conferences” and “Disarmament” movements. The real and primary use of the war forces is to keep the workers a slave class to the employers, to drive strikers back to work, to shoot them down when sacred “property” is in danger, and even to run the services should the capitalists decide it to be necessary.

This force is placed under the control of the capitalist class by the working class voting them into possession of political power. The very men on strike to-day in the docks cheer the local capitalist representative, Sir John Bethell, although he is a member of the party in power.

They are backed up in this suicidal stupidity by their “leaders” and the parties they belong to. Tillett and the B.S.P., Gosling and the Labour Party, all act as powerful allies of the capitalist class by encouraging and advising their poor dupes to place political power, with all its accompanying command of the forces of repression and blacklegism, in the hands of the masters.

What must be Done.

The Socialist on the other hand, points out and explains the war existing in society—the class war—wherever capitalism has taken root; he shows how the workers place this terrible power in the grasp of their most bitter and pitiless enemies, and draws the only conclusion open to intelligent men—that is that the workers must conquer political power for themselves, and so wrench from their oppressors once and forever that weapon which is turned against them, no matter whether Liberals or Tories are in power, whenever they seek to obtain better conditions. Only then be will the cause of wars—class and market—be abolished. Only then will the worker enjoy what he produces, and have comfort, luxury and happiness at his service.

Jack Fitzgerald

Syndicalist Foolery. (1913)

From the July 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

A perusal of the March April issue of the “Syndicalist" gives one the impression that the I.S.E.L. have only one member in whom they can place confidence as a speaker. Seven lectures are reported, and one Bowman would have “scooped the pool" had not his indisposition allowed a lesser light a look in. The following extracts from these reports show that Mr. Bow-wow-man is confident that he has only to repeat his stock phrases a sufficient number of times to prove them. At Worthing, for instance, he “began by emphasising the futility of Parliamentary action."

When we are told that “Syndicalists always like to take the line of least resistance, even when it leads to no where" (vide “Syndicalist"), we can but admire the way in which the lecturer sticks to this policy, by emphasising rather than giving proof.

At Bromley Mr. Bowman’s remarks regarding sabotage, the report tells us, “caused great amusement.” At Clapham, where he excelled himself, he “was there to show them how those that produced the wealth of the country should own it, not to put before them a remedy for social ills." I do not need to comment.

The only attempt to give any reason why Parliamentary action will fail to emancipate the workers is the statement that “the sending of men to a middle class environment [House of Commons] will so put them out of contact with the workers as to cause them not to represent the workers at all’’! Beautiful, isn’t it? And yet all these lectures have been given in the rooms of, and under the auspices of, the I.L.P., B S.P., and Trades and Labour councils.

“Much of the dissention among the Socialists," the “Syndicalist" says, “is due to members of the capitalist class being admitted to their ranks." But according to the Constitution recently agreed upon by the I.S.E.L, they will admit any who accepts the Object, Preamble, and Constitution of the muddled medley, “no matter what view may be held by that person regarding polities." We should be the last to urge them against such suicidal tendencies.

Here is a sample of unrestrained drivel emanating from that pillar of Syndicalism, Mr. D. Armstrong, to wit: “The Social-Democrats, including the S.P.G.B, are not revolutionary. They want to retain government. Their path leads to State ownership." Our critic is not the only person who has been guilty of criticising us from a public platform before being able to distinguish between the S.P.G.B. and the Fabian Society. However, our Manifesto is well worth a penny to those possessed of the necessary intelligence to digest its contents.

To sum up the case for the Direct Actionist, it appears that the working class cannot effect their emancipation by capturing the political machine and the forces under its control, because that happens to be the very instrument which alone keeps them in subjection. And they tell us also that politics is the masters’ game.

But surely no reasonable person would train the proletarians to fight at the barricades when a single warship in the Thames could easily account for, not only the barricades, but the whole of London

Nevertheless, there may be something to be said for the suggestion that, in the event of the fight going against them, the workers, as a last resort, would take up their positions at the windows of the mills and factories, and, in concord, with one great voice as it were, sing the “Internationale," to see what effect it would have on the soldiers.

This would, indeed, be taking the line of least resistance, and leading to nowhere into the bargain; for, of course, lest the soldiers failed to perceive how sternly and correctly revolutionary was their attitude, they would perform this heroic operatic feat with folded arms.

The present writer, however, who has read something of the history of the bloody annihilation of the Communards of Paris by the master class in 1871, and is well aware that the butchery waxed moat furious when the workers’ weapons were laid down, and their arms folded, takes the liberty of doubting the efficacy of this method of stemming the tide of working-class misfortune if the fight should go against them.

He would very much rather, before he permitted the "revolutionary spirit" to lead him into any such enterprise, feel this—his class had control of the army through Parliament.

B.

The Only Reply. (1914)

From the July 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many years political quacks and others have been energetically demanding greater efficiency from the workers. The Socialist Party have repeatedly pointed out that the same results follow greater efficiency that inevitably follow the introduction of labour-saving machinery and more up-to date methods.

A moment's thought should convince any sane person. If nine hundred men increase their efficiency to that extent that they can do the work previously performed by one thousand, then one hundred become unemployed. Extend this higher efficiency over the whole of the working class and the number of unemployed increases enormously. The figures used are suppositious, but it is questionable whether the increased efficiency, say of the last twenty years, has not had a far greater effect. Speeding up has become common in every occupation, and unemployment increases in spite of the much-boomed trade prosperity. The theory is proved by practise and experience.

All that politicians and economists do is to reiterate their unsubstantiated assertion that it is a remedy for poverty. They seldom attempt a reply to what most of them know to be the truth. Occasionally, however, a literary desperado with more courage than wisdom, breaks a lance on the solid rock, and as the splinters fly, the poverty and weakness cf capitalist argument are exposed.

Neither is it necessary for the Socialist to rake over the garbage of the gutter Press, or hastily published daily papers.

“The Spectator,” classic defender of the faith, champion, par excellence, of a rotting and useless class— enters the lists against the Socialist indictment.

“The Spectator” has found “the only way." “The Spectator" refers to “the absurd superstition that the increased efficiency of one work man means less employment for another."

“The Spectator,’’ June 6th, 1914, says “A fallacy which can only be answered, as we have answered it many times before, by pointing out that if this proposition were true, it would follow that the best way of making work for everybody would be for nobody to do any work at all."

Deep, profound, almost omniscient must be the wisdom of “The Spectator." Let us try it. 

F. Foan

'Nuff said. (1915)

From the July 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Standard is a high explosive. It shatters error and superstition. 'Nuff said.

"Prols" and Plutocrats (1958)

A Short Story from the August 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

"They toil not neither do they spin,Yet Solomon in all his glory Was not arrayed like one of these.” 

Sir Brian Bagalot was one of the select minority whose possessions enabled him to enjoy most of what this world has to give. He had a town and country residence both sumptuously equipped and staffed, a villa on the French Riviera, an odd farm or two whose stock were prized in agricultural circles, and a cruising yacht which he found handy when land-bound pleasures became boring. Lest it may be thought that- his whole time was spent in gay abandonment, we must add that he was chairman of 10 industrial concerns as well as sitting on the board of directorship of 15 others.

He was, in fact, typical of the strong: “terror when roused” English business men to whom society doffs its cap.

Despite this, he was a sporty, trusting kind of chap and not above discussing the prospects of the vegetable crop with his head gardener or the racing news with the butler. In fact, though he did not give it much conscious thought he had great trust in everyone—from his immediate subordinates to that vast army of men and women employed in his Industrial Empire—an army which stretched far into the vague shadow-world that lay beyond his own comfortable, sunny highway.

He shared his joys and woes with his wife, Lady Bagalot who apart from fulfilling a biological function in his life, served as a kind of walking advertisement of the Bagalot Enterprises. It was precisely because Sir Brian had recently added another “bauble” to the already well embellished Lady Bagalot. in the shape of a diamond tiara, that our second character enters the hall.

Joe was most unlike Sir Brian; quite commonplace; belonging to what has been called "the Great Unwashed” and many other things. i.e., he was one who possessed nothing that Sir Brian and his friends wanted, except his labour power. Joe belonged to the working class indeed, though he did not “slave” to run the affairs of 25 industrial concerns. He knew little about prize live stock, or yachts, and could see nothing in bridge. Obviously NOT the typical, time-honoured, tenacious Englishman who “bestrides the narrow world like a Colossus” that one reads about in novels. Whilst Sir Brian had expanded himself on the playing fields at Eton, Joe had experienced the mental and physical cramp peculiar to a large Council School, where some poor cuss of a teacher had struggled to fit him out as a decent, law-abiding citizen. Whilst Sir Brian had absorbed the “nobling influence” of the broad green acres of his estates and the exhilaration of a "true Britisher” as he stood yachting cap at an angle, on the bridge of his cruiser, Joe, when he looked around his colourless, lustreless environment, felt as inspired as a bulldog forced to eat a bowl of lettuce.

So he changed it—or he thought he would. He scrapped the “Honesty is the best policy, God's in his heaven, all’s well with the world” philosophy taught him at school, and decided that Society and he were henceforth enemies.. From now on it was Joe first, and all the time. He had, you see, acquired a kind of queer sense of justice that is, alas, all too common among the world’s poor. He believed that be could rectify and otherwise improve his status through his own efforts—a kind of “one man concern.” He obviously hadn’t studied Sir Brian’s life history, otherwise he would have known that “real" wealth, can, and is, only created by the combined effort of many. Still, Joe was not so much concerned with making rather than taking. To use his own phrase, he was engaged in the business of “Redistribution of Wealth” by the simple means of breaking and entering.

His successes were many and not without their measure of excitement. Joe was indeed enjoying a more varied and eventful life as an “anti-social” member of society than ever he did during his law-abiding days. Just as Sir Brian felt akin to Lord Nelson when cruising, or an affinity with John Peel and his company of country squires when riding to hounds over the Bagalot Estate, so Joe felt himself a kind of Dick Turpin or Robin Hood both of whom are thought of as heroes to members of the working class whose education has been that where-in-history and romance are confused.

Joe’s end came; sudden and dramatic. He was caught in the act of burgling Lady Bagalot's “blazers” (including the diamond tiara)). After the Law had worked on him, supported by 12 moral jurymen, he was "sent down” for a long time and ceased to count as a member of society at all. Joe may have had the best of motives for his activities, but unfortunately his methods were wrong.

This ends our little story, but perhaps we could wrap it up in a moral.

The “Joe’s” can be multiplied in their millions; workers who congratulate themselves on "getting away” with odd bits and pieces—a minute quantity of the world’s wealth—usually just about enough to keep them “ticking" till such time as they are “sent down” (with the aid of a shovel) and are no longer a part of living society. Many have in various ways, attempted to balance the one-sidedness of wealth-ownership, by the wrong method. They still continue to think in terms of “getting a bit more ” without realising the possibilities of getting the lot.

The job must be done properly; not by negative attitudes to existing laws, but by a positive move to create our own law. We can only do this by "thinking big"; having big ideas."

As for Joe:—

“The Law doth punish Man or Woman
Who steals the goose from off the Common
But turns the greater villain loose
Who steals the Common from the goose.”
                               [Old Peasant Rhyme, 14th Century.] 

And so whilst Joe was “put away" Sir Brian embarked on—yet another of his sea cruises.

W. Brain