News in Review: In the swim (1966)

The News in Review from the September 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the swim

Quintin Hogg once tried to help his claims to the leadership of the Tory Party by taking a publicity-seeking dip in the autumn sea at Blackpool.

Chairman Mao Tse-Tung’s swim in the Yangste River last month was also a publicity-conscious event, designed to prove, after some rumours of his bad health, that he is still in charge of the Chinese government.

And in case there were any doubts left after the swim, it coincided with another purge among high-up Chinese military and government circles.

The Chinese people were reported to be overjoyed at Mao’s swim, presumably they were also supposed to be glad about what they were allowed to hear of the purge, and to regard it as another protective act by their almighty, all-seeing, all good leader.

But, as Quintin Hogg showed in the gentler atmosphere of England, capitalist politics is a ruthless business. The same is true in China; at any level, capitalism is a hard world to survive in and where the stakes are high the struggle for survival is particularly desperate.

That is why capitalist politicians are such a cold, pitiless lot; why they can give an effortless display of public affection for a hated rival; or deny that they intend to do something which they are actually about to do; or try to attract attention by indulging in public comedy acts.

What is especially irritating about Mao’s swim, and the latest Chinese purge, is that in some quarters they are said to have something to do with Socialism when, in fact, they are part of the same old power struggle which goes on in every capitalist state.

The rules, such as they are, of this struggle are simple.

Every man for himself.

Sink or swim.

World cup willies

Somewhere in its distant past, football was known as a sport.

Even today the hack journalists, when it suits them, describe it in the same way.

They applauded the “sporting” gesture of the Portuguese player who congratulated Bobby Charlton on scoring one of the goals which knocked Portugal out of the World Cup.

They screamed blue murder at the “unsporting” play of men like the Argentinian Rattin and the Russian Chislenko.

Every now and again, though, these same journalists revealed something of what lay behind it all.

The Portuguese team would have received £500 a man if they had beaten England in the semi-final, as well as all sorts of bonuses.

The England World Cup squad—22 men—shared £22,000 for winning the Cup and apart from this there were the payments for playing in each round, bonuses for winning, the higher wages each player will now command from his club, the fees they can get by certifying that they wear particular makes of kit, use a certain hair cream, or do something else with some other commodity.

When we consider what fortunes, for the players, may have depended on a single foul, the behaviour of some of them appears to be not so much “sporting” as businesslike.

Because football is a business. The big wages reflect the fact that famous and skilful players can bring big money to a club. The World Cup contest brought a lot of money to the tourist industry in this country—and to the FA, which had the copyright on the World Cup Willie emblem which appeared on rosettes, plastic hats and bottles of beer.

Not, in other words, so much a sport —more a way of making money.

New Mr. Stop-Go

Some people were surprised by it. Others were shocked. Others amused.

In the latest financial panic of British capitalism, Harold Wilson applied measures which were a more extreme version of what Selwyn Lloyd, who was once Wilson’s favourite chopping-block, tried when he was Chancellor.

Thus Mr. Dynamic Expansion became the new Mr. Stop-Go.

But the surprising, shocking, amusing thing is that anyone should think it remarkable that a capitalist politician goes back on his word.

It is nothing new for a government to come to power pledged to reverse its predecessor’s policies—and to end up following those very policies through.

Indeed, any political party which has any chance of forming a government usually says at some time that it reserves the right to break its promises, if it judges the situation demands it.

This is what Labour meant when they proudly described themselves as a “pragmatic” government. Faced with a crisis in capitalism, they have reacted just as the Tories did.

It is too late now for Labour supporter to be indignant; they asked for this government and they have got it

But even Harold Wilson must come to an end sometime. The next General Election, when the Labour Party are once again claiming to be a Socialist organisation, will be the time for workers to remember that there is no difference in principle—and precious little in anything else—between the Labour and Conservative Parties.

It will also be a good time for them to consider the alternative to all the capitalist parties, to capitalism itself.

A Labourite confesses

You know Labour Government fails. You’ve seen their plans and promises smashed to pieces by the workings of capitalism. Now even Labour MP’s are beginning to see this. On July 26th Lena Jeger, MP for Holborn and St. Pancras South, did some heart-searching in her regular Guardian column.

George Bernard Shaw was once asked how long he thought it would take to get Socialism in working order. A fortnight, he replied. Writes Jeger:

   “Socialists must be either his ‘fortnighters’ or they become grave dullards, sifted and sobered into an army of underpinners, dedicated to making capitalism work, albeit slightly less brutally than is its nature . . .
  ‘‘Where have the economists got us? Under a Socialist Government one per cent of the people still owns 50 per cent of the wealth . . .
   “What sort of socialism is it that can coldly contemplate the deliberate creation of unemployment as a weapon of economic policy? If a Labour Government cannot make capitalism work without an army of unemployed, then perhaps it should start trying to make socialism work . . .
   “The Labour Party at the moment seems like a fly on a revolving wheel— it gets an experience of movement without controlling movement, a sensation of power without the motivating power . . .
  “Maybe the Labour Party needs a fortnight club, a brigade of ‘do-it-quick'. What have we gained slow respect for entrenched positions? Only, it seems, a prospect of unemployment, a vista of despair. Except for those well-off enough to escape. And what has that to do with socialism?”

What indeed! But what a confession of failure! After all Labour’s claim to be able to humanise capitalism was the fig leaf that hid its support for a brutal system. If Labour cannot make capitalism work “slightly less brutally than is its nature”, then it’s nothing.

Mind you, the Socialist Party of Great Britain never believed it could. We have said all along that capitalism can’t be made to serve rational, human ends.

Now a Labour MP all but admits our point. Remember her words next time her type come cadging for your vote. Labour—and all the other would-be reformers of capitalism—are and can only be flies on the revolving wheel of capitalism.

Another View (1967)

From the September 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

We wrote to three opponents of Marxism, asking them to contribute their criticism to this centenary issue. Mr. Raymond V. McNally, a regular correspondent to the "Financial Times", sent me a letter which we publish, with our comments, and we are grateful to him for doing so. The Economic League thanked us for our letter but said: "We do not wish to avail ourselves of the offer made therein". Enoch Powell, M.P., wrote: "I confess I cannot recollect having written or stated my views on Marx anywhere, and I do not feel competent to do so."

Dear Sir,

It seems fitting for the centenary of the publication of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital to be commemorated by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, for it was in this country that Marx did the bulk of his research and writing.

Since first studying this monumental work over 30 years ago, my continuing interest in it has stemmed chiefly from the impact it has had on the quality of modern thought. In Britain alone, the activities and attitudes of the trade unions, and the increasing intervention of government in economic and social life unmistakably bear the stamp of Marxist influence, which therefore, must bear considerable responsibility for the steady decline in this country’s economic and political power during the last 50 years.

Although Das Kapital reveals occasional flashes of real insight, unfortunately it never succeeds in putting them together in one integrated whole. As a result, it never arrives at a true understanding of the nature and functioning of capitalism. Whether Marx would be pleased by what has transpired since his death in 1883 is a big question. Certainly what has replaced capitalism in Soviet Russia can scarcely be called a ‘higher’ social organism. Indeed, Marx was quite aware of what ‘makes production by slave labour such a costly process.’ Doubtless, if he were alive today, he would suffer some mental agony over the spectacle of Marxist Russia relying on capitalistic America to feed her starving people — a striking example of a country that combines industrialism and famine.

But Marx's work (even including Karl Kautsky’s three volumes entitled Theories of Surplus-value prepared from Marx's own notes) always struck me as a kind of ‘unfinished symphony.’ There is too big a gap between fact and theory. Factually (in his more objective moments) he has the capitalist-employer appear as a very busy and important person — initiating, financing, organising, employing and directing labour, keeping the books, seeking out markets, and buying and selling. In fact, he makes it quite clear that the worker left to his own devices would scarcely be any better off than he was in feudal times. Yet, theoretically, the capitalist appears to be a disembodied spirit, no longer the brains and spark-plug of the enterprise who makes such a valuable contribution to the production of wealth. Instead, it is the lowly worker who creates all values, saves the capitalist from starvation by providing him with an ‘unearned’ income and gives him the means for accumulating capital, in the form of Surplus-value.

In vain one seeks an explanation from Marx for this vast disparity between fact and theory. For the truth is that he has become the victim of his own dialectics that leave no room for introducing realities into his various theories, even if he were so disposed. In borrowing the worst from the classical economists and leaving the best, and making manual labour the sole source of value, he cannot include the labour-power of the capitalist-employer in any category of values except as an expropriator. Thus, unlike the classical school, he is compelled, not only to oppose the intelligence and genius of the innovator, but even to deny their existence.

But since Marx knows that it is the results of this muscular exercise of labour-power and not the labour-power itself that is of value to the capitalist, he must now perform a semantic convulsion and turn the worker into a commodity. In this way he gives the labour-power a value based on ‘the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer,’ akin to the value of any commodity ’that lies hidden behind' its exchange-value. Thus, he has the capitalist pay wages for the worker’s subsistence (‘hidden’ value) and not for the results of the exercise of his labour-power.

These results, says Marx, the capitalist gets for nothing! This then is the sum and substance of the famous Surplus-value theory, the very core of his entire thesis. But instead of the worker being ‘tricked’ by the capitalist and the capitalist mode of production, it is the capitalist and society that have been tricked by Marx’s dialectics, thus earning him from an American economist in the nineteenth century the title of ‘Prince of Muddleheads.’

It seems tragic that in this ‘enlightened’ age, so much human energy is wasted squabbling over a mythical Surplus and striving with increasing futility to divide it up, while capitalism, buffeted on all sides by abuse, excessive taxation, government regulations and intransigent trade unions, tries to carry an ungrateful world on its weary shoulders. Such are the fruits of Marxism.

Yet a final word. In one of his more lucid moments, Marx seemed to glimpse, as through a rift in the clouds, the true nature of capitalist production when he wrote that commodities ‘cannot go to market and make exchanges of their own account’ but ‘must, therefore, have recourse to their guardians, who are also their owners.’ Further, that these owners ‘whose will resides in these objects’ (italics mine) ‘must make the exchange by means of an act of mutual consent’ and ‘must, therefore, mutually recognise in each other the right of private proprietors (italics mine; Vol. I, Book I, Part I, Chap. II)’.

Here Marx seems to recognise that the value of any property ultimately lies in its private administration, that is, at the point of exchange, thus ensuring its equitable, civilised distribution. By contrast — since it takes two to make an exchange — the so-called common ownership and administration of property can distribute wealth, not fairly on the basis of values freely arrived at, but only arbitrarily and erratically by a sort of tribal technique.

Yours faithfully,

Raymond V. McNally

65 Eaton Square,

London, S.W.1.

Reply: 

Mr. McNally seems to think that the surplus over and above what people get as wages and salaries is “mythical’’. No doubt this is news to those who live off rent, interest and profit — a property income they receive even if they do no work. As far as we know, the only way in which wealth can be produced is by work, by human beings applying their mental and physical energies to the materials found in nature. It follows therefore that non-work incomes like rent, interest and profit can only come out of the wealth produced by those who do work.

Nor did Marx say that manual work was the only work that counted. A little thought will show that it doesn’t make sense to separate so-called brain and so-called manual work; both are necessary for any work.

‘Marxist’ Russia is, of course, just a myth.

Editorial Committee.

Secret history of secrecy (1996)

Book Review from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lobster special issue The Clandestine Caucus by Robin Ramsay £5.

This is an interesting and well-researched pamphlet into “anti-socialist campaigns and operations in the British Labour Movement since the war”. Having said this, the extent of the “anti-socialist” campaigns referred to is minimal, as what Ramsay is primarily concerned with are the manoeuvres of US and British capital against the left-wing of the Labour Party and the misnamed Communist Party of Great Britain. He claims that “the history of Britain’s union and labour movement is one of continuous conflict between socialist and anti-socialist wings”. But what is generally meant by this is the conflict between open supporters of the interests of the British capitalist class (from Bevin to Blair) and those who fancy themselves as a new ruling elite presiding over a system of state-run capitalism (the various radical poseurs and Leninists who make up the British Left).

The accounts of the involvement of the British and US security services in the British trade union movement are fascinating and Ramsay lifts the lid on a whole range of techniques used to shackle genuine trade union militancy and democracy, detailing the organisations set up by British and US capital with the aim of combating working-class self-activity. The ways in which the capitalist class manoeuvres on both a national and international level to ensure its political and economic hegemony is a difficult subject to approach given the highly secretive nature of many of its organisations, but Ramsay does a good job without ever giving in to the temptations posed by far-flung conspiracy theories. It is possible to develop an educated guess at the agendas of clandestine bourgeois outfits like the Bilderberg Group and the Pinay Circle, but Ramsay is more concerned with hard facts than speculation—and the evidence he uncovers is worrying enough.

There is a small slip on page 16, where one trade union militant is described as being “an active and anti-Stalinist member of the Socialist Party of Great Britain”. This could well be taken to mean that there could be such a thing asa Stalinist member of the Socialist Party, which—given our opposition to vanguard politics and dictatorship in all its forms—is of course ridiculous.

Dave Perrin

Real socialist journalism (1996)

Book Review from the October 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Journalism, Contributions to Commonweal 1885-1890 by William Morris (Thoemmes. £18.75.)

As is now well known William Morris was a socialist. From 1885-1890 he spoke at indoor and outdoor meetings throughout Britain for the Socialist League. He was also the editor of the League's official journal Commonweal. In this capacity, he not only contributed regular articles but also wrote a weekly column commenting on current events from a socialist point of view. Until now these comments have only been available to those with access to the bound volumes of Commonweal. His articles have already been published separately in a companion volume.

What makes these comments particularly interesting is that they reflect the basic position of the Socialist League, shared by Morris, that as capitalism could not be reformed to benefit the working class socialists should not waste their time campaigning either for reforms or to get people elected to parliament to press for them; they should rather concentrate exclusively on campaigning for socialism, with a view to building up a majority movement for it as rapidly as possible.

Morris’s name has often been hi-jacked by Labour MPs but in fact he was opposed to the whole idea of a parliamentary Labour Party. He thought that such a party would have to resort to unprincipled vote-catching to get into parliament and that once there it wouldn’t be able to do much for the workers and could end up helping the governing classes to govern.

Someone writing from this perspective is bound to throw a different light on the politics of the period 1885-1890 than can be found both in conventional history books and in the works of “Labour historians". It is this that makes this 670-page collection of short articles so fascinating.

The issue which dominated politics for most of this period was the Irish Question. When it opened Gladstone was the Prime Minister but he was twice defeated when he tried to get a Bill giving Home Rule to Ireland through Parliament. His Liberal Party in fact split over the issue with a section going over to the Tories.

The Tories and their Liberal Unionists allies won the July 1886 General Election. Lord Salisbury took over as Prime Minister. The new government which had already "played the Orange card’’ to get elected, proceeded to pursue a policy of "coercion” (the official word for it) in Ireland.

As a socialist Morris was naturally on the side of the exploited (in this case the Irish peasantry) against their exploiters and oppressors (the Anglo-Irish landlords and their protectors, the British government), but that did not mean that he supported the Irish Nationalists. Far from it.

Morris realised that the Irish Nationalists represented Irish capitalism and that, if successful, they would merely impose a "new tyranny" on the peasantry by turning them into "a fresh Irish proletariat to be robbed for the benefit of national capitalists''.

Morris was not opposed to “home rule" as such since the term could be used to describe the high degree of decentralised decision-making and self-administration that people living in a particular area would enjoy in socialism. Home Rule under capitalism, however, he regarded as something quite different; it would merely be a change of masters; "Undoubtedly when there is a parliament in Dublin the struggle of the Irish people for freedom will have to be begun again".

In his view, the most that could be said for it was that it would provide a framework within which the oppressed people in Ireland could come to see more quickly that the real conflict was not between “the Irish" and "the English” but between workers (of whatever nationality) and capitalists (of whatever nationality). It was for this reason (which turned out to be wrong) that Morris and the Socialist League were nevertheless prepared to go along with the proposal for Home Rule for Ireland.

Morris writes here on much else besides Ireland and the manoeuvrings at Westminster in connection with it. This was the period of the first demonstrations of the unemployed in Trafalgar Square, the fight to hold outdoor meetings without being obstructed by the police, the declaration "that we are all Socialists now" (by the Liberal politician. Sir William Harcourt, in August 1887), the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago, the Bryant & May matchgirls strike, the strike for the dockers’ tanner, and Jack the Ripper.

Morris comments on all of these as well as on trade unionism, the co-operative movement, Henry George's Single Tax panacea, women's rights ("As long as men are slaves, woman can be no better. Let the women's rights societies adopt that last sentence as a motto—and act on it"), war ("the interests of the workmen are the same in all countries and they can never really be enemies of each other"), vegetarianism (he wasn’t one of course, being more into medieval banquets). Sunday closing (he wasn’t a teetotaller either and was all for workers being able to drink on Sundays as long as it was real ale and not the slop that was all they could normally afford), and prisons (which he repeatedly denounces as barbaric places of torture).

Morris wrote as a Socialist in the SPGB tradition. Those who might be inclined to doubt our claim here should read the book. They will find that no other conclusion is possible. 

Adam Buick

Food to rot while people starve (1969)

Editorial from the September 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s about to happen yet again. They’re going to let food rot while millions go hungry. At the beginning of August representatives from the five major wheat exporting countries (America, Canada, Australia, France, and Argentina) met in London to discuss the so-called wheat crisis. It was just over a year since their International Grains Agreement carved up the world wheat market between them. This carve-up, which was supposed to apply for three years, is in danger of breaking down because of what is callously called a "world surplus supply situation in wheat”. By which is meant, not that there is more wheat than people need, but more wheat than can be sold profitably. This arose partly because of two bumper harvests on the run and partly because Russia, China, India, and Pakistan have cut down on their imports.

Press reports sum up the situation. America, according to The Times (July 28)

  will have a larger supply of wheat available this season in spite of a forecast of a 9 per cent drop in new production this year. Over 810.6m. bushels of old crop wheat was left when the season ended on June 30; this reflects a sharp fall in sales, particularly in the export market.

Canada, too, is in trouble:

  She started the crop year with an unsold inventory of some 665m. bushels which is more than the entire crop harvested in 1968. It Is estimated that at the end of the crop year today she will have more than one thousand million bushels of unsold wheat on her hands (The Times, August 1).

But it is from Australia that the most amazing proof of the absurdity of capitalist production for profit comes:

  The Government estimates that more than 150m. bushels of wheat will have to be left on the farms when the present crop is harvested. It has been told by wheat farmers that unless it provides thousands of pounds in extra subsidies to pay for special storage the grain will either rot or be ravaged by vermin (The Times, July 17).

One Minister has already blamed the farmers for growing far too much! The wheat will probably rot because the warehouses are already filled with last year’s unsold stocks. Besides, the law says the surplus above the farmers’ quota cannot be sold.

Trade war

The International Grains Agreement laid down minimum prices, but with things as they are these have been under pressure. America, accusing France and Australia of getting round the agreement, announced that it was openly reducing some of its prices below the agreed level. Canada followed suit and France (through the Common Market) has retaliated by subsidising wheat exports. The prospect of a trade war in wheat while millions starve is on the cards.

But it is not the hungry millions that worried The Times. They were more concerned about the effects such a price war might have on international monetary arrangements. Something must be done, declared an editorial in their business section on July 31; wheat production must be curtailed:

  It has to be accepted by everyone that an outright price war will not expand the volume of wheat trade. Misunderstandings between nations of each other’s policies have to be removed and limitations will need to be agreed on future production. There is evidence that the wheat producers have been misled into over-producing by the buoyant markets of a few years ago. Some of this may be due to technical progress in obtaining bigger yields from the same acreages. But the long-term factors which led to a doubling of the world’s wheat trade in the past 15 years have spent their force.

The attitude of the Financial Times was even more outrageous. After stating that “a solution of the crisis except by natural disaster seems a long way off”, their agricultural correspondent, ignoring the fact that up to half the world’s present population could do with more food, concluded:

  Until world population rises sufficiently to increase the demand for wheal, land will have to be put to other use or lie fallow, perhaps for many years (August 6).

Production will of course be curtailed. The US Department of Agriculture is already predicting a drop in world wheat production:

  It estimated total wheat production in the major exporting countries of Australia, Argentina, Canada, France and the US would be down by about 7 per cent cent from last year’s 3,500m. bushels . . . The Department noted that stocks in major exporting countries continued to increase. A rise of around 620m. bushels during the 1968-69 season to an estimated 2,000m. had caused ‘some countries’ to review their policies on wheat production, it said. (Financial Times, July 30).

Within capitalism, where production is geared to the market rather than to human needs, this is the obvious answer. Farmers will not grow wheat they know they can only sell at unprofitable prices, if at all. Production must be cut down for a while so that some of the huge stocks piling up in the warehouses can be cleared, thus making wheat-growing profitable again. Of course this will only be temporary. In a few years time, there will probably be another so-called wheat glut and the whole sordid business of irate farmers, worried Ministers, price wars, rotting food, and hungry people will be repeated. It is just part of the way capitalism normally works, a striking proof that capitalism is inherently incapable of operating in a rational way so as to serve human needs.

This is why under capitalism giving away the alleged surpluses to people who need food is no solution. This would in fact make matters worse by further disrupting the world wheat market and lengthening the time it takes to recover. Besides, it is less expensive to let the food rot than ship it to where it is needed. The logic of capitalism (which puts profit before human need) points rather to absurd measures like the American policy of paying farmers not to grow food or its Australian alternative of letting the food they have grown rot on their farms. If, in a world where half the population go to bed hungry, these measures seem inhuman, that is because capitalism is an inhuman, anti-social system.

Plenty for Everybody (1970)

Book Review from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Starvation or Plenty? by Colin Clark. Seeker & Warburg. 30s.

Colin Clark, the agricultural economist, is a controversial figure. He has been a fierce critic of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and what he regards as its exaggerations of the number of hungry and starving people in the world. He has always denied that overpopulation is, or is ever likely to be, a problem and has insisted that the world is quite capable of providing for many times its present population.

Clark has never disguised the fact that he is a Catholic and his critics have suggested that his aim is to justify his church’s opposition to birth control. It could be argued, on the other hand, that the Catholic dogma of “God will provide” brings a different approach to this question of food and population than the conventional capitalist dogma of solving the problem of plenty (in this case, plenty of people who could produce more food) by trying to abolish or prevent it (in this case, by birth control). We will merely record here Clark’s views and let people judge for themselves.

But first let us state our own view. We too say that population is not a problem and that Malthus was talking nonsense. The problem is rather the underproduction and waste that is built-in to capitalism through its profit motive (Clark, as a defender of free-enterprise capitalism, would disagree with us here). Only when the world’s resources are owned in common by all mankind can they be used rationally to provide abundance for all.

Clark estimates that the average consumption of people in North America and Western Europe is about 8 times the bare human subsistence level. How much land, he asks, would be needed to allow one person to live at the American level if the best agricultural techniques were applied? Only 2763 square metres or about two-thirds of an acre. Is there enough land in the world to allow the present world's population to live at this level?

  The potential agricultural area of the world . . . could provide for the consumption. at these very high standards, of 35.1 billion people, or over 10 times the world’s present population. This, it will be remembered, is on the assumption of the general use of agricultural methods already practised by the average farmer in the Netherlands or similar countries, without allowing for any further improvements in agricultural technology, for any provision of food from the sea, or for any extension of present systems of irrigation.

 

This. remember, is only a measure of what the world could provide if the most productive modern techniques were applied everywhere. To do this would take time and demand a massive technical and educational programme (of a kind only a rationally-organised socialist world could mount). But it does show that nobody need now starve and that overpopulation is just a myth.

And what about in the meantime? Even under capitalism (and Clark never steps outside the framework of this system), “for most of the world agricultural production is advancing substantially faster than population, and is likely to continue to do so”. He foresees that if this goes on and if agricultural productivity in the developing countries exceeds the demand there “there will be a most acute problem of disposal of agricultural surpluses in the export markets”. Clark blames the developed countries for hogging the world market in agricultural products and suggests they should give up part of this to the developing countries who could thus get the money to buy industrial products from them instead. Such a rational (from a capitalist point of view) re-arrangement of the anarchic world market is, we would suggest, most unlikely so that, if Clark is right here, capitalism will again expose on a more widespread scale than now its absurdity by producing food it cannot sell even though sonic people need it.

This short, easy-to-read book presents Clark’s views in handy form and should be read by all those interested in this question. It should challenge the prejudices of those who believe in the threat of overpopulation.

Adam Buick

Producing Plenty No Problem (1970)

Book Review from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Population and Food Supply, ed. by Sir Joseph Hutchinson. (Cambridge University Press. 30s.)

Famine in Retreat? by G. Bridger and M. de Sissons. (Dent. 45s.)

Producing enough food to feed the world’s growing population is not a problem in itself:

  We have the technology to get the rest of the world into the position of food surplus that the West has enjoyed in recent years (Hutchinson).
 
  Producing more food is not the greatest problem, from the scientific point of view . . .  A world that is capable of sending men to the moon can surely grow enough food to feed itself. We believe it is capable of producing that food (Bridger and de Sissons).

The problem of course is poverty. The hungry people of the world — there are perhaps some 350 million on the verge of starvation — simply do not have the money to buy the food they need and so do not constitute a profitable market. Food production is limited to what can be sold profitably, and its rate of expansion is governed by the rate of expansion of the market for food. Both books accept this system and discuss "the problem of financing output" or “trade as a means of moving surpluses to areas of shortage". Bridger and de Sissons even argue that the rate at which food production grows should be limited to 3 or 4 per cent a year since a higher rate, without productivity increases. could lead to "unsaleable surpluses". If you accept capitalism this may seem reasonable but once you realise that Socialism is possible it only exposes the fetter that production for sale is. Hutchinson reminds us of another of capitalism's absurdities :

  a balance between supply and demand means no more than that there is as much food on the market as can be purchased with the money available. It docs not mean that there is enough food to meet all human needs.

The only framework for a rational solution of this problem is production to meet human needs on the basis of the common ownership of the world’s resources. This means an end to finance and trade, and the problems they bring, and the institution of the planned distribution of food to where it is needed.

Oddly enough. Bridger and de Sissons do come near to discussing the socialist alternative when they say:

  If all we had to do to maintain the world’s population in food was to measure now much we needed, apply scientific discoveries and then grow the food required, we would have few food problems.

In a socialist world this essentially is all we would have to do. Certainly some of the problems — the technical (including the training of farmers in modern methods) not the financial ones — that they go on to discuss would be inherited, but they too could be solved within a society geared to serving human needs instead of profits.

Hutchinson's collection of lectures given in Cambridge in 1966 and 1967 is a little pessimistic, one contributor even comes near to arguing that only birth control is the solution. Famine in Retreat?, especially the first part, is the better book. It is easier to read and discusses the problems, even those exclusive to capitalism, in a simple and sensible way.

Adam Buick

Automation Under Capitalism (1970)

Pamphlet Review from the September 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

Automation and Technical Chance. T.U.C. 2s.

THE trades union congress published its first statement on automation in 1956. This was followed in 1965 by Automation and Technological Change, of which a revised edition has recently been published.

Within its limits it is a useful discussion of the problems and prospects of automation in its various shades of meaning and of other forms of technological change. It dismisses the wild assumptions that automation would quickly revolutionise workers’ lives under capitalism by providing abundance or alternatively by putting vast millions out of work.

It reaches the conclusion that the hitherto slow rate of introduction of automation is likely to quicken in coming years and increasingly affect clerical and managerial workers, not by reducing the total number of jobs but by destroying particular jobs and calling for new types of work and in this way causing great hardship to large numbers of workers forced to change their jobs, move to different areas and undergo new training, often late in life.

While generally favourable to technological change and emphasising the likelihood of higher wages in some industries it admits that conditions of work may be worsened by the introduction of more shift work and, in some fields, by Saturday and Sunday work, excessive overtime and by the replacement of men by women. It records that in offices it sometimes means an increase of tiring and boring jobs such as punch card work, with associated greater noise in the work rooms.

Its great defect is that it tacitly accepts the continuation of capitalism and assumes that the system is now capable of being planned and controlled on a “full employment” basis—the typical Labour Party attitude.

It tells us:

  Maintenance of full employment is chiefly the responsibility of the government. All political parties, the Confederation of British Industry and the TUC accept that this should be the case. There is agreement that the necessary techniques are available to sustain full employment, although not everybody agrees as to when and how they should be used, or whether full employment is a principal responsibility of government or merely one responsibility.

It also tells us that “a high level of employment has been maintained in the post-war period”, a claim that reads rather oddly in face of the fact that unemployment in the past two years has been running at levels which are a record for post-war years and that the TUC has just told the government that they must bring unemployment down to 400,000 by the end of this year.

The statement barely mentions foreign competition and ignores the fact that a decline of world markets which are outside the control of the government, the CBI and the TUC, could drastically increase the amount of unemployment and undermine the safeguards the TUC proposes.

The obligations placed on the TUC by the trade unions exclude consideration of the possibility that capitalism could be replaced by Socialism, with the consequent abolition of production for the market and the wages system. So nowhere does the statement even look at the completely different standards from which automation and technological change would be regarded in a socialist system of society, when for the first time the wellbeing of all would be the only consideration. 

Edgar Hardcastle

China: Next in Lin? (1972)

From the September 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recent comings and goings among British politicians are as nothing compared to the convulsions that have been taking place over the past year in the ruling class of China. An official statement made by the Chinese Embassy in Algiers (see the Times, July 29) has confirmed that Lin Piao, formerly the officially-designated successor to Mao Tse-tung, was killed in a plane crash last September while fleeing to Russia after an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Mao.

A “Communist’' from his young days, Lin Piao seemed to possess all the qualifications needed for the assumption of supreme power. He had taken part in the Long March of 1934-5, when the remnants of the Red Army marched eight thousand miles to a new base in the north-west. After the surrender of the Japanese, he was instrumental in defeating the Nationalists in Manchuria, thus paving the way for the Communist conquest of the entire country. Despite ill-health, Lin was in 1959 appointed Minister of National Defence; as spokesman for the army, he played a prominent role in the Cultural Revolution, when the Communist Party machinery was virtually destroyed. Indeed, with the disgrace of Liu Shao-ch’i, Lin became second in rank only to Mao Tse-tung: the high point of his power appears to have been marked by the draft of a new Constitution (which became available in Taiwan late in 1970), which declared Mao to be head of state and Lin Piao to be his successor.

This Constitution, however, was never adopted. From the later months of 1971, Lin’s name disappeared from public mention, and the Little Red Book of Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, to which he had contributed the foreword, slipped into the background. If the recent Chinese reports are reliable, Lin, perhaps disappointed and impatient on account of Chairman Mao's longevity, plotted, with his son as accomplice, to assassinate Mao. When the plot was discovered, Lin attempted to escape to Russia: whether the fatal air crash was an accident or not, remains uncertain.

There is no doubt that Lin’s death is part of a continuing struggle between the political and military bosses of China. As far back as 1938, Mao had written:

  Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party. (“Problems of War and Strategy”).

According to Victor Zorza, however (Sunday Times, July 30), the real point at issue is whether or not the Chinese economy shall emphasize agriculture or heavy industry. The Chinese press has been criticising the Lin Piao clique for wishing to spend too much on modern-style armaments, and Zorza believes that such newspaper statements constitute “a new attack on China’s military industrial complex. . . . Were such policies to be applied, the authoritative Peking party journal Red Flag says, the upshot would be that agriculture lagged behind, while industry ‘especially military industry, could develop abnormally’.” So for the time being at least, it seems, Chinese capitalism will aim to devote more resources to feeding its wage slaves than to expanding its industrial production.

And the lesson of all this for socialists — and indeed for all workers? Only that quarrels within the ruling class, wherever they occur, are of no concern to ordinary men and women. While the Maos and Lins of this world do their best to run things for their own benefit, the workers may be able (perhaps even in a dictatorship like China) to gain short-term advantages by playing off one faction of the ruling class against another. But they should never forget that their real interests lie not in supporting one or other set of rulers, but in establishing a world-wide democratic system of society, where there will be no ruling class and no oppression of man by man.

Paul Bennett

So They Say: Prime Minister of Mirth (1973)

The So They Say Column from the September 1973 issue of the Socialist Standard

Prime Minister of Mirth

William Hazlitt wrote that the cause of laughter was “the difference between what things are and what they ought to be”. In that case, capitalist politics should be uproarious and Ministers hardly able to speak through their merriment.

On 29th July the News of the World had a headline We’ve never had it so good — Heath. The report began:

  You’ve never had it so good. That was the message Mr. Heath gave the country yesterday as he told of soaring standards of living and new prosperity being created at a record rate.

And ended:

  About two million people with special needs, like the chronically sick and disabled, the very old, widows between 40 and 50 and low-wage families with children, were being helped for the first time.

This remarkable paradox is found in practically all policy statements by the governing parties. If they have provided prosperity, why must they keep legislating for poverty? Heath’s audience must have rolled in the aisles as he said, in effect: Your ailment has been cured by us and, what is more, we are going to treat it. On 1st August the Evening Standard reported that the Inner London Education Authority provides 69,000 free meals to “children from poor homes”. Surely that should read “children from prosperous homes” if we are to keep to the spirit of the thing?


There it is. Gone

The chancellor of the Exchequer must be in fits, too. On 28th July The Guardian reported Barber still pledges growth. He said :

  To secure rising prosperity for the British people we have to sustain an expanding economy.

A week later, on 4th August, The Guardian summarized and quoted a report by the House of Commons Expenditure Committee:

  In other words hardly any of the direct benefits of economic growth over the next year are likely to go to the ordinary person. If the committee is right — and it has the guidance of Wynne Godley, a distinguished former Treasury forecaster — this could make the enforcement of Stage Three very much harder.

The Arabian Nights has an apt phrase for hilarity: “They laughed so much they fell over on their bottoms.” That is probably what will happen to Mr. Barber.


Help for the Aged

However, the financial page of The Guardian on 28th July showed that some of “the very old” with “special needs” are to get a share of “rising prosperity”. An article called “The Sharp edge of Taxation” invited sympathy for company directors:

  In spite of the popular, puritan prejudice, the directors and executives of any company enjoy very few tax concessions of any kind . . . Entertainment is no longer deductible, unless you are fattening up foreigners for an export killing.

The Government has come to the aid of these tragic figures:

  To end on a happier note: until now, the Inland Revenue would not approve any pension scheme for controlling directors. These are directors receiving more than 5 per cent of the shares of a company which is controlled by its directors . . . However, the current Finance Bill will largely lift this qualification so that most controlling directors will be better placed than sole traders or partners who have to provide for their retirement out of their own pocket.

Treasure on Earth

One road to prosperity has always been religion. Not for the simple believers, but for the promoters. If church collection plates are not laden these days, there is still plenty of money made through Christianity. Robert Stigwood Ltd., the company which owns the rights of the Jesus Christ Superstar musical, have announced a pre-tax profit of £1,250,000 for last year and expect this year to be better still. An interim dividend of 5.5 per cent. (7.5 per cent. gross) has been declared.

There is no addendum to remind shareholders that all this may make it hard for them to get into the kingdom of Heaven.


Sweet William

The Sunday People on 29th July reported the foundation of a new organization.

  A group of Englishmen — including a civil servant and a stockbroker — have set out to convince us that Kaiser Bill was really a good bloke . . .  He was, in fact, a fine, honourable and great man. That is the view of members of the newly-formed Kaiser Wilhelm II Society.

The Kaiser was, of course, the Hitler of the 1914-18 war: the militaristic villain “responsible” for the bloodbath, who was going to be hanged at the end of it.

The Society will find ample material in British papers and magazines prior to 1914. The Kaiser was a cousin of the British royal family. The weekly Sketch on 22nd November 1899 had two full-page portraits of him as “Her Majesty’s and England’s Welcome Guest”. It wrote of “tremendous energy and personal magnetism . . . ready courtesy and tact . . .  his real intimates are Englishmen”, etc., and told how as a baby he had “beautiful white soft skin and a very dear face”.

What research shows is not the Kaiser’s qualities but the cynicism of the press, which transforms heroes into monsters and back again to serve the interests of capitalism.


Explain or Re-punctuate

“Lord Diamond . . . denied that it was nationalisation by the back door. ‘It isn’t nationalisation is it, because it is not going to the nation and isn’t by the back door, it is by the front door.’ (Details, page 7)” — The Guardian, 27th July.

Robert Barltrop

News from Australia (1974)

From the September 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The fake Labour Government has done nothing to ease the problems of Socialists in Australia. A comrade from the Socialist Party of Australia writes:

We battle along doing what we can to wake up the slaves who—under the Labour government—take an even greater interest in their masters’ problems—balance of trade, inflation etc. for which latter they, like their counterparts in the UK, blame the Unions and everyone on high salaries condemns the basic-wage slaves for demanding higher wages and so keeping the prices rising and further inflating inflation!

One would think that after a hundred years of Marxism there would be a greater understanding of these questions, but it seems that the younger generation do not respond any more than their fathers. Capitalism’s power of recovery and expansion seems to stifle the workers’ capacity to grasp the realities of the situation, so quickly does it pass from one crisis to another—bewildering those who don’t understand and hampering the efforts of the few who do.

Nevertheless the position is far from being hopeless and a developing opposition in Russia and China could easily serve to accelerate activity elsewhere. To enlarge on this would take time not available here.

The events in the Middle East, the happenings in Europe (Common Market) the fatuous vapourings of the Heaths and TU officials, and the “State of the Nixon Nation” provides propaganda points for Socialists and even though many workers feign disinterestedness at heart they must realise that what is happening is only what Socialists have been telling them for years is inevitable under capitalism.

W. J. Clarke

New South Wales.

Soviet Imperialism (1975)

From the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the slanging match between China and Russia for the ideological leadership of world falsification of socialism, China accuses Russia of being an Imperialist country and pursuing an imperialist policy. Like all so-called communist countries they rarely define what they mean by the terms they use. The Russians for their part deny that they are a capitalist country, and much less have reached the “stage” of Imperialism.

Marx wrote in Wage Labour and Capital:

 “Capital pre-supposes wage labour; wage-labour pre-supposes capital. They condition each other; and bring the other into existence.”

That Russian economy is based on wage-labour is undeniable — all workers receive wages — except perhaps those in the slave labour camps; therefore their system is capitalist. Now let us consider if Russian capitalism has reached the stage of “Imperialism — the highest form of capitalism.”

Lenin wrote a lot of rubbish and most of it was personal vituperation against Kautsky and others — in fact his method seems to have been to attack anybody and everybody who disagreed with him. He did however in his more lucid intervals write something worth reading. One of his books Imperialism — the highest stage of capitalism, gives a complete definition of Imperialism so that there can be no doubt whether Russia is an Imperialist country. The thesis conveyed in the title of the book is mistaken, in fact. Imperialism is not a phase in the development of capitalism in this and that country, but something which goes on all the time. Lenin was identifying it with its pre-1914 forms (so far as West European countries were concerned) of colonial rule.

Lenin defines Imperialism as five things which happen to be the headlines of the first five chapters of his Imperialism. These are: 1, the concentration of the production and monopolies; 2, the banks and their new rôle (that is the fusion of the banks with industry; 3, financial capitalism and financial oligarchy; 4, the export of capital, and 5, the division of the world among the capitalist powers.

Russia has long reached monopoly production and the state has fused the banks with industry. But the most important point is the export of capital for it is here that a capitalist country gains interest through exploitation of the workers of other lands. Lenin wrote in Imperialism:—

  As long as capitalism remains as capitalism, surplus capital will never be used for the purpose of raising the standard of living of the masses, for this would mean a decrease in profits for the capitalists; instead it will be used to increase profits by exporting the capital abroad, to backward countries. In these backward countries profits arc usually high, for capital is scarce, the price of land relatively low, wages are low, raw materials are cheap.

In the present edition of the Statesman’s Yearbook 1974/75, page 1396 it reports: —

   After the second world war the USSR has become one of the biggest creditor countries in the world. Between 1945 and 1972 economic aid in the form of 2% or 2½% loans to be repaid as a rule over 12 years has been advanced for 786 enterprises in developing countries; the latter including loans (in one million old roubles), India 2,500m; Egypt 2,300m; Iraq 550m; Afghanistan 480m; Indonesia 443m; Argentine 400m; Ethiopia 400m; Indonesia 140m; Cuba 100m. US $. 76% of the aid is for industrial development and 14% for agriculture and transport. Over 400 industrial plants have been completed in these countries, and nearly as many are being completed; 200,000 native skilled workers have been trained by Soviet specialists and many thousands more in the USSR. Agreements for economic co-operation operate with 45 developing countries in all.

In addition to the countries listed above, there are the iron curtain lands, virtually Russia’s colonies. Some of these like East Germany, Russia stripped after the war of everything worth having, and since then has made enormous investments and built the Berlin wall to prevent their investments (and workers) from dwindling to the West. Russia has of course exported great quantities of armaments to her satellite countries. All this is Imperialism as Lenin understood it, and nothing to do with Socialism.

Horace Jarvis

Obituary: Margaret Morrissey (1976)

Obituary from the September 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades in Dublin have reported the death a short time ago of Margaret Morrissey. She will be remembered as an indefatigable worker for Socialism. Against the heavy political odds in Ireland which most would have found overwhelming she consistently pitted the strength of her Socialist convictions. She distributed literature wherever she could and no conversation with her was possible without the Socialist viewpoint being put. A personal reminiscence is of a cycle tour some years ago which started with being met at Dublin Airport by Margaret on her ancient “sit-up-and-beg” gearless bike, on which she accompanied us back into town, and the Socialist soliloquy which started when we met and continued throughout the meal and the rest of our time together. In spite of failing health in later years, she was the mainstay of Comrades in Ireland. All Companion Parties will remember her generosity as every penny she could spare went to help the work for Socialism throughout the world. She will be sadly missed and long remembered by all who had the good fortune to know her.

Eva Goodman

So They Say: Dodging the issue (1977)

The So They Say Column from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dodging the issue

A good number of people have been led to believe that the Labour Party has the interests of the working class at heart and its representatives have been careful to cultivate the idea. When this belief is questioned by pointing to the government’s failure to deal with social problems and hardship, the Labour Party explains—or more accurately, explains this away—by saying that they are bedevilled with other matters which in their estimation have to be seen to first.

In the face of growing discontent over wage levels, the government has chosen to associate the level of wages with the level of inflation as if the two were virtually the same thing and that the former will determine the latter. It is not a new ploy from them, two years ago they were placing announcements in the press urging “moderation” in wage claims under the headline “Inflation — we can beat it together." Perhaps wary of reminding workers of the earlier campaign, the current one takes the form of government ministers making speeches.

  The message is gradually getting across that moderate wage increases are the way to improve our standard of living . . .  In fact, we can now predict with confidence that for the next six months inflation will be brought increasingly under control. Whether or not it continues into 1978 is wholly dependent on the pattern of wage settlements during the next year.

Mr. Hattersley. The Times 13th August 77

The one new feature to note here, unlike all the previous and inaccurate predictions by the government on inflation, is that this one is made “with confidence.” The illogicality however is the same; inflation is caused by an excess issue of paper money and the note issue has risen by well over 50 per cent. under Labour. Contrary to the impression (the “message”) from Mr. Hattersley, the note issue is not under the control of the working class, or increased at their bidding. The note issue is determined by the government through the Bank of England.


Gold and silver linings

High unemployment figures give one indication that capitalism is passing through one of its periodic depressions. If we were to take the pronouncements of politicians at face-value, the only salvation lies apparently in “getting business back on its feet.” This impression of a down-and-out capitalism has led some “left-wing” groups, like the Oxford Street sandwich board man, to issue stern warnings that the end is at hand. Ironically, while awaiting the “end” they busy themselves by calling for the right to be employed. Even on their own analysis they do not see the contradiction. However, newspapers publish relatively believable items as well as political speeches: The depression may be serious, but the collapse of capitalism is not upon us.

  The net profits before tax of 229 British companies, whose annual reports are included in the Exchange Telegraph’s statistics service, reached a total of £1,444.1m during the month of July. This compares with £1,015.5m using the same companies for the previous year. The net profits before tax of 1,527 British companies in the seven months to July 31, aggregated £12,403.6m as against £8,953.3m for the same period, using the same companies.

The Times, 2nd August 77

The Times calculates “Company profits up by 42 per cent in July” and using the same calculation, this would put the increase in profit for the 1527 companies up by an average of approximately 38 per cent, over the seven months’ figure for last year. These companies at least have something to show for the Labour Party’s “socialism”.


Great expectations

British workers have a new group of friends, or at least it appeared so at first. The German news magazine Der Spiegel of 1st August says that British workers are a much maligned lot and cannot be blamed for the country’s woes. The magazine draws its conclusion after interviewing a number of German businessmen who are operating in Britain. The German director of a London lighting company had this to say:

  It is more important to (British) people to be treated right than paid properly. If you approach a British worker roughly he will down tools.

Daily Telegraph, 1st August 77

Only a cynic would suggest that treating people “right” is a good bit cheaper than paying them “properly.” The praise rolled on; the head of Klippon Electricals, a sister company of the Weilemuller Company, denied that German workers are better than British. In his own company for example

  Our profitability is so high that it’s the sort of thing others dream about.

No doubt the “others” he refers to are members of the British capitalist class. The workers’ rôle in all this, be they British or German, is simply to make the dream come true.


Still at large

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has an odd sense of humour. When he was talking about the government plans to restrict wage claims to no more than 10 per cent. per annum, he was asked whether negotiations on productivity deals would be permitted to go above this figure. Yes, he thought.

Provided they are genuinely self-financing.

The Times, 11th August 77

This recalled the dreadful beast sighted by Harold Wilson two years ago—“the recalcitrant employer, a rogue elephant” (we think he meant unicorn)—who was causing all manner of difficulty by happily agreeing to over-pay his workers. Sounds as if he must still be at large but we are not entirely surprised to learn that the Labour Party has so far failed to track him down.

Alan D'Arcy

Cheap lives again (1978)

From the September 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

In May this year, the Socialist Standard commented on the case which revealed that the Ford Motor Company of America deliberately allowed cars on the road which they knew had a lethal design fault, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries. This happened because Ford, knowing of the danger, decided that it was actually cheaper to continue the slaughter and pay damages than to redesign the cars. This time though, their calculations went wrong; one victim of their diabolical attitude was able to claim such a high award of damages as to upset their entire calculations.

What is good for Ford, is good enough for British Leyland. The Guardian (13/7/78) reports that BL have been building Allegro cars with a fault which is actually liable to cause wheels to drop off! What is so astonishing (or is it?) is that BL, a nationalised industry be it noted (so much for the claim that nationalisation would somehow mean a different form of capitalism), like Ford, knowing of the danger, decided to sit tight and do nothing about it.

Indeed BL tried to shift the blame onto one of its distributors. They did not get away with it; two hapless victims of this cold-blooded decision sued the company after they had suffered horrible injuries when their car lost a rear wheel. In giving judgment against BL for the damages suffered as a result of the accident the judge said:

  They (i.e. BL) were faced with mounting and horrifying evidence of wheels coming adrift. Any of the cases could have had fatal results. In my view, the duty of care owed by Leyland to the public was to make a clean breast of the problem and recall all cars for safety washers to be fitted. They knew the full facts. They saw to it that no one else did.

One more example of the inhumanity of capitalism; the society that makes profitable production the chief aim, and treats human beings as expendable. Who’s ready for a change?

Ronnie Warrington