The Good Time Coming ! (1929)

Editorial from the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year; next year; sometime; never !

It is the duty of Bank Chairmen and Prime Ministers to make forecasts every year of the coming trade revival. They do this because it fills the mind of the unemployed with hope. This year Mr. Baldwin says: -

  We may reasonably look forward, without being called unduly optimistic, to a general expansion of trade in the country. (Daily Express, 21 December.)

Some people, remembering last year, and the year before, and the year before that, and so on, do not believe Mr. Baldwin. But those who believe and those who disbelieve, nearly all accept the assumption that if trade improved, then our problems would be solved. The Socialist does not accept this view. We point out that the workers are poor always, good trade or bad, and that the Capitalist class, whatever the state of trade, go on having a large and growing share of the wealth produced.

During the five years ended March 31st, 1927, less than 100,000 super-tax payers (90,000 in 1922/23 and 98,000 in 1926/27) had incomes totally over £500 millions a year. The total increased year by year from £516 millions to £568 millions.

The Tory says that unemployment would decline and wages rise if only we made more articles at home and imported less from abroad. The Liberals and most of the Labourites say that unemployment would go if we could only sell more English goods abroad. It is interesting to notice that during 1928, as compared with 1927, both of these things have happened. More goods have been sold abroad and less goods imported. Comparing the first eleven months of 1928 with the same period of 1927, we find that imports fell by £18,475,254 (1.7 per cent.) and exports increased by £11,281,897 (1.5 per cent.). (See “Economist," December 15th.) Now let us look at the unemployment figures. The number of registered unemployed on November 28th, 1927, was 1,172,000, and on November 28th, 1928, 1,439,000. Observe, not a decrease, but an increase of 267,000! (“Ministry of Labour Gazette," December, 1928.)

So much for Liberal, Labour and Conservative economic theories.

The facts are that an increase of exports and a decrease of imports may mean, but do not necessarily mean, that more wealth is being produced at home; and a decrease in foreign trade may coincide with an increase in production. Further, an increase in trade and an increase in production can both take place while, owing to the use of more machinery and improved methods, fewer workers are being employed. This is one of the effects of Capitalism, and the remedy is Socialism.

Received For Review (1929)

From the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx's Capital.

“Capital," by Karl Marx. Allen 8c Unwin. 927 pages. 12s. 6d. Translated by Eden & Cedar Paul.

We regret that a review of this new translation of Marx's great work cannot appear in this issue, as our comrade engaged on this review is seriously ill. The review will, however, appear shortly.

A New Edition. 

“The Proletarian Revolution." N. Lenin. (3s. cloth, Is. 6d. paper.) Modern Books, Ltd.

The above book was reviewed in these columns on its. first appearance. We then pointed out the weakness of Lenin’s arguments against Kautsky.

Since that time no attempt has been made to justify Lenin's attitude. All we have is the repetition of Lenin's phrases.

“A Source Book of Social Psychology," by Kimball
Young. A. Knopf, 37, Bedford Square. 21s.

The Economic League On Capital. (1929)

From the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our January issue I dealt sympathetically with "Some Socialist Fallacies Exploded”—a leaflet issued by that gifted but much misunderstood body, the Economic League, and it was shown how successfully they had blown sky-high the first "fallacy” they had dealt with. Here follows the second "Socialist” fallacy on their list for combustion :—

Fallacy No. 2.—The interests of Capital and Labour are essentially antagonistic. Therefore, class warfare is necessary and inevitable.

Not bad for a translation by such busy people! If you would prefer the original, however, it reads as follows:—

  That society as at present constituted is based upon the ownership of the means of living (i.e., land, factories, railways, etc.) by the capitalist or master class, and the consequent enslavement of the working class by whose labour alone wealth is produced.
  That in society, therefore, there is an antagonism of interests, manifesting itself as a class struggle, between those who possess but do not produce, and those who produce but do not possess.

Now you will hardly credit it, but these wild Socialists actually believe that this eccentric notion has historical justification to support it! Indeed, Engels, for example, in the preface to the "Communist Manifesto," has the impudence to assert:—

  That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organisation necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes: that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class— proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoise—without, at the same time, and once and for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class-distinctions and class struggles.

Class struggles, indeed ! But the leaflet has different stuff from this to offer:—

   This is another of the principles in the Socialist Manifesto. It is based on apparent ignorance of the facts that operative labour itself is actually a form of capital, and that the so-called class war or conflict between Labour and Capital is really nothing but a suicidal sort of contest between two members of the same family. In evidence of the fact that labour is a form of capital, we have only to ask ourselves. What was man’s original capital before he had any tools or plant to work with? The answer undoubtedly is that it was his innate capacity to invent and create, or, in other words, his labour, mental and physical; and so we arrive at the fundamental economic truth that operative labour is capital in its truest and most original sense, and that the interests of the two are, therefore, naturally and necessarily identical.

Could clarity be more pellucid? After sorting this out I arrive at the following conclusions: (1) Labour is a form of Capital, therefore presumably Capital has other forms; (2) "Man’s original Capital" was labour, and therefore this and the other forms of Capital not here specified must have been derived from Labour; and (3) because Labour is a form of Capital, and Capital is a form of Labour, therefore the interests of Capital, of which Labour is a form, are "naturally and necessarily identical” with the interests of Labour, which is a form of Capital. Do you get that? ("Yes,” he lied glibly.)

One need not be an inmate of Banstead to believe that Capital and Labour are one as the law stands at present, but I admit a slight difficulty in comprehending how they can both be the same and yet, oh so different ! However, perhaps the next passage may enlighten us :—

   Mr. Dane tells us that “a workman’s character, skill and experience,” which constitute his labour, are "as truly capital” as the tools and plant and machinery with which he works; and that fact teaches us another fundamental truth, that it is Labour which employs Capital, and not the other way about, as so many seem to think. The worker in a factory employs not only his own capital, but that of the owner of the factory as well, without, be it noted, any of the latter’s financial risk. He is entirely dependent on both, and it is suicidal folly on his part to quarrel with his bread and butter, or, in other words, to wage war on what, after all, is his sole and only means of existence. It is perfectly true that one form of capital may refuse to employ the other, if, on the one hand, the financial risk is considered too great, or if, on the other hand, the remuneration is considered insufficient; but these differences of opinion are surely matters for amicable negotiation rather than for conflict. In any case, the fact remains that both forms of capital are absolutely dependent on each other.

For the first time, 1 now realise that "a workman’s character, skill and experience constitute his labour,” though obviously he has sometimes to take these attributes to bed with him ! (In this case perhaps the "labour” is done by proxy or correspondence.) One should always be careful, however, not to be vulgar, like Karl Marx, and include such qualities with physical and mental energy in what he calls labour-power. This is simply not done in the best economic circles. But I must agree that this unperformed labour of the worker is "as truly Capital as the tools and plant and machinery with which he works." We must take the word of such recondite "economists” as the Economic League that machinery, plant and tools are Capital. Even before their installation in the factory, even when the factory is "closed down,” and most decidedly when they are thrown out of the factory on to a dust heap—they are still “Capital.” I can almost understand this, but I confess to a wee difficulty in being able to comprehend (1) just when the machine, etc., becomes Capital, and (2) exactly what thickness of cobwebs or rust on a disused or unworked machine is necessary to accumulate before the machine ceases to be Capital—is it twelve inches or only six? You see, these Socialists have no respect at all for economic truths, and they guffaw rudely when people say that machinery, plant and tools are in themselves Capital. That Karl Marx of theirs can be very trying on this subject:—

  Capital consists of raw materials, instruments of labour, and all kinds of means of life which are used to produce new raw materials, new instruments, and new means of life. All these component parts of capital are created by labour, products of labour, stored-up labour. Stored-up labour which serves as a means of new production is capital.
   So say the economists.
   What is a negro-slave? A man of the black race. The one definition is worthy of the other.
   A negro is a negro. He only becomes a slave under certain conditions. A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital. Torn from those conditions it is no more capital than gold itself is money, or sugar the price of sugar. (Wage-Labour and Capital.)

In other words, they say that these things (machinery, etc.) are only Capital during the time wage-labour is employed to operate them. But most diabolically of all, they claim that under Socialism even more and better machinery, plant and tools will be in use than at present, but they will be socially owned and will produce wealth for use only.

I was glad to find from this last-quoted passage that the Economic League make it clear that when they state that the interests of Capital and Labour are identical they mean the interests of the owners of Capital and the owners of wage-labour (i. e., workers), for this helps me to grasp their meaning when they state that "it is Labour which employs Capital, and not the other way about, as so many seem to think.” If our capitalist wage-worker readers will bear this in mind, they should have little difficulty in recognising the aftcoming episode as an everyday experience of this simple fact:—

  Scene: Dejected looking Capitalist diffidently approaching the sanctum of his prospective employer—an obese, complacent, prosperous looking Wage-worker. Holding a cloth cap in his hand and looking down furtively at a big toe protruding from an aged boot, he musters up enough courage to tap upon the massive oak portal.

Voice of Wage-Worker from within: Come in!

Capitalist: Got a job, guv’nor? I bin sent by the Capiterlist Buroo. ’Ere’s me perticlers, sir!

Wage-Worker: H'm ! What can you do, my man?

Capitalist: I can own factories, plant and machinery, get you to work for me, pay you good money but not much of it, and keep all you produce for myself.

Wage-Worker : Good. Can you do anything else?

Capitalist: Well, you can’t expect me to do anything else, guv’nor, now, can you? I ain’t got much time to spend in this country, you know. I shall have to do the job from Cannes or Madeira, and perhaps sometimes from "Monty.”

Wage-Worker: Right, you’re engaged. I’ll ring for my manager to start you at once, but see that I’m allowed to make plenty of profit for you or you and I will fall out. You get me?

Our sapient leafleteer then reminds us that Capital is Labour’s bread and butter (no, not “marge” !) and it is silly for the worker to quarrel with his portion thereof. Well, as Capital and Labour are one, this dictum appears to apply equally to the Capitalist. This horrid spectacle of two slices of bread and butter engaging in a fratricidal struggle may be highly diverting to untutored minds, but I regard it as reprehensible in the extreme. Further, we are told the Capitalist is not only the “sole” but the “only” means of existence for the worker. (When he has finished the sole, apparently he cornea on to the "only” !) Even the most perverse Socialists do not deny this fact. Indeed, Marx himself says something similar:—

  To say that the interests of capital and the interests of labour are identical means merely this: capital and wage labour are two sides of one and the same relation.
  The one conditions the other, just as the usurer and the borrower mutually condition each other.
  So long as the wage-worker remains a wageworker, his lot is dependent upon capital. That is what the alleged identity of interests between worker and capitalist amounts to.
  If capital grows, the mass of wage-labour grows, the number of wage-workers increases. In a word, the dominion of capital extends over a greater number of individuals. (Wage-Labour and Capital.)

Of course, the qualification is quite unnecessary !

Next we are told that the one form of Capital may refuse to employ the other. As, for example, when all the workers in an industry have simultaneously conferred upon them the freedom to enjoy the jollities of the kerbstone, whilst “the other form of Capital” is enduring the anguish of "financial risk” and sunstroke at Madeira. Of course, the worker does not incur "financial risk.” When he asks for more wages—the suggestion is absurd ! The million-and-a-half unemployed workers ought to feel more sympathy than they appear to express for the sorry plight of their capitalist brothers, brought on by "financial risk.” The terrible ravages of the malady of "financial risk” may be only partially gauged by the perusal of the under-stated facts :—

   About one-half of the entire income of the United Kingdom is enjoyed by about 12 per cent, of its population.
   More than one-third of the entire income of the United Kingdom is enjoyed by about 3 per cent, of its population. (From Chiozza-Money’s “The Nation’s Wealth,” pp. 110-111.)
   Let us take one of the main features of existing society—its division into two classes; a propertied class and a propertyless class. This is obviously the result of the ownership of the wealth of society by some of the people, to the exclusion of the others, for this alone produces a class of possessors and a class of non-possessors.
  With regard to the ownership of property, Mr. Zorn has shown (Daily News, November 29th, 1919) that 10 per cent. of the population owns 99 per cent. of the wealth, while the remaining 1 per cent, is divided among nine-tenths of the people. And Professor Clay tells us that—

it is probably safe to say that over two-thirds of the national capital is held by less than 2 per cent, of the people.—Times, 24th March, ! 1925.

  So the two-class nature of the present social scheme is directly traceable to that form of private property which excludes one class from ownership. (From Socialism, p. 28.)

I trust the recital of these facts will enlighten the reader as to the identity of interests between the wage-slaves and their masters, and that he will point out the selfishness of the workers in allowing their capitalist brothers to suffer in silence these agonies of "financial risk.”

I regret my space ration forbids me to do justice to the admirable way in which the Economic League view Capital and Labour in all its aspects and in all historical epochs. The primitive tools of the communistic tribesman, the implements of the handicraftsman, the merchant’s capital, the mediaeval usurer’s money capital, the giant machines, factories, etc., of to-day, the great financial corporations, labour under all conditions (of the communistic savage, the chattel slave, the feudal serf, the handicraftsman and the wage-worker)—all these are Capital in the eyes of the Economic League. Their argument seems, therefore, to be: As mines, mills, workshops, etc., are Capital, and as Socialists mean to abolish Capital, therefore there cannot be mines, mills, workshops, etc., under Socialism. Which, 1 think, is quite good, don’t you, reader?

There are still three more explosions of "fallacies” in the leaflet, so, all being well, there should be a real "Brock’s benefit” for our next issue.

Sarcastigator.

Parliament and the Army: The Curragh “Mutiny” (1929)

From the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Arising out of the article “What is the Use of Parliament,” in our January issue, a correspondent writes pointing out that the refusal in 1914 of British Army officers to obey the Asquith Government if ordered to attack the Ulster “rebels” shows that the army can successfully defy Government and Parliament.

Before dealing with the incident in question, it may be as well to restate the claim made by the Socialist Party with regard to control of Parliament. Our view is that control of Parliament, secured by the return of a majority of Socialists in an election fought simply on the issue of Socialism versus Capitalism, implying as of course it does that the big majority of the working class understand and want Socialism, would give effective control of the political machinery, including the armed forces.

Let us see, then, in what way the Curragh “mutiny” bears on our contention. In the first place, our correspondent has his facts all wrong. There was no “mutiny,” no evidence of an intention to mutiny, no defiance of the Government and no defiance of Parliament or the majority of the electors.

Asquith’s Government was not elected on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland and the coercion of Ulster, but predominately on the issue of the House of Lords’ veto. Further, its majority at the December (1910) election was greatly reduced from its majority at the January (1910) election, and it was confidently believed by the Conservatives that the next election would give a majority to them. Asquith’s Government had therefore no direct evidence that the majority of the electorate were behind them on the Ulster question. On the other hand, it was the view of the influential Army officers also that elections at no distant date would put the Liberals out of office. (See “Biography of Sir Henry Wilson” by Sir Charles Callwell, Sunday Times, May 22nd, 1927.)

Even, therefore, if the Curragh officers had decided to disobey orders, they would have done so with good reason to believe that their attitude would be endorsed by the electorate and the new Government. That situation, quite the reverse of the situation which would exist after the return of a Socialist majority at an election fought on the issue of Socialism, invalidates the comparison between the "mutiny” in 1914 and a hypothetical mutiny by anti-Socialist Army officers against the orders of a Government backed by a Socialist Parliamentary majority and a Socialist electorate.

Secondly, and doubtless wholly or partly because of their doubt as to the views of the electorate, Asquith’s Government never showed that it seriously intended to force the issue. On the contrary, its indecisive attitude indicates fairly clearly that it had no such intention.

But whether that was its intention or not, the fact is that it did not order the Army leaders to take action against the Ulster forces. What it did was to offer them the choice between taking such action or resigning their commissions. Given such a choice, and knowing that there was good reason to expect a not far distant return of a Conservative Government, prudence, if nothing else, would naturally suggest to the officers concerned the advisability of taking the course of resigning since it offered them more promising future prospects.

Thus, General Sir Hubert Gough, in an interview (Manchester Guardian, February 4th, 1919), said :—

   I never refused to obey orders. On the contrary, I obeyed them. I was ordered to make a decision—namely, to leave the Army or ‘‘to undertake active operations against Ulster.” These were the very words of the terms offered. As I was given a choice, I accepted it, and chose the first alternative; and, as a matter of fact, I have a letter in existence, written the night before the offer was made toy Sir A. Paget to my brother, saying: ‘‘Something is up” (we had been suddenly ordered to a conference). ‘‘What is it? If I receive orders to march north, of course I will go.”

Mr. Tim Healy, in his memoirs, "Letters and Leaders of My Time,” supports this view. He says :—

  The Curragh mutiny thus occurred through the attempt to "feel the pulse” of the officers privately instead of giving them orders to march—which they would have obeyed. (Quoted in Manchester Guardian, 12th December, 1928.)

We see, then, that the incidents at the Curragh do not in any way conflict with our insistence on the need for the working class to secure the control of Parliament.

Edgar Hardcastle

SPGB Propaganda Meetings (1929)

Party News from the February 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Pathfinders: The Ladybird Book of Revolution (2017)

The Pathfinders Column from the February 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Older readers will recall with fondness their salad days learning to read in the company of nice and respectable middle-class kids Peter and Jane, and Pat the dog. Ladybird has lately achieved renewed prominence with their amusing self-spoofing series for adults covering hangovers, red tape, mid-life crises, throwing a sickie, the people next door and surviving a zombie apocalypse. Having successfully re-established themselves as nostalgia comedy they’ve now done a very odd thing. They’ve let Prince Charles co-write a Ladybird book on climate change.

It’s a bit hard to see the thinking here. Ladybird books won’t mean anything to today’s children, and the retro look surely can’t be aimed at them, so Ladybird seem to be suggesting that some adults are too stupid to understand the case for climate action unless it’s written by a doddering royal in large type and words of one syllable, and with circa-1960 hand-drawn pictures. Condescending or what, your royal haughtiness?

Of course you can certainly argue that none of us really understand the science, because we’re not climatologists. But at the political level the argument is much simpler. Barring a few loony deniers, the entire scientific community is united and unequivocal. There is a problem. The question is what to do about it. There now, that wasn’t difficult, was it?

There is something of an elephant lumbering around the environmental debate which some will be painfully aware of while others may be studiously ignoring it – the lack of participation by what is called the ‘traditional working class’ (TWC) and the consequent domination of the subject by the cultural middle class (CMC).

These terms require a short digression. Socialists identify two economic classes in society which are perpetually at war with each other, the ruling or parasitical class which owns and controls everything but does no real work, and the working class or 99 percent, who control nothing and are economic slaves. One could picture these two classes as opposing trenches on a battlefield. For us there can be no middle class. If there was, it would be standing in No Man’s Land getting shot at by both sides.

However most people use the word ‘class’ in a vaguer cultural sense, with all sorts of prejudices and preconceptions attached. It is this world of cultural categories that is at issue here.

Go to any Green party or environmentalist meeting and count the number of people there with university degrees and CMC manners, voices, clothes and social connections. Very often there will be nobody at the meeting who does not fit that description, be they TWC, immigrants or other ethnic minorities.

There are three possible explanations for this lack of participation. The first is the one put forward by HRH, in collaboration with Ladybird. The message isn’t simple enough.

The second explanation is the one put forward by many sympathetic Greens themselves, as well as politicians and media pundits, and ably expressed by a British climatologist recently: ‘For too long the climate change discussion has been about things that will happen in 100 years time. For economically insecure people, statements about what might happen in 100 years time they just don’t care about, because they know these kind of predictions have been proved wrong in the past and will be in the future’ LINK).

One could go further and suggest that people facing a desperate struggle to survive today won’t care about anything that’s a hundred years away whether the predictions are correct or not. But while there’s obviously some truth in this, it is not the case that concern over the environment is always associated with personal financial well-being, i.e. that having an environmental conscience is somehow a luxury item that the poor can’t afford. Many TWC people are not especially poor, have foreign holidays every year and spend a fortune at Christmas, while some people with university backgrounds have no job or money yet still shop ethically, eat tofu and recycle religiously. It’s not simply about the money.

The third explanation is that the TWC are not only not interested in environmental concerns, but actually put off them because of their CMC image. If you live on a council estate, don’t have a degree and speak with a local accent, you might very well decide that environmentalism is not for you. You’re pretty sure you wouldn’t like or relate to anyone, and they wouldn’t like you. Your face, voice, clothes, hair and make-up just wouldn’t fit. You talk yourself out of being involved.

And are you entirely wrong to do so? Perhaps the uncomfortable truth is that some CMC environmentalists are quite happy in their cosy little clique and would be secretly horrified if it was suddenly invaded by working-class types wearing hoodies and bling and reeking of skunk, or hard-boiled council estate veterans with tattoos on their knuckles. Environmentalism is Frasier and Friends and Have I Got News For You?, not Eastenders and Shameless.

The problem is the nature of environmentalist politics, which tends to ignore class politics as essentially irrelevant to the debate. We all live on the same planet, runs the thinking, so we should be able to rise above our petty class divisions in order to save it. But that of course is a lot easier to say when you’re not the one getting the worst of those divisions and you’re not even aware what the worst involves. This is how environmentalism slips into the genteel world of Ladybird, and away from the real and bruising world of class war.

Would it make much difference if environmentalists incorporated class into their world view, given that power resides not with them but with state elites? Well, it would give socialist revolutionaries and environmentalists something in common, and it would make the debate more inclusive, something which needs to happen if anything is ever going to change. You can’t wish away class war by ignoring it, but you can wish away a lot of potential support.

Paddy Shannon

50 Years Ago: Target Hanoi (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

The start of this year was considerably dampened by the flood of crocodile tears provoked by the admitted bombing of civilians in Hanoi.

The tears flowed strongly as the eye witness accounts came in, especially those from Harrison Salisbury, assistant managing editor of the New York Times. Harrison’s reports also provoked a slight, but distinct, surprise that an American newspaper man should actually tell the truth about the results of his countrymen’s military exploits.

It is difficult to imagine anyone really believing the Pentagon’s assurances that only military targets were being bombed. This is a well worn fiction of modern war; even the RAF tried it in the last war, until the evidence to the contrary became overwhelming.

In any case, why the indignation about civilian deaths in wartime? The “advance” of capitalism’s war-making machine has brought everyone into the front line.

War is now very much a social business, with many civilians playing a more important part in the war effort than many men in uniform. It is also important for a side to break the morale of the other’s civilians — usually by bombing or blockade.

The people of Hanoi, then — its children, its old people. its hospital patients — are all legitimate targets.

Does this sound callous? War is never an agreeable business and those who complain about its effects while they support the system which produces it, or those who demonstrate about the military activities of only one side, they are the callous ones.

As long as capitalism lasts there will be no end to war and we may expect it to become more and more fearsome.

The solution is not to wave banners about one incident or one aspect of war. It is to build a new society in which the cause of war no longer exists.

(Socialist Standard, February 1967)

Dear Theresa . . . (2019)

From the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

15th January 2019

Dear Theresa

Thank you for your recent letter.  I’m sorry to hear that you are still being tormented by Brexit.  You can blame that nincompoop predecessor of yours for that!  I’m sorry, as well, to hear that you received short shrift following your overtures to Len McCluskey and the other trade union lads.  You should have asked me to make the approach for you.  It might have been better coming from a socialist than from someone who has participated in the wholesale destruction of trades union rights and of their members’ living standards in recent decades.  Not that I want to get involved in anything to do with Brexit.  In fact that’s why I’m taking the opportunity to write to you today – whilst the pantomime of the Brexit vote unfolds in the hallowed chambers of Westminster – to avoid even a glimpse of that dismal spectacle.

And while I remember, Happy New Year!  How are you generally?  All pigged out on the Christmas food and all maxed out on the credit cards?  You’ll be joining the growing number of poor if you’re not careful.  Ha, ha!  There seems to be a lot more poverty around nowadays.  It’s a burgeoning industry so to speak, with 120,000 social murders attributed to austerity since it began in 2010; including 3,000 deaths from hypothermia and 600 deaths of rough sleepers each year, with four million people resorting to food banks.  Given that the UK is one of the richest countries in the world and the fifth largest economy this is a staggering achievement by your government.

I suppose one shouldn’t underestimate the important contribution which poverty makes to our national economy.  Without those huge corporate charities our GDP would be significantly lower, unemployment would be up and the valuable opportunity to demonstrate our compassionate national character would be considerably diminished, as pointed out recently by the Keeper of the National Conscience, Jacob Rees-Mogg.  Some liberal-minded MPs are even calling for the appointment of a Minister for Hunger.  How progressive of them.

We in the Socialist Party have what some might regard as a rather quirky approach to poverty.  There won’t be any.  Under capitalism poverty is an inevitable, indeed an essential, component, arising out of the very essence of the way in which the wealth created by the working class is appropriated by a ruling elite, leaving the rest of us to scramble around for the crumbs.  Socialism would end this modern day form of chattel slavery by ensuring that wealth is shared according to need and would benefit everyone, not just the 1%;  thus rendering poverty an anachronism to be pondered over by bemused schoolchildren exploring the history of a bygone era.

Anyway, that’s all for now!  I’ll drop you a line again next month.  In the meantime, if you change your address please let me know . . .

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hart

Rosa Luxemburg on Socialism’ (2019)

Pamphlet Review from the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Rosa Luxemburg on Socialism’. Edited by The Socialist Party of Great Britain (50 pages. £2.50)

This pamphlet has been published to mark the centenary of the death (murder) of Rosa Luxemburg after the ill-fated and ill-advised Spartacist uprising in Germany in January 1919.

The pamphlet examines her contribution to socialist theory, especially her analysis of the so-called ‘right of nations to self-determination’ as the demand of a national capitalist class to have its own state and so unworthy of socialist or working class support. It also brings out her insistence that socialism cannot be established by a conscious minority leading a merely discontented majority whether in an insurrection, as envisaged by Lenin and Trotsky, or in a parliamentary election, as envisaged by Labourites and Social Democrats. Socialism, she argued, could only be established by conscious majority action and participation, not excluding, contrary to the anarchists and other anti-electionists, sending delegates into parliament.

On the other hand, the pamphlet explains the fallacy at the basis of her theory that capitalism could not exist without external, non-capitalist markets and would collapse economically at the point when all these had been exhausted. Not that this requires theoretical refutation as this point was reached years ago yet the capitalist economic system is still functioning.

Also discussed is her ambiguous position on reforms. While in her Reform or Revolution pamphlet she powerfully argued that socialism could not come about through a series of social reforms enacted by parliament, she was nevertheless in favour of a socialist party having a minimum programme of social and political reforms to be achieved under capitalism as well as the maximum programme of winning control of political power to establish socialism as the common ownership and democratic control of the mean of production. In Britain we in the Socialist Party always rejected this, arguing that it would lead to a party which did so attracting the support of those who only wanted the reforms and becoming their prisoner, ending up a mere party of democratic and social reform. To be fair, Luxemburg did begin to realise this a few months before she died when analysing what had gone wrong with the German Social Democratic Party.

There is an unfortunate error on page 38 which has her explaining ‘to the National assembly’ when in fact she was explaining in an article on the National Assembly. Also, the second quote that follows, mentioning Lenin, is not from the same article but from another from the same month in which she criticised some of the actions of the Bolshevik government in Russia.

Adam Buick

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Film Review: ‘Peterloo’ (2019)

Film Review from the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Peterloo’, directed by Mike Leigh

Over exuberant

Mike Leigh, writer and director of Peterloo, cut his teeth in the 1970s with episodes of Play for Today at a time when the BBC was introducing a smattering of ‘progressive’ programming in a futile attempt to soften criticism that it was an establishment mouthpiece peddling state propaganda. Peterloo is his first foray into the big screen epic. Subsequently Mike Leigh’s mix of social commentary and satire has included Nuts in May, Abigail’s Party, Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake. Peterloo is his first foray into the big screen epic.

The film depicts the events in St Peter’s Field, Manchester, in 1819 where, under the instructions of the local magistrates and with guidance from the bigwigs at Westminster, the cavalry rampaged through the 60,000 strong crowd of men, women and children with sabres drawn, killing 15 and injuring between 400 and 700 of those who were peacefully protesting their lack of political power and general privation.

Mike Leigh grew up in Salford, very close to St Peter’s Field, and says that the project arose from his personal resentment that he was never taught about the event in school.

In Mike Leigh’s exuberance to inculcate the importance of Peterloo he has reduced the film to burlesque. It was almost like watching a pantomime, with the wicked witch as the evil British Establishment on the one hand and the stoic downtrodden working class on the other. The stereotyping even extended to the geography, with everyone up North a by gum, honest hard-working salt-of-the-earth type and everyone down South an opulent decadent popinjay. In his self-imposed obligation to accurately portray the history (apparently he researched it for four years) Mike Leigh seems to have forgotten the importance of building meaningful characters and weaving them into an entertaining story.

The only character portrayed with a degree of nuance was the orator Henry Hunt, (Rory Kinnear). Of the others there were too many and they were one dimensional.

It would be fair to describe the reviews as ‘mixed.’ Some lauded the cinematography of Dick Pope, who is a frequent collaborator with Mike Leigh. Others applauded the film’s historical accuracy. Some reviewers bemoaned the fact that the film ended on such a bleak note of the massacre; presumably trying to breathe life into the moribund notion of the Whig view of history, that of inexorable human progress. Some ‘Guardian type’ reviews drew sombre parallels with today, encouraged by Mike Leigh’s statement that the film highlights the ‘have and have nots’ and thus has some contemporary relevance.

Peterloo was undoubtedly an event worthy of historical note. But not what Maxine Peake (who played Nellie in the film) exclaimed  at the premiere in Manchester: ‘Peterloo was an outrage of which humanity recoils with horror and which is a foul stain upon our national character.’ I assume by ‘our national character’ she is referring to the British Empire which, for more than 200 years, subjugated a quarter of the world’s population by mass murder, torture, starvation and other nefarious means.  For me this is the film’s most egregious characteristic. It elevates this episode of violence to a degree of  disproportionate importance. By depicting Peterloo as an aberration, out of character with British values, it obscures the reality that this was business as usual, at home and abroad, then and now. Rather than holding the Establishment’s feet to the fire the film is an insidious example of propaganda by treating Britain’s miscreant behaviour as exceptional.

If this is what counts as ‘resistance’ in the film industry, then we need to look elsewhere for inspiration for the revolution.

Tim Hart

Editorial: Resistance is not enough (2019)

Editorial from the February 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

One thing you can be sure about within capitalism is that the antagonism between those who own and control our society and the majority of us who don’t, will not go away. The ongoing industrial disputes by rail workers are a high-profile example of this and currently university staff are being balloted in a pay dispute based on their claim that their real pay (taking inflation into account) has fallen by over 20 percent since 2009.

The capitalists who own the means of living in society derive their wealth from the unpaid labour of the working class, that is, the amount of labour produced over and above the labour time that they pay for in workers’ wages and salaries. Thus it is in their interests to extract the maximum amount of this surplus labour. In the early days, they attempted to achieve this by lowering wages to the lowest level they could get away with and extending the working day for as long as possible. Women and children were drawn into the production process and were exploited ruthlessly. To resist this encroachment of capital, workers combined to form trade unions. Strike action and collective agitation were their weapons. In the nineteenth century, agitation by British workers successfully forced the government to concede the reduction in the working day to 10 hours and later on to 8 hours. The historic examples were the East End matchmakers’ strike of 1888, the London dock workers’ strike of 1889 and the UK General Strike of 1926. In more recent decades there were notable strikes by the UK coalminers in the 1970s and 1980s and currently we also have the Gilet Jaunes movement in France that has been making the headlines.

With the increasing application of technology to production, capitalists have been able to increase the productivity of workers and extract more surplus value without extending the working day. Although the workers work shorter hours on average and have seen improvements in their living standards, they still, in many ways, come into conflict with their employers over pay and conditions. Public sector workers have also organised strikes against their employers, the state. We have also seen the struggles of more marginalised workers – women, ethnic minorities and gays – against discrimination and for greater equality.

Socialists support workers being organised in trade unions to defend their interests. Many gains have been achieved by collective action, but they do not alter the position of workers as an exploited class within capitalism. Trade union and other collective activity cannot eradicate the problems of poverty, unemployment and homelessness. Moreover, gains may be reversed over time; in the 1960s, British banking unions successfully secured the ending of Saturday working, only to find it being reintroduced years later.

For workers to end their exploitation and secure real freedom, they need to take the next step and organise for socialism, a worldwide society of common ownership where there are no employers or employees and everyone can participate equally with free access to what they need.

Rear View: Constipated reformists (2017)

The Rear View Column from the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Constipated reformists

‘ANAL squatting collective takes over Qatari general’s £17m London townhouse’ (rt.com, 2 February). With a name like that, the Autonomous Nation of Anarchist Libertarians have achieved one of their aims – exposure! They wish to draw our attention to the ‘problem’ of growing homelessness alongside thousands of properties in London alone, and over 200,000 in England, which have been unoccupied for more than six months. ANAL is supported by a number of groups concerned with housing and homelessness, including Architects for Social Housing who tweeted Homes for people, not for profit. Indeed. But because housing is produced for profit there is no possibility of a rational approach to housing within capitalism. Engels made this clear as far back as 1872: ‘As long as the capitalist mode of production continues to exist, it is folly to hope for an isolated solution of the housing question or of any other social question affecting the fate of the workers. The solution lies in the abolition of the capitalist mode of production and the appropriation of all the means of life and labour by the working class itself’ (The Housing Question).


Clueless

‘Comments President Donald Trump made Wednesday at the White House during a Black History Month event left some people scratching their heads.

During a listening session, Trump praised abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who died in 1895. He mentioned Douglass as ‘an example of somebody who has done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice,’ Trump said’ (kansascity.com, 1 February). On this performance alone, Trump’s future is certain – as presenter of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. He could well be joined by the anarchist Professor David Graeber, who thinks that the clown Trump’s victory ‘had proved that anarchists’ diagnosis of society’s ills was correct’ (nytimes, 2 February) – not to mention their disdain for democracy – and that ‘people want something radically different’. The Doctor sees only symptoms – hence his fervent support for Occupy who ‘had elevated income inequality to the top of the Democratic political agenda’! – not the disease. Douglass was better informed: ‘The old master class was not deprived of the power of life and death, which was the soul of the relation of master and slave. They could not, of course, sell their former slaves, but they retained the power to starve them to death, and wherever this power is held there is the power of slavery. He who can say to his fellow- man,  You shall serve me or starve, is a master and his subject is a slave….Though no longer a slave, he is in a thralldom grievous and intolerable, compelled to work for whatever his employer is pleased to pay him..’ (Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, 1892)


$ex and the 1%

‘One of the world’s most exclusive sex clubs for the rich and powerful has opened its doors to the public – but it will set you back a hefty £1,500-a-night. You’ll also have to jet to Los Angeles, where members at the Snctm sex club in Los Angeles – who sign a blood oath to join – are also splashing out an eye-watering £60,000-a-year for unlimited access to special rooms and privileges at the orgies’ (mirror.co.uk, 2 February). We the 99% are expected to find the means to raise the next generation of the working class. This has been so for centuries. Who better to comment on this situation than the Marquis De Sade: ‘Everywhere I could reduce men into two classes both equally pitiable; in the one the rich who was the slave of his pleasures; in the other the unhappy victims of fortune; and I never found in the former the desire to be better or in the latter the possibility of becoming so, as though both classes were working for their common misery…I saw the rich continually increasing the chains of the poor, while doubling his own luxury, while the poor, insulted and despised by the other, did not even receive the encouragement necessary to bear his burden. I demanded equality and was told it was utopian; but I soon saw those who denied its possibility were those who would lose by it…’ (Aline et Valcour, ou le Roman philosophique, 1788)


Shafted

‘Canadian Mint Worker Sentenced To 30 Months For Smuggling $140,000 Of Gold In His Rectum’ (zerohedge.com, 2 February).

A headline you will not see in a socialist world without workers and crime – or your money back!

Summer School 2017: The Environment (2017)

Party News from the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

These days, concerns about the environment tend to get pushed into the background by issues like Brexit, Trump’s presidency and ongoing austerity measures. But climate change, pollution and extinctions don’t go away just because the headlines are filled with other events. 2016 was the warmest year on record, with implications for sea levels and habitats; more and more waste is produced for future generations to deal with, and many hundreds of species continue to become extinct every year.

Legislation places some restrictions on the use of dangerous materials, hunting and waste disposal, for example. However, legislators can only work within a system which is structured to safeguard the interests of the wealthy elite, rather than everyone. And of course laws don’t always prevent environmentally-damaging methods from being used if they save or make money. Capitalism turns the natural world into a resource to be exploited for a profit.

The Socialist Party argues that the environment can only be managed responsibly if society as a whole is managed co-operatively and in everyone’s interests. If our industries and services were owned and run in common, then we would be able to produce what we need and want in the most reasonable, sustainable way.

Our weekend of talks and discussions looks at the current state of the environment, and its prospects for the future we make for it.

Full residential cost (including accommodation and meals Friday evening to Sunday afternoon) is £100. The concessionary rate is £50. Day visitors are welcome, but please book in advance.

To book a place, send a cheque (payable to the Socialist Party of Great Britain) to Summer School, Sutton Farm, Aldborough, Boroughbridge, York, YO51 9ER, or book online at spgb.net/summerschool2017 or through the QR code. E-mail enquiries to spgbschool@yahoo.co.uk

50 Years Ago: Bank Rate Cuts (2017)

The 50 Years Ago column from the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bank Rate is generally regarded among the economic “experts” as a means of controlling the economy.

Put up the Rate, runs their argument, and you slow down production; put it down and production will start booming.

None of the experts have ever explained why, if it is really so easy to control capitalism, the economy ever gets into a crisis.

The Chancellor’s decision to reduce Bank Rate by one half percent was greeted as a stimulant to British industry.

“One positive gain,” said the Daily Telegraph, “it (the government) hopes to see … is a greater willingness among businessmen to proceed with their capital investment programmes.”

Since September 1953, when Bank Rate was 3½ percent, there have been twenty seven changes. Both Conservative and Labour governments agree that Bank Rate helps to control the economy, both have upped it to seven percent in times of crisis.

But none of these changes have altered a course of economic events which was already set. They have, in fact, been made in response to those courses; they have been not an influence but a reaction.

Callaghan’s panic seven percent last July was no exception and neither is the latest reduction. William Davis, the Guardian’s Financial Editor, put it:

   “I gather that the Bank of England advised the Chancellor a few weeks ago that a half percent cut in Bank Rate couldn’t be delayed much longer.”

The economy of capitalism, as so many Chancellors have found out, cannot be controlled by Bank Rate changes or any other juggling. The Labour Party should know this, perhaps better than anyone.

For they once had a mighty Plan to defeat economic crises. But just like the Tories, they end up doing what the Bank of England tells them.

(From “Review”, Socialist Standard, March 1967)

No Gods, No Masters? – Pagan Anarchism (2017)

From the March 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 29 September 2016, one user of the website ‘revleft’ introduced themselves as follows: ‘I’ve struggled to find information on different political theories that wasn’t heavily academic and inaccessible to me as someone with cognitive disabilities and neurodivergencies that otherwise make it *really hard* to understand a lot of the leftist “sub-groups” I guess I’ll call them? Ideologies? Only the Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer and the Gods and Radicals website in general has actually made any of this accessible to me so far’.

The ‘Gods and Radicals’ website (godsandradicals.org) publishes the twice-yearly publication Beautiful Resistance and published the Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer in 2015, written by Alley Valkyrie (Nightingale Public Advocacy Collection, respectexistence.org) and Rhyd Wildermuth (paganarch.com, Managing Editor at Gods and Radicals):

  ‘Once, humans made contracts with the land and the gods for sovereignty. Take too much and the land revolted with famine or pestilence. … We Pagans are trying to re-enchant the world, to bring back the magic of the forests and the mountains. We are trying to hear and revere the wild places, the sacred forgotten places, the spirits of ocean and rivers and lakes. And yet Capitalism is always poisoning these places because it considers nothing sacred except profit, nothing holy except wealth.’
‘Grand programs and one-size-fits-all solutions don’t work… One answer cannot possibly fit every single one of the almost 8 billion people sharing this planet with us. Anyone who does come up with that answer should probably be shot on sight, as they’re pretty likely gonna start shooting people themselves pretty soon. Besides, ‘one-answer’ sounds a lot like ‘one-god,’ and we Pagans have lots of reason to be rue [sic] that one-god trend.’

The Primer goes on to urge the reader to ‘Build Community’, ‘Make Common Cause’, ‘Invest in Each Other, Divest from Capitalism’, ‘Consume Less, Create More’ and ‘Resist Often and Everywhere’. This ‘political theory’ wasn’t clear or ‘accessible’ and although this is only a 32 page e-zine, various other ‘pagan anarchist’ websites weren’t either. Not even the description of the book titled Pagan Anarchism (2016), by Christopher Scott Thomas could help;

  ‘Witches who poison bosses and landlords. Slave revolts instigated by a god of ecstasy. Eviction notices issued in the name of land spirits and Faerie queens. A ghostly general leading loom-breakers. Elves who destroy factories. Were these all merely myths, they’d still be more true than the superstitions upholding Empire and Capital. Yet they’re not myths, but our own history: the history of uprisings, of a fierce magic and a revolutionary current woven throughout the threads of Paganism and anarchism.’

This is a fantasy and not one likely to be welcomed by anarchists (or even some ‘pagans’ judging by comments online). Three quotes by Marx are included in the Pagan Anti-Capitalist Primer, but Marx and socialists have always rejected superstition including ‘paganism’. Marx called this rejection of superstition part of ‘materialism’. As Marx wrote: ‘The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions.’

The preface to the German Ideology reads ‘… men have constantly made up for themselves false conceptions about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged their relationships according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The phantoms of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations. Let us liberate them from the chimeras, the ideas, dogmas, imaginary beings under the yoke of which they are pining away.’

Religious superstition doesn’t have to be monotheistic, ostensibly apolitical, Abrahamic or even an organised religion to be opposed by socialists as a barrier to socialism. This includes ‘pagan anarchism’.

DJW