Neither coal or dole (1993)

From the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "The underground mining of coal is an arduous and potentially dangerous occupation, even using modern mechanised methods . . . the mining of thermal-grade coal could, in theory, be eliminated"—scientific report quoted in Independent, 30 November.

Imagine today’s headlines in a future, sane society. “Savage Government Axe Kills 30,000 Mining Jobs” screams the headline. How would someone from a future society, one based on common ownership of all the worlds resources, view such a message?

The first difficulty would surely concern trying to decipher the language. Such words as "Government" and "Jobs” would be as anachronistic as Middle English is to us today. Once the problem of defining the meaning of these words had been overcome the more difficult task of interpreting the meaning of the message and the various reactions to it would have to be tackled.

In a sane world the news that 30,000 people would be liberated from a tiresome and dangerous task would surely occasion great rejoicing. Imagine, then, people from a sane society trying to make sense of the storm the government announcement of the loss of 30,000 mining jobs has caused. They would have great difficulty in doing so if they were not well versed in the peculiar absurdities of the present system we live under.

Absurdities

Firstly, it would come as a great surprise to them that it was the miners themselves who objected most to the news that they were no longer needed to go down the mines. If our friend from the future assumed from this that miners were some kind of masochistic martyrs to an obscure cause she could be forgiven.

"The miners are upset because they will not have to go down the mines any more” does not really tell the truth though, even though our friend from the future might be led to believe this by reading and listening to some of the media coverage of this issue. The miners are upset because they are being denied use of their one marketable attribute in a world that is one big marketplace. They are being denied the chance to sell their labour power because their employer has decided that it is no longer required.

Cartoon by Peter Rigg.

Our friend from another place will need some help in understanding the forces at work here. In the sane society where she comes from work is only undertaken if society as a whole decides it is necessary or if it gives pleasure. There are no economic factors to distort the issues against humanity. If energy is required to sustain a desirable way of life then ways are sought to obtain that energy in a way that is most convenient to most people. If people decided that coal-mining was an option they would like to use then the work could be done on a rota basis by as few people as possible for as little time as is needed.

However, coal-mining would be unlikely to be an option humans would need to undertake since either machines could be developed to do the work or other forms of energy, such as wind and sun power could be developed. In a sane, moneyless world the development of such energy sources would not be hindered by the financial interests of a small powerful minority or by the workers who depend on obsolete industries. In such a world we would not see people who had hitherto had to do unpleasant tasks for the benefit of all complaining that their burden had been lifted.

Having been completely baffled why the liberation of people from a dangerous and needless toil should be such a contentious issue our friend from a sane world would then have to try to cope with the even more baffling arguments each side put forward in defence of either keeping the mines open or closing them down. Here our friend would once again have to master terms completely alien to her own environment.

Arthur Scargill argues that mining is more economical (for “economical" read profitable to the ruling class) than other forms of obtaining fuel and that therefore the miners should be allowed to continue their thankless task. Our friend, on discovering the meaning of this strange word "profit”, would be surprised to learn that Scargill was putting the case for the miners.

Divorced by time and experience from the propaganda of the profit era, she would see profit for what it plainly is— the robbery of the working class by their employers. Scargill's assertion that it is more profitable to exploit miners than other types of workers in similar industries would seem like another reason why the miners should wish to discontinue their occupation.

The employer's stance would be equally baffling. To blame lack of productivity for the closure of the mines in a time of recession would take a jump in logic that our friend would find well nigh impossible. Outside of the warped logic prevalent under capitalism historians would have a clear understanding of what caused periods of recession.

Our friend would know that a recession, purely a historical phenomenon not affecting her own era of a sane social system where goods are produced only to satisfy human needs, was caused when workers had produced too much for their masters to sell. Recessions, and all the hardships these entailed for the working class, only occurred when the warehouses of the world were overflowing with the goods that the people who had produced them were in need of. Our friend would probably become dizzy if she tried to follow the verbal gymnastics of those who apologized or endorsed the system that made these recessions inevitable.

I doubt if she would be able to come to grips at all with the contradictions of capitalism. Anyone brought up in a sane world, where all the technological advances that had been made under the adverse conditions of enforced scarcity had been utilized for the benefit of the whole of mankind, would never be able to understand why it took so long for the majority of people to do away with a system that denied them so much when an abundance of all that was necessary for a pleasant and fulfilled life was there for the taking.

The mining fiasco, along with such things as the war in the former Yugoslavia and the starving millions in various countries around the world, are but the latest details in the rich tapestry of bitter lessons the dispossessed majority have had to endure in their acceptance of the capitalist system. Only when the majority of people come to fully appreciate the wonderful future that it is within their power to create will "our friend” cease to be a figment of our imagination and become the people around us. Until then the tragedies brought to us every day on the news will remain.

J.C.

Irish Labour in power (1993)

From the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Irish general election which took place in November has been generally described by the political commentators as a “watershed” and “mould-breaking”. The Irish Labour Party achieved its best result ever, winning its largest percentage of first preference votes (19.3 percent) and its highest number of seats in the Dail. It made breakthroughs in parts of the country where it never had Dail representation before. By contrast, a major rival, the nationalist Fianna Fail party saw its share of the vote fall to its lowest level since 1927.

As no one party achieved an overall majority at the election, discussions got under way between the various leaderships on the formation of the next government. It was clear that Labour, with their increased parliamentary presence, was going to be a significant part of whatever government emerged. In the event Labour went into coalition with Fianna Fail under the outgoing Prime Minister Reynolds. Labour, which identified unemployment as the single biggest issue facing the working class in Ireland, will thus now be attempting to manage capitalism to tackle this problem. It will not be its first attempt at this task. Nor the first time it will fail.

Trade union appendage

The Labour Party was founded by the Irish Trade Union movement in 1912, ten years before the establishment of the Irish Free State. For its first twenty years it was an appendage of the union movement and did not in fact organizationally become independent from the Trade Union Congress until 1930. Until this time it was unashamedly “a party of trade unionists for trade unionists” (Mitchell, The Irish Labour Party) ; and in fact remained so in spirit until the 1960s. Although two noted Irish left-wingers, James Connolly and James Larkin, were involved in its foundation, the party was entirely reformist and unlike the Labour Party in Britain did not even propose a nominal socialist reconstruction of society. It contented itself with ultra-incrementalist measures like “an extra half ounce of tea for all agricultural workers”! (Gallagher, The Irish Labour Party in Transition).

Electoral support for Labour remained weak: it typically received 10 percent of the vote at general elections. Surprisingly its strength in Dublin was traditionally low, until it broadened its appeal to include “progressive" elements. Notwithstanding Labour's union connection, most Irish workers opted for the populist corporatism of Fianna Fail. The party’s parliamentary composition consisted of conservative rural deputies, having little interest in or knowledge of socialism, and surviving electorally by the effective use of favoritism. Many of these politicians used the Labour banner simply as a flag of convenience. So much so that in 1967 the more ideological Dublin branches felt it necessary to demand that parliamentary candidates “should have a basic knowledge of Labour policy” (Irish Times, 19 September 1967).

Labour has participated in government four times in the last half-century; twice in the 1940s and 1950s, and in the 1970s and 1980s. On each occasion it was the junior partner with the avowedly pro-capitalist party Fine Gael. Unemployment has been an endemic economic problem for Ireland for most of this century. Labour has always identified it as a particular priority though it has increased significantly during all of their periods in power.

Abortion issue

Why then have a large section of the Irish working class turned to Labour this time? Undoubtedly a part of its support is due to dissatisfaction with the economic policies of the previous government; unemployment has grown inexorably to 300,000, which at 19 percent of the working population is amongst the highest in Europe; and almost a third of the population are subsisting on some form of social welfare. Also a judicial tribunal into the operation of the beef industry revealed an embarrassing web of corruption, involving major capitalists in that industry and prominent members of the ruling Fianna Fail party.

However support for Labour also came from a secular section of Irish society. The election was held simultaneously with a constitutional referendum on abortion. An absolutist position, completely outlawing abortion had been enshrined in the constitution. at the urgings of the Catholic hierarchy after an earlier referendum in 1983. The more recent referendum was an attempt to humanize the situation; allowing women the right to receive information on foreign abortion services, to travel abroad to avail themselves of these services and to permit abortion in Ireland in some very restricted cases. Needless to say under capitalism, humanism and civil rights were not the only issues. The European Court had found the existing Irish position to be a violation of EC free trade laws, whereby a national of one member country is entitled to avail themselves of services in another. The referendum was passed and Labour perceived as having greater anti-clerical credentials picked up electoral support on the issue.

After the election, in spite of their campaign rhetoric, the Labour leadership quickly commenced negotiations with the other parties about the formation of the next government. They obviously forgot their previous denunciations of these same parties as "the failed parties of the right”. In coming to a deal with Fianna Fail behind closed doors Labour, which during the election had made noises about the lack of openness and ethical behaviour in Irish politics, was seemingly oblivious to the anti-democratic fact that the next government policies were created by secret backroom deals.

Socialists can immediately tell the Labour Party that their attempts to actively reduce unemployment and promote "equality” are doomed to failure under the current economic system. Indeed, even some capitalist commentators doubt Labour’s plans to produce growth by borrowing, given that a large part of financial policy is constrained by the Maastricht convergence criteria. This is the EC-wide mechanism by which the currencies of each of the member states (except Britain and Denmark) will converge to produce monetary union sometime at the end of this decade.

How then do socialists view political developments in Ireland? The futility of Labour-reformist parties trying to ameliorate capitalism has been exposed many times this century. This is even more apparent in Ireland given that Labour will be in coalition with Fianna Fail and that in any case the parameters governing the Irish economy are very dependent on EC decisions. It is expected that some liberalization will occur, under Labour’s influence, over social issues such as abortion, divorce, homosexuality and contraception and socialists will welcome this wholeheartedly.

However our greatest interest in the election arises from the fact that a significant change has occurred in the Irish political arena, albeit within the confines of capitalism. The task of persuading a majority of our fellow workers of the necessity of a complete change in our social system can be pursued more vigorously in a dynamic political climate where old certainties are beginning to crumble.

Kevin Cronin

1994 Euro-elections: appeal for funds (1993)

Party Appeal from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

We are planning to contest at least 2 and maybe 3 seats in the elections to the European Parliament which will take place in June next year. To do this we shall of course need money.

At the moment the amount in our Election Fund—left over from contributions made for our general election campaign last year—is £1419. We shall need at least four times this amount to pay the deposits and run a credible campaign.

We are therefore appealing again to all those who wish to get the Socialist message across—contesting three seats would allow us to put the case for socialism to three-quarters of a million voters—to contribute to building up our election fund. In fact the final decision as to how many seats to contest, if any, will partly depend on how much we have in our Election Fund by the end of the year.

Any contributions should be sent to: Election Fund, the Socialist Party, 52 Clapham High St, London SW4 7UN. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to ”the Socialist Party of Great Britain”.

Labour Foreign Minister Bevin and his predecessors (1946)

From the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who take on the responsibility of running the capitalist system have not much choice in the way they do it; their policies are largely determined by the system itself. In theory the Labour Party profess to recognise this. In their “Programme of Action ” published in 1934 under the title “For Socialism and Peace,” they declared that “the choice before the nation is either a vain attempt to patch up the superstructure of a capitalist society in decay at its very foundations, or a rapid advance to a Socialist reconstruction of the national life. There is no halfway house . . .” They recognised, too, that anarchy in the relationship of nations is as much the result of capitalism as is economic anarchy—“both spring from the fundamental and incurable anarchy of capitalism.” Their Programme made the following claim:—

   “Because it is a Socialist Party, the Labour Party believes in the brotherhood of man. The advance of science has bound the peoples of the world together by a thousand ties. It has also produced instruments of destruction so potent that the institution of war has become incompatible with the survival of civilisation: The Labour Party regards war as senseless and wicked, a blasphemy against the human spirit. It detests natural and racial as much as class barriers.”

Now that the Labour Party is in power its promise to introduce Socialism at home and to pursue the “brotherhood of man” abroad is being put to the test. Instead of attempting to introduce Socialism (for which it did not receive or even seek a mandate at the election) it is extending state capitalism by nationalising various industries while retaining all of the basic features of capitalism—the wages-system, production for profit and the exploitation of the workers for the benefit of the owning class. The only difference is that some of the owners are in future to hold Government Stock instead of company shares and are to have no hand in management of the undertakings.

Being thus confined within the limits set by capitalism their foreign policy is likewise pre-determined in all its broad lines. With the “brotherhood of man” on their lips they are engaged, like all their Liberal and Tory predecessors, in a high-powered drive to capture foreign markets for British exports. On taking office as Foreign Minister, Mr. Bevin was reported to have said: “British foreign policy will not be altered in any way under the Labour Government” (“Evening News,” 26th July, 1945). This continuity means carrying on the centuries-old policy of controlling trade routes, holding down colonies and protecting foreign investments. All the other Powers, no matter what the political complexion of their government, are engaged in the same cut-throat struggle. Some Labour Party supporters—willing enough to accept the continuity of capitalism at home—are naive enough to imagine that there can be a change of policy abroad. They are becoming suspicious of Mr. Bevin as Foreign Minister. Mr. Harold Laski, Chairman of the Labour Party, is one of these.

Speaking at St. Pancras on 14th November, 1945, he said: “It is a matter of regret and bitter shame that British and Indian troops should be used to restore tyranny in the Pacific areas” (“Daily Mail,” 15th November). He went on to say that they had not fought to free Holland so that financiers in Amsterdam should be allowed to continue exploiting the people of Java, and declared that there was still a marked absence of real will to help in the making of a free India. “We have to decide,” he said, “whether we are capable as a Labour Party to go forward swiftly to the proud day when we can claim to have assisted in the freedom of a great people. I can think of no more acid test of the bona fides of our party than its willingness to go forward in this task of emancipation.”

Mr. Ernest Thurtle, Labour M.P., illustrates the doubts some Labour M.P.’s have about Mr. Bevin's foreign policy by the observation that during House of Commons debates on foreign affairs Mr. Eden, former Conservative Minister for foreign affairs, got more cheers from Labour M.P.’s than did their own Foreign Secretary, Mr. Bevin. The applause for the latter came, he said. “mainly from the Opposition ” (“Sunday Express,” 25th November, 1945). Mr. Thurtle, who goes on to say that “on all the really big international issues Britain presents a united front to the world. And it is a good thing that it should be so,” fails to realise that this united front on foreign affairs means the representation of capitalist interests. The alternative—a policy based on the common interest of the workers of the whole world against the world capitalist class—would mean opposition to British capitalism at home, not acceptance of it.

Another Labour supporter, Mr. Hannen Swaffer, writing in the “People” (30th December, 1945) takes a different view. With his customary superficiality he finds in Mr. Bevin a very successful Foreign Minister. “Ernest Bevin undoubtedly is the Man of 1945.” Swaffer goes on to compare Mr. Bevin with Mr. Arthur Henderson, who was Foreign Minister in the Labour Government of 1929-1931, and declares “ . . . Henderson’s work at Geneva was monumental, and Bevin is today the most influential man in world politics. Very largely it was he who made the Moscow meeting a success. Yet., not long ago, people talked of ‘the ruling classes’.”

The most interesting thing about Mr. Swaffer’s praise of Bevin and Henderson lies not in what he said but in what he forgot to say. He forgot to mention that exactly the same kind of empty claims were being made (notably by Mr. Swaffer among the rest) for Ramsay MacDonald, who was Foreign Minister as well as Prime Minister in Labour’s first government, 1924. Subsequent events, including MacDonald’s lining up with the Conservatives, have amply shown that the claims were baseless. Time will do the same with Mr. Bevin’s reputation. The “Labour Magazine ” (November, 1924, published by the T.U.C. and Labour Party) claimed that “it is no exaggeration to say that Mr. MacDonald’s activities as Foreign Secretary set the seal upon Labour statesmanship. It was a wonderful thing to succeed where his predecessors failed in reconciling France and Germany, and bringing Europe as a whole to accept the Reparations plan as a practicable method of testing the economic possibility of paying reparations without injuring the organised life of the nations concerned. The work of the Labour representatives, headed by Mr. MacDonald, ail the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations in Geneva was even more fundamental. It brought world peace and reduction of armaments into the field of practical politics . . . War has been recognised as an international crime.”

We have had the second world war since then, and again the Powers are working hard to be prepared for another. As a footnote to the claims made for Mr. Bevin, the following extracts from the Press need no comment.

Mr. Bevin, in the House of Commons when announcing his policy for Palestine on 13th November, 1945: “I will stake my political future on solving this problem ” (“Daily Telegraph,” 14th November).

Report from the “Daily Express” next day: “The outbreak [of riots in Tel Aviv, Palestine] started as a mass demonstration, broke up shouting 'Down with the White-paper government. Down with Bevin.’ ”

Time will show that the contradictions of capitalism will be no more amenable to the wishes of Mr. Bevin and his Labour Party supporters in the future than they were to his predecessors, Henderson and MacDonald, in the past.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Workers and the State (1946)

From the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world’s workers have been conscripted, categorised, rationed and regimented by the power of the State, ruthlessly should they live in dictatorship countries, by their “consent” in the democracies. In spite of this the Socialist view that the State is “the executive committee of the ruling class” is contested by many. Let us therefore take a swift survey of the evidence of history.

The Social institution called the State had its genesis in the advent of private property, and its beginning took place after thousands of years in man’s history, during which he had no concept of private property as such. From these misty eons of time we find that man, and the word includes woman, in the unequal fights against the forces of nature, banded together in tribes or clans in which all implements and provisions were the common property of the whole community, and no trace has been found by philologists of the words mine and thine in use during this immense period of primitive communism.

The tribes practised complete economic and social equality, there being therefore no classes, no law or state, only the observance of the tribal rites and customs; everyone took part in the common tasks of the day and had an equal voice in the election of officers. An injury to one was an injury to all in this democracy where the social relation was that of kinship, and the greatest punishment, banishment to the world of terrors outside the tribe.

Writers on this period of man’s development (Engels' “Origin of the Family”) describe how the “means of production” evolved and changed man from the savage hunting the animals for food armed only with crude weapons, to that of barbarian who now domesticated the animals and became a pastoralist, the period which ushers in the dawn of civilisation, and private property.

So close was man always to the edge of famine that the need for moving to new hunting grounds inevitably brought him into conflict with other occupants and during these forays captives were taken and killed; sometimes they were eaten. Man later learned that the captives could provide many meals if put to attend the pastures and cattle he had acquired.

So the enslavement of man by man aided by the increasing knowledge of agriculture begun the private ownership of the means of life.

This new method of production gave rise to wealthy families and poor families and in place of the communal family group there came the inferiority of woman as the mere “help meet” of her lord and master, for only through him could their issue inherit the family property, now protected by the law and force of the State.

The age-old tribal communism had been broken down by the needs and institutions that were set up and given the sanctity of authority by the class which owned and controlled land, cattle, money and slaves. The city states which eventually arose in the congenial Mediterranean area were based on this class ownership and were the scene of the violent class-struggles which fill the history books, and it is a sobering thought that the philosophy, architecture, and oratory of Rome and Athens were only made possible by the labours of a slave class whose toil gave the owners the comfort and leisure to pursue those studies.

The republic of Rome was organised on a military basis and had a constitution drawn up which divided the population into six classes, each class holding votes according to its property strength, whilst for defence each vote in the legislature carried the duty of providing a centurion or officer over a hundred men drawn from the populace It is a commentary on modern war that the poorest of the proletariat, having no property, were not asked to defend their “way of life”; they being classified as mere breeders by the Roman state.

Thus the possessing class held political power during the time of Rome battling against its Italian tribal neighbours and later as the centre of an empire holding the greater part of Europe and Africa in its grip. The slave system ate into the heart of the Roman state and brought ruin and decadence in its train; the slave taken in war. or made so by debt, was considered a chattel that had no legal right to properly, to marry or enter into a contract. Slaves often provided a Roman holiday as gladiators trained to fight each other in the arena, a training which served them in good stead in one of the several Servile Wars that broke out. Spartacus, joined by the gladiators' school, roused the slaves, trained them and inflicted defeats on the Roman army for four years, the revolt being finally crushed and its supporters brutally burnt or crucified in thousands by the victors.

Reform in the late days of the Empire allowed the slave to buy his freedom, or as a serf to farm a plot of the broken up estates, for work had become a degradation in the eyes of the Romans, and by now the large landowners had ruined the small owners by estates run entirely by slaves brought from the imperial wars by a paid proletarian army. Rome became filled with discharged soldiery, freed men and proletarians, demanding bread and land from a ruling class replete with the plunder and tribute of the wars and colonies. No the state gave them doles, circuses, and more wars. Furthermore, the state declared the “public ownership" of the slave's religion, Christianity, long persecuted for hinting that the slave was as good as his owner—in heaven. Yet nothing could allay the rot of such a slave economy, and Rome offered little resistance when beset by the Teutonic hordes from outside.

The fall of Rome's military power saw the splitting up of Europe into many principalities and kingdoms which owed their existence to the usurping of the tribe and clan system by the warrior and land owning class, assisted now by the spiritual inheritor of Rome's power, the Roman Church, headed by the Pope. This epoch called Feudalism was one of chronic warfare over land in which the remnants of communal society were stamped out by the lauded chiefs, and where the Church as an arbiter became a great land-owning and political force used in bemusing and enforcing class rule on the enslaved class, the serfs. The theory of the state was one of service, and pyramidic in structure; the. king holding all land in his realm and granting its ownership to his subjects under bis protection, they swearing loyalty to him and his law while providing him with arms and soldiery according to their status. The serfs farmed their lord's land not as the uneconomical slaves of Rome but with the added interest of raising their own keep on strips of land granted them by the lord of the manor. Revolts, but more the need of the state for money, later gave the serfs the liberty to rent small plots, notably in England, as peasants.

Meanwhile another class was growing, that of the merchants and manufacturers, who resented the king’s power to tax and squander money on wars whilst they had no voice in the council of barons and king, and thus arose in England the Parliament of Commoners which the king summoned as he thought fit, generally for money, or as a lever in his quarrels with the barons. The townsmen or burghers grew more insistent against the church and king as the latter were fettering their ever-growing commerce by state restrictions and the ban on usury. This clash of interests found expression in religion, and Protestantism was adopted by the merchant class from the anti-Pope doctrines of Luther of Germany. Tactically they backed Henry VIII in his quarrel with the Pope over the breaking of his marriage vows, sacred to the feudal church, a schism whereby the crown “requisitioned” the church lands and wealth, thus severing its power.

The class struggle of the rising capitalist class went on through the reigns, and finally culminated in a civil war in which the Parliamentarians recruiting the yeomanry and townsmen ended absolute monarchy by defeating the Royalists and beheading their king, Charles I, in Whitehall.

With the state in the hands of the capitalist class we enter the era of industrial capitalism, where abroad the capitalists grab colonies and roam the world for markets and raw materials, while at home their allies the capitalist landlords drive the peasants off the land and into the towns where, as "free'’ men, they enter the factories to a new slavery, wage-dom, a revolution still pursued with variations in India and Russia to-day. The new mode of production, the hiring of labour power to operate power-driven machinery, places the whole wage class in subjection to the owners by virtue of the monopoly of the means of production in their hands. Furthermore, over and above the total wage bill it leaves in their possession enormous surpluses of commodities which they must trade abroad, therefore the state increases and jealously guards the spheres of influence and foreign markets for this overplus, for out of its sale comes the new capital to repeat the process of profit making. Should an actual threat by rivals arise the state invokes its power over propaganda, arms the wage workers and with many patriotic slogans urges them to annihilate the enemy of the national interests. These wars, local at first, have increasingly involved all in misery and destruction while with the advance of science the technique of war is revolutionised by new equipment and weapons.

To-day the state, with two world wars to its credit, becomes more authoritarian by the needs of modern total war, and must even in the "peace” retain in its hands the power to regiment workers and direct industry in readiness for a possible world war 3. Hence the long view of some capitalists in favouring nationalisation plans so beloved by the "left.”

We have made a case for the class and military nature of the state. Yet is it possible to end the state and the exploitation of man by man ?

The wars and poverty of capitalism are an unnecessary contradiction which grown-up mankind should not now tolerate, in view of the titanic output of wealth possible if society was freed from profit and class rule.

Socialists advocate the democratic social ownership of all means of wealth production, a return in fact to man's earlier practice, but on a mach higher plane, his forays for example were caused by hunger, not by surpluses.

The owning class is not fitted mentally to accomplish this great social change, it must be the work of the majority the now enfranchised workers, and they must not waste precious time reforming their masters' system but grasp the need for ending it before capitalism hurls us all into another conflagration which will leave surviving mankind the inheritor of mere dust and rabble.

Frank Dawe

Editorial: The American Loan and the Gold Standard (1946)

Editorial from the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Much ado about very little

Most people are frankly mystified about the intricate details of currency, banking, credit and international trade and consequently do not understand the issues involved in the controversy about the American loan and the gold standard. This includes many of the politicians who speak on the subject so that those who support one side or the other frequently cannot even agree about the facts let alone the desirability of taking one or the other course of action. The members of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are divided among themselves. Even those in both parties who supported the American loan arrangements admit that they do so with great misgivings and without any assurance that things will work out as planned. Many who support the loan would like to join Lord Beaverbrook’s group in opposition but cannot convince themselves that his case for the British Empire to stand as a unit more or less independent of U.S.A. is practicable. They therefore take the view that no other course is open than to accept the loan and with it the conditions laid down by American capitalism. The Manchester Guardian puts it thus:—

   "The plain case in favour of the American loan is that we cannot do without it. We have got into a position . . . from which we cannot escape without hardships which would rend the political fabric of this country. . . . The idea that we cap turn down the American offer because we are shocked at the conditions they have extorted is simply childish." (12 Dec., 1945.) 

The immediate factors that determined the offer and the acceptance of the loan of £1,100,000,000, to be repaid at 2 per cent. over fifty years beginning in 1952, are the following. On the one side British Capitalists, during the war, lost the bulk of their export trade and foreign investments (the latter had to be realised to pay for imported food and war supplies) and are now so denuded of certain goods that they must get a loan from U.S.A. in order to pay for needed imports, pending the turnover to full-time peace production and the export not merely of the pre-war volumes of goods but a greatly increased volume. On the other side the loan was offered not on philanthropic grounds but because American industry is producing at such a rate that big business is already scared at the thought of the slump that will occur if markets cannot be found. Much of the loan will be used to buy American goods for shipment to the British Empire and the Continent. As The Times says, "The current objectives of the United States are not disguised. Like greyhounds in the slips their salesmen are ready. . . . American productive capacity has been much multiplied by the war. When civilian demand replaces military, there will be surpluses—and the prospect of considerable unemployment. The accepted solution is to employ the workers and dispose of the surpluses on oversea orders.' (Times, 7 Dec., 1945.)

Apart from repayment of the loan and payment of interest the American authorities imposed other conditions, in particular that the pound sterling shall remain at the present exchange rate with the dollar (4.03 dollars to the pound) and that the British Government shall enter into world banking and trading arrangements proposed by the U.S.A., the declared object of which is to get all the Powers to agree to establish "freer trade relations" unfettered by tariffs and preferences, import restrictions. State subsidies. State trading cartels and other types of trade barriers—in short, to make the world a vast market open for American exports.

The attempt to keep the paper pound at a fixed relationship to the dollar is a roundabout way of keeping it at a fixed relationship to gold, though the Labour defenders of the agreement point to the provisions which will enable the British Government to alter the relationship in certain circumstances, i.e., to fix it at, say, 3 dollars to the pound. Because of this “escape clause" the Labour Party maintains that it is not committed to being "on the gold standard." The difference is, however, only one of degree and of form. Before 1914 and from 1925 to 1931 the sovereign was by law fixed at a certain weight of gold, and corresponding to that relationship it was worth 4.86 dollars. Under present arrangements the paper pound, in effect, is equivalent to a smaller amount of gold than before 1914 and also the way is made easier to reduce that amount still more, within the limits of the agreement with U.S.A.; in other words the present arrangements are more elastic than before 1911 and the relationship between the pound and gold is altered.

The controversy about the amount of gold to which the paper pound (or the currency of any other country) should be related largely represents the rivalry of different sections of the capitalist class. A British firm engaged on the production for export of articles made out of home-produced raw materials has an interest in reducing the gold equivalent. This is because the foreign buyer, e.g., an American who at the old rate had to pay 20 dollars for £5 can at a reduced rate get £5 for, say, 16 dollars. This encourages exports from Britain; but at the same time it discourages imports to Britain. The British importer of foreign raw materials or finished products has an opposite interest, since he must now pay more paper pounds than before for an article costing 20 dollars.

It should, however, be noticed firstly that the effect of any change in the relationship of the paper pound to gold or to the dollar is only temporary since costs and prices adjust themselves; secondly, it helps one capitalist group at the expense of another without increasing total production even in the country concerned; and thirdly, all countries can play the same game—as for example, the recent devaluation of the French franc.

Overriding all these purely currency questions, which are of secondary importance; is the major fact that there is no solution—short of abolishing capitalism—for the endless crises and depressions, unemployment and trade rivalries of the system. Those who take the superficial view can state what looks like a convincing case whichever side they support in the controversy. The Labour Party, which opposes having the pound rigidly fixed to gold by Act of Parliament, can point to the poverty, unemployment and trade depressions that existed before 1914 and between 1925 and 1931. This, they say, proves that the rigid gold standard is bad. Likewise their opponents can point to exactly the same evils that existed after 1931. Both are right in saying that the evils exist, because they always and necessarily will under capitalism, whether adherence to the gold standard is rigid or elastic, at one ratio to gold or to a higher or lower ratio. They are also both wrong in thinking that currency factors are the cause of the evils or that, the evils can be remedied by currency manipulation. The Times, for example, holds out the hope that international agreement may lead to “ the restoration of the system of world trade which prevailed in the heyday of British free trade a generation ago." (Times, 7 Dec.) That "heyday" was, for the workers, a time of poverty, insecurity and unemployment just like the subsequent period. All through the 19th century, when the gold standard was said to be functioning well, crises and working class misery were in evidence. The "over-production" of capitalism, meaning the production of vast quantities of goods for which the workers lacked purchasing power is a result of the private ownership of the means of production and the resulting fact that the goods produced belong to the capitalist class and that class can and does curtail production when the goods cannot be disposed of at a profit.

One point, for the benefit of those who cherish the illusion that the gold standard has ceased to exist, is the recent heavy buying of shares in gold mining companies. The City Editor of the Daily Telegraph (24 Dec.) commenting on this, writes : 

  ". . .  the acceptance of Bretton Woods has removed any nervousness there may have been as to the status of gold in post-war international monetary arrangements. The metal remains the world standard of value, and those who produce it will be marketing a universally acceptable commodity."

In conclusion, it is a safe forecast that the agreements with U.S.A. will not work well for the working class. Nor would any alternative arrangement within the capitalist system. W. J. Bryan's declaration that mankind is crucified on a cross of gold, a flamboyant fallacy that still finds credence in Labour circles, should be re-written: the working class are crucified on a cross of capitalism; which is just as true though the cross now bears the Labour Party label, " Nationalisation.”

Working Class — who isn’t? (1946)

From the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "Again I ask what is the difference between working and non working class? Is it financial? If so, where do you draw the limit? Is a man a member of the working classes if he gets, say, £6 a week, but a non-worker if he gets £10 or £9 15s. 6d.?

  Or is it educational? 1 was not at Eton like Dr. Hugh Dalton ... or at Winchester like Sir Stafford Cripps. But I don’t think I regard them as non-workers . . . on that account.

   Is it purely manual work that counts? When I see, as I sometimes do, Mr. Aneurin Bevan, the Minister of Health, leave his charming house in Cliveden Place, in Belgravia, enter a large saloon car, and being driven by a chauffeur to his ministry, I don’t think I say, 'Ah, there he goes, you can see he’s not a member of the working classes. Look at the car and chauffeur. . .’ 

   The 'Nye’ Bevan, who is striving to provide houses for the people, is just as much a "worker” as ever he was, when he was at the coal-face. . . .

   The truth, I think, is that to-day the phrase has no meaning whatever. We are all workers. . . . The old bad gap between the extremely rich and the miserably poor is rightly being steadily and inexorably narrowed.” 

—Mr. Edward Denny, Evening News, 21 Nov., 1945. 

The phrase "working-classes,” says Mr. Denny, is inverted snobbery, with "no place” in "the hard-working, classless State we are creating.”

Mr. Denny asks a number of questions. We answer these before going on to his unproven assertions.

First, "working-classes ”: Mr. Denny does not understand the meaning of the term "class” in the social sense.

In political economy, a class is a body of people united by economic interests.

Therefore there cannot be two, or more, working-classes. Those linked by the common material interest are the class. There is just the working-class—that’s all.

It is quite logical for the man who starts, like Mr. Denny, by talking about the "working-classes” to conclude that there is no "working-class” at all.

Second, how is the working-class defined? "Society today is divided into two classes: one of which is called the working-class, because its members have to work for their living.” —"Socialism,” p. 3.

It follows, therefore, Mr. Denny, that if the necessity of work defines a member of the working-class—the converse denotes a member of the other class—capitalists do not HAVE to work for a living; some do work, but they could live opulently without.

Therefore, all Mr. Denny’s saloon-bar chatter about whether Dalton was at Eton, or Bevan at the coal-face, has no bearing whatever upon the social problem of what is the working-class.

In so far as Cabinet Ministers participate in some sort of administrative work—they are working; this does not necessarily make them members of the working-class—neither is it possible to define the class position of every single individual.

Mr. Denny evidently has some vague suspicion of this. After having posed his silly questions about £6 or £10 a week, and whether a beer-drinker is a worker, or a whisky-drinker not (according to this erudite classification most Fleet Street journalists are workers and non-workers at the same time), whether a "white collar is the hall-mark of a drone” and so on; he goes on to his real contention—that classes have disappeared in "this little island” where we have "all got to work hard” in "the hard-working classless State we are creating.”

The ground for this claim that classes have disappeared ("we are all workers' ”) is that the "gap between the extremely rich and miserably poor is narrowing.”

Inextricably mixed up with all this is Mr. Denny’s claim that the so-called middle-classes "are the working and worrying classes.” Determined to be right, whatever happens, Mr. Denny backs it both ways! "There are no classes ('we are all workers’). The middle-class (undefined) is the working class (‘hard-working class ’).”

It will be noticed that Mr. Denny carefully writes "the gap between the extremely rich and miserably poor is narrowing.”

If this means that there are fewer very rich and very poor people it is also untrue.

What "miserably poor” is, is undefined. The Oxford Dictionary defines poverty as "want, deficiency, indigence.”

Some are frightfully poor, yet very happy. This kind of happiness is usually a mental hallucination, based on some religious view which makes suffering a virtue, leading eventually to an ideal existence of comfort and ease.

It does not help in investigating the social problem of poverty one iota.

We are quite willing to assess as "miserable poverty" those living below the minimum income estimated by authorities like Sir Wm. Beveridge, Sir John Boyd-Orr and Mr. Rowntree, as indispensable to reasonable health and efficiency.

"Sir John Orr found that 10 per cent. were in poverty in 1936. Mr. Rowntree found that 31 per cent, were below his estimated poverty line and 14 per cent, in extreme poverty.” York, 1936.

—Facts for Socialists. Fabian Society.

It is quite true that the advent of the war brought employment and relative prosperity to this "extreme poverty” group.

While there cannot be any statistics of normal capitalist conditions for a year or two. Socialists nevertheless contend that "extreme poverty” will increase.

Mr. Bernard Harris, City Editor of the Sunday Express, gave on September 16th, 1946, a few facts about " extremely ” rich men:—

Henry Ford . . . £158,000,000

Pierre Du Pont           . . . £143,000,000

John D. Rockfeller    . . . £100,000,000

Andrew Mellon         . . . £100,000,000

Don Simon Iturbi Patino  £100,000,000

Sir John Ellerman            £1,000,000 a year 

Duke of Westminster       Probably the same

These vast fortunes among the largest the world has ever known, are growing at a great rate.

Thus the subtractions made by Death Duties, on their present scale, has been more than offset by the additions, which the opportunities of the capitalist system make possible, to the wealth of the fortunate minority. The Death Duties do not, as yet, arrest the process of the continuous concentration of wealth in few hands. They only slow it down. The rich in Britain are still growing richer.

Mr. Dalton, Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote the following in 1935: — 

   "Over the last ten years the total net capital value of estate liable to Estate Duty rose from £442 millions in 1923-4 to £538 millions in 1929-30, fell to £517 millions in 1930-1 and to 467 millions in 1931-2, rising again to £516 millions in 1932-3.

     In 1933-4 all previous records for a single fortune were broken by the monstrous estate of Sir John Ellerman, which exceeded £17 millions.

     The wealth left by millionaires alone has averaged over £31 millions a year during this period, and the number of millionaires dying each year has varied from three to twenty-two, with an average of just on twelve a year.

    Yet the great majority of those who die leave property so small it is not worth the while of the Inland Revenue to value it.”

—" Practical Socialism for Britain.” p. 338.

It is still true that the great majority of those who die possess no property worth mentioning and so it will remain while capitalism endures, notwithstanding that Mr. Dalton is now Chancellor of the Exchequer and a Labour Government is running the system.

Horatio.

By The Way: Socialists—and Jokes ! (1946)

The By The Way Column from the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists—and Jokes !

Mr. Ernest Thurtle, M.P., embellishes the pages of the Sunday Express with a column of Parliamentary chatter each week.

Writing of possible “revolts” in the Parliamentary Labour Party he says, in passing, “as a Socialist," Mr. R. Stokes (Labour M.P.) “is a joke.” (16.12.45.) “Technically in view of his party membership, he might be described as a ‘ collectivest-anarchist.' ”

What “collectivest-anarchism” is Mr. Thurtle does not explain! Only a party like the Labour Party can have Parliamentary representatives who are “technically” one thing, and actually something different.

In any case, why sort Mr. Stokes out? As Socialists the whole Labour Party are “a joke”—jokes are usually somebody else’s tragedy. The Labour Party are—for the workers.

“All animals are equal—but some animals are more equal than others.”

—Mr. Geo. Orwell, “Animal Farm" p. 87.

* * *

Another Great "Socialist" Victory

“Shares up on Coal Bill Hopes.”

“Formal first reading of the Coal Mines Nationalisation Bill resulted in rises in colliery shares on hopes of favourable terms. Bolsover were better at 96s. 9d."

—Daily Herald, 21.12.13.

* * *

"Socialism" for Bankers

Lord Catto, Governor of the Bank of England, has informed the Select Committee on the Nationalisation of the Bank of England Bill, that he has only received ten letters from stockholders (17,000)) opposing the Bill.

The Third Reading of the Bill went through the House on the 19th of December in a Christmas spirit of light-hearted good humour.

“Several members spoke of the occasion as historic, but the Christmas spirit was so strong and the speeches from all parts of the House so light-hearted that a casual visitor would have had great difficulty in realising that he was in the presence of art epoch-making development in our political history.”

—News Chronicle, 20.12.15.

By the terms of the Bill the stockholders get £58,000,000 in 3% Bonds which Sir Cyril Radcliffe declared for the Government was “most benevolent.”

—News Chronicle, 21.12.15.

Best of all was the Herald's report of the speech of Lieut.-Col. Hamilton of Sudbury (Labour) who taunted the Tories with the fact that “after all, Mr. Churchill himself had agreed that nationalising the Bank was a reasonable step.”

—20.12.15.

* * *

Coal Mines Nationalisation Bill

“The Board will, out of its working, have to pay interest and sinking fund on the money provided by the Treasury.” 

—Daily Herald, 21.12.15.

One small correction, the interests (profits) will be, as usual, paid out of the coal miners' working.

Nationalisation will change the name on the shop-front.

* * *

National Gas Plan

The Gas Industry Commission set up by the Coalition Government has now reported. Its report is almost identical with the plan of the Labour Party. The Conservative Times and the Labour Daily Herald commented in similar terms : — 

  “It is a pertinent comment on current political controversy that an expert committee appointed by a Coalition in which Conservatives predominated should recommend complete public ownership of a major industry, and should combine this proposal with a decisive preference for a form of management—the public-corporation—invented by a past Conservative Government and exemplified by the B.B.C., the Central Electricity Board, the London Passenger Transport Board, and the British Overseas Airways Corporation—all public concerns that have been wholly or mainly Conservative creations. The present Government . . .will naturally welcome the Heyworth report.”

—Times, 6 Dec., 1945.

    

   "On the eve of the Tory censure motion on the Government for its policy of nationalisation a report last night by a committee of independent experts appointed by the Coalition Government recommended complete nationalisation of the gas industry. The Government . . . has . . . broadly accepted the scheme put forward. . . . The five members, headed by Mr. Geoffrey Heyworth, chairman of Lever Brothers and Unilever, Ltd., decided that nationalisation is the only way out of the present confusion and to provide cheaper gas for all.”

—Daily Herald, 5 Dec., 1945.

* * *

"United Nations”

“The foreign policy of a Government is the reflection of its internal policy. Imperialism is the form which Capitalism takes in relation to other nations. A Capitalist Government in Britain thinks of the League of Nations as a means of preserving peace, because peace is a British interest, but still more it thinks of it as a means of preserving the British Empire and British Imperialist interests/'

—C. R. Attlee (“Labour Party in Perspective," 1935. p. 226.)

* * *

"Adequately"

  “A Labour Government would plan this country in such a way as to ensure that, every man, woman and child was adequately fed as a prime duty of the State.”

—Ibid, p. 236.

* * *

Workers Worse Housed than Animals

Mr. Yates (Lab., Ladywood) told of how in Birmingham 80,000 people, most of them ex-.Service, are now in rooms waiting for houses.

“I represent,” said Mr. Yates, “ the ordinary people of one of the wealthiest cities in the world, a city whose proud boast it is that it has a thousand trades. Yet in that city thousands of people are stabled worse than animals.”

—Daily Herald, 27 Nov., 1945.

Capt. G. R. Chetwynd (Lab., Stockton-on-Tees) believed there was no problem at all for the well-to-do.

 “I have tried to find a house for myself in London, and in the space of 20 minutes could have bought 30 houses at £2,000 upwards.

  “I would say that not one brick and not one workman shall be diverted from the provision of houses to let until such advertisements as we see of houses at £2,000 and £3,000 have completely disappeared." (Cheers.)—News Chronicle, 27 Nov., 1945.

Horatio. 

Russian Foreign Policy (1946)

From the February 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia, like the other powers, is now following the traditional capitalist policy of putting pressure on her weaker neighbours for concessions (oil in northern Persia), or territory (Turkey), thus departing from the treaties entered into in 1921. The following extract from the Communist Palme Dutt’s “World Politics, 1918-1936” (Gollancz, 1937, p. 317) is typical of the line the Communist?, used to take on such manifestations of imperialism : —

   “The treaties with Persia, Afghanistan and Turkey in 1921, as with China in 1924, gave direct expression to the break with the principles of imperialism, in renouncing all rights and claims enforced by Tsarism, and establishing relations of friendship and equality."

Now it is a different story.

After This Crisis . . . ? (1976)

From the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The world capitalist economic and political system is in crisis. The signs are so obvious that the mere statement of fact is almost superfluous. The system is beset by not one crisis but several crises. These are separate entities, but inter-related and from the same root cause.

The three major economic problems for all industrialized countries, and the primary producing countries of the so-called Third World, are: inflation, the five-fold increase in oil prices since 1973, and a recession. If the previous cycles of commerce ending in slumps could be referred to as capitalism’s “anarchy of production”, the present situation is chaos. A few press headlines from a single day, 7th September 1975, bear witness to this.

Japanese Bankruptcies at a Peak.

Inflation Rises in U.S.

French Reflation Scorned.

TUC Expecting Autumn Reflation to Cut Jobless.

The “French reflation” was the proposed use of £3,300 million by the French government to try to stimulate the economy, and the dissatisfaction was expressed by the trade union movement and others. M. Georges Seguy of the CGT, the Communist-dominated trade-union organization, said the plan did not alter “the disastrous situation in which our country finds itself”. The French "Socialist” Party said the plan "did not meet needs on employment and prices”.

The TUC’s hope was voiced at the recent conference in Blackpool where a majority had decided in favour of the Labour Government’s £6-a-week wage-restraint policy — a condition of acceptance being the expectation of measures to bring down unemployment. Len Murray, the TUC General Secretary, said that backing the wages policy would “make it easier for the Chancellor to start judicious and selective measures to reflate the economy . . . We shall be looking for action this Autumn to project jobs.” (His word was “project”, not “protect”!)

Trade-union leaders and politicians are, of course, whistling in the dark. The Labour government’s efforts to create jobs are as unrealistic as its other attempts to control capitalism. A sizeable proportion of the unemployed are young people who have been unable to find jobs since they left school last July. In a recent speech in Edinburgh, Edward Heath spoke of a danger that disillusioned youngsters might reject political democracy if the problem were not solved.

Laid Off

Earlier last year, in the writer’s experience, workmates and fellow trade-unionists were not over-concerned at the situation. Something was wrong, there were problems, but things would sort themselves out. The same attitude was found in the audiences at Socialist Party meetings. Now it is different. People up the road are being laid off, “shaken out”, and “surplus to requirements”. Examples in South London are the closure of Decca Radar at Battersea, due to the decline in the sales of colour TV, and the proposed shut-down of the Telephone Manufacturing Company at West Dulwich.

The latter is due chiefly to the cut-back in Post Office orders. The Company’s work is to be centralized at an existing factory in Wiltshire. Two larger companies are also affected by the Post Office cut-back: Plessey’s and the General Electric Company, with 20,000 predicted additions to the numbers of unemployed. In the case of TMC the redundancies include many West Indians and Asians from the Brixton, Herne Hill and Croydon areas. Some long-service employees are jobless: the writer knows one who has been with the Company since he left school in 1938.

The editorials and city columns are full of strident talk about “overmanning”, lack of “mobility of labour”, and “natural wastage”. The writers (employees themselves, of course, and presumably members of the National Union of Journalists) wish other workers to travel obediently at a moment’s notice. This insistence on a “Have tools, will travel” outlook appears only when it suits — or seems to suit — capitalism. Perhaps the ideal situation would be an “Unemployed Disposal Unit” into which workers and their dependants could be fed when not required.

There have been numerous comparisons with the crisis of 1931. There are two economic phenomena from the past which haunt capitalism — the German inflation of 1923 and the “Wall Street Crash” of 1929. At the Durham Miners’ Rally last summer Harold Wilson said we were “facing the worst recession since the 1930s, because the world was in the midst of the most serious decline in trade for over forty years”. We have a slump — because we have a slump!

The President of Australian Council of Trade Unions, Bob Hawke, stated at the CTU Conference in Melbourne that Australia “faced an economic crisis unprecedented since the 1930s”; and “the entire Western world was in a state of economic crisis, and it was naive to blame the Labour government for Australia’s economic difficulties”. (Hawke is also the federal president of the Australian Labour Party.)

Comparison with the nineteen-thirties is interesting in more ways than one. It is not only that the scale of the present recession is the most widespread since that period, but that the proposed solutions are remarkably similar. At the TUC conference, what was most noticeable was the sheer poverty of ideas. The so-called “left”, arguing against the £6-a-week policy, said it would intensify the depression by further reducing workers’ purchasing power: bigger wage increases would increase the workers’ ability to buy goods and services and so make things better.

This is a variant of the simplistic theory that crises occur because the working class cannot buy back what it has produced. Of course it is true that the workers cannot buy the total product of their labour: not only during a depression, however, but at all other times, including periods of expansion and “recovery”. Marx dealt with this in Capital, Volume 2:

  [that the workers] receiving too small a portion of their own product, and the evil would be remedied by giving them a larger share of it, or raising their wages, we should reply that crises are precisely always preceded by a period in which wages rise generally, and the working class actually get a larger share of the annual product intended for consumption. From the point of view of simple commonsense, such a period should rather remove a crisis.

Once a slump is under way, things happen cumulatively. Workers are laid off, their purchasing power decreases, and a chain reaction sets in affecting other industries and other workers. Simultaneously, this helps promote the capitalists’ “loss of confidence” and their cut-back in investment. But the idea that the situation can be remedied by advancing wages is unrealistic. This is unpalatable for Socialists to state, and workers often resent it, but it cannot be ignored.

Searching for Answers

Equally dangerous, but more reactionary, are the continual calls for import controls. This type of economic nationalism in the nineteen-thirties produced restrictions and counter-restrictions, tariffs and further tariffs. The slump and attempted national solutions at the expense of other capitalist states was a contributory factor to dictatorship in countries particularly "hemmed in” by these policies.

There are still demands for further nationalization as the supposed cure for the problems produced by capitalism. This is happening in sections of the motorcar industry. Such is the magnitude of the recession that Coventry, a centre of car production, has been transformed within a couple of years from a high-employment and high-wage area into one with unemployment figures comparable with the depressed areas of Northern Ireland and North-east England. According to the Sunday Telegraph (10th September 1975) car production has fallen to 44 per cent. of its capacity, and studies conducted by McKinsey & Co. (American management consultants) estimate that a further cut of 25 per cent. is necessary ‘“to ensure a profitable future” for the industry.

Part of the objection to the government’s putting money into the Chrysler company was that it would prejudice the recovery of Leyland. The McKinsey report blames “overmanning” and low productivity for the problems of the car industry, and of course this is the cry with regard to British capitalism generally. The proposition is that if only British workers were as profitably employed as workers in other countries — “our competitors” — all would be well. The flaw in this analysis is the recession and high unemployment in those other countries: the Japanese bankruptcies mentioned earlier, the 8 million unemployed in the United States, the numbers in Germany and France.

Under the heading ‘“Shipyards fight undercutting” the Daily Telegraph (2nd October 1975) had a report:

  The desperate hunt for new orders is leading European shipbuilders being undercut by Far East yards that are trying to tempt British and other shipping companies to give them contracts.

It went on:

  The slump in international trade means there is vast over-capacity in shipbuilding, with the bulk of it in Japan and the emerging nations such as South Korea. Japanese yards fear they will be down to only 25 per cent capacity in about two years’ time, and have been pressing for Government help to retain their 50 per cent share of world shipbuilding.

  Now European shipbuilders are starting to urge the Common Market to draw up a shipbuilding policy that will thwart the Japanese ideas.

It must be obvious that neither low productivity nor high productivity in capitalist society is the answer.

Frank Simpkins

Bliss is Ignorance (1976)

From the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

The other day my wife was pounced on in the street by a robed figure. She put up a brave fight, but was left standing with a piece of literature called “Back to Godhead”, the magazine of the Hare Krishna movement. Actually it was worth the couple of bob for an insight into the way religious organizations such as Hare Krishna are hard at work maintaining all the evils they wish to eradicate, or say they do.

The Statement of Principles in the magazine tells us “we can be free of anxiety and come to a state of blissful consciousness in this lifetime”, and “we are all brothers”. Fine. So how is this to be done? The main article takes the form of a conversation between His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanti Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the Hare Krishna movement, and his personal secretary. It sets out to show that Marx was entirely wrong and that God must be “the centre of a truly classless society”.

The article warrants attention, despite much inaccuracy and plain silliness, because it is a good specimen of the thinking and teaching of several organizations which have attracted many idealistic but politically disillusioned young people in the past few years. It churns out many of the familiar cliches of misunderstanding and confusion common in a far wider section of society—cliches upon which capitalism relies greatly for support.

The main plank of the article is a series of pronouncements by His Divine Grace, presumably tipped- off by God: “Men naturally fall into different classes”; “There must be one class who are the enjoyers and another class who are the workers. This system is natural.” We discover how conveniently this fits in with his own circumstances: “In our organization, I am sitting in a chair and you are offering me garlands and the best food because you see a perfect man to follow. Everyone is able to say, here is a perfect man. Let him sit in a chair and let us all bow down and work like menials.”

Of course, Russia is dragged in as proof that Socialism cannot work. Indeed, the Master’s opinions on Russia, taken without regard to what they are supposed to prove, cannot be disputed: “The Russians have not created a classless society. There is no real difference between Russian Communism and other systems in operation. There is as much exploitation there as in other countries. They are creating slaves—the working class.” But this is all precisely because they do not have Socialism in Russia!

Prabhupada asserts that, though we must have leaders and “enjoyers”, we shall not work willingly and contentedly nor be free of problems unless we think of the work we do as being for God rather than for the people who really benefit from it (the enjoyers). The article comes to the nonsensical conclusion that the classless society is only possible when all classes, “high and low”, stop worrying about their inevitable natural exploitation, with all its inevitable natural injustices, and work for God. A plain enough summary of the teaching of all religions through the ages.

Socialists are not hoodwinked by statements that classes and exploitation are “natural”. The ploy of setting worker against worker by propagating the myth of many social classes traps many of those who begin to get fed up with the enjoyer-worker set-up. Not quite knowing which of the mythical classes to accuse of being the actual “enjoyers”, they are sidetracked into assuming that Socialism is all about a fairer distribution of money. Whereas Socialism means replacing the whole system of capitalism with a system in which everybody owns in common, and democratically controls, the means of producing and distributing wealth. “Wealth”, in this case, does not mean money: in Socialism, everyone will have free access to what he needs.

What will happen to “inevitable” exploitation then? Classes are the relationships of groups of people to the means of living. With common ownership, there is only one relationship: different classes cease to exist. So therefore does exploitation, which is only possible when one class owns the means of living and another doesn’t. It will open up for humanity a new world in which achievement and happiness have clear roads instead of a jungle of obstacles. It will mean an end to starvation, war, homelessness, and being trained to accept the shoddy and artless. What have our over-fed, over-accommodated spiritual superiors got against that?

Would there not be more “good” in that state of affairs than in all the disgusting hypocrisy and viciousness and waste of human potential that religious leaders now defend? Prabhupada says “material improvement isn’t everything”—but what else can capitalism offer, except God? Prabhupada has already said that even then, envy and exploitation are inevitable: just try to think about God and your troubles will not seem so bad. Surely it is better to find the way to get rid of those troubles. Saying this is impossible, he points to Russia which was never Socialist.

To anyone who may be in danger of succumbing to the Oxford-Street tinkling of Hare Krishna, or to the double-talk of any religious organization: why seek blissful unawareness of the cause of the condition of humanity, or try to rationalize it with the irrational? That is not consciousness, but oblivion.

Vic Stevens

Cold Comfort (1976)

From the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

A doctor has sent the following two items to us. First, a cutting from the Daily Mirror of 22nd December 1975.

  A thousand babies are doomed to die this winter — because their parents can’t afford the cost of heating their homes. This “slaughter of the innocents” has already begun with the deaths of 212 babies aged less than a year. This is on top of the normal infant mortality rate. The babies are dying of infections caused by the cold — mainly bronchitis and pneumonia, says the charity Child Poverty Action Group, in a report out today. The charity’s director, Mr. Frank Field, said yesterday: “Infant deaths are swinging wildly up . . . Recent huge increases in fuel prices are to blame. Thousands of people can’t afford to heat their homes. Mass disconnections are taking place.”

Second, a letter to the doctor from Beecham Research Laboratories, headed “Hypothermia: A complimentary aid to diagnosis.”

   This potentially fatal condition needs to be identified promptly . . . Many authorities are now calling for the routine use of special wide-range thermometers that operate throughout the hyporthermis and pyrexic range (75°F-105°F). We are very pleased to be able to offer you one of these wide-range thermometers with our compliments, and we are sure it will prove to be of value to you in your practice.

   The elderly also number amongst the patients who are ‘at risk’ from infection. Many doctors have found Magnapen to be particularly well-suited to the treatment of the more worrying infections such as seen in patients with acute-on-chronic bronchitis, cellulitis and otitis media . . . Please sign and return the enclosed reply-paid card and we shall ensure that you receive a wide-range thermometer with additional data on both hypothermia and Magnapen.

The doctor’s note to us says: “It’s an ill wind, isn’t it?”

Contributions (1976)

From the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

From time to time we receive articles and other features submitted by non-members. As the Socialist Standard is the organ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, contributions are normally accepted only from members of that Party and its Companion Parties abroad. Non-members can and do contribute to the correspondence pages, of course.

So They Say: Sea Fever (1976)

The So They Say Column from the February 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sea Fever

The "BUY BRITISH” campaign launched recently by Mr. Peter Shore, the Trade Secretary, is making little progress in a number of fields. While Mr. Shore has little to offer but a redundant call for patriotism, the international realities of capitalist society have left him behind. The General Council of British Shipping has become concerned recently at the growth of the Russian merchant shipping industry. The Russian fleet is expanding at a relatively fast rate and coupled with heavy government subsidies, they offer reduced rates of carriage.

In a pamphlet published on the 16th January the Council concludes that the Russians are deliberately under-cutting other shipping industries in order to increase their share of the market.

  Unless checked, West European trade could come to depend increasingly on Eastern bloc transport within the next five years.

The Council therefore, representing the interests of British shipowners, have called for "Western governments” to introduce legislation which would restrict the use of Russian vessels should the owners fail to “negotiate” an agreement on how the cake is to be divided. They feel of course that the homegrown capitalist shipowner is to be preferred.

However, the British Shipper’s Council, which represents approximately 250 of the largest importers and exporters, has put the issue into perspective Their members have interests too: one of which is to take any economic advantage from a clash of interests among ship-owners.

   The council (British Shipper’s Council) acknowledges the dangers posed by the growth of the Russian merchant fleet but argues that its members cannot put national sentiment above the interest of their companies.

Daily Telegraph, 16th January 1976.

Coincidentally on the other side of the page, we have a report of Mr. Shore’s address to the British-Soviet Chamber of Commerce on 15th January. And what was he telling this hawk-eyed assembly—why, that it was “absolutely essential that Russia should place some substantial new orders with British industry quickly.” No doubt if the orders are forthcoming, Mr. Shore will advise the Russians that they must be carried in British ships.

To Heel, Fido

There has been considerable opposition in the US to the granting of landing rights for Concorde from what is termed “the environmental lobby.” Various arguments are put forward concerning noise levels, pollution and possible damage to the stratosphere ozone layer. Although these factors cannot be discounted, the real pressure is coming from the American aero-industry which sees the plane as a threat to their commercial interests. However the considerable capital tied up in the project, and the repercussions which would result from the supersonic “white elephant” being scrapped, has ensured that the government will take any and every step to over-ride the objections. The public hearing in Washington held to discuss the pros and cons of Concorde was informed rather neatly by Mr. Kaufman, the British Minister of State for Industry, that Concorde would not break international noise standards for supersonic aircraft—because no such standards exist.

It was not surprising then to find that when the President of the Heathrow Association for Control of Aircraft Noise, the Bishop of Kingston, put the view to the hearing that noise from Concorde “will cause great distress to people’s lives,” he drew some hostile comments from the official British representatives. Mr. Kaufman referred to the Bishop’s contribution as “froth and emotion;” “a kind of Monty Python sermon;” and “a kind of music hall act.” Although we are in little doubt of the Bishop’s abilities in this direction, Lord Boyd-Carpenter, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority, felt that they could have been better employed elsewhere. Showing the extent of the usefulness of the church to the capitalist class, he asked:

  Surely, too, in his diocese there is work to be done which could fully engage his bounding energy? Is there not religious apathy to be fought, lax morality to be countered? Are there not humble homes to be visited and prayed in? Are there no hard-pressed clergy who look for help to their father-in-God? Would it not have been more useful, not to say more appropriate if he had devoted his time to spiritual matters rather than the temporal sort of sky-piloting for which I grant licences?

Daily Telegraph, 10th January 1976.

Bark, Fido

More light was thrown on the relationship between the Catholic Church and the British government during the early war years when Foreign Office papers from 1940/1 were recently examined by the Jesuit periodical, Civilta Cattolica. According to the Jesuits, the Vatican radio was under pressure from the government to broadcast anti-Nazi propaganda which was often re-transmitted by the BBC in “distorted and provocative” form. The supposed neutrality of the Vatican, coupled with the fact that the radio was directed towards 40 million Catholics, meant that it was a propaganda outlet of importance. The British and German foreign offices were engaged in a "continuing struggle” to influence the broadcasts, until, after 16 months, Pope Pius XII decided to avoid further controversy, and stopped them in April 1941.

The British Foreign Office was initially angered by the decision—Sir Robert Vansittart (then chief diplomatic adviser to the government) describing the Pope as “One of the feeblest ever.” Later, Sir Alec Randall—who had been Secretary at the British Legation to the Holy See—reflected:

   The Vatican wireless has been of the greatest service to our propaganda and we have exploited it to the full. No other neutral power would, in the face of this, have persisted so long in furnishing us with useful material and risking violent criticism from powers with which it is in ordinary diplomatic relations.

Times, 15th January 1976.

Production for Profit

Production in capitalist society takes place when the owners of the means of production expect to realize a profit from the sale of their commodities. When that expectation decreases because the market becomes “overburdened” or because demand has fallen, production is tailored accordingly. The important point is that “the market” is made up of buyers and sellers. From the market’s point of view, once a worker has spent his wages he no longer has any requirements. However real his needs may be they are not an element of “demand” in the production of those commodities which he cannot afford to buy. In short, commodities are produced for exchange, not for use.

Questioners at our meetings are sometimes surprised to learn that food is a commodity and exhibits the same characteristics as other commodities. “Isn’t food for eating?” we are asked, “No, food is for sale” is the reply. Mr. Adrien Ries, chief counsellor in the agricultural sector of the European Commission, speaking at the Oxford Farming Conference in January, highlighted the effect of production for a market:

  The demand for food is limited and not capable of huge expansion. This means that the income to farmers as a group is not capable of rapid expansion through continued increases in output. (Our emphasis)

Times, 12th January 1976.

While it has become an accepted fact that well over one half of the world’s population suffer from a lack of decent sustenance, and millions die annually as a result, here we are told that demand for food is limited. Mr. Roger Bennett, also speaking at the conference asked:

  How does one measure productivity? It can only be done by increasing profits. We have had a very good example of this in the past year with the potato producer. Nature has come along and depressed his total production to the point at which there is a shortage and has raised profits. There is a salutary lesson in all this for all of us.

There is a lesson to be learned, but not from these twisted teachers "Ah yes they might say "but within the context of capitalism, our remarks are realistic." Ah yes, but that is the point, look at the ugly realities of capitalism and then ask why such a system should continue.

Alan D'Arcy