Quorate? (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Far rather six men strong in the strength that comes of knowledge, with energies directed by a clear understanding and bent to a common purpose, than sixty men strong in nothing but sentiment and good intentions. For sentiment, howbeit a good thing when healthy, is always unstable, while good intentions unshaped by adequate knowledge, but serve to pave the path that leads directly to the hell of confusion.

Proverb of a Propagandist.

The new arrangement. (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Harkins,” said old Barlow to his foreman, “the firm has decided to inaugurate a system of profit sharing with the employees.”

“Good ! What were the profits last year ?” 

“Last year we lost twelve thousand pounds.. That necessitates a cut of 10 per cent. in wages under the new system. Tell the men the new arrangement comes into effect immediately.”

Party Notes. (1905)

Party News from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Until further notice, the Executive Committee will meet on the first Saturday and third Tuesday in each month at 3 and 7 p.m. respectively, at the Communist Club, 107, Charlotte Street, London, W.

* * *

On. Sunday, 11th June, there will be held a Party demonstration at Watford, and on Monday, 12th June, will take place the first Anniversary Reunion in celebration of the establishment of the Party. Particulars of both meetings will be forwarded to the Branches in due course.

* * *

The reports to hand concerning our out-door propaganda are very encouraging, and excellent results will doubtless accrue to the Party. The idea ought to be not so much the holding of a great number of meetings as to see that a certain number of meetings are held regularly, so that the audiences may rely on hearing an address at the advertised time and place..

* * *

Socialist propaganda and unpunctuality have been largely synonymous in this country. The S.P.G.B. will change that.

*  * *

Each Branch, in addition to its regular Sunday meetings, should hold at least one week-day meeting, and the young speakers should be given every opportunity of developing. Active and vigorous propaganda is the need of the moment and all other work should be subordinated to the task of conducting meetings, pushing the Party Organ, and spreading the light.

* * *.

Many kind friends were of opinion that our organisation would not survive the  winter, but that was because they assumed the men and women who form the S.P.G.B. to be of the same calibre as the members of other organisations claiming to be Socialist. Those who rallied to the call when circumstances demanded the formation of our organisation were thoroughly cognisant of the nature of the task with which. they were confronted, and the efforts put forth during the first twelve months of its existence are but an earnest of what will be accomplished ere another summer goes by.

* * *

When obtaining handbills or other printed matter advertising meetings, etc., branch Secretaries should not fail to have included thereon an invitation to read the Party Organ. It is important that every possible opportunity of advertising the SOCIALIST STANDARD be seized.

C. Lehane.

 

Official Notice.

To all Party Correspondents. 

Branch Secretaries, members and others sending communications to the Central Office are requested to address them to C. Lehane, General Secretary, and to indicate such letters as are intended to be dealt with by the Executive Committee by writing the words “Executive Committee ” on the left hand top corner of the correspondence.

C. Lehane, 

General Secretary.

Alien Humbug. (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Of all the fraudulent measures which the professional politicians of the capitalist class ever conjured out of the fertility of their imaginations to serve as incentives to that working-class division and confusion upon which their position as an exploiting class depends, surely the measure directed against the “undesirable” alien is the most glaringly fraudulent.

How it can be successfully foisted upon the credulity of the most purblind passes comprehension. Even for the most unthinking worker the Bill has but one claim—a claim that will not bear investigation—viz, that by keeping out cheap foreign labour the opportunities for employment of English labour are increased. As though the facts do not show that the proportion of aliens to natives in England is far less than in any other European country, and that therefore practically no effective alien competition affects the chances of the home-made worker; as though it was work that the unemployed required when their condition is traceable to the fact that they have already worked too long and produced too much; as though the capitalist-class would shut out cheap labour and therefore the larger profits for which they hunger. The cheap labour of women and children is an infinitely more effective competitor in the labour market to-day, and even were it not the development of capitalism and the higher organisation of industry must add to the quantity of redundant labour, must make the competition for work more keen, must operate to keep the price of labour-power (wages) from rising above sufficient for bare subsistence.

That is the matter for the consideration of the workers of this country. And when they have grasped the significance of it they will recognise why it is that the capitalist-class, through their political mouthpieces, parade their Alien Bills and other legislative flummery alleged to be designed to serve working-class interests. They will find, curiously enough, that such measures invariably coincide with working-class unrest, with such periods as when the pressure of exceptionally adverse circumstances tends to excite the unhappy worker out of his customary lethargy. And they will find upon further enquiry, that every such measure is an elaborate “fake” from their point of view.

When that time comes they will see the reason for the existence of The Socialist Party of Great Britain, and will join it as the only party in England to-day translating its knowledge of the working-class position into consistent political action.

A. G.

Blogger's Note:

There's a strong possibility that 'A.G.' was another pen name for A. J. M. Gray. Gray had already reviewed a Keir Hardie pamphlet in the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard so, perhaps, the editors did not want to give the impression that the same handful of writers were overly represented in the pages of the Socialist Standard and decided to switch around the pen names. Just a thought. 

Books and Booklets. The Citizenship of Women (Keir Hardie) (1905)

Pamphlet Review from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Citizenship of Women—is the latest pamphlet from the pen of Mr. Keir Hardie, and within its covers are probably all the few arguments that can be adduced by the supporters of what is known as the Limited Franchise Bill for Women. Its chief value, however, lies in the fact that it emphasises the back-door and step-at-a-time (the smaller the better) methods which find favour in the sight of Mr. Hardie’s I.L.P. Thus :—

“Once women are admitted to citizenship and some women become voters, the male mind will insensibly accustom itself to the idea of women citizenship and the way be thus prepared for adult suffrage complete and unrestricted.”

The same writer recently gave it as his opinion that Socialism would probably come as a thief in the night, and it is not extraordinary to find the same argument being used in regard to an alleged step that was used in regard to the ultimate object of that step. But to the man who understands that the first postulate of Socialism is the existence of a class-conscious and well organised proletariat whose every step towards emancipation must be taken with eyes wide open, Mr. Hardie’s position is grotesque.

If Mr. Hardie and the I.L.P. hold that the only way for the workers lies in the unconscious absorption of these alleged preliminaries to Socialism, obviously their duty to themselves and to the workers is to ensure that the process shall be unconscious. Because clearly if the workers have their suspicions aroused by the clumsy administration of an overdose, they may on the one hand do themselves an irreparable injury by refusing to acquiesce in a measure designed to benefit them, and on the other, summarily and ignorantly, seal the fate of the I.L.P. that to-day trembles in the balances. Therefore the course Mr. Hardie should adopt in this matter of the enfranchisement of women, is to reduce the persons immediately affected by the measure to the lowest possible minimum. Let it embrace the wives of, say, dukes only, and let it be smuggled through if possible without fuss and under some other guise by someone who cannot be accused of sympathy with the working-class. Thus a commencement will have been made, and the principle, which is to have such beneficial and far-reaching effects upon working-class life and outlook, will have been conceded, and, before the male worker who, according to Mr. Hardie, “will not lightly or all at once part with the authority which has so long been his, and admit that the wife of his bosom is his political equal,” will have awakened to the fact that his authority has been weakened, his mind “will have accustomed itself to the idea of women citizenship and the way will have been, prepared for complete adult suffrage.”

Really one would think from a perusal of Mr. Hardie’s pamphlet that the extension of the franchise to women was a matter of the first importance. The fact is, of course, that to-day the working-class have sufficient political power to do pretty much as they like. Unfortunately they like to return the Liberal or Tory or bogey Labour man. The reason they like to do that is because they do not know how to use their power. And they have failed to understand largely because reformers, with the best of intentions maybe, have worked upon the untenable assumption that the average mind is not capable of taking a grip on the whole Socialist position and have so omitted to tell the whole truth. While the workers do not know the whole truth they cannot understand, and while the mental activity they can spare is harnessed to and expended upon, attempts at altogether ineffectual reforms, they never will.

The pamphlet is prefaced by a character sketch of the author by W. T. Stead.

A. J. M. Gray

Correspondence: Evolution and Revolution. (1905)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Correspondents MUST be brief.

Communications must be authenticated by name and address of writer and written on one side of the paper only.

The writers only are responsible for the views expressed.

Evolution and Revolution. 

Dear Comrade,—Ignoring Mr. T. A. Jackson’s opening remarks on my article, “Evolution and Revolution,” I will come at once to his first point.

He complains that in one place I use the word “revolution” in the sense of “destruction,” in other places as meaning “dissolution,” “sudden transition,” and “catastrophic change.” Quite right, I do; but, what is more surprising, Mr. Jackson himself runs me pretty close in so defining the word, for after giving a brief account of his experience he says : —

”The acquirement of the knowledge necessary to the apprehension of this fact and to a recognition of its importance was a long and gradual process, but the apprehension was a single and sudden mental occurence.”

If that does not mean a sudden transition, what does it mean ? A little further on your correspondent says :—

“From one point of view here was a continuous development; from another a destruction of one form and the substitution of something entirely different.”

Had Mr. Jackson proceeded much further he would doubtless have introduced the other definitions to which he appears to take exception—dissolution, and catastrophic change; the former, by the way, being one of the definitions of “destruction.”

As it is, however, the comrade has practically conceded all I asked in that direction. Revolution is a sudden transition from one form to another; it is destructive to the old, and stands as base to something entirely different. So far we agree. Now as to evolution.

In the article Mr. Jackson so ably criticised these words occur :—

“The change revolution produces may of course go on evolving, but we must not forget that revolution brought that particular phase of evolution into existence.”

Here is my meaning:—

Man, it is affirmed, has evolved from the ape, but he is not an ape. Socialism, as we understand it, has evolved from the capitalist system, but it is not the capitalist system. Therefore, I hold that Socialism is not evolution leading up to revolution, but revolution in the process of evolution; that is, revolution evolving to its final consummation.

The theory of Socialism being revolt against present institutions, it must of necessity be revolution in the making; in other words, evolving revolution. Being so, it must, while fostering its own development, regard all similar developments with more or less hostility, proving that revolution is antagonistic to all forms of evolution but its own.

Without that revolutionary principal in our midst, no revolution, as we now use the word, could occur. That is to say, left to evolve without the revolutionary force behind it, the capitalist system could not evolve up to a revolution, only in the sense of a change produced by the lapse of time. The two systems being antagonistic, one could never evolve directly from the other, any more than a young tiger could evolve into a gazelle.

I submit that Mr. Jackson mistakes the nature of the force governing his conversion. When he first began to take a live interest in Socialism, he was immediately in the throes of an intellectual revolution ; consequently, his evolution up to a full apprehension of what Socialism means had a revolutionary base, without the aid of which Mr. Jackson would never have been a Socialist.

Is it not evident that as Socialism is revolutionary, all Socialists must evolve from that revolutionary base ? From the point of view of their ideal they have cut off all connection with the present system; standing, as an embodiment of revolution, in direct hostility to that system. If this is not correct, how is it that the present system does not evolve every man into a Socialist ? It is apparent that men must grasp the revolutionary principle before they can evolve into Socialists.

The capitalist system is complete in itself. The theory of Socialism is complete in itself. Each is controlled by a distinct and hostile evolution. The one is established; the other seeks to take its place. Each constitutes a system in process of evolution ; the one evolves with preceding revolution as base, the other evolves upon its own base, and when the time is ripe, will step in as a complete and new revolution, so cutting off the further evolution of the old.

If these two forces are not antagonistic, I should like to know where we are to look for antagonism.

Should these conclusions be correct, there is nothing illogical in certain Socialists calling themselves “Evolutionary Socialists” in contradistinction to the Revolutionary. They are evolving Revolutionists, believing that they can apply their principle of revolution a “bit at a time,” so gradually bringing about the realization of their ideal.

In the extract which your correspondent gives from Karl Marx, it will be noted that the great economist discriminates between evolution and revolution.

The former, he observes, “takes place unconsciously, strictly according to the laws of natural science.” Of the latter he says, “Men fight out this conflict as a revolution, conscious of their opposing interests.”

Therefore, without the revolutionary principle you cannot get the proletariat class-conscious. Evolving with the present system, they can never become class-conscious in a Socialist sense. They must step across the borders where revolution awaits them.

Mr. Jackson, like many another, had a hard fight with his doubts and prejudices, but being conscious of this, he was, as I have said, from the very first in the throes of an intellectual revolution. His new ideas, the instruction he received, did not come to him directly from the present system, but from the revolutionary impulse at work within that system. The comparison enabled Mr. Jackson to choose; his sense of justice enabled him to choose rightly. That, I submit, is the secret of the mental process he describes.

But introspective reasoning is always defective, for the experiences of any two men rarely agree. For instance, the experience of a young man who from his infancy had been brought up as a Socialist, would be quite different to that of Mr. Jackson ; for where, in such a case, would come in “an evolution with a revolution as an integral phase phase” ?

Again, suppose a man who was formerly a Socialist were to change his political belief and join one of the present political parties, would Mr. Jackson call this a revolution ? I am inclined to think our friend would call that man a Reactionary, not a Revolutionist. A man must change from the orthodox to the revolutionary before he can be regarded as a Revolutionist. From this base he stands as an individual personification of Revolution, ready to play his part in putting a period to the further evolution of the thing to which he is opposed.

Therefore, a complete change of opinion, as such, does not constitute a revolution, as Mr. Jackson appears to argue.

I am not trying to score points against Mr. Jackson or anyone else, rny sole desire being to lessen the confusion apparently prevailing as to the “true value and relative application of the words evolution and revolution.”

I could say much more upon the subject, but noticing that you ask for brief communications I will close with a few words in reply to your correspondent, Filius Populi.

I am sorry to say I cannot dispute his statement that he is a “peregrinating paradox and several other things.” The truth of his sad admission is only too apparent. He wants to know what he is as a Socialist. A ghastly failure, I should say, for a man afflicted with such a decided kink in his cerebrum could scarely be a success. However, let him take courage: with study and persistent application he may presently begin to understand things.

He requests you to fix on a title that will explain his brand of Socialism clearly. If you decide to oblige him you have some tall thinking ahead. But as he pleads so pathetically for your help, I trust you will not withold it altogether. May I suggest, however, that you refrain on this occasion from calling a spade a spade. You might hurt friend Populi’s feelings. May I also suggest that you make your answer as elementary as possible.

—H. Philpott Wright.

______________

The accident of a call at the Editorial address coinciding with the receipt of Mr. P. Wright’s letter enables me to pen a line designed to appear in company with Mr. Wright’s latest contribution to the confusion of terms. I leave the task of straightening out Mr. Wright’s unhappy tangle to Jackson, moderately confident of his ability to deal with it expeditiously and effectively with no great mental exertion, and confine myself to pointing out with becoming humility, that Mr. Wright has shunted his responsibility in the matter of finding a name satisfactory to himself for the Socialist who is at once evolutionary, revolutionary, and involutionary in the definition I set upon the words, upon the shoulders of a long suffering editorial committee.

It was, of course, natural that Mr. Wright should endeavour in that way to unhook himself from the triple-horned dilemma upon which he so ably, howbeit unconsciously, transfixed himself, but I think he might have assisted the Editorial Committee with one of those scintillating inspirations that characterized his first letter and set the Party membership agog. We should then have again seen how far Mr. Wright can be wrong in his conception of what a Socialist should hold. I invite him most cheerfully to be quite ruthless of my feelings: they don’t matter. Let him call a spade a spade. It will be wonderful to hear him speak clearly, although I fear me he will get a hoe somehow woven into his definition. And then I will retire into my wonted obscurity with a full heart.

Filius Populi.

P.S. 

My conscience smites me. I fear I ought not to lure Mr. Wright into the position of a butt for derision. He didn’t know—how could he ?—that all Socialists are evolutionary, revolutionary, and involutionary to the extent suggested in my note. He didn’t know—how could he ?—that the “Dear Comrades” he fraternally addresses are “ghastly failures” to a man. Ah me! these intellectuals!—Fil.Pop. (not Philpott)

From Our Branches. (1905)

Party News from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Watford.

Last month we were, according to a certain “organ of Social-Democracy,” financially ruined for months to come. We had also been “effectually disposed of” by—of all the good and harmless persons in the world—Mrs. Jarvis! who, together with other champions of irreconcilable and uncompromising class consciousness (S.D.F. brand), did their little best to help return candidates in whose programmes the eye of Faith, peering through the most perfect of microscopical appliances, would have failed to discover a distinctive labour characteristic, and who appealed piteously for votes on the ground that they would look after “the best interests of all”! Yet we have quite cheerfully commenced to financially ruin ourselves some more by running a series of meetings in the Market Place on Sunday evenings, at which we shall be pleased to welcome S.D.F.’ers or what-not, and to make clear how well Mrs. Jarvis (or whoever was responsible) has succeeded in deluding the writer of the note referred to into believing (if indeed he did believe) that we were disposed of. Nothing, says the report of the S.D.F. oracle, was spoken but undiluted Social-Democracy, Thus:—

We want the children brought up with wills free and strong in the image of God.

Socialism means the abolition of idlers at both ends of the scale.

Socialism means a fair return to the workers for their labour.

Etc., etc., ad nauseum. Samples of diluted Social-Democracy would be interesting.

We took the opportunity the elections presented to distribute some thousands of a special pamphlet dealing with the local situation. Of course the wrath of our “labour leaders” was aroused, but they will doubtless recover. We are quite ready to justify our action on the public platform as they well know, and that is probably why they give our public platform a wide berth.

The Raunds strikers passed through this town twice. The “Labour” Party supplied tea the first visit. The Liberal Party did ditto the second. Effect—confusion worse confounded.

And there are so few of us to clear the issue and keep it clear. But we go forward doing all a few men may, knowing that the future is with us ; that we hold the key to the door through which the workers must pass to their emancipation. And it is well.—THE BRANCH.

Islington.

We have emerged from winter-quarters and initiated our 1905 open-air campaign. On May 7th we had an excellent meeting in Finsbury Park, with plenty of questions and opposition, 50 copies of the Party Organ sold and a good collection. A local supporter of Mr. Percy Alden, Liberal and Labour Candidate for Tottenham, challenged us to debate. We at once closed with the offer, and on Sunday, 14th, the encounter took place. An ex parte statement that we had the best of it may scarcely be a fair way of putting it, but at any rate the meeting was large, so was our collection, and again we sold 50 copies of our paper. On the following Wednesday we engaged the enemy at Highbury Corner, and forced the representatives of the local I.L.P. to accept a challenge to debate, which comes off on Wednesday, 24th May. This will afford us a good opportunity of exposing the pretensions of those who are trying to resuscitate the I.L.P. in Islington, and of exhibiting in their true colours the mar-eadh Socialists. In Islington, as in other parts of this country, those who call themselves Socialists can be divided into two classes, viz., those who believe in Socialism and those who don’t. It is our business to get those who believe in Socialism to join the S.P.G.B. and to keep those who don’t outside until they learn something of the science of working-class politics. At Highbury Corner two men came forward to join our party. On Sunday, 21st May, we were again in evidence in the Park where we held a large audience for two hours. One new member handed in his name, 50 copies of our Organ sold, and a good collection taken up. It is only fair to mention that no other organisation claiming to be Socialist has held an audience in Finsbury Park for the last three Sundays, although they have held meetings. We don’t mind this in the least. Soon the workers on Islington’s heights will realise that the S.P.G.B. is the only party of the workers. Saoghal fada dho !—CONCHUBHAU.

Romford Division.

We congratulated ourselves upon the result of our first Sunday morning meeting this season, but our success was also our undoing. We had a large audience, sold over two dozen Standards, and had many questions and some teetotal opposition. But the police discovered that the meeting was a danger to the electric trams, or that the trams were a danger to the meeting, or something to that effect, and when we again essayed to hold a meeting in Ilford Broadway on the following Monday evening, the “force” prohibited it, and we were perforce compelled to seek a fresh location. But we shall make a good station of this by sticking to it and not disappointing our audiences. There is no question about the interest displayed by the public in our position. It is to them a welcome change from the attempts to confuse Socialism with Christianity and the perpetual glorification of municipal profit-mongering to which the speakers of a local “Socialist” body mainly devote themselves, what time they are not supporting Liberals for municipal elections. We have held meetings in Romford and Barking, and hope in the latter town to revive that revolutionary spirit which the confusing tactics of the S.D.F. turned Labour Fakir politicians have almost crushed out. At the last General Election the S.D.F. supported the Liberal candidate in this division, but we have made it quite clear that we shall oppose them all. We are not of those who advise the working-class to vote for their class and then blame them for the result.

TEAR’EM

West Ham.

Enthusiasm is working wonders in West Ham. We are having good and attentive audiences, both here and in East Ham, in the former case drawn chiefly from those to whom it is necessary to break the news very gently that they also are of the working-class, but so far we have had no fatality. The worst of messing about with ink, worrying over details of profit and loss, and looking like bosses is that it leads to so many cases of mistaken identity. Many are wroth to find that the profits are somebody else’s while the losses are theirs. The local “squints” continue to shape their course by the rule of “don’t let ’em see any red, Sir !” but there are signs of mistrust of those who see round corners. Especially is this the case in East Ham, where we hope to establish a branch almost immediately.—A. E. Jacomb.

Answers to correspondents. (1905)

From the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

H. Te Dee—The article printed in this issue over the name of F. C. Watts should dispose of your difficulties.

J. C. R. (Soham).—Many thanks for extract and circulars. If our comments on the latter are not justified, our columns are open. Audi alteram partem.

Acknowledgments.—Articles from E. J. B. Allen, H. Davey and J. H. Kennett. Exchange List. “The Socialist Voice” (Oakland, California).

SPGB Outdoor Meetings. (1905)

Party News from the June 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

Voice From The Back: Hard Times (2007)

The Voice From The Back Column from the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hard Times 

Capitalism treats everything as a business. The Thomas Deacon Academy in Peterborough is a good example. Chief executive of the new ú46 million academy Alan McMurdo makes his aims plain. He will have no playground and insists that the school will be a business concern. “Dr McMurdo … says that he wants to run his school like a business, treating pupils as employees. Lunch will be incorporated into the third lesson of the day, when students will be escorted to the refectory and given 30 minutes to eat before returning directly to the classroom. … ‘It’s all about the investment of public money,’ he said.” (Times, 14 May) Charles Dickens’s tyrannical school teacher Gradgrind looks positively benevolent compared to McMurdo.

Moral Majority nonsense

The death of Jerry Falwell, the founder of Moral Majority Inc. marks the end of an obnoxious combination of rightwing politics, homophobia, racialism and US nationalism. In the 1980s he had a 21 million TV viewing audience and a church that was enjoying an income of £45 million a year. “While MMI was avowedly bipartisan, he claimed that Democrats were a ‘dangerous minority of homosexuals, feminists, socialists and freezeniks’. He said that anyone who was anti-Israel was anti-God, but later added that the Antichrist was Jewish, and that Jews, like Roman Catholics, had no place in heaven.” (Times, 16 May) His life is a sad commentary on the gullibility of many American workers. Eventually his MMI ended in financial bankruptcy to match its intellectual bankruptcy.

USA, fantasy and reality 

“At least 10 of the Republicans and Democrats hoping to run for U.S. president in the November 2008 election are millionaires, The Washington Post reported on Thursday. Collectively, the candidates are worth at least a quarter of a billion dollars, the newspaper said. Republican Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and founder of a private equity firm, is the richest of the field with personal assets estimated by his campaign at $190 million to $250 million, the Post reported. …The Post noted a long history of the very wealthy becoming president, from Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.” (Yahoo News, 17, May) So much for the fantasy of “log cabin to White House”.

Merchants of Death

“The Government’s pledge ten years ago to act ethically and openly when licensing arms export sales has failed to eradicate corruption or stop weapons ending up in the wrong hands, a report says today.” (Times, 21 May) The report The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: a Decade of Labour’s Arms Exports is produced by Saferworld and reports that Britain has consistently approved military exports to countries accused of violating human rights, including Colombia and Indonesia. They make peaceful electoral promises, but in power – business is business.

Let them suffer

“Sick children who have been taking part in trials for a drug that has transformed their lives now face the prospect of being denied the treatment because of NHS cost-cutting. Doctors have condemned the NHS for inflicting misery on children who have the painful rare blood disorder sickle cell anaemia. Some children have gone from the agonising routine of having their parents insert a needle into their stomach for eight to 12 hours a night at least five nights a week, to taking two Exjade tablets daily. The drug cleanses their blood of life-threatening excess iron – a side effect of the frequent blood transfusions needed to treat the disease.” (Observer, 3 June) 10,000 people in the UK suffer from this condition, so why the delay in supplying this drug? It costs £10,000-£15,000 for a year’s supply for a sufferer. Need any other explanation?

Capitalism distorts science 

Two separate items from the same day’s newspaper illustrate the harshness of capitalism. “Several men were arrested in an organ-smuggling inquiry in Jordan for allegedly luring poor people to sell their kidneys. More than 80 cases have been uncovered in recent months. Each kidney can sell for up to $2,000 (£1,000).” (Times, 5 June)

“Clinical trials that compare two similar drugs are significantly more likely to favour the one made by the company that pays for the work, according to a study that sheds new light on bias in medical research. …The work, by a team led by Lisa Bero, Professor of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco, raises fresh concern about the influence of pharmaceutical companies over research.” (Times, 5 June)

Growing old disgracefully 

The journalist Mary Riddell paints a dire picture of what it is like to be old when you are poor. “Some of the 31,000 pensioners who died of cold-related illnesses in the last five winters would still be alive, but for enforced frugality. … In its Spotlight survey out this week Help the Aged will present a disturbing picture of worsening old age. According to its findings, 144,000 people never leave their homes, 21 per cent live in poverty and more than one in 10 is chronically lonely, a figure up significantly in the past year; 73 per cent of adults say older people face routine discrimination.” (Observer, 10 June) After a lifetime of work and exploitation, this is the fate of many workers inside capitalism.

Editorial: The profit system must go (2007)

Editorial from the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Things are not produced today to meet people’s needs. They are produced to make a profit. And that’s the cause of the problems we face.

Under the profit system profits always come first, before providing basic services like health care and transport, before improving conditions at work, and before protecting the environment. At the same time it encourages a get-rich-quick climate where competition to make money takes over from cooperation and community values. Everything is reduced to its cash value and people are judged, not for what they are but by how much money they have.

Look at the results. The health service is creaking. The transport system is in chaos. Schools have become swot shops. Pollution is rife and the environment under attack. The poor have got poorer. Begging and homelessness have spread. Crime is rising. Racism is reviving. Business culture reigns supreme, with “market forces”, “competition” and “profit” as the buzz-words. Life is becoming more and more commercialized and empty. People are becoming isolated from each other, with drug abuse and mental illness on the increase. The standard of living may be going up, but the standard of life is going down. Under the profit system production is in the hands of profit-seeking business enterprises – some state-owned, but mostly private – all competing to maximise the rate of return on the money invested in them. Decisions as to what to produce and how much, and how and where to produce it, are made not in response to people’s needs but in response to market forces. For a business, its profits are the difference between its sales receipts and its production costs. Market forces act on both. Through competition between different firms, they force each firm to seek to maximise its sales and to minimise its costs.

Both these have serious consequences for the way we live.

Maximising sales turns society into one huge marketplace. Advertising, the hard sell and swindles to trap the unwary have all grown over the years, and are getting worse. At one time television was free from commercial ads. Not any longer. Then came commercial radio. Sunday selling has been allowed. So, now buying and selling can go on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All this represents a commercialisation and a degradation of our lives. Minimising costs so as to maximise profits has equally harmful consequences. When a firm has a choice between two materials or two methods of production, one cheaper and the other safer or less damaging to the environment, it has to chose the first. Otherwise its production costs would be higher and it would lose out in the battle of competition. Its profits would be less and it would eventually risk being driven out of business altogether. The health and welfare of the workforce and the effects on the environment take second place. That’s what minimising costs means. This why at work we suffer speed-up, pain, stress, boredom, overwork and accidents. This is why we have to work long hours, shiftwork and nightwork. This is why the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe are all polluted. This is why the Earth’s non-renewal mineral and energy resources are plundered. This is why natural balances are upset and the environment destroyed.

The profit system can’t help doing this. It’s the only way it can work. Which is why it must go.

Letter: Panama canal (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

The article in last month’s issue on the Panama Canal rightly points out that the reason for the canal at this site was political. Of nineteen possible routes this was one of the worse. A more attractive one was the San Juan River/Lake Nicaragua route, but as this formed the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica would have been difficult to control.

The Panama Canal can now only be used by vessels of ‘panamax’ size, the locks being 1000ft long and 110ft wide. Very restricted for present and future use.

In the 1960s President L. B. Johnson wanted to build a seaway through the isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico using nuclear explosives. This would be maintenance-free when finished and very cheap to excavate. Fortunately he could not sell this “grand project” to the Mexicans.

The President of Nicaragua has pledged to build an all-Nicaraguan canal on the river Escondido/Lake Nicaragua route. The drive for huge profits may even see this constructed.

Fred Moore, 

Canterbury.

The Haves and the Have-Yachts (2007)

From the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rich are not all equally wealthy. According to an article in Times at the end of last year (4 December), a rift is opening up among wealthy Britons between the merely rich, and the super-rich. The reporter went to a West London nursery school – £1800 a term, or £5400 a year – and found the conversation mainly about the forthcoming City bonuses. “According to the centre for Economics and Business Research, a staggering £8.8 billion will be paid out in this next round, with more than 4200 individuals receiving more than £1 million each. Much of that money (around £5 billion) will find its way into property, half of it in London; and of the overall bonus, between 60 and 70 percent will go to non-UK residents – i.e., foreign nationals working in London, many of whom will not be liable for UK tax.” Many of these latter are now the super-rich, whose expenditure is soaring above that of the rich: as Rachel Johnston put it in her book Notting Hell, it is now “the Haves versus the Have Yachts”.

One of the main reasons for the rise of the super-rich is the policy of the Labour government: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and their friends do love the wealthy. “Britain has one of the most business-friendly tax environments on the planet, exemplified by the non-domicile (or ‘non-dom’) tax laws. In simple terms, these allow wealthy foreign nationals to hold their main liquid assets in tax-free offshore environments while operating freely within the UK – largely untroubled by the Exchequer (the same is not true of British nationals).” The result is that “London’s status as the place to make and take money has only been reinforced in recent years”.

With such competition, the merely rich feel jealous about the super-rich. One City fund manager (Eton and Oxford) said “Not only do they look down on us, they have made our lives more uncomfortable from a financial point of view too, by pushing up the price of traditional wealth assets – school fees, house prices, staff.” An investment banker said, “the super-rich are fine. They either don’t need to pay tax at all or find ways of avoiding it. I don’t have enough cash to employ a clever accountant.”

The Have Yachts – people “with more than £15 million to invest” – operate on a higher level. “These are people who think nothing of spending several million on a party, or having their children picked up from school by helicopter and transported to a waiting private jet for a weekend in Gstaad. They have so much money that they pay experts to help them spend it.” For example, “at Quintessentially, the global concierge service, their ‘elite’ membership is by invitation only and costs a basic £24,000 a year. For that, members have access to finders and fixers in every major city across the world, 24 hours a day.” Among the requests they have dealt with are “finding a premiership footballer to play with a member’s son; sourcing twelve albino peacocks for a party with just three hours’ notice; completely redesigning a London hotel room; and organizing a trip to Hudson Bay, Canada, during the one month each year when the world’s largest concentration of polar bears gathers on the ice”. One service in much demand is finding appropriate houses, usually in London, or by the sea in the west country.

A director of a Central London estate agency said “super-rich foreigners” were their best customers. “Between 70 and 80 percent of our top deals are with foreign nationals.” The steady injection of largely tax-free money by the super-rich into the London housing market (prices in the “most exclusive districts” went up by 31 percent in the year to February 2007) keeps all prices rising, because the cost of cheaper houses follows the market upwards; so ultimately all the young people trying to get their own property, or giving up in despair, are feeling the knock-on effects of the Blair/Brown romance with the rich. If the specially favourable terms for foreign magnates are thought to be under threat, prices decline. “House prices in Central London took a considerable dip in 2004 when ‘non-dom’ was last under serious review; but a sustained campaign from the City and the Exchequer persuaded” the Chancellor to relent, and the super-rich breathed a sigh of relief.

Tax Haven

The International Monetary Fund has decided that Britain is now an offshore tax haven, listing it “alongside the likes of Bermuda and the Cayman Islands – unregulated jurisdictions associated with illicit funds” (Observer, 22 April). The “non-dom” people save vast amounts by largely avoiding British income tax. “The accountancy firm Grant Thornton worked out that the UK’s fifty-four billionaires paid income tax totalling just £14.7 million on their £126 billion combined fortunes” (Observer 4 March). That makes a rate of about one-hundredth part the percentage that the merely rich, who can’t wangle this particular tax-exemption, have to pay on their incomes. Among the “non-dom” Londoners are Lakshmi Mittal, Roman Abramovich, and the Hinduja brothers. The Observer (22 April) has several times asked Sir Ronald Cohen, who was born in Egypt and is now Gordon Brown’s “senior City advisor” (Brown has appointed him to several “taskforces”) whether he is lucky enough to have this “non-dom” tax status; Sir Ronald has refused to answer. If he has this status, he has something to thank the Labour Party for, and he – like Lakshmi Mittal, who tops the Sunday Times Rich List this year (20 April) – is among those who have generously donated funds to the Labour Party.

If you think that the law says that foreigners cannot contribute to British party funds, you would be mistaken: the Inland Revenue (whose regulations are laid down by Gordon Brown) says that people living in Britain under the “non-dom” rules can still be counted as residents, who can thus legally give money to – for example – the Labour Party (Observer 18 February). So that’s all right then. The authorities are less than forthcoming when questioned about this “non-dom” dodge. When asked about a month ago, Gordon Brown’s front man Ed Balls said, “Estimates of the tax foregone in the UK . . . by those not domiciled in the UK are not routinely made” (Private Eye 8 June). But when Private Eye asked about it, “HM Customs and Excise confirmed the information does exist”. However, they refused to divulge it because if they did “it would lead to less robust policy development” (whatever that means). It seems that the ” ‘non-dom’ tax exemption saves the mega-rich billions. The last figure released showed that in 2003 ‘non-doms’ were saving around £1 billion a year; and use of the ruse has multiplied since then. The benefits to Britain of hosting more billionaires and bankers are uncertain.” But Brown, “who has received campaign donations from prominent non-doms, wants to keep them happy without revealing the size of their subsidy. So much for his promise of ‘open and accountable’ government.” It’s all a long way from what Keir Hardie thought he was going to do when he helped to found the party which – he claimed – was going to establish socialism.

Like nearly all the big issues of the day which are endlessly canvassed in the papers and on radio and TV, this unpleasantness arises out of a disagreement within the owning class. Should all the members of that class pay their due taxes, to help support the state which runs capitalism for them? Or should some be allowed to get away with much less taxation than the others have to stump up? For Socialists, there is only one issue: getting rid of capitalism and all the struggles and the dubious hanky-panky it inevitably engenders, both between classes and within classes. If the non-dom ruse was stopped tomorrow, the owning class would still be obscenely richer than the rest of us.

Alwyn Edgar

The Hanging Gardens of Bombay (2007)

From the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

In India the Prime Ministers is worried about the way the rich flaunt it . . .

In India the rich are getting richer; the poor, naturally, are a long way behind. There are thirty-six “dollar billionaires”, and their combined fortunes add up to about £96 billion, according to an article in the Times (26 May) about the recent annual conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry in Delhi. Among the tycoons present was the sixth-richest Indian, who has nearly £5,000 million: and the article was accompanied by a photograph showing another tycoon, Yohan Poonawalla, an industrialist, posing beside “two of his Rolls-Royces”.

Yet another tycoon, Mukesh Ambani (oil, retail, and biotechnology), is building for himself in Bombay a “sixty-storey palace” (Guardian, 31 May). “Draped in hanging gardens, the building will house a floor for a home theatre, a glass-fronted apartment for guests, and a two-storey health club.” The bottom six floors are for car parking, and at the top is a place to land a helicopter. Ambani has six in his family, and a full-time staff of 600, making a satisfactory ratio of 100 servants to one Ambani. His new retreat will have more floor space than the Palace of Versailles.

Some of these rich Indians have come to live in Britain. The richest of them all, Lakshmi Mittal, currently lives here, carefully looking after his £19,000 million (other sources say it is in fact £32,000 million: no doubt it is difficult to count all that money exactly – by the time you had finished, there would be a lot more interest to add on). In 2002 Tony Blair kindly wrote a personal letter on his behalf to the Romanian government when he was trying to buy the Romanian steel industry. Mittal had recently given £125,000 to Labour Party funds, but Blair (the head of the Labour Party) did not know anything about that – he told us so. He said he was simply helping a “British company”.

Mittal, the head of the company, is an Indian citizen and intends to remain an Indian citizen; his company is registered in the Dutch Antilles (West Indies); his steelworks are in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa; and of his more than 100,000 employees, fewer than one percent are based in the UK. So what Blair called a “British company” was not actually all that British. However, after Mittal with Blair’s help got hold of the Romanian steel industry, and the Romanian steelworkers were making a sizeable contribution to his profits, he was properly grateful to Blair; in July 2005 he gave the Labour Party two million pounds, and in January this year he gave it another two million (Guardian, 16 January).

Admittedly those gifts were only petty cash to Mittal. In 2004 he bought a nice house in London for £57 million – then the most expensive house there, though now this record has been eclipsed by someone who paid eight-four million for a flat in Park Lane. Also in 2004, he spent thirty million on his daughter’s wedding.

Not all Indians are so fortunate. According to the same Times article, two out of every five Indians “live on less than a dollar [about 50p] a day and have seen little evidence of growth apart from rising food prices”. Bombay, where Ambani’s palace is being constructed, is said to be the sixth most populous city in the world,, and an academic report said that one half of the people there “live in slums or are homeless; they live in tenements and huts, on pavements, along railway tracks”, and “under bridges”, and there is “terrible poverty, squalor and deprivation”.

The lavish extravagance of the Indian owning class, as against the poverty of most Indians, has got Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, very concerned. He made a speech at the conference, saying that “the electronic media carries the lifestyle of the rich and famous into every village and slum. Media often highlights the vulgar display of their wealth.” He went on: “An area of great concern is the level of ostentatious expenditure on weddings and other family events. Such vulgarity insults the poverty of the less privileged, it is socially wasteful and it plants the seeds of resentment in the minds of the have-nots.” In fact these inequalities of wealth “can led to social unrest”

Someone earning 50p a day would have to keep going for thirty-three million years to reach the amount of money owned by the chap in the audience at the Delhi conference. Faced with such absurdities, you could choose to work for a more just society; or you could ask the rich to make it less obvious how enormous the gap is. The Indian Prime Minister has chosen the easier option.

Alwyn Edgar

Cooking the Books: Who will verify the verifiers? (2007)

The Cooking the Books column from the July 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his book on the dangers of global warming, Heat, George Monbiot endorses a scheme, thought-up by Mayer Hillman and called “contract and convergence”. The basic idea is that a target should be fixed for reducing average world CO2 emissions per person to a level much lower than at present. Countries above this average should commit themselves to reducing their emissions while countries below it should be allowed to increase theirs up to the average. The countries above this average will of course be the developed capitalist countries while those below will be developing capitalist countries such as China and India.

So, it’s a proposal that the developed capitalist countries should voluntarily shackle themselves in the competitive struggle with their developing rivals to produce and make a profit from selling goods on the world market. Which is why it will never be adopted. There is simply no way that the capitalist corporations of the West and the states that protect their interests are going to agree to this. Given capitalism – as Monbiot and Hillman assume – each capitalist state will defend its own in the battle to realise profits on the world market. No capitalist state is going to undermine the competitiveness of its capitalist firms by imposing more expensive energy on them while its competitors in the developing world are not subject to this. It’s just not going to happen.

A front-page article in the Guardian (2 June) gave another reason why it wouldn’t work even in the unlikely event of its being adopted. Headed “Abuse and incompetence in fight against global warming” and subtitled “Up to 20% of carbon savings in doubt as monitoring firms criticised by UN body”, the article concerned the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) set up under the 1997 Kyoto treaty.

The CDM is a “carbon trading” scheme, which supporters of capitalism are lauding as the way to solve the problem within the profit system. Under this particular scheme, projects are started in the developing countries which are certified as reducing CO2 emissions; the firms carrying out these projects can then sell these “carbon credits” to firms in the developed countries for them to emit (a lesser amount of) CO2 instead.

But it hasn’t worked as planned:

“Within the world of carbon trading there are numerous cases of projects which are widely regarded as breaking CDM rules. Some existed long before the CDM project was launched: if they do happen to be producing fewer greenhouse gases that is the natural state and not a reduction which can be claimed and sold. Yet, such schemes have been validated by specialist companies and accepted by the CDM board; and the companies running them have been allowed to earn large amounts of money by selling unjustified Certified Emissions Reductions”.

These specialist companies are hired by firms who stand to earn big profits if their project is accepted. The Guardian quoted one carbon analyst: “The verifiers are being paid by the people they are verifying. If it turns out the verified is a bad guy, he is paying the policeman to sign him off as a good guy”.

Monbiot’s scheme would demand a far wider verification of carbon saving since accurate statistics would have to be collected and verified for every country (and every individual in every country). So, the problem uncovered by the Guardian would be multiplied many times, with every country trying to cook the books by understating the amount of its emissions.

Compared to “contract and convergence”, it would be much simpler to introduce socialism, the common ownership of the world’s resources with production to satisfy people’s needs not for profit, where vested capitalist interests and market forces would no longer conspire to prevent what needs to be done being done.