Editorial: The Real Crimes of the Mass Media (2011)

Editorial from the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Very many disgusting crimes have been exposed in the phone-hacking scandal that eventually brought down the News of the World newspaper. But what really turns socialist stomachs is not so much the illegal excesses, vile as they are, but the bog-standard journalism that has as a result been defended and praised with such sanctimony in the other papers. It is well known, to anyone paying attention, that the press passes over the vastly more serious crimes of state power with silence. And the silence is a lie.

To be a truly effective liar, it is essential that you come to believe your own bullshit. So we have had the spectacle of NotW journalists defending themselves on the basis that it is necessary to peddle propaganda, lies and gossip to fund the truly great investigative journalism that also goes on. David Aaronovitch, writing for the Times (7 July), also swallows this argument in the name of accepting ‘reality’, as all grown-ups must of course do. In other words, truth-telling heroes, and Aaronovitch modestly includes himself among their number, must save their souls by supporting efforts to rein in the excesses, whilst apologetically defending the general principle of business as usual.

The truth is that the main job of tabloid newspapers is not to report the facts to a concerned, democratic citizenry, but to make profits. The working class generally has little interest in state policy decisions because they feel that they have no real say over it anyway. And they feel that not because they’re stupid but because it’s true. To make profits, therefore, the tabloids have to appeal to something the working class in general is interested in: sex, say, or football. 

The same general principle applies to the liberal, so-called ‘serious’ newspapers, except they have to deal with a different audience: ‘middle-class’ types who believe that their careers and what they think is of some consequence. Of course, in a democracy, it is of some consequence: they have to be educated to accept capitalism and profit-making and ruling class power as an inevitable part of ‘reality’. That’s where Aaronovitch and his ilk do such an impressive job.

If you want something approaching the truth, turn instead to the newspapers addressed to the ruling class. These are better sources because the ruling class needs reliable information about the world so it can make suitable investment decisions. So, Martin Wolf for example, writing on the Financial Times website (14 July), blandly takes to be a matter of fact and plain common sense what the Aaronovitches and tabloid hacks of this world are obliged to dismiss as paranoid conspiracy theory. And this is that the media are businesses whose job is not just to make profits, but to mould public opinion. But it is intolerable for business in general if any one dictator should come to wield decisive influence. Wolf gives the example of Murdoch’s Fox network in America, which has “distorted” public opinion so much as to give credence to “rightwing populism” – which threatens to put state power in the hands of ideology rather than true business interests. 

Of course, from our point of view, it was equally intolerable that Murdoch should so influence public opinion as to build support for wars, from the Falklands to Afghanistan, and opposition to the class struggle, from the 1980s miners’ strike to the most recent teachers’ strike. But on these issues, the loud clamour over hacked phones in the mass media returns once again to a respectful silence.

Smile for the Camera (2014)

Book Review from the September 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

'Smile for the Camera, A Double Life of Cyril Smith' by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker

This book tells the career of Smith, who was the face of the Liberal Party in the 70s and 80s, and their star performer. The book shows the rise of Smith from an illegitimate child, in the 30s, through members of the Young Liberals, to Liberal agent, then as a Labour councillor and alderman, to Mayor of Rochdale, when after an argument over rent rises, he resigned from the Labour Party to form his own party which predictably went nowhere, and in 1968 he re-joined the Liberal Party, displacing the prospective candidate for the 1970 General Election, which he lost. In 1972 the Labour MP for Rochdale died.

During Smith’s time on Rochdale Council he had built up a coterie of various contacts, and had a deserved reputation as a hardworking councillor and a Mr Fixit. Smith was friendly with a leader of the Pakistani community, Karim Dad, who was the Godfather-like Mr Big in the community. Virtually the whole Pakistani community backed Smith, who was elected MP. Karim Dad was arrested the following year for personation (electoral fraud) and fled the country before his trial. Smith continued to rise in the Liberal Party, playing the part of the bluff, plain speaking Northerner. Behind the façade, however, was a darker side, that of a predatory child molester.

In the early 60s, Smith was the backer of Cambridge House, a home for young men 11-18 year-olds, providing cheap lodging. I now write from personal knowledge. I first met Cyril Smith in 1958 when, at the age of 16, I joined the Labour Party Youth Section. I then resigned from the Labour Party in 1960, after attending the 1960 conference in Scarborough, joining the Young Communist League.

I trained as an SRN, and in 1963 while selling the magazine Challenge, I was approached by a couple of lads from Cambridge House, who told me how Smith had both physically and sexually assaulted them.

They told me how Smith had spanked their bare backsides, fondled their testicles, pulled back their foreskins, for hygienic examinations. I got the lads to make sworn, notarised statements, which I personally presented to Rochdale Chief Constable, Ross. Ross I'm sure dismissed it as a Commie plot to discredit Smith. Copies, however, were given to the Labour Agent Josh Hughes, which is probably why funding was withdrawn from Cambridge House.

I left Rochdale in 1974, not returning until the late 80s, by which time Smith’s career had bloomed, and the list of his sex crimes increased.

In many ways, Smith was a superb politician, building networks of protectors, and fellow offenders, giving protection to each other. The Rochdale grooming scandal of the enforced prostitution of dozens of young girls though, brought everything to a head.

The book also charts Smith’s involvement in the cover-up of the dangers of asbestos, becoming a paid lobbyist for Turner Newall (the world’s largest asbestos producer). I must confess to a personal interest. My late wife died in 2004 from asbestosis. The site of Turner’s is now a derelict ruin, on a highly contaminated site, and for years there has been a  campaign for the safe development and remedial control of the area.

Ultimately, the book shows how the system of capitalism corrupts and destroys both life and human relationships.

Roger Chadwick

The Irish question in history. (1916)

From the August 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever since the general election of 1885 when, according to R. Barry O’Brien, the genius of Parnell compelled Gladstone to propagate the Irish question in England, the English Liberals have assumed an attitude of pity and commiseration towards Ireland. That country is an unfortunate sister nation—cartooned in picturesque rags with a broken-stringed harp—riven with internal discords and steeped in poverty. Her sons, we are told, emigrate in streams because they are denied the right of self-government. It were, perhaps, more true to say that Gladstone and the Liberals generally have recognised the value of Home Rule as a shibboleth to lure workers of both countries into the frothy whirlpool of capitalist politics.

The great mass of the Irish workers live out their lives troubling themselves about Home Rule no more than the ordinary English worker concerns himself about Liberalism. Still less would they interest themselves were it not for the campaign of lies, threats, and gloomy prophecies continually waged by the Irish ruling class and their agents, for it is among that class that discord reigns, and the sympathy of the English Liberals is for their brother capitalists in Ireland, who carry their political differences to such an extremity that capitalist class law and order are threatened and the workers themselves are being supplied with precedents and weapons for an organised movement along the line of physical force.

There is no essential difference between the capitalists of England and Ireland. Both are characterised by the same greed for gold, the same ambition for power, the same hypocrisy and corruption. When the capitalists of Ireland in the 18^th century, handicapped by the restrictions placed on their trade by the English Government pleaded, as a part of the British Empire, equal trade rights with the manufacturers of England, the latter, with their usual bigotry and selfishness, utilised all the machinery at their disposal—chambers of commerce and political organisations—to maintain their monopoly of the world’s markets and exclude Irish capitalists from successful competition with them. Nor is discord common to the Irish ruling class alone. The struggle for power between the landed aristocracy and the trading section in England has more than once reached a stage of bitterness equal to anything that has been seen in Ireland.

If the workers of Ireland would but dip into the history of their masters’ country, their faith in Home Rule as a panacea for their troubles would quickly vanish. The leaders they now so patiently tolerate would be suspects and criminals. For like Lloyd George, who swore that three years of Liberal rule would wipe poverty from out the land, the Irish Nationalists bait their ambitious schemes with fair promises of prosperity for the working class.

When the workers of Ireland, grown desperate with poverty and excessive toil, have fought their masters for a slight improvement in wages and conditions, have the Nationalists extended help or sympathy? On the contrary, they have always been on the side of the oppressors. Right through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the political leaders of Ireland were engrossed in the question of their rights and powers to govern Ireland. Every hostile movement by sections of the people—though admittedly the outcome of poverty and injustice—was met with brutality and oppression. The Irish Parliament in the eighteenth century frequently solicited England for aid to put down the armed risings of famished peasants.

Arthur Young, Fitzgibbon, and many others depict in eloquent language the dire poverty of the agricultural labourers—a favourite pastime with the well-to-do, even to-day—at the mercy of the numerous gangs of middlemen who rented lands from absentee owners, and sublet them again and again, till the labourer had to work out the rent of his plot at fivepence a day. Even then his exploitation was not complete, for out of his product he still had to fatten the lying and treacherous priests with tithes.

Politicians, absentees, middlemen and priests were all Irish—the usual patriots; their love of country measured by their opportunities to filch wealth and snatch positions. The same motley crowd we are acquainted with to-day; money changers, exploiters, and kidnappers. Seats in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords were bought and sold like cheese and pork. Bribery and corruption were nearly as rampant as to-day.

Though the Irish working class were ruled by their own countrymen, though they had a parliament and a House of Lords all to themselves, they were goaded to desperation and lawlessness by the poverty and oppression they suffered at the hands of their rulers. And those rulers, like their descendants held them in the loftiest contempt. The working class were often described by Irish legislators as “ignorant savages”, and Grattan, with a candour that would be impolitic to-day, summarised the attitude of the master class of his time towards the workers in the following crude sentences:

“The best method of securing the Parliamentary constitution is to embody in its support the mass of the property, which generally will be found to include the mass of all talents. For if you transfer the power of the State to those who have nothing in the country, they will afterwards transfer the property”.

The class that owned “the mass of the property” in Ireland exercised, during the last twelve years of the eighteenth century, absolute control over the political machinery; yet through all the fluctuations of trade the poverty of the workers increased and all their efforts—chiefly taking the form of the boycott—were suppressed with fury by their countrymen, who took no steps to alleviate their misery or redress their grievances. Exactly how much the representatives of property cared for their country or its independence was shown in their final act of betrayal. Grattan, who was in a position to know the facts, stated that not more than seven of those who voted for the Union were unbribed. This was the culminating treachery of rulers who had preached the perfidy of England, and demanded the fullest measure of self-government as the only means by which the wrongs of the Irish people could be redressed. Twelve years after their demands were conceded, they, for personal bribes, handed their country over to the enemy.

The intervening years have not changed the position unless it is for the worse. The working class are still held in the same contempt by their rulers. Corruption and bribery have increased, though constant practice in deception and fraud have qualified our rulers to conceal their crimes by sophistries and an affectation of dignity and rectitude. Here and there in the history of the Irish movement, since the Union, a man has stood out from the rest, honest in his beliefs and implacable in his hatred towards the enemies of his country, but the majority have been sordid place-hunters and cared nothing whether they sat at Westminster or Dublin. Their ambition, like that of the labour leader, is to sit on the governing assembly, share the power, and take any additions to their fortunes that might come their way as a result.

But if Ireland has been a hunting-ground for ambitious politicians, it has also been the home of ignorant and superstitious leaders. Catholic priests and Protestant clergy have used their influence and authority to foment religious strife, which had no existence till after the Union. The Catholic priests were so deeply involved in the political game that they helped to collect the forty thousand pounds that Parnell squandered on himself and Mrs O’Shea. Everyone knows the methods of the Protestant clergy; how the orthodox Church bolsters the Tories and the Non-conformists buttress the Liberals, and both assist to rope in the workers to the support and sanction of capitalist government.

At the first mention of a Franchise Bill in Ireland the Protestants declared against its extension to the “ignorant Catholics”, and the same attitude is apparent to-day in the objection of Irish Protestants to Home Rule, on the grounds that it would give the Catholics political control. Whence comes this opposition if it is not the result of conspiracy between clergy and politicians?

The Irish movements of the eighteenth century, the “white boys”, the “oak boys”, etc, were movements of the workers. Sometimes they were directed against the middlemen and sometimes against the tithe system, though not often the latter. They were secret organisations and the Government found it extremely difficult to deal with them. But when they developed into an open volunteer movement, widely extended, and holding congresses at Dublin and elsewhere, the Government quickly permeated it with their tools and agents and subverted it to their own uses, finally incorporating it in the regular Army. Since that time the working class of Ireland have never succeeded in organising for anything without the help or interference of capitalist tools or agents. The Fenians were nobbled by Isaac Butt and outwitted by Parnell. All their organisations from the “Land League” to the “Ulster Volunteers” or the “Molly Malones”, have been composed of workers bluffed and cajoled by political prostitutes and adventurers.

The main fact that claims our attention is that Ireland has been subjected, from the commencement of the capitalist period, to various forms of government—government by undertakers appointed by the British Cabinet, self government, partial and complete, and government by representation in the British House of Commons. But under none of these forms, nor in the changing of them, can it be claimed that the working class were affected. It is true that poverty has become more general and acute over the entire period, but that is due to the development of the system, and is common to every capitalist country.

The latest blunder of the Irish working class is in the support given to the Sinn Fein movement, which seeks to establish a republic, with the examples of France and the United States before them proving conclusively the futility of such an experiment to abate their ever-growing poverty.

The form of government makes no difference to the workers. Government implies subjects, and under the capitalist system of society the actual governmental machinery, Parliament, councils and judiciary, etc., are representative of the capitalist class—the necessary machinery for ruling a subject class composed of wage-slaves.

The boasted equality of modern society is thus seen to be a fraud. For if there existed a real equality there could be no governing class or government, but only administrative assemblies charged with the administration of things in accordance with the wishes of the majority. But capitalism being a system wherein one class governs another, where one class is idle yet wealthy, and the other class producing wealth yet always poor, neither equality nor democracy can exist, the latter only being possible when the former is present.

Private ownership in the means of wealth production is the dominant feature of capitalism, and distinguishes the capitalist from the proletarian. Society is divided into classes: those who own the means of wealth production, and those who own nothing but their labour-power. The latter is the governed class, the compulsory sale of their labour-power to the capitalist is the capitalistic form of slavery, and imposes on the workers the entire labour of producing wealth which is never theirs. That wealth is continually piled up in a superabundance, owned by the ruling class, proving conclusively that they govern to a purpose, and that capitalist government is a deliberately organised and maintained form of robbery and oppression, as governments have always been. Capitalism everywhere tends to reduce the workers to a minimum standard of subsistence, and steadily encroaches on their paltry rights and liberties.

The slavery of the Irish worker is no better and no worse, in this respect, than that of other workers in other lands, and under different forms of government. The Irish capitalist is a fair example of his class the world over.

It is a false notion of the Sinn Feiners and Nationalists that the Irish workers must struggle for national independence before they can tackle the problem of poverty. But the working class everywhere is under one capitalist government or another. To split territories, set up new governments, or to re-establish old ones will not help them nor even simplify the problem. Their only hope lies in the speedy establishment of Socialism. They must join hands with the workers of the world, and make common cause against the ruling class. They must make ready for the last war—the war of classes, in which classes must be abolished and a real equality established on the basis of “common ownership and democratic control of all the means of life”.

F. Foan

Brutal Attack on A Speaker. (1931)

From the August 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

We learn from the "One Big Union Bulletin" (Winnipeg) that repeated brutal attacks have been made by Communists in that city on speakers of the newly re-formed Socialist Party of Canada.

We have recently experienced similar tactics in Glasgow, not, be it noted, from Communists, but—or so it is believed—from certain religious fanatics.

On Monday, June 29th, after a meeting at Clydebank our speaker, A. Shaw, was attacked by four individuals, one of whom finally knocked him unconscious with a piece of lead pipe. Comrade Shaw was badly shaken up by the assault, and it was some days before he fully recovered.

The gratifying feature is that listeners, whatever their political or religious views, do not usually sympathise with such methods, and further very successful meetings have been held at Clydebank.

We do not often have cause to complain of attempts to interfere with our meetings. Except at times of high feeling, such as the war years, when outdoor socialist meetings were often made impossible by the joint efforts of the authorities and the patriots, we find audiences ready to give us a hearing. Our great advantage over the other political parties is that we allow our opponents to state their case on our platform. Audiences, knowing this to be our practice, are less willing to tolerate obstructive methods from our opponents. If other political parties extended the same liberty to opponents they would have less trouble than they sometimes get.

There are, of course, exceptional cases. Those who deliberately set out to smash up meetings or to attack socialist speakers can contrive to seize opportunities for so doing. As explained by Mr. Harry Pollitt in the "Daily Worker" (29th January, 1930); it is the deliberate policy of the Communist Party to smash up its opponents meetings by force. If that policy has not been attended by any success the explanation can be no doubt be found in the smallness of the Communist Party membership, which makes it a very risky proceeding for the would-be smashers.

Two Penguins (1951)

Book Reviews from the November 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

For those who have yet to take an annual holiday there are two books that will slip easily into the haversack, the saddle bag, the pannier bag, the suitcase or the pocket, and which are well worth reading. Both of them were written a few years ago but in their more expensive editions they have probably not found their way onto working class bookshelves. Now they are available in the comparatively cheap "Penguin" series.

The first is "The Grapes of Wrath" by John Steinbeck, first published in 1939. This is a story that has as its theme the proletarianising of the small farmers of Oklahoma and other central states of the U.S.A., and their early experiences as wage workers. Turned off their small holdings by the finance and large farming corporations who intended to introduce the more profitable mechanical farming methods, these poverty stricken families trek all the way to California where they are led to believe there is a fertile land and comfortable living. There is fertile land alright, but not for them. The ingenuity of man has devised fertilisers, pest destroyers, grafting and selective breeding of the many varieties of fruit grown in California. The crops are so bountiful that the market price is lower than the cost of picking and the fruit is allowed to rot. Into this state comes the army of newly created wage workers bewildered by the land of plenty in which they watch their children starve. Capital has them in its clutches. It breaks up the families, it makes men unscrupulous and unsociable, it drives them all into a cut-throat low wage competition. The poverty is extreme; and the period is the 1930's.

Steinbeck tells of all this through the medium of the adventures of the Joad family—Grandpa and Grandma, Pa and Ma, Noah, Tom, Winfield, Al, Ruth and Rosaharn together with Rosaharn's husband, Connie and a wandering preacher, Casy. Steinbeck is a story teller of the first order. he can bring a lump to the throat or a smile to the lips in the space of a page. The book has a social significance and is wonderfully well done and the author, at the end of his story, delivers the reader a resounding kick in the belly that will make him remember it for years to come.

The second book is George Orwell's "Animal Farm." This is a good and amusing satire on the process that has taken place in Russia since 1917 up to the time of writing, 1945. Orwell portrays the 1917 Revolution by a rebellion of the animals on a farm in which they turn out the human owner and take over the farm themselves. The pigs take on the leadership of the new order and the old boar, Comrade Napoleon, by astute manoeuvering called "tactics" becomes the great chief. The process of hoodwinking the working animals whilst steering the rebellion away from its original course until the animals are dumbfounded to find that they are working harder and are poorer fed than in pre-rebellion days and that in all other respects the system is the same as ever, is well described.

"Comrade Napoleon" is, of course, a caricature of Stalin, whilst ex-comrade Snowball, represents Trotsky. Other characters are easily identified. There is the horse, Boxer, who has a cure for all problems by working harder and whose motto is "Comrade Napoleon is always right." He finally works himself to a weak and useless condition, and the pigs send him off to the knacker's yard.

In the space of a couple of hours reading, George Orwell has described by his satire what other writers have failed to describe as adequately in hundreds of stodgy pages. His animal characters are often wise but funny, instance the donkey, Benjamin, who has lived for many years and who, when told that God had given him his tail to whisk away the flies, replied that he could well do without the tail and the flies. Good for the holiday, both of them. Just as good if you have had the holiday or even if you do not get one.

W. Waters

Hours, Wages and Profits (2006)

From the May 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The struggle to reduce the length of the working day is the embodiment of class struggle in capitalism. Although class struggle in pre-capitalist society took on different forms, class conflict between those who monopolised the means of producing wealth and those who laboured to produce surplus product was a constant feature. In these societies the producers were openly compelled not only to provide the means of their own subsistence but also that of the owner of the means of production. This expropriated labour took on different appearances in different societies. In slave society the slave master owned the slaves entire day and maintained the slave in much the same way as the prudent factory owner might look after his machinery. In feudal society the serf was tied to plots of land, which were cultivated in return for unpaid work or surplus product.

Capitalism turned human labour power into a commodity something bought and sold. As feudalism gave way to the wage labour of early capitalism, the surplus product so obvious in feudal society became hidden by the apparent freedom of the workers to sell their labour power to an employer who would pay the highest wages. But while this arrangement has the appearance of a fair days work for a fair days pay it actually hides worker exploitation that is the source of alienation.

When capitalists buy a workers labour they buy the workers capacity to work for a full day. Wages are set, however, like every other commodity, by the value of labour-power needed to reproduce them, which in the case of labour is the value of food, clothing, etc. needed to keep the worker in a fit condition to work. But the value of labour power is different from the value created by the workers labour and this difference, called surplus value, belongs to the capitalist.

The working day under capitalism therefore divides into two parts; necessary labour when the workers actually earns what they are paid in wages, and surplus labour which is the time spent producing surplus value for the capitalist employer. Naturally, it is in the interest of the worker to earn a wage sufficient to purchase the necessities of life in the shortest possible time. Conversely, once the workers wages have been paid, it is in the interest of the employer, the purchaser of labour power, to make the worker work as long as possible. Accordingly, in early capitalist society the owner always looked to expand working hours and keep the worker working to the limits of human endurance.

Where the length of the working day is reduced the natural tendency of the capitalist is to increase the intensity of the working day. The capitalists endeavours to get more work from the workers in order to maintain or increase the level of surplus value which is the source of their profit. Accordingly, in many cases the reduction in working hours over the last 200 years has been achieved by intensifying work and making the employee work harder to earn their wage.

Factory Laws

The factory system transformed the way people worked. Under a system of wage labour workers were forced to submit to the regimentation of factory life where the division of labour and pace of work were set by power-driven machinery with fixed hours, six days a week. Improvements in machinery encouraged the substitution of women and children for men to reduce the price of labour power, and by 1816 a working day of 16 or 18 hours, regardless of age or gender, was common in conditions that were cramped, airless, deafening and dangerous. Parliament, representing the interests of the ruling class, was naturally attached to the doctrines of a laissez-faire political economy where social problems were instinctively ignored.

As early as 1810, Robert Owen, the philanthropist industrialist, raised the demand for a ten-hour working day, which was instituted on his enterprise at New Lanark. By 1817 he was calling for an eight-hour day under the slogan Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest. His demands came to nothing and it wasnt until the 1830s and 1840s that a movement for shorter working hours developed into agitation for the ten-hour working day for children who were often taken by mill owners from parish workhouses in batches and treated as slave labour. The short time movement coalesced around the Leeds Tory evangelical, Richard Oastler, who headed the Yorkshire Factory Movement that organised public meetings and mass marches, including that in York on Easter Sunday 1832. It also delivered a petition to parliament where another evangelical, Michael Sadler, gathered parliamentary support for the reduction of child working hours.

The movement faced bitter opposition. Radicals, many of them factory owners, citing the laissez-faire doctrines of Jeremy Bentham, justified opposition to a reduction in the working day by asserting that state intervention was inappropriate because it interfered with the natural workings of the market. Mill owners were hostile to the Ten Hour Movement because a shorter working day for children would inevitably result in a restriction on adult working hours. Cheap child labour, they argued, maintained adult workers productivity and if working hours were restricted it would reduce profits and make it uneconomic to keep the workplace open beyond 10 hours simply to employ adult labour. As well as reducing profits a reduction in working hours would lead to unemployment, they claimed, because better working conditions and shorter working hours would raise production costs and make goods less competitive on foreign markets.

This reasoning was supported by eminent economists, notably Nassau Senior, the Oxford professor of Political Economy, who made the claim, ridiculed by Marx (and by what happened when working hours were reduced), that the entire profit from industry was generated in the last hours work each day and therefore any reduction in the working day would eliminate profit altogether. Other apologists for child exploitation claimed that the employment of child labour for long hours was acceptable because it had occurred in agriculture for centuries and even suggested that long working hours occupied otherwise idle children and kept them from becoming a social nuisance. Too much leisure time for the poor was seen as a dangerous and undesirable development.

Set against this background it is hardly surprising that early legislation to restrict child labour, including the Factory Acts of 1819, 1831 and 1833, was weak and ineffective. Despite the commitment in the Factory Act of 1833 (piloted by Lord Ashley, later Earl of Shaftesbury) to reducing child working hours to 8 hours for 9-13 year-olds and 12 hours for young people of 14-18, it was never effectively enforced and applied only to cotton mills. The Act appointed four inspectors to supervise the Act but mill owners responded by introducing the relay system of child labour so that factories could still remain open from 5.30am to 8.30pm. The 1833 Act was also passed at the expense of the short-time movement that advocated shorter working hours for all workers.

Further legislation followed but it wasnt until 1847 that the reformer and Chartist sympathiser John Fielden introduced a parliamentary bill to limit the working day to ten hours for all women and young persons up to the age of 18. It was accompanied by massive demonstrations and marches throughout the north of England and passed through parliament without amendment. This Act was a consequence of an alliance between the Chartist movement and the representatives of the landed aristocracy, the Tories, against the rising industrial bourgeoisie, who in 1846 had succeeded in the repeal of the Corn Laws. Although the textile industry was suffering a trade depression and most factories were already on a ten-hour day, manufacturers hindered the implementation of the 1847 Act by cutting wages in order to encourage opposition to the legislation on the grounds that workers needed to work the longer hours.

Three years later, the Factory Act of 1850 reduced factory opening to 12 hours each day, with the provision that factories must close at 2pm on a Saturday. The Act also reduced the working day for women and young persons to ten and a half hours, which in practice meant that male working hours also started to be restricted. As the reduction in working hours was introduced, the intensity of work increased, which meant that in many cases the anticipated fall in production did not occur and output actually increased. But the regulations only applied to textile mills and the next struggle was to extending the coverage of the Act across industry, finally achieved in 1867.

In the next decade, the 1874 Factory Act reduced the working day to ten hours for women and young persons. Almost immediately agitation for the Nine Hours Movement began and won a reduction of hours in the engineering and building industries. Trade Unions, which received full legal recognition in 1876, joined the struggle for a reduction in working hours through collective bargaining and strikes, especially in the north east of England. By the 1880s the movement began to gather around the demand for an eight-hour day.

Reversal of improvements

But the defeat of the New Unionism (the organisation of the unskilled) in the 1890s gave new leverage to the employers and further reductions in working hours were halted and sometimes reversed. In 1906 the factory working week still averaged 54 hours and by the 1920s had only reduced to 47 hours. Not until the late 1960s did a 40-hour working week became the accepted standard. The 8-hour day was accompanied by a real increase in holidays and pensions, achieved largely, however, by increasing the intensity of work.

Since the 1970s the struggle to reduce working hours has disappeared and improvements in working conditions have gradually been reversed. The weakening of national constraints on the movement of capital from country to country has meant that investment focuses on short-term profit through share prices rather than on long-term dividends. This has increased pressure on employers to make more profit and intensify the working conditions of their employees. Jobs have similarly moved from country to country in search of lower costs and new technologies begun to make it cheaper to invest in machines instead of people.

The security of life-long employment has been abandoned and replaced by short term relationships, where workers are expected to periodically migrate from job to job and undergo regularly retraining. The correlation between economic growth and improving social welfare has been cut and part-time working, which often denies bargaining power or employment benefits, has been expanded. Part-time working has also released capitalism from the need to provide a living wage, forcing working people to rely on multiple incomes from a variety of jobs. Unpaid overtime has become widespread and pensions and the retirement age are under attack.

In capitalism, struggle to defend and where possible improve working conditions, as generations of workers did to reduce the length of the working day, is important. But no amount of reform will eliminate the irreconcilable clash of interest between the capitalist and the working class, even if the working day were to reduce to an absolute minimum. It is only in a society of common ownership where production is for use not profit and where exchange, labour as a commodity and the wages system have been abolished that work will become a creative and rewarding experience. In such a society the distinction between work and leisure will disappear and because work will be voluntary, freed from the alienation of wage labour, the concept of working hours will cease to have meaning.

Steve Trott

Getting the blues in suburbia (1981)

From the January 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

There aren't many factory workers like me in the area where I live – a pleasant suburb called Giffnock which lies just over the south side of the Glasgow boundary. I moved there about five years ago and when my workmates heard where I was moving to they were amazed. Almost all of them live in council flats or houses (Scotland has a much higher percentage of council and other rented housing than England) and they seemed to place Giffnock in the same wealth bracket as Beverley Hills or Mayfair. "They've all got money up there" I was told.

Of course, when I moved into the place I found the reality to be just as I expected. Nearly every household is dependent on at least one wage or salary earner and so far I haven't met or even heard of a single millionaire. On the other hand, I have met people who have equally strange notions about factory workers. They presumably get their ideas (prejudices would be a better word) from the media and are quick to condemn strikes and wage demands which they imagine industrial workers indulge in every five minutes, just for the fun of it. Obviously, different sections of the working class have false ideas about the others, but it only needs a look beneath the surface to see the essential sameness of all their lives.

Every morning from Monday to Friday, excluding holidays, I leave home at three minutes to seven. I buy my newspaper in the newsagent round the corner and stand in a shop doorway waiting for my lift to work. I get picked up about five minutes past seven and we are on our way. The streets are deserted and as we approach Eastwood Toll we pass the big houses and the tall blocks of luxury flats which sell for around £80,000. All of them are in, darkness so the occupants must still be in bed, and' it's the same with the bungalows just along the road.

In the next ten minutes we pass through the massive Pollok council estate. There's plenty of lights burning in the houses here and lots of activity, with people walking along the streets, standing at bus stops or waiting at corners for their lifts. Most of them probably feel, like me, that it's tough having to start so early, but in an hour's time the Fenwick and Kilmarnock roads will be jammed with the cars of the salary-slaves from Newton Mearns, Whitecraigs, Williamwood and Giffnock all heading into. the city. For despite what my workmates may think, most of those who live in the big houses, luxury flats and bungalows are employees too, and the fact that they start around nine changes nothing-except that they get home in the evening an hour or two later than we do.

So there are superficial differences between these owner-occupiers and council tenants but the things they have in common are much more important. Like problems, for instance. When we read about all those redundancies in factories, shipyards and steelworks, does anyone imagine that only the shop-floor workers are involved? "White-collar" workers, right up to the highest levels of management, get the push, too. They are not immune to this (nobody is these days) and many of them live in places like Giffnock.

Just recently we noticed that Ian, one of near neighbours, was home a lot during the day and, his car was usually parked outside his house. Eventually we learned what had happened. He worked as some kind of executive (he sometimes talked about his "staff" ) in a big whiskey com­pany, and as the trade is in the middle of its biggest slump in over fifty years his employers had "let him go".

Ian's problem now is to find a new employer. Naturally, a man in his position will look up the situations vacant columns in so-called "quality" newspapers like the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald rather than the more "popular" Daily Record. There was a time when he could have made an appointment at the impressively titled Executive Register, but not now. The Register was closed as part of the government's economy drive so instead of a private interview in a posh office with a fitted carpet, Ian may have to go to the local Job Centre the same as anyone else.

It cannot be denied that the inhabitants of Giffnock are generally a bit better off than those in, say, Pollok. Here and there you can see an extension being built onto the back of a house or maybe double glazing being installed, but they feel the pinch just the same as workers in industry. Another neighbour, Colin, hasn't taken his family on holiday for two years. "Can't afford it", he tells me; the high interest rates which mortgage payers currently face could be the reason. There must be lots like him in Giffnock.

So some of them try to earn a bit extra just as electricians, plumbers, painters, joiners, and other workers do by taking on "homers" in their spare time. The local newsagents have some cards in their windows which demonstrate this. For example, a local man who is probably an architect will draw up plans for your new extension or garage; an accountant offers his services and someone who is "fully qualified" will provide English tuition in the evenings. In the next street there is a woman who does part-time market research. They need more cash, too.

The classified ads in the newspapers also tell a story. Some years ago the dis­covery of oil in the North Sea encouraged speculation that the fuel would cost next to nothing, so people in places like Giff­nock rushed to have oil-fired central heating systems installed. Nowadays the rush is to convert to cheaper gas and the ads are filled with unwanted oil burners and tanks but you can't give them away. I know, I had to pay the local dustmen to get rid of mine.

The fact that many people in places like Giffnock live in better houses, do different work or earn more money than some others does not elevate them out of the working class. They still have to work for a living, worry about making ends meet, face the indignity of the sack and in one degree or another, suffer the problems created by capitalist society. This is what places them firmly in the ranks of the workers whether or not they like it or my workmates know it, and the passing of time makes it more and more evident.

Vic Vanni

Material World: China’s Wild West (2014)

The Material World Column from the September 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Chinese authorities this year imposed restrictions on Uyghur Muslims during the month of Ramadan, banning government employees and school children from fasting They justified  the ban by saying it is meant to protect the health of students, and restrictions on religious practices by government officials are meant to ensure the state does not support any particular faith. Along with government employees, children under the age of 18 are barred from attending mosques. For centuries, parents sent their children to maktaps, part-time schools at the mosque, where they memorised the Quran – but this practice, along with most organised religious instruction, is now prohibited. Under Chinese law, only state-approved copies of Islamic literature like the Quran are allowed. Human rights groups say it is an attempt at systematically erasing the region's Islamic identity. This is not about atheism, but political control. Uyghur resentment toward Chinese rule has been reinforced by China's policies of cultural ‘genocide’ on Uyghur identity, religious beliefs and practices.

Xinjiang has a majority Muslim Uyghur population - a Turkic ethnic group with a language and culture closer to Central Asia who scholars consider to be descendants of a mix of European and East Asian. Uyghurs are classified as a ‘national minority’ rather than an indigenous group—in other words, they are considered to be no more indigenous to Xinjiang than the Han, and have no special rights to the land under the law. The region is home to some of China's largest deposits of oil, natural gas, and coal. Before the region was absorbed into the People's Republic of China in 1949, almost everyone was Uyghur, but the numbers have since declined, dropping to below half by the year 2000, as tens of millions of Han Chinese were encouraged to settle by the government, who provided jobs, housing, bank loans and economic opportunities denied to Uyghurs. The same story as in Tibet, Manchuria and Mongolia. It is sad but in these instances there are only two options: assimilation or confrontation.

On 1 March 2014, a group of Uyghurs with knives attacked people at the Kunming Railway Station killing at least 29 and injuring 130 others.

On 18 April 2014, a group of 16 Uyghur refugees engaged in a shootout with Vietnamese border guards after seizing their guns as they were being detained to be returned to China.

On 30 April 2014, two attackers stabbed people before detonating their suicide vests at an Ürümqi train station.

On 22 May 2014, twin suicide car bombings occurred after the occupants had thrown multiple explosives out of their vehicles at an Ürümqi street market. The attacks killed 31 people and injured more than 90.

Such acts provided the Chinese government with the excuse for its propaganda that it faces a Muslim terrorist threat, in order to win public opinion both in China and the world and silence criticism of its neo-colonialism.

China claims that ‘Xinjiang has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times’, Xinjiang in Chinese literally means ‘New Territory’. The use of ‘East Turkestan’ by Uyghurs is criminalised. The Chinese Red Army occupied the short-lived East Turkestan Republic in October 1949 and pacified the people through executions and massacres. Tens of thousands of Uyghurs were killed in China's conquest of East Turkestan. The promised self-rule was soon reneged on after annexation and the ‘Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region’ established in 1955. Chinese state corporations exploited the huge reserves of natural gas, oil, gold, uranium, coal and other minerals found in the region. What is more, China tested 45 nuclear devices, both under and above ground, between 1964 and 1996 in East Turkestan, polluting air, water and soil with radiation.

Chinese soldiers' have been accused of extrajudicial and indiscriminate killings of Uyghur men, women and children. This systematic repression of Uyghur people and their subsequent resistance to it, has been described as a fight against ‘Islamic terrorism’. Moderate Uyghurs such as Professor Ilham Tohti and linguist Abduweli Ayup who had tried to work within the Chinese system were denounced and arrested. Others out of desperation have committed horrific acts of political violence against not only Chinese security forces, but also against settlers. The July 2009 Ürümqi riots were a series of violent riots over several days that broke out in the capital city of Xinjiang and targeted Han Chinese. A total of 197 people died.

This oppression is all the worse for being done in the name of socialism whereas socialism ‘will involve the emancipation of all mankind without distinction of race or sex’.

ALJO

Exit hell-fire (1913)

From the September 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The work of the nineteenth century in the area of religious thought has, on the whole, been destructive. Ideas that had lived long because they had been protected from challenge have crumbled under the touch of modern thought. . . . The development of modern science has profoundly affected theological thought. First in astronomy, then in geology, and finally in biology and physics, the passionate desire to understand has been abundantly rewarded. But an irrational theology cannot exist side by side with a rational conception of nature, except at the cost of a disastrous dualism."

In the above words Canon J. H. B. Masterman finally and completely throws over the fantastic superstitions that have been current for centuries with regard to our future life. Evangelists and salvation fanatics may cry "hands off the people's religion!" but Canon Masterman and the theologists have agreed, in the columns of a capitalist daily newspaper, that the people's religion must be modified. Who said the Socialist would destroy religion? The mummers from Dean's Yard are doing that before the very eyes of their congregations. For when the claim of revelation has gone, and when heaven and hell no longer exist in the minds of the ignorant, the doctrines and beliefs that replace them are so obviously man-made, so plainly the creations of our day and generation, that even those devoid of even a superficial knowledge of science should, if possessed of the power of reasoning at all, be able to see that the new beliefs and prophesies are pure inventions.

Entire agreement, however, does not reign in the camp of the experts. Some find their congregations sufficiently gullible to swallow hell-fire as crude as Milton presented it; others need to have it drawn milder. Consequently there is division, and we find the Rev. Sylvester Home saying: "If a preacher to-day is fearless he is bound to preach moral discipline and punishment in a form which is more searching and powerful to the conscience than any mere materialistic punishment could be"; while Canon Horsley gives support to the contention of the Rev. Chas. Brown and Silas Hocking, that no ministers or people of intelligence any longer believe in a material hell, he still advises that something of the kind should be taught. He says: "While vice exists, and not merely sin; while hedonism perhaps increases; the time is not when warnings are unneeded and the prophets should only prophesy smooth things."

In other words, although intelligent people no longer believe in eternal punishment, because there is no evidence for such a belief, it should still be taught to those who can be imposed upon—because it may keep them honest when the man in blue is absent.

The conscience of the worker—quite distinct from the Nonconformist conscience, by the way, which is only political—must be a small voice within us mind that respects the ethics for the wage-slave, as imposed by capitalism. Some of the writers in the "Daily News," of lesser calibre than the deans and canons, quite boldly declare that without hell-fire all restraint on the minds of the desperate would be gone, just when it was more than ever necessary. Scotland Yard, with all its records, police supervision, finger-prints, and photographs, is not powerful enough to cope with the desperate characters engendered by capitalist society. Penal servitude frightens some. Nonconformists—a working class infliction—would keep the fires of hell burning eternally before the imagination of their helpless victims. They claim that if the fear of hell is no longer instilled, crime will assuredly increase.

Capitalism breeds the criminal: the only question for the capitalist is how to secure his property from him. The theologian makes it his question too, because he comes in for a share of the larger plunder—the results of the robbery of the working class.

With the development of capitalism the number of unemployed increases with great rapidity. Not only so, but the low wages and rotten conditions imposed upon the workers grow more irksome and repulsive almost daily ; hence the increase of so-called crime, over ninety per cent, of which is directed against property.

Buckle, in his "History of Civilisation," proves from statistics that a social system that changes only slightly from year to year reproduces faithfully each year almost the same crop of deaths from starvation, suicides, lunatics, and criminals. When the "struggle for existence" becomes more intense among the working class, there is a corresponding increase in these cases, proving conclusively that economic conditions are responsible for them.

When this question is honestly probed, as has been so frequently done in the columns of the "S S.," we find that poverty is entirely due to the fact that the working class are robbed of the wealth they produce. The self appointed prophets share this knowledge with us, but in consideration of their salaries they say in effect: continue the robbery ; we will do our best to frighten the robbed with a tale of some sort.

Some, like Dr. Garvie, for instance, expose their knowledge of the truth by their guarded language. He speaks of "what we may believe" or "what it is reasonable to believe," thereby admitting lack of evidence to prove anything, unlike the Dean of St. Pauls, and sixteen other specialists who openly confess that they know nothing about it, as there have been no definite revelations as to a future life.

The question still faces the theologian how to frighten or beguile the working class into docility. Some can be cajoled by the pious humbug that "virtue brings its own reward," while others, guileless and simple imbeciles that they are, say, with an assumption of cheerfulness and a heavenly expression that has a world of meaning say: '' This life is what we ourselves make it—heaven or hell."

This, we are told, is the rationalist view. There is nothing rational in it. The capitalist who has nothing else to think about but how to secure heavenly conditions for himself, and who has flunkeys and white slaves to help him, may find it easy enough to make his heaven here. The average worker's mind, however, is already in a chaotic state of worry and anxiety as the result of the struggle to live. The factory bell and the slum ; the overseer and the landlord ; low wages and rising prices, leave him no time for psychological gymnastics.

The capitalist has no need to lift his mind out of his environment to find contentment. The worker's mind is only released from his environment when he sleeps and dreams—and his dreams, they are usually nightmares, parodies of his waking hours, and not far removed, in truth, from very hell fire itself. 

F. Foan.

Death of a Publisher (1972)

From the May 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

On March 15th of this year Giangiacomo Feltrinelli died a horribly violent death. The millionaire publisher, the man who first brought Dr. Zhivago to Europe, was found with his right leg bown off, his left side shattered and his face mutilated underneath an electricity pylon on the outskirts of Milan. Surrounded by powerful explosives, he had fallen victim, so it seems, to his own terrorist activities. A small technical hitch, fatal for him, saved half Milan from being plunged into darkness.

Giangi Janji, as his society friends called him, was no ordinary terrorist. With a midas for a father he inherited a vast fortune made in industry and banking and proved no mean capitalist himself. But he used part of his 140m. personal fortune in a somewhat unaccustomed way. Since his disenchantment with the political acrobatics of the Italian Communist Party in the 1950's, he is known to have contributed large sums towards the financing of left-wing guerrilla organisations. Globe-trotting, multilingual agitator, he managed to get himself expelled from Bolivia, France and Germany for subversive activities and in visits to Cuba formed a close personal friendship with Fidel Castro [1]. Until march 15th, however, he appears to have limited himself to merely advocating violence[2] and supplying others with the means by which to wage their vicious and futile war of iron bars, Molotov cocktails and home-made explosives. His first personal venture into this field was his last.

The extra-parliamentary Left has claimed, quite predictably, that this "45-year old boy scout" (as the third of his four wives called him) was murdered either by fascists or through an "international capitalist plot backed by the CIA". Despite the monstrous regularity of such claims from the left, its interpretations are by no means to be excluded. But if the Italian extra-parliamentary groups submit their record to examination, they can hardly be surprised at the incredulity with which people treat their protestations.

Just three days before Feltrinelli's death, for instance, various left-wing organisations, according to a prearranged plan of battle, brought panic and terror to the streets of Milan—and this for the umpteenth time in recent years. If you happened to be in Milan that day and were fortunate enough not to be burned by a guerrilla petrol bomb, or suffocated by police tear gas, you would have enjoyed a grandstand view of the kind of battlefield closely worked-out guerrilla strategy can make of today's big urban centres. Lines of trams with smashed windows; cars turned over and used as barricades; petrol stations set ablaze; police jeeps wrecked as they collide trying to crash through barricades; swollen heads, bleeding faces and screaming women and children. Even the poor Chief of Police has his trousers scorched by flames from one of the fires lit by guerrillas to distract the police and add to the confusion.

"What has all this to do with Socialism?". you may legitimately ask. Nothing at all, except that the organisations engaging in these activities, and those like Feltrinelli who support and finance them claim to be Socialist. The effectiveness of their action in propagating Socialism can be measured by the demands continually being voiced by large sections of a frightened antagonised Italian working class to suppress all minority political groups as a threat to public order. So aside from the utter confusion these self-styled "defenders of the proletariat" spread among the working class as to the nature of Socialism, they also bring about a climate in which the limited political rights already existing within capitalism can be reduced or removed. They put on a precarious footing the right to organise and spread Socialist ideas [3]. Perhaps we should not be too harsh on them, for, given their lack of political understanding, they can hardly be expected to see that minority violence is completely out as an instrument of Socialist revolution.

If there is a lesson to be drawn from this sorry mess, it must be that those who live by the sword always run the risk of dying by it. The pen and the conditions of capitalism itself are far more reliable agents of revolution—the revolution, that is, in people's minds which must precede the changeover from today's system of money and scarcity to a world of free access.

H.K.M.

[1.] Such was Castro's respect for Feltrinelli that he once agreed to suspend one of his periodical round-ups of Havana homosexuals when his guest took exception to it.

[2.] In 1968 his publishing house put out a manual of articles with instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails, bombs and explosives.

[3.] Italy already has a law concerning "subversive propaganda". On 15th March 1972 the editor of Il Bolscevico, a left-wing journal, was sentenced in Florence to a year's imprisonment for bringing out a leaflet with the words: "Democracy and republican institutions must be smashed and destroyed by the proletariat".

Socialism and the working class (1978)

From the December 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern society is split into two classes—the working class and the capitalist class. The working class is exploited by the capitalist class because it produces a surplus of wealth over and above what it gets back in wages. It is this unpaid surplus which creates the vast differences in the ownership of wealth between those who produce but do not own and those who own but do not produce. This simple fact provides the answer as to why seven per cent of the population owns eighty-four per cent of the personal wealth; why some people can spend more on race horses, sex, alcohol in an hour, a day, a week, than some (the vast majority) can earn in a year or a lifetime. It also explains why constant upheavals in industry take place, as men and women struggle over the fruits of production.

These glaring inequalities in the ownership of wealth, these profound economic struggles, can only be solved by the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by socialism, a classless society. Our opponents, however, whether from right or left, would disagree.

Nationalists, for example, would say that class is as irrelevant as it is outmoded, that it is much more realistic to talk of common national origins, such as Scots or Welsh, or whatever. By doing so, the nationalists hope to gloss over the obvious fact that in any nation state—independent or dependent—there exists deep conflicts between different sections of society and no amount of patriotism or flag-waving will overcome them: Scottish employers do not treat their workers any better than, say, Japanese employers would. Employers, no matter their national origins or colour, are only interested in getting as much from their workforce for as little as they can pay: profits come before patriotism.

In much the same vein, the television pundits, the employers, the politicians, both Labour and Conservative, and many trade unionists, often refer to industry in terms of teamwork. They deny the operation of the class struggle by insisting that there is a community of interests between the workers and management with both working towards a common end. (To a certain extent this is true, both are working for a common goal — the enrichment of the shareholders).

What these people fail to understand (or if they do they keep it quiet) is why the team continually falls into opposing parts over such things as wages and conditions. These apologists of capitalism put it down to either bad management or greedy workers led on by militant wreckers. This is not the case and never has been. Strikes and lock-outs happen because there is a struggle between the capitalists and the workers over the fruits of production and not because of the machinations of shady characters or the inherent greed of the workers. For this reason there can be no one team with agreed common goals in industry, but competing teams based on class membership.

Our opponents on the left would agree with us that there is a class struggle. If pressed they might even concede that this struggle is a two class affair, working and capitalist. However, given a few moments reflection, they would probably inform us that we are mistaken, there are actually three classes in society, the third being the 'middle class'. After another few moments our left-winger turned sociologist may come up with an even more complex array of classes; lower working class, upper working class, lower middle class, petty bourgeoisie, middle class, upper middle class, upper class (this is never sub-divided, the uppers is upper, OK), and so on, to the point where market research takes over from Marxism. But it doesn't stop here, the left winger will casually inform us, as if we didn't know, that there are also sub- or under-classes, that is, women, blacks, youth, catholics. This is where the socialist if he or she has not already choked on a handy volume of Capital, loses patience and makes a number of informative comments.

QUESTION AND ANSWER

1) What is class?

Class is not defined in terms of social status, that is, whether you attend the badminton club or the darts club, or by the colour of your collar, blue or white, or by the colour of your skin, your age, your sex. Class is determined by your relationship to the means of production, that is, if in order to live you are forced to sell your mental and physical energies for a wage or a salary then you are a member of the working class.

2) "But surely", asks the left winger, "the salaried worker and the wage earner have a different social standing?"

This may have been true in the nineteenth century in Britain, but it is certainly not the case to-day. In the nineteenth century, the clerk, for example, had a special place in the labour market. He lacked job mobility, he was associated with one employer and one business. Furthermore, the ties between him and his employer were close and personal. By loyal and faithful service, the clerk could look forward to becoming a partner in the firm, and many did. Again, there were no fixed or standard wages and conditions in clerking, just as each office had its own particular working arrangements each clerk had his own price.

Obviously under such widely varying conditions of work trade unionism developed very slowly. Although it is significant that in the larger offices successful attempts were made to organise the workers into trade unions, for instance, the Railway Clerks Association (later TASS) was founded in 1897.

The twentieth century dramatically altered the position of the clerk. The  introduction of the typewriter flooded the offices with cheap female labour, reducing the bargaining power of the clerks. The growth of bureaucracy blocked promotion chances and led to a clear cut division between 'managerial' and 'clerical'.

It also created standard conditions of employment, crowded people together in large offices, made the boss a distant figure, and increased the clerk's sense of powerlessness in his working environment. unions developed apace with the changing position of the clerk, and in its turn further uniform conditions in terms of wages, hours, and so on. It is changes such as these which have made the white collar section of the trade union movement the fastest growing. It is also a recognition by the clerks that their interest are not those of their employers.

Moving up the salary scale, the picture is the same. Groups of workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, have found their former position of relative privilege eroded and have been forced to take steps to intensify their opposition to their employers through strikes (previously unheard of) and other forms of industrial action.

This is unsurprising given the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few: ninety-three per cent of all adults in 1970 held not even one single share; five out of six families had no invested income.

3) But don't the brain workers look down on the manual workers?

What this really means is that the working class is not united  in its opposition to capitalism. This sad fact has to be admitted; there are divisions within the working class, and the divide is not simply a question of collar. The employed look down on the unemployed; white workers look down upon black workers; male workers attempt to block the hiring of female workers; region fights region, youth fights old. The policy of divide and rule is still profitably employed to split the working class into warring factions.

BLUE AND WHITE COLLAR

In the case of the blue and white collar divide, the office staff often enjoy certain benefits denied to their fellow workers on the shop floor, such as better pension and sick pay schemes, longer paid holidays, working in a cleaner and less dangerous environment. This can have the effect of maintaining the loyalty of the office staff in times of dispute, but since in many cases the wages of the office workers are lower that the manual workers, it is really a case of the merry-go-round and the swings.

In spite of this, such seemingly preferential treatment may encourage the white collared salariat to view themselves as superior to manual workers but it does not make them a separate class. There may be differences in wages and conditions but the uniting factor is working for a wage or a salary. It is the prostitution of one's labour which makes for the common bond between all members of the working class.

4) What then is the task facing socialists?

It is the task of socialists, firstly, to reject the terminology of class as handed down by the apologists of capitalism, the politicians, the media-men, the academics, and not pander to the illusions people may have about themselves; and, secondly, to encourage unbreakable unity of the working class to the extent that it can act as the agent of revolutionary change by making workers aware of their class position and common interests. In fact, to make the working class aware of itself as a class so that it might, paradoxically, end class society.

Bill Knox

How Victor fishes for the B.W.L. (1917)

From the September 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British Workers' League was originated by patriotic "Socialists" to encourage and assist the growth of the "right kind of Socialism." That it was "the right kind" was apparent from the moment they issued their first manifesto, which, being entirely in accord with capitalist ideas on the subject, received the hearty support of capitalist newspapers in general.

If we are to believe the glowing accounts of their successful propaganda, published in the "British Citizen and Empire Worker," it would seem that the organisation now needs but little support from the capitalist Press. Its numbers, according to the reports from its one hundred and more branches, are increasing so rapidly that, if the pace can only be maintained, the "right kind of Socialism" will cease to be a "dream of disordered imaginations," and will be shortly, if it is not already, quite sane and practical.

We need waste no time quoting extracts from the "B.C. and E.W." to illustrate what they designate "the right kind of Socialism." All that is necessary is to call to mind the various government experiments in the direction of nationalisation, and to remember how they have been boosted by the capitalist Press as Socialism and eulogised for their practical value to the capitalist State in a great crisis. Bearing this in mind, it is easy to see that capitalist newspapers could readily support the B.W.L., seeing that the B.W.L. first gave its support to the schemes they had themselves approved of. B.W.L. "Socialism" was "the right kind" because it met with the approval of capitalist authorities—who, being quite neutral and disinterested on the question, are in a position to give undisputed judgment.

Long before war made any "kind of Socialism" practicable there were men and parties advocating the B.W.L. kind. The peripatetic pimps and palliators of the I.L.P., the Clarion Scouts, the S.D.P., and the Fabian Society, mistook nationalisation for Socialism, and when a capitalist Government started nationalising, they shouted with glee. We had told them often enough that the ruling class, through its executive, would nationalise railways or anything else, if capitalist interests demanded it. But they had so accustomed themselves to think of State ownership or nationalisation as the millennium that its practical application by a capitalist government did not even arouse their suspicions. And although its application did not alter the status or condition of the workers, they shouted for more, many of them rushing straightway to the B.W.L. for membership cards that they might lend a hand in the establishment of Socialism (!) that was being precipitated so eagerly by the very class that looks upon it as poison to their system.

The only addition necessary to the stock-in-trade of the pre-war labour faker was a fervid patriotism—a quite simple matter for them, seeing that patriotism was supposed to be popular and the only thing in which labour leaders were consistent was in striving after popularity by advocating popular notions. This explains the much-boasted success of the B.W.L. They denounced everything German, from the Kaiser downwards. They boosted Empire—British, of course—for all it was worth—to the capitalist. Trade unionism is their special concern. " What would British trade-unionism be under the Hohenzollerns?" shrieked Victor Fisher to the chain-makers of Cradley Heath, who stood to lose nothing, not even the chains that were never theirs, or the chains that bound them in servitude.

"Do not imagine," he wailed, "that you can lose your national independence and maintain? your class organisation." As though "national independence" meant anything to these overwrought slaves, or class organisation were impossible under German capitalists.

If the assertions of capitalist agents, and prewar Press reports, were worth anything, the class war was waged quite as vigorously in Germany as it was here. The German trade-unionists had the same freedom to organise as English trade-unionists. In fact, labour leaders here often looked to Germany, with its twenty labour dailies, as the advance guard of labour the world over. But quite independent of these facts, the class war must be fought out by the-workers against the capitalist class of the world. If the purpose of class organisation is to wage the class war it does not matter a brass farthing whether we organise against English or German capitalists. On the other hand, if the working class of any country are too apathetic or spineless to stand erect against international capitalism, it does not matter a brass cartridge by whom they are enslaved and exploited.

The English working class, when it organises on class lines, can have but one object, to throw off the capitalist yoke. The German working class, opposed to a different group of the same capitalist class, can only prosecute the class war for the same object. For the working class, not only of these two countries, but of all countries, "national independence" is as dust in the balance compared with their great need for a real International.

National independence means nothing to the wage-slave because his poverty and degradation are the same in all the nations; his class organisation is everything to him because on its growth and perfection, and, above all, its international character, hangs the hope of working-class victory over sordid, tyrannical, and bloody-capitalism, and the establishment of the one-and only Socialism.

F. Foan

From Methodism to Marxism (1994)

From the May 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Socialism? Nice idea. But too much like hard work!"

I used to be a Christian, once upon a time. A Methodist, no less, and a preacher to boot.

This is not some kind of confession or personal testimony – we have all had to make some sort of intellectual journey to call ourselves socialists. It is just that I called myself a Methodist – and yet I enjoyed a drink then, as I still do, regularly indulging myself, sometimes to excess.

The time at which John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism, were preaching – the mid-18th century – was one in which there was widespread disquiet among the chattering (and, more importantly, the employing) classes of the day about the effects of the "demon drink" on society. Thus, Methodists were, for many years, encouraged to sign the pledge, and constantly railed against alcohol and those who consumed it. It was a theme that other sects picked up on. including, in the 19th century, the Salvation Army.

But it did not worry me that abstinence was – or had been – one of the central planks of Methodism. Indeed, it did not seem to worry many Methodists of my generation. "Well, we understand that there used to be a point to it." they would say, "but alcohol's OK in moderation, the problem's not the same now!" – ignoring the fact that there are many more alcoholics, and alcohol-related deaths, now than there ever were in the Wesley s' day.

That kind of selectiveness with ideas or creeds is common enough in Methodism, but it is by no means exclusive to it.

Many die-hard cold warriors, and sundry other tinpot armchair militarists, still sit in churches, praying to their god, in spite of the fact that, according to the New Testament, their god had enjoined his followers to "love their enemies" and to "turn the other cheek" when wronged.

The Queen – the richest woman in the world, or thereabouts – apparently has her god to thank for her position. Yet Jesus told his disciples that it was "harder for a rich man to enter through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle"; called the love of money the root of all evil; and instructed his disciples to give away all that they owned before they could follow him. (Anyone tempted to think, at this point, of Jesus as some sort of proto-communist would be well advised to remember his injunction to "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's").

Various apologists for the exploiters in our society have tried to soften the blow of Jesus' apparent rejection of the rich. I remember reading one "explanation" which argued that the Eye of the Needle was, in fact, a small gate in Jerusalem's city wall; and that while it was difficult for a camel to get through, it was not impossible. But the fact remains that Jesus apparently took the view that one could not serve two masters at once: to serve the interests of one's personal fortune detracted from one's service to, and contemplation of, God.

I spent a lot of time making that kind of point from the pulpit. But in truth I was just as guilty of ignoring inconvenient parts of the doctrine. The Bishop of Durham and I both questioned the literal truth of the biblical miracles, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection. In my case I rejected them completely. I even came to the conclusion that Jesus was not the Son of God – an idea which, while it may not be central to the Gospels, is certainly central to the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith adopted by all the Western Christian churches.

And yet, for quite a time, I still continued to consider myself a Christian.

Most, if not all, Christians down the ages have tended to ignore bits of the creed that did not suit them. To a great extent this is because whole chunks of the Christian bible, at any rate, are contradictory, so a Christian has to decide what kind of Christian he or she is going to be. But also it is, in part, because many people's religious beliefs are inherited, rather than considered. As they get older, if they retain any religious faith at all, it is likely to be in a bastardized, even unorthodox, form.

Socialists, on the other hand, one might expect to be rather clearer about what principles they hold dear. People calling themselves socialists, or Marxists, should have no difficulty in thinking through logically what their credo is.

And yet, ostensibly socialist/Marxist groupings and political parties seem to have real problems with identifying their principles and sticking to them.

The Labour Party, taken as a whole, has never really had any principles, at least none that it was not prepared to sell in exchange for public office. It has long been what it calls a "broad church" of reformists, opportunists, and sundry ideologically-challenged bleeding hearts. As such, it has never really known where it wants to go, or how to get there. For a while, a majority of the party thought that nationalization was the way forward. But it was never clear where that way was supposed to go, whether public ownership was a means to an end or an end in itself. And now in practice, even Clause 4 has been abandoned in a bid to make the policy-less party attractive to voters.

But one thing that the Labour Party has always maintained is that it is a socialist party, albeit that the word has stuck in the throat of some of those party leaders using it. Socialism, in the Labour Party dictionary, is a vague, woolly catch-all word: anyone can be a socialist in the Labour Party. There are no central ideas there to embarrass voters or activists, be they never so egotistical, opportunistic, or venal. Or indeed as rich as Croesus. This non-definition of "socialism" is deliberate. The main objective of the Labour Party is to get elected, not to change society. So the fact that nothing substantive ever gets done to justify the use of the word "socialism" – that the Labour Party has not advanced the cause of the working class one jot, despite several terms of parliamentary office – is viewed as unimportant.

Marx existed

It is, perhaps, possible to view the word "socialism" as a nebulous term that can mean a variety of things. But not the word "Marxism". After all, unlike with Jesus, we can be sure that Marx existed. We know much of what he did and said. And, again unlike Jesus, we have books, letters and articles that we know he wrote himself. So there should be no problem with deciding what may legitimately be termed Marxism, and what may not.

And yet, astoundingly, there are groups, inside and outside the Labour Party, who call themselves Marxist and Trotskyist simultaneously, despite the fact that the two words are a complete contradiction in terms. These include Militant, Socialist Organizer and the SWP, to name but a few.

It does not take a genius to work out that, however Trotsky himself defined his political views, his ideas were fundamentally at odds with those of Marx.

For instance, Marx took the view that the liberation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself. The implication of which is that the transition from capitalism to socialism will be, and must be, a democratic process. A good Trotskyist, on the other hand, will say that the revolution will be brought about by a dedicated (for which read "small") band of professional revolutionaries, who will educate the working class to want socialism after it has supposedly been established. Trying to persuade the majority of workers to understand and want and work for socialism, in order that it may – as it must – be established democratically, is impossible in the eyes of the Trotskyist.

Far too difficult, too much like hard work. So the Trotskyist falls into the trap of the "revolutionary vanguard" concept, an apparently easier route to socialism which is, in fact, a cul-de-sac, a route only to dictatorship.

All Trotskyist sects thus fall at the first fence of the route to a Marxian socialist/communist society (and Trotsky distinguished between socialism and communism in a way that Marx never did).

But they also seem to have problems with what it is exactly that they are striving for.

Marx defined socialism as a society wherein wages and money, private property and profit had all been abolished. But I remember talking to a member of Socialist Organizer who scoffed at the Socialist Party's vision of society as pie-in-the-sky idealism, at best only to be seen centuries from now.

The Socialist Party does not, of course, believe that Marx was a god, or a Pope, there to be infallible. He was a man, whose thought developed over the years, and who quite often was wrong. But with others, drawing on earlier ideas and on observation, he came to an understanding of capitalism and its alternative, which is clear and logical – and which, as a whole, the Socialist Party believes to be correct. The Socialist Party, like Marx, holds that a moneyless, propertyless society is feasible and desirable. It also holds that the only way to achieve such a society is democratically, by persuasion. There is no substitute for hard work, for "making socialists".

Marx said that we have a world to win. He never said it would be easy.

Paul Burroughs