To The Princes of The Church. (1915)

From the February 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

You prate of love and murmur of goodwill,
Turn sanctimonious eyes toward your God,
Write on your walls the text "Thou shalt not kill,"
Point out the path your "Prince of Peace" once trod,
While all the time, with murder in your hearts,
You lie, cajole, and bully that the fools
Who heed your words may play their foolish parts
As slaves of Mammon, as the War-Lord's tools.
On many a field, in many a river bed,
Of Flanders and of Poland and of France,
Your bloody-minded words bear fruit indeed.
Preachers of Death! the thought of maimed and dead
Will nerve us when our hosts of Life advance
To crush for ever your accursed breed.

F. J. Webb

How Capitalism Works (3) (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Capitalism Works (3): Work and Waste

To stick to the word's original meaning only work which plays a direct part in producing wealth can be described as "productive". Any other work would be "non-productive". This is not to make a judgement as to its usefulness, but merely to record the fact that it does not result in any wealth being produced.

The productive non-productive distinction is not the same as that often made between manual and non-manual work. (The latter is an unreal distinction anyway, since all human work involves a person using both brain and hands). A craftsman working on his own must himself do all the work connected with production, planning and organising his work as well as fashioning the raw materials. In the modern workplace these productive tasks are divided among specialist workers, some of whom may wear white collars, work in offices and never see or handle the raw materials. This work — planning, organising, and design — is just as much productive as that done at the coal face or the factory bench. Similarly, an architect's office is as much a productive workplace as an engineering factory. The distinction here is between productive and non-productive work rather than between productive and non-productive workers, since in practice many jobs involve both kinds of work.

Since work is the expending of energy it includes a whole range of human activities which, though very necessary, do not result in wealth being produced. Eating, drinking. washing, walking, playing and other activities a person must do in order to stay alive do not produce wealth. Nor does the work involved in education, health and entertainment which is equally vital to human survival. These non-productive activities are all personal or communal services which are necessary to keep people alive and healthy. Insofar as they also keep people in a fit state to work they do, it is true, make a very real contribution to production. But this is only an indirect contribution, since the act of carrying out these services does not in itself result in any wealth being produced. To call these services "non-productive" is a useful reminder that those who perform them, and the equipment and materials they use, have to be supplied out of the surplus wealth created by productive work.

The non-productive work just discussed is essential whatever form human society takes. But there is other non-productive work which only arises in certain kinds of human society. In class-divided societies, for instance, the ruling minority has to maintain an apparatus of coercion. The armed men who perform this coercive function do work, but they do not produce wealth. And in societies where wealth must be exchanged before it can be used part of the workforce has to be engaged in activities connected with the exchange, as opposed to the production, of wealth. The extra work of an exclusively exchange or profit-making character which has to be performed today is really quite extensive.

Each enterprise employs, in addition to its productive workforce, people to buy the raw materials, people to hire and fire workers, people to sell the end-products and people to record and check all these exchange transactions. Certain enterprises have come to specialise in exchange activities. Shops are the obvious example. But so do banks, building societies, insurance companies, pension schemes, estate agents, accountants, employment agencies and so on.

A large proportion of the employees of the State, at local as well as national level, are engaged directly in exchange activities, from those who collect taxes, pay benefits and allocate government money to those who advise on the government's finance, tax, trade and economic policies. Also, the State itself functions as an exchange institution when it takes part in the competitive struggle for profits. So the members of the diplomatic services and of the armed forces can also be regarded as doing exchange work (to the extent that the armed forces are involved in maintaining law and order at home, their non-productive work is a coercive rather than an exchange activity).

Exchange workers, like those who perform essential services, have to be maintained out of the surplus which productive work creates. So do the buildings, materials and equipment they use, from bank premises to military airfields, from notepaper to uniforms, and from cash registers to nuclear missiles. All this plant and equipment is wealth in the sense of being the result of human beings applying energy to change Nature. The workers who produce it are, therefore, engaged in productive work. It may seem contrary to common sense to describe the work of those who make guns and bombs and tanks as "productive" but remember that the productive /non-productive distinction is not meant to be a judgement of social usefulness.

Exchange work is essential in an exchange economy and does contribute indirectly to production since without it wealth could not be produced. But it is not absolutely essential to human society in the sense that education is, and it would be superfluous in a society whose wealth was allocated directly for use without first having to be exchanged.

But if bank employees are non-productive and are maintained out of surplus wealth, where do the profits of banks (and other exchange enterprises) come from? Enterprises are best thought of as competing to draw profits from a pool formed by converting into money all the surplus wealth produced. Exchange enterprises (and, for that matter, other "non-productive" enterprises such as profit-making schools and hospitals) take part alongside "productive" enterprises in this struggle for profits and also tend to obtain the average rate of profit on their capital which, in their case, will be the money-value of the buildings and equipment they use together with their cash and their fund for paying wages. The profits they make are a kind of payment from the productive enterprises for arranging for wealth to be exchanged (or for workers to be trained or kept healthy, as the case may be). Productive enterprises are forced to share their profits with non-productive enterprises as an alternative to having to employ more non-productive staff themselves to do the work. This hiving-off of non-productive tasks to specialist enterprises has proved to be the cheapest way of getting them done.

This suggests an alternative definition of "productive" which might have some relevance in analysing the way the world exchange economy works: productive-of-profit as opposed to productive-of-wealth. On this definition any workers whose work helps to produce profits for the enterprise which employs them would be productive, whether or not they actually produce any material wealth. This means that services would under some circumstances be regarded as productive. Non-productive work would be work which does not result in profits being made, as for instance the work of domestic servants and of some State officials.

This definition did have some relevance in the struggle waged by the individual employers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries against the "waste" of the aristocrat-controlled State machine. They wanted what they regarded as non-productive work reduced to a minimum so that they could retain a larger share of the surplus wealth for investment as capital. Reducing non-productive-of-profit work to a minimum so as to increase the pool of profits is still favoured by the enterprises who have now taken over from the individual owners as the main employers.

Earlier, we classified arms production as productive (of wealth) even though this seemed to conflict with common sense. This classification, though quite justified, seems odd because arms clearly do not serve to increase human welfare. This suggests the need for another distinction besides the productive, non-productive one, between work which furthers human welfare and work which does not. This would be a distinction between "useful" work and non-useful or "wasteful" work.

How would the various kinds of productive and non-productive work discussed above fit into this classification? Obviously, the productive work of producing the food, clothing and shelter and the other things human beings need to live and enjoy life is useful. So is the non-productive work involved in carrying out essential services like health and education, and the productive work associated with it. Obviously too, the non-productive work of the armed forces and the productive work of manufacturing arms for them is wasteful.

But what about non-productive exchange work? This is a more difficult question. This work is not absolutely essential to human life as it would be superfluous in a society where wealth was not produced for exchange but was directly allocated for use. So the question can be re-phrased: is an exchange economy in the interest of mankind? This is an easier question because, as we have shown, wars, pollution, social unrest, anarchy in production, restricted output, destruction of wealth, and recurring mass unemployment are the inevitable consequences of the world exchange economy. Further, the kind of world commonwealth which alone could provide the framework for abolishing material want while at the same time conserving world resources would of necessity also be a non-exchange and direct-allocation society.

For, in a society in which the resources of the Earth, natural and man-made, had become the common heritage of all humanity there would be no place for the transfer of property between property-owners, which is essentially what exchange is. Exchange work, then, must be classified as wasteful and with it the work of producing the equipment and materials exchange workers use.

This shows a considerable proportion of the workforce to be wastefully employed and a smaller, but still significant, proportion of the gross social product waste. So another major charge against the world exchange economy must be that it misuses the resources of the world. It means also that the diversion of labour and materials from wasteful to useful work could play a major part in abolishing material want throughout the world

Adam Buick

"Lest We Forget" (1933)

Book Review from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. John Scanlon, an ex-shipyard worker, parliamentary journalist, secretary to a Cabinet Minister in the late Labour Governments, has written a book called "The Decline and Fall of The Labour Party." It deals with the Labour Governments of 1924 and 1929-31.

Here is shown the Labour Governments in action. Compromising on every issue, bargaining with their opponents, dropping nearly every principle for which they professed to have stood rather than be thrown out of office. Here are set out the full details of their shameful record. We are shown how easily they succumbed to the flattery of the wealthy. Trade Union M.P.s—ex-workers from the docks, railways, mines, etc.—took lessons in deportment, affected white spats, and touted for invitations to Mayfair parties. Attendance at social functions became more important than attendance at the House of Commons—except when a bill was introduced to legalise Sunday Cinemas, then they turned up in full strength in order to stop such a revolution. It is an account of demagogues turned autocrats, and reformers who became reactionaries; of "lefts" who were transformed into "rights" by the simple expedient of appointing them to ministerial positions. Flabby and ignorant sentimentalists, confused at what had happened to them, thought they saw a remedy in removing MacDonald from the leadership. That gentleman, however, when faced by hostile criticism, could, with a little pompous eloquence, bring his critics to their feet in applause and reduce some of them to tears. What a mob!

Mr. Scanlon disposes emphatically of the view that the failure of the Labour Party was due merely to the leadership of MacDonald, Thomas, and others. On the question of the cuts in unemployment pay, which was the issue on which the Labour Government fell, only seven members of the Cabinet, out of twenty or more, voted against the cuts. Moreover, after the fall of the Government, many Labour ministers hung around 10 Downing Street, hoping to get jobs in the National Cabinet. They were unlucky—hence the hostility towards MacDonald.

As a record of broken pledges, incompetence, petty jealousies, and intrigue among the leaders, this book is well worth reading. Members and supporters of the Labour Party, whose memories are so notoriously short, should buy it and keep it for reference.

H. W.

Putting the Boot in (1969)

Book Review from the January 1969 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Politics of Harold Wilson by Paul Foot. (Penguin, 6s.)

As any exponent of unarmed combat knows, the time to kick your man is when he is down. Now that Harold Wilson is on the floor, we can see many of those who once worshipped him falling over themselves to put the boot in. For these new enemies of Wilson, and for all students of Labour trickery, impotence and confusion, Paul Foot has provided after dedicated research, a lot of useful ammunition. This is a much needed antidote to the sycophantic "biographies" which we have been fed with up to now.

The Prime Minister is not the only person to get hurt in this book. For example, what about this, from Michael Foot on the front page of Tribune on 22 February 1963:

(Wilson has)  . . . a coherence of ideas, a readiness to follow unorthodox courses, a respect for democracy . . . above all a deep and genuine love of the Labour movement.

Or this, from the arch enemy of the prices and incomes policy, ASTMS general secretary Clive Jenkins after the 1963 TUC:

"Mr. Harold Wilson is opposed to wage restraint."

Of course there was no excuse for this. Neither of these men is politically blind and the facts on Wilson were available, not only from socialists. One great merit of Foot's book is that it shows how Wilson is not, as the left wing would like to think, a good man gone wrong. From the first he was concerned only with power over British capitalism; he knew the system could be run only in the interests of the ruling class and never imagined it being any other way. No wonder the Daily Express (20 August 1949) thought that "Mr. Harold Wilson is a good man".

Wilson's hold over his party was based on his ability to win elections, a fact of which he has never been slow to remind them. His tactics were simple; for example, as he himself put it, he would hold up the banner of nationalisation but lead the Labour Party away from it. In this way he avoided the public rows which characterised the period of Hugh Gaitskell's leadership while he was busily following the same policies as Gaitskell.

When he is writing of these times Foot is at his best, exposing Wilson's support of the Vietminh:

A settlement in Asia is imperiled by the lunatic fringe in the American Senate who want a holy crusade against Communism. Not a man, not a gun must be sent from Britain to aid French imperialism in Indo-China. (Daily Telegraph, 3 May 1954.)

showing up his monotonous repetition of the same empty phrases and his Baldwin-like use of a flood of monosyllables. The later stuff, on Wilson at Number Ten, loses some of its grip and this is not wholly because we are so near to the flounderings of 1964-68.

Now Foot is forced into a constructive examination of Labour in power, to give positive reasons for their failure and to set down his answers. And here confusion reigns, of which this is typical:

What is required is not a new leadership but a new socialist politics, with roots deep down in the Labour rank and file.

No suggestion, in other words, that Labour's failure came from the basic cause that they are a party which sets out to organise conscious socialists for a new society. Foot's remedies, he hints, are in workers' control and he gives, in a footnote, an approving pat on the head to the French rioters who this summer did no more than make sure De Gaulle came back into power with an increased majority.

All of this—the bitter recrimination, the lack of an alternative—are reminiscent of John Scanlon's merciless exposure of the vanity and buffoonery of the Labour leaders in 1924 and 1929. For many of us who came into socialist politics just as the Attlee government were taking power, books like Pillar of Cloud were required reading. For anyone with any doubts left on Labour's ability to control capitalism, or on whether it is even honest—or for anyone who simply wants to build up a library of failure—The Politics of Harold Wilson can be recommended, to take its place alongside Scanlon's works.

Ivan

How Capitalism Works (2) (1979)

From the February 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Capitalism Works (2): No Profit, No Production

The Law of Profits

The law of profits says that each enterprise strives to make the maximum amount of profits, and that each state strives to have the maximum amount of profits made by enterprises operating within its frontiers.

An enterprise can only be said to "make" profits in the sense of acquiring through exchange more money than it originally had. The real origin of profits, however, lies elsewhere. As profits are the monetary expression of the surplus wealth produced over and above that consumed by the class of wage earners, they are produced in the first instance by human being applying energy to change nature. So the total amount of profits that can be made by all enterprises is limited by the total amount of this surplus wealth that has been produced. In fact the most convenient ways of understanding profits is to see all the surplus wealth produced as first converted into money and then pooled: and to see all enterprises competing with each other to draw from this pool the largest amount of profits they can. If this competition between enterprises were completely unrestricted then each enterprise would tend to make the same rate of profit: the amount of profits made by each enterprise would in other words, be directly related to the size of its capital. Price would then equal cost of production plus a margin equal to the average rate of profit.

This is what does tend to happen, but is complicated by the fact that competition is not unrestricted due to the various monopolistic practices adopted by enterprises, and particularly States, in order to try to increase their share of profits. The competitive struggle for profits is not just a struggle between enterprises selling the same product, but a struggle involving every enterprise irrespective of the particular products they are trying to sell. The more profits one enterprise makes the less are left for the others. Like the law of wages, the law of profits is the outcome of the activities of people: in this case of those in charge of enterprises as they try to make profits.

For enterprises to make profits the price at which they succeed in selling their products must be higher than the cost of producing them. But price is not something enterprises can control at will. The amount of money those who want some product are prepared to spend on buying it constitutes the market for that product, while its market-price is determined by its supply in relation to the market demand for it. Generally speaking, the larger the supply the lower the price. In order for enterprises to make profits from satisfying a particular market, therefore, the total output of ail the enterprises producing for that market must be restricted to the level at which the interaction of the supply and the demand will result in a price high enough, not only to cover costs of production, but also to allow a margin for profits.

Where there are no monopolistic practices, this restriction is not the result of agreement between the enterprises involved, but comes about through ail enterprises seeking to make at least the average rate of profit. If the profit margin is less than average in a particular industry, then some of the enterprises will either stop producing for that particular market or will go out of business altogether. In either case output (supply) will fall and prices rise. If, on the other hand, profits margins are higher than average then new enterprises will be attracted: output will rise and prices fall. The stable situation, under these conditions, is where output is at the level where the selling price equals cost of production plus the average rate of profit.

Where elements of monopoly are present prices will be higher and the output probably lower than this. Few pure monopolies — where only one enterprise supplies the market — exist, but monopolistic practices of one kind or another (from cartels to informal collusion over prices) are fairly widespread. They allow prices to be raised above cost of production plus average profit and so for monopoly profits to be made. These profits are made at the expense of enterprises which supply other markets in that they reduce the pool of profits and so also the average rate of profit.

There is a further, technical restriction on the averaging of the rate of profit. Modern large-scale industry is such that it is not possible for a new enterprise to enter an industry as soon as the profits there become higher than average. This works the other way too. Enterprises cannot withdraw quickly if profits fall below average. Indeed they may even continue producing at a loss for a period just to cover fixed costs until the market, prices and profit margins recover. In the long run. however, a high or low rate of profit will be reflected in a permanent rise or fall in output. For enterprises make their decisions about the amount of wealth they will allocate to expanding the productive capacity of the workplaces they control in die light of such long run profit trends. In this way market conditions equally influence decisions about the size of the stock of means of production as they do about the level of current production.

So enterprises respond to market conditions by adjusting output to prices and then by adjusting productive capacity to output. Normally they will not produce articles, nor build factories to produce articles, for which they believe there to be no profitable market. The general rule which governs the production of wealth today is "no profit, no production".

The reason, for instance, why millions of people are starving in the world today is quite simply because they have no money to buy the food they need and hence do not constitute a market. Again, the reason an abundance of high-quality consumer goods — good food, clothes, household goods, cars — is not produced today is because the market demand for consumer goods is restricted by the amount of money the operation of the wages system puts into the pockets of wage and salary earners. In an exchange economy wealth is produced to meet not what people need, but only what they can pay for.

THE LIMITS OF STATE ACTION

The law of profits says that States (insofar as they are not profit-seeking enterprises themselves) aim to have the largest possible amount of profits made by enterprises from within their frontiers. States can use their power to help home enterprises in two ways: to find and protect markets and to keep costs down. They can, for instance, impose taxes on goods entering from outside their frontiers in order to protect home enterprises from foreign competition. They can by diplomatic and if necessary military means, seek to acquire protected foreign markets for the home enterprises and, on the cost side too, they can bargain and use force to acquire sources of cheap raw materials for home industry. (These are reasons why the competitive struggle for profits can be said to be the cause of modern wars). Also on the cost side, they can throw their weight behind the enterprises in their struggle with wage-earners over the size of the wage packet or salary cheque.

The need to keep the costs of home enterprises down is the great restriction on the freedom of action of States in the economic field. Any money the State spends must come in the end out of the profits of enterprises. In the case of taxation this is obvious, with taxes on wages and the products wage-earners buy being passed on to the enterprises as higher money wages. If the State tries to obtain more money by using the printing press, it will cause the currency to depreciate and prices to rise. Rising prices at home mean, in relation to the world market, rising costs so that the profits of exporting enterprises and of enterprises facing foreign competition in the home market will be reduced. In other words, these enterprises will in effect be paying for the State's inflation-financed spending out of their profits.

The consumption of the wage-earners is part of the cost of production and cannot rise without threatening profits. This is why no action by the State can bring any lasting improvement in the living standards of wage-earners. Generally speaking, however, most States make no attempt to disguise that their policy is to keep wage costs down. In this sense governments of States have learned to be realistic and that there are certain limits to what they can do in the economic field. In formulating, whether willingly or reluctantly, their policies in the light of the facts of economic life Stales act as a mechanism through which the laws of the world exchange economy are transmitted to those who make decisions about the production and allocation of wealth.

The internal structure of a State, like that of an enterprise, is irrelevant in this respect. A democratic State where the government is elected by a majority of wage and salary earners still has to pursue policies in the interest of the profit seeking enterprises within its frontiers. On the other hand, not even the most ruthless dictatorship can overcome the laws of the world market. Indeed, dictatorships have generally come into being precisely in response to pressures from the operation of the world exchange economy on a particular State.

Artificial scarcity, for that is what the restrictions the world exchange economy places on the production of wealth amount to, is not the only consequence of the production-for-exchange associated with the class monopoly of the means of production. A further consequence is that much of the work that is done is wasted from the point of view of rationally satisfying human needs, as will be examined in the next two articles in this series.

Adam Buick

Wild Strawberries (1958)

Film Review from the December 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

This film, shown at the Edinburgh and London Film Festivals, and now showing, at the Academy cinema, was made by Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish director who has already created a considerable reputation with his earlier films, Sawdust and Tinsel, Smiles of a Summer Night and The Seventh Seal.

Although Bergman has again attempted to reveal the mainsprings of human motives and emotions and made free use of mystical symbols, he has in this film presented his ideas in a much clearer and comprehensible form.

The story is simple. An old doctor, his cold, unhappy life drawing to its close, is tormented by guilt-ridden dreams which, in his own words, "try to tell me things which I cannot admit to myself while I am awake." The dreams tell him that he is hard and egotistical, and without kindness and compassion.

Accompanied by his daughter-in-law, he journeys by car to the town where he is to receive his jubilee doctorate, and on the way gives a lift to two adolescent boys and a young girl, who represent the unfulfilled hopes of his childhood. He also picks up a married couple, who, as in his own marriage, dislike each other intensely, and spend their time quarreling and inflicting verbal cruelties upon each other.

Through these dreams and experiences, and also because of his natural fear of loneliness and death, the old man learns the importance of human relationships, and brings belated warmth into his associations with other people.

With this simple theme, Bergman ably demonstrates the horrors of loneliness, and man's desperate need for kinship with his fellow-humans. Unfortunately, what he does not show is the social foundation of much of man's present-day loneliness and lack of satisfactory human relationships, and the way in which modern life has broken down much of our social contact. However, it would be churlish to let this complaint blind us to the many fine qualities of this remarkable film.

Technically the film is excellent, and Bergman uses a multitude of brilliant devices to accentuate the theme of loneliness, The dream sequences never seem overdone or out of place, and the first dream, particularly, with empty streets, driverless hearse, and coffin which spills its ghoulish contents, is a superb piece of the macabre.

Although Bergman is concerned with man's personal predicament in a world of decaying values and collapsing faiths rather than with the social nature of these changes, such is the quality of his perception that he invariably brings to the screen situations and characters in which we can recognise a social application.

However, Bergman provides a purely personal examination and explanation of human motives, and it would be misleading to suggest that his films are designed as pleas for social change; rather, they are pleas for personal development or change of heart. No matter how satisfying these films may be artistically, they do indicate that the director is mistakenly looking into men's minds for the explanation of human frailty and suffering, whereas the explanation is to be found in the social structure that inflicts itself upon and moulds the minds of these men (including that of Bergman himself).

Loneliness, fear, frustration and unhappiness, if examined closely, in most cases reveal a recognisably social and not personal origin. While sympathising with Bergman's concern for the plight of individual men, one cannot help wishing that he would look a little further for the social basis of much of what he examines.

Albert Ivimey

Obituary: Ian Jones (1992)

Obituary from the February 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is with sadness that we report the unexpected death of comrade Ian Jones in November after missing several Executive Committee meetings due to trouble from asthma. He still had a few years to reach retirement age although he was working a shortened working week. Ironically for a fighter for a world without money, he spent his working life in the employ of National Cash Registers, a multi-national corporation whose activities epitomise what our present society is all about.

Ian hailed from Birmingham and it was there that he joined our local branch in 1951. A few years later he moved to London and transferred to the old Paddington branch, of which he was an active member in the fifties and sixties. He was an occasional speaker for the Party and also wrote for this journal (under the initials "IDJ", his last article appearing in our December issue).

Ian was keenly interested in the theatre and his early articles were reviews of plays by Arthur Miller, Arnold Wesker, Eugene Ionesco and others in which he developed the theme that "if and when the development of a socialist theatre is possible, giving voice to Socialist ideas, aspirations and criticism, it can only be through the medium of 'social' theatre that it can be accomplished". For years he was the stage carpenter of the Questors Theatre, Ealing, and when it was his turn to direct a play he made a brilliant success of Ibsen's The Master Builder. In the fifties when Bertolt Brecht was the cultural figurehead of the odious Leninist dictatorship controlling the German (un)Democratic Republic, Ian was able to prove to a number of us, by chapter and verse, that Brecht's compromise with the oppressive system was of secondary significance as compared to the profoundly Marxian insights which the body of his humanistic drama and poetry provide.

Ian was a musician as well as being a man of the theatre. His first love was the piano, and in recent years found much satisfaction in working with a choir in his home area of Wallington in Surrey. He had reason to be proud of the fact that when his only daughter went to college to study music, such was her accomplishment with the violin she became leader, whilst still a first-year student, of the Cardiff University Orchestra.

Christopher Wren's son had chiselled in Latin on the North portico of St Pauls "if you want a monument, look around you". Reapplying this advice, I have looked around my bookshelves and see a handful of volumes which between them give the measure of our departed comrade. These were either given to me or acquired on my behalf in the course of his assiduous rounds of second-hand and remaindered bookshops throughout the home counties. They serve to reflect his broad and deep Socialisr culture and knowledge.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti's collection of West Coast "beat" poems, The Coney Island of the Mind, given when first published in 1959, is a happy reminder of the introduction Ian gave many of us to this whole new wave of American libertarian thought and sentiment. An old edition in mint condition of Kropotkin's memoirs stands near to a fine copy of the book William Morris wrote jointly with Belfort Bax, Socialism, ITS Growth and Outcome. documentary refutation of the hoary myth of Morris as the unscientific utopian "dreamer of dreams". Lucien Laurat's Marxism and Democracy, a book of major importance to Party thought, published by Gollancz in 1940, one of the surviving voices of classical continental Marxism, uncontaminated with Leninist distortion albeit flawed with a certain amount of Social-Democratic reformist illusions. Such were the kind of books Ian was so adept in tracking down and making available to Party members.

E.S.G.

Mr. Enigma (1954)

From the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again he's in the news. Once again his name is plastered across the front pages of the national newspapers. Once again he is accused by his Labour colleagues of splitting the party ranks. Once again he has given his opponents scope to make political capital out of his manoeuvres. His supporters applaud, his enemies jeer, he is at the same time a political opportunist, a public-spirited citizen, a Russian agent, and a man of principle. Mr. Aneurin Bevan, the enigma of British politics, has returned to the arena.

The first shot was fired in the House of Commons on Tuesday, 15th April. In the debate which followed Mr. Eden's announcement "that he and Mr. Dulles were ready to examine the possibilities of a defence pact in South-East Asia" (News Chronicle, 14/4/54), "Mr. Bevan has brusquely forced his way to the dispatch box to announce stringent criticism of a proposal which Mr. Attlee had, to a large degree, accepted" (News Chronicle, 15/4/54).

The following day Mr. Bevan resigned from the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet, and the rift in the Labour ranks, opened on the previous evening, was complete.

Explaining the reasons for his resignation, Mr. Bevan said, "I was deeply shocked at the failure of the Parliamentary leadership to immediately repudiate Mr. Eden's acceptance of the American initiative, which is tantamount to the diplomatic and military encirclement of Republican China. This in my opinion prejudices, if it does not entirely frustrate, the possibility of a negotiated settlement at Geneva of the Indo-Chinese war. If the Conservative Government is prepared to follow the American lead in this matter, in my view the British Labour Party should stand steadfastly against it" (News Chronicle, 15/4/54).

Mr. Bevan's first major disagreement with the official party line occurred in 1950 when he resigned from the Cabinet after differences in opinion on the sum to be spent of defence. Here it is interesting to note that Mr. Bevan was not objecting to the principle of defence expenditure, but only on the amount to be spent. In a similar manner people agitate to have the use of atomic weapons prohibited, whilst at the same time turning a blind eye to war in other forms.

Subsequently Mr. Bevan's differences with "the right wing" of the Labour Party became subordinate to the need for greater unity within the movement. Now, however, Mr. Bevan has erupted once again.

It is not for this writer, nor indeed the S.P.G.B., to criticise Mr. Bevan's actions. We are not concerned with discussing the merits of the proposed plan for South-East Asia. These problems may be resolved, but in their very solution they will breed new problems. Capitalism by its very nature periodically produces booms, slumps, wars and unemployment, and all the other social ills of this day and age. Mr. Bevan and his fellow Parliamentarians may be credited with the best intentions in the world, but from time to time they find themselves in the unenviable position of having to run Capitalism from the Government benches. It is then that personalities and party politics count for little, Capitalism sweeps them all along leaving a trail of misery and devastation in its wake.

When the working class understand the nature of society; when they appreciate that society is run not in their interests, but in the interests of the owners of the means of production and distribution for the purpose of producing commodities for sale at a profit; when realisation of this one fact opens the way to a conscious understanding of the position of the working class in society; when the moment of truth transpires: the working class will not turn to the Bevans, Attlees, Churchills or Edens of the world. They will elect representatives to Parliament to end this viperous system Capitalism, and establish Socialism.

Michael D. Gill

How Capitalism Works (1) (1979)

From the January 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Capitalism Works (1): What is Economics?

The reason the natural and industrial resources of the world are not used to provide the abundance they are capable of producing is to be sought, not in the realm of technology, but in that of economics.

Economics is basically the study of what happens when wealth is exchanged — that is when it is either bartered for other wealth or bought and sold for money. It is not the study of the production and allocation of wealth as such, but the study of its exchange and how this affects decisions about production and allocation. Exchange is not to be confused with allocation.

Allocation (sometimes called distribution) is about the use which people make of the wealth they have produced: how much they consume immediately. How much they store for future consumption. How much they use to build up or renew their stock of tools and machines. "Allocation" is used here in preference to "distribution" because the latter has acquired other meanings which can cause confusion; it sometimes means transportation (which is really part of production)— but worse shops, which are exchange institutions, have taken to calling themselves the "distributive trade".

In some past societies the amount and kind of wealth that was produced and allocated were decided according to some prearranged plan, even if this "plan" was just a set of tribal customs or some other unwritten code of social behaviour. Wealth was allocated directly for individual and communal use so that the sole aim of production could be said to have been direct allocation, or use.

In societies where the bulk of the wealth is exchanged after it has been produced (and before it is allocated) the production and allocation of wealth is no longer decided according to human plans or customs. The decisions are of course still made by people but within terms of reference outside of their control. Economics is the study of these terms of reference or, perhaps, of the laws or economic forces which come into operation once production for exchange becomes widespread.

THE ENTERPRISE

An exchange institution is a body set up to take economic decisions; that is, decisions about the production and allocation of wealth in an exchange economy. A shop (where products are sold) or a bank (where money is deposited) are obvious examples. Not so obvious perhaps is the "enterprise" or firm, an institution for making decisions about the use of the large-scale, collectively-operated workplaces where the bulk of the world's wealth is produced. The enterprise is the key modern exchange institution since, apart from the sale of human energy for wages and the purchase of consumer goods by wage-earners, exchange today takes place overwhelmingly between enterprises.

An enterprise is an institution which seeks continually to increase the monetary value of its assets (the instruments of production, the raw materials, the stocks and the cash, including the wage fund, it controls.) The monetary value of these assets is sometimes called "capital"; hence "capitalism" as the name for the modern exchange economy. The aim of inter-enterprise exchange is profit, the difference between production costs and sales receipts.

Enterprises aim to increase their capital through making profits, the ratio of the increase in capital to its original value being the rate of profit.

The internal structure of the enterprise— who makes the decisions? Who gets the profits? —varies from State to State according to their differing historical and political conditions. The two most common types of enterprise are the joint-stock company and the nationalised or state industry.

In the joint-stock company the key decisions are made by a board of directors elected by and responsible to the shareholders who supplied the money to buy the assets of the enterprise. The profits are shared between the share-holders as dividends and the directors (and sometimes the top managers) as fees and high "salaries".

The assets of a state enterprise are usually controlled by a management board appointed by the government. Its profits can be, and are, shared in a great variety of ways. They can, for instance, simply be handed over to the government to use to pay interest to those who have lent it money. Or they could find their way into the pockets of the state-appointed managers, once again through inflated "salaries". Or they could be used to maintain in comfort and privilege those who control the state.

What is significant about the enterprise from an economic point of view is not its internal structure but its role as the mechanism through which the laws of the market are transmitted to those who make the decisions about the production of wealth— whoever they may be and however they may be chosen. The internal structure of the enterprise could be, and in a few cases is, quite different from either private or state enterprises. The workers could elect their own management committee or workers' council, but not even this would make any difference to the enterprise's economic role. The workers' council would still have to take decisions in accordance with what the market dictated. Real control by the producers over the production and allocation of wealth is not possible within an exchange economy.

WORLD DIVISION OF LABOUR

The production of wealth is now a process involving millions of men and women in even,' part of the world. What used to be the division of labour between individual skilled workers has become, with the development of modern technology, a division of the work of production between hundreds of thousands of collectively-operated workplaces (farms, plantations, mines, ships, docks, railways, factories, offices, warehouses) spread all over the world. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that every article produced today is the product of the world labour force co-operating within this world-wide division of labour.

Wealth production is no longer individual or local or national; it is social and worldwide. A single world society already exists but, because the workplaces of the world are controlled by enterprises, it takes the form of a world exchange economy.

The fact that there is only one, worldwide exchange economy is obscured by the political division of the world into states, each with the power to issue its own currency, impose tariffs, raise taxes and pay subsidies. The different economic policies of these states mean that conditions in the world market vary and give rise to the illusion that rather than there being one world economy there are as many "national economies" as there are states. But although states can, and do, try to change world market conditions in their favour, because of the worldwide character of the productive process they do not have the power to isolate exchange within their frontiers from exchange outside. Far from it. World market conditions are in the end the most important factor states have to take into account when formulating their policies. They, like enterprises, have to work within the terms of reference of the exchange economy. Of course, states do have the power to make laws about the production and allocation of wealth, as about any other human activity, but enforcing such law is another matter. So is their economic effect.

The natural and industrial resources of the world are now controlled by profit-seeking private and state enterprises. In every state only a small minority can draw on these profits as a source of personal income. Whether or not they have title deeds to prove it, they are in practice the owners of the means of production. This applies equally to profit-taking politicians and managers and to shareholders and bondholders. Collectively these owners form a class with exclusive control — a monopoly — over the means of production. This class monopoly is the basis of modern society.

THE LAW OF WAGES

The personal income of those excluded from the means of production is the wage (or salary) they are paid by the enterprise which employs them. These wage-earners form a class of propertyless people since, collectively, they do not own the means of production. As individuals of course most of them do have some personal possessions and savings, but these cannot be used to produce wealth.

It is because they are members of a propertyless class that they are compelled by economic necessity to work for wages. This is the only way they can get money to buy the things they need to live. The wage relation which arises between the owning and the non-owning class is a basic feature of the present exchange economy. The use of wage-labour to produce the wealth of society signifies that human skill and energy has become an article of exchange due to the exclusion of the producers from the means of production. The existence of wage-labour means the existence of production-for-profit and vice versa: they are two aspects of the same social relationship.

The law of wages says that wage-earners tend to receive from their employer a sum of money sufficient to pay for the goods and services they have to buy in order to maintain their working skill and to raise and keep a family at the same standard. It also says that any sum of money regularly paid to wage-earners from a source other than their employer and any goods and services regularly provided free by employers or anyone else means that employers need pay wage-earners a smaller sum than they would otherwise have to.

In terms of goods and services, what this means is that other things being equal, over a given period of time the wage-earners' standard of living is fixed at the amount of goods and services they need to maintain their skills and their families. Except within very narrow limits they can get no more and no less than this. So any attempt, say by the state, to raise their standard of living by providing free services or money payments is bound to fail. The operation of the law of wages will tend to ensure that the overall standard remains the same by causing a reduction in the sum of money paid by the employer. Similarly any reduction in the amount in a pay packet caused by increasing taxes, either on the goods they buy or directly on their wages, will be self-defeating. The law of wages will tend to bring about a corresponding increase in the sum paid by the employer.

Actually this is an oversimplified picture since the law of wages is not an automatic process; it operates only through human activities, through the struggles between the wage-earners and the profit-seeking enterprises that employ them over the size of the wage packet (or salary cheque). Indeed this struggle is the operation of the law of wages and to the extent that the wage-earners cannot, or do not, struggle then their living standards can be reduced. Other factors, like the levels of output and unemployment and the depreciation of the currency, also complicate the picture, sometimes considerably, but the broad outline remains accurate: the wage-earners' standard of living cannot be improved by state subsidies nor can it be reduced by taxation.

This is not to say that the amount of goods and services the average wage-earner gets can never be altered at all. It can be, by two factors. First, by a change in the average skill of the worker. In the 19th century when the skilled handicraftsman was being replaced by a mass of less skilled machine-minding factory hands, often women and children, the average degree of skill did fall, and with it the wage-earners' standard of living. In the 20th century, on the other hand, with the spread of universal education the average degree of skill, and with it the standard of living, has tended to rise. Second, the amount of goods and services needed to maintain wage-earners and their families is not something that could be calculated in precise terms by a team of doctors and scientists. Social factors enter into it too. People's tastes and habits in regard to food, dress, housing, transport and entertainment vary from place to place and change as advancing technology makes new products available. And when, as in a prolonged period of high employment, wage-earners have come to regard as necessities what were once luxuries then what they need to maintain themselves and their families has not only changed but has also increased.

The law of wages does not rule out such changes m living standards but, by their very nature as long term trends, they are increases that cannot be brought about by the actions either of the state or of the wage earners themselves.

FIXING WAGE LEVELS

But why are wages fixed at a certain level? Wages are a price, the price of the skills and energies wage-earners sell to enterprises, and like all prices are not fixed arbitrarily. Prices, in a roundabout way, reflect the amount of human effort that had to go into producing an article from start to finish. So wages, the price of human energy, are an indirect reflection of the amount of work that has to be done to produce all the goods and services needed to keep a human being alive and fit to work.

Wages are the form taken in an exchange economy of the amount of wealth that must be consumed to create and maintain the supply of human energy for the work of production, while profits are the form taken by the surplus wealth produced over and above this. The restriction on the amount of wealth allocated to the class of wage earners is the inevitable outcome of human energy being an article of exchange.

Adam Buick

"Germany's Dishonoured Army". (1916)

From the June 1916 issue of the Socialist Standard

The present writer, entering one of his Most Gracious Majesty's post offices a few days since, saw therein a grimy placard bearing prominently these words:

GERMANY'S DISHONOURED ARMY.

Then followed an invitation to all and sundry who desired to regale themselves with the noisome details of "atrocities" British capitalism, at present so busily producing Samaritanian comforts for mankind at large in "controlled establishments," alleges against its brother and erstwhile good friend, German Capitalism, to apply at the counter for literature upon the subject, when, they were assured, they would not be sent empty away.

Somewhere about the same time it transpired, through the medium of the Press, that that gentleman of many and strange experiences (experiences, be it remarked, not always in the region of "beer and skittles"), Mr. Horatio Bottomley, was willing to assist in the worthy work of fanning the flame of hatred against the Germans at a fee which, he carefully explained, when he refunded it, left him out of pocket.

The reader, of course, will see no connection between these two items. The explanation of this is quite simple—there is no connection between them. Far be it from me to suggest that they are anything but utterly independent incidents in the same game—the game of the Anti-German League, the game of the "Got Strafe England " Society, the game of Asquith, Lloyd George, Bethmann-Hollweg, the game of the capitalist and his (st)henchman everywhere, the game of filling the hearts of the workers of the respective countries with fear of the prospective invader, and so reviving their drooping spirits (of double-distilled essence of jingomania) and warding off the time when they shall be sick to revolt of the reek the sacrifice and the stench of "Patriotism's" blood-soddened altars.

In proof of the, how long might one search the columns of the ordinary Press for any record (save a few rare and essentially individual cases) of even passably decent, much less chivalric, treatment being shown toward their enemies by the Germans ?

But the cat gets out of the bag sometimes. One of the most prominent writers on matters connected with the land is Mr. G. A. Palmer, whose eldest son has recently died in Germany from wounds received in an air reconnaissance. "Poultry" for May 12th says among other things concerning the incident:

"The Germans were extremely kind to him and sent air messages over the lines to report his progress. In the final one they said that he was buried in the churchyard at Douai with military honours and a great mourning of the people."

It is not, of course, the Censor's business to give credit where credit is due, but to suppress awkward truths, hence it is not surprising that "human documents" which show the German in any other aspect than that of bestial depravity would find any wider circulation than the Censor could help. Neither, come to that, is it for the Socialist to worry about fair play for the German capitalist—or for the British capitalist either, for that matter. But filthy games are being played, and always, when this is the case, it is the workers who are the victims, not the capitalists. Did our masters, upon the occasion of the Whitehaven mining holocaust, plaster the post offices with placards detailing the horrors of the atrocity ? No, they were only concerned with hiding the cause and shoving the blame on God.

It is quite clear that the case of Lieutenant Palmer does not indicate a mere individual act of kindness, nor is it conceivable that it stands alone. But the point not that, but that it sheds a light on the campaign of vilification, British and German, which goes so far in sustaining the war fever among the workers.

A. E. Jacomb

Hayter of the Trots (1972)

Book Review from the June 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hayter of the Bourgeoisie, by Teresa Hayter. Sidgwick and Jackson. £1.95.

This book is written by the daughter of the one-time British Ambassador to Moscow, Sir William Hayter. The first few chapters are an account of her personal history (childhood, education, etc.) leading on to her work with the Overseas Development Institute. While with the ODI she visited various parts of the underdeveloped world and saw at first hand the poverty and misery there and which contributed to her growing "politicization".

During her stay in the third world she came to the conclusion that the cause of all this backwardness was the dominance over the economy and the local politicians by the "imperialist" nations (America, Britain, France, etc.) and that the so-called aid programmes were really another form of imperialism in that they bound the third world nations more securely to the economies of the western exploiters.

Thus she came to write a book on the activities in this connection of the World Bank in Latin America. The ODI refused to publish this and it was subsequently published by Penguin as Aid as Imperialism. As a result of all these experiences Hayter jettisoned her liberal fallacies and became a "revolutionary". Alas, all this means is that she has embraced all the old Bolshevik fallacies instead and has joined the Trotskyist IMG (International Marxist Group).

The blurb on the dust jacket tells us that Hayter's current ideas were formed through identifying with the third world. This is nothing new for Trotskyists since, basically, they are trying to fulfill the historic task of the bourgeoisie ( the completion of the capitalist revolution) in those parts of the world where the bourgeoisie are too weak to do it themselves. Hayter and the IMG support all "national liberation" movements on the assumption that national liberation will weaken the imperialist nationals, cause a major economic breakdown, and so precipitate the working class into revolution. Leaving aside the absurdity that a frightened, politically working class will opt for Socialism (more likely to support reaction as in Germany in 1933) we should point that the author has devoted part of this book and all of Aid as Imperialism to showing that exploitation continues in other forms after independence anyway! And even if America loses all influence in, say, Vietnam does she think that the vacuum will remain unfilled by some other imperialist power, perhaps Russia or China? Indeed, when French interests were kicked out of the Far East after the second world war all that happened was that America moved in instead.

When dealing with the Russian revolution Hayter displays either a remarkable capacity for naivety or downright dishonesty. She claims "In Russia Soviet democracy survived longest in the areas where the Bolshevik (later Communist) Party was strong" and mentions Lenin arguing that "workers' councils must be set up everywhere, whether or not there were members of the Communist Party". In fact exactly the opposite happened. The Bolsheviks closed down trade union and peasant bodies which they couldn't control, shot down people who demanded that unpopular Bolshevik-dominated soviets should be subject to recall, and dissolved the democratically elected Constituent Assembly which Lenin had been clamouring for until it failed to produce anything like the anticipated Bolshevik majority.

Trotskyists, Hayter included, are fond of the theory that the revolution only degenerated with the coming of Stalin and that the Communist Party had hitherto practised "democratic centralism"—democracy within the Party (even if nowhere else). Indeed, during the wrangles between Stalin and Trotsky over the throne vacated by Lenin, Trotsky, the dazzling intellectual, complained that Stalin was suppressing his views; but Stalin, the plodder, simply ran rings round Trotsky by pointing out that he had never complained when other opposition groups had been suppressed at the Tenth Party Congress in 1921. Both Lenin and Trotsky turned a blind eye to murders committed by Bolsheviks and to the packing of factory meetings and soviets by Bolsheviks who had no right to be there. And it was Lenin, not Stalin, who introduced the dreaded Cheka which Hayter rightly calls "an abominable abuse of everything that Marxism stands for". The truth is that "degeneration" began straight away since Lenin and the whole Bolshevik theory could allow nothing less than a complete dictatorship over the proletariat. 

Although Hayter criticises the "Great Man" theory of history at Oxford she seems to have swallowed it herself. How else can we explain her claim that the "revolution" in Kenya failed because of the treachery of one man, Jomo Kenyatta? And in France in May 1968, again everything hinges on the leaders  . . . if only they had been Trotskyists instead of the traitorous Stalinists. She also has some strange notions about economics although this may be due to her determination to see heaven on Earth in Cuba. She actually claims that money is becoming unimportant there, because, owing to the widespread scarcity, no one can buy much anyway!

All this is bad enough, but when she turns her attention to what life will be like "after the revolution" (which she thinks she will be achieved at the barricades with guns and petrol bombs) then she really goes haywire. She correctly points out that the Left is always reluctant to describe what it means by Communism, so she sets out to redress this need. Apparently society will be run by workers' councils and not by the latter-day Bolsheviks. In case the reader is worried by what happened in Russia she hints that because Britain has "relatively democratic traditions" (which Trots have always said are a sham) then there should be little post-revolutionary violence. But the whole population will have to be armed. Whatever for? To ensure that the capitalists don't stage a comeback! What supermen the left make these capitalists out to be.

Despite the abundance of technical and natural resources which mankind now has at its disposal, we are told that the abolition of exchange relationships and the introduction of production for use is "a remote ideal" so the wages system (rationing) must continue with, in good Leninist tradition, equal wages for all. Perhaps it is just as well that the Left don't try to describe Socialism more often, There's enough confusion on that score already.

Hayter's book is nevertheless a good buy for anyone who wants to have just about every error in the Trotskyist repertoire conveniently placed between two covers.

Vic Vanni

Socialism v. Peacemongering. (1915)

From the November 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called "Peace" propaganda of to-day is associated by most people with Socialism and the Socialist Party.

The plain fact, however, is that Socialism has very little in common with it, and judged by the essential features the two movements are as the poles apart.

What is distinctive about Socialism that separates it from all other movements of social activity ?

Briefly, Socialism differs from other phases of social thought in that it stands for the overthrow of modern society based upon class ownership of the necessaries of life and the building up in its stead of a society of wealth producers owning the means of life in common. What, on the other hand does the "Peace movement" specially signify? It stands for an alteration in diplomatic methods between various capitalist Courts, and at the present time it is in favour of stating the terms upon which the combatants are willing to declare "peace."

Socialism fights for the removal of a system of society which works out to the detriment of the many. The "Peace Crusaders" are out for an alteration in the method of government whereby the wars between capitalist countries can be reduced or abolished.

Socialism declares in favour of a new system wherein capital and capitalist governments cease to be. "Peace" propagandists by no means unite in condemning capitalist society, and they are mostly opposed to a change in the system altogether.

What is the Socialist attitude to war? It is that war as we know it is produced in the main by the conflict between the interests of capitalists of various nations. It is born of the rivalry between sellers of goods for profit, and it can only die when selling for profit is abolished. In other words, Socialist theory holds and capitalist practice proves that only by ending the entire capitalist system can war with all its attendant horrors cease.

War, in the words of the "Peace" propagandists, is due to secret diplomacy, misunderstandings between Courts, and a vicious newspaper Press. These things, however, are but results of the workings of the system itself, and whilst the latter remains, the effects, in the shape of secret diplomacy, etc., will continue.

This article is being written in mid Atlantic, away from all books of reference, and consequently exact quotations cannot be given. But the reader need only refer to the literature of the Union for Democratic Control and the Peace Societies for confirmation of the statements made.

Consider the personnel of the Peace advocates and see what sanction of Socialism there exists amongst them.

Mr. Ponsonby is one of the most noted of the Peace persuaders of the day and he is a Liberal M.P. Mr. Trevelyan is a late Minister of the Liberal Government and resigned upon the occasion of the declaration of war. Mr. John Burns resigned his Cabinet membership upon the same occasion. Lord Morley left high office at the same time. Mr. E. D. Morel has never been associated with Socialism and is simply a reformer who, when occasion calls, can be quite as much an Empire builder as the most notorious supporter of the war. Witness his appeal for British versus French sovereignty in the Congo. (See "The British Case in the French Congo," by E. D. Morel.)

All sorts of appeals are made to the Socialist Party to join forces with these "anti-war” organisations, but it is deaf to all such cries. Not because we do not yearn for the cessation of the war. By no means so. Socialists above all others realise the horrors always following in the train of war. We know and feel the wreckage of human ties, the break-up of family life, the sorrow and suffering arising from the brutal carnage. But there are two important reasons why we cannot associate with the various "Peace" and "Stop the War" organisations.

Firstly, because we abide by the dictates of the class struggle. Because we stand for Socialism and they do not. Because we refuse to associate with those who support the capitalist class during "peace" time and who fight for the subjection of the working class. Therefore we cannot ally ourselves with these capitalists and clergymen, ex Cabinet Ministers and would-be Cabinet Ministers. We refuse to lower the Socialist flag to march with the enemies of Socialism. We know that, given of the realisation of the whole of the Peace parties' programme, the horrors and misery of working-class slavery would be left untouched for the better. The very men who seek our help for "peace" now would be amongst the first to "war" on the working class.

The second reason for which we cannot unite with the stop the war movement is that it is impotent for its very object. Even if we held that it was policy to unite to stop the war it would be foolish to join in the programme of these societies. What machinery have they for stopping wars ? None. Appeals to capitalists are their general methods. They propose to leave in power the makers of wars, the capitalist class. They intend to continue the profit-making system which itself produces commercial rivalry and inevitably international warfare.

Surely it is not now doubted that wars are born of the fight for spoil between capitalists. Throughout the last hundred years the economic objects of the various wars has stood out so clearly as to compel even capitalist writers to admit it.

Men such as the War Correspondent of the "Daily News," H. N. Brailsford, in his "War of Steel and Gold"; the member of the late Liberal Government, John M. Robertson, in his "Psychology of Jingoism " and "Patriotism and Empire"; the "Daily Mail" War correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, F. A. McKenzie, in his "Tragedy of Korea." These and a list of others can be quoted to show that wars are caused in the ultimate analysis by the struggle for trade and territory by the master class.

Listen to the present clamour for "capturing the enemy's trade," putting a tariff upon enemy's goods, and such pocket appeals and judge the truth of the Socialist view.

If you wish to stop all wars you must stop all commercial competition and to do this you must work for Socialism.

Adolph Kohn

Direct action: reformism by blows (2000)

From the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Five Days That Shook The Labour Government in September should have given the advocates of "direct action" to further the interests of the environment, animals and disadvantaged groups something to think about. Other minorities can play at this game too and some of them can wield this weapon much more effectively in terms of disruption caused and notice taken. In a battle to "reclaim the streets" between environmentalists and their bikes and failing businessmen and their lorries and tractors who will win?

Sectional interests

The fuel tax protest by lorry owners was clearly a purely sectional issue with one group of small capitalists trying to shift, by direct action, the burden of taxation from them on to other sections of the capitalist class. No wonder the government, as representative of the general interest of the capitalist class as a whole, felt that it had to stand firm and insist that this was not the way to decide how the tax burden should be shared amongst the various sections of the owning class. If they conceded on this one, who would be the next sectional interest to try the same tactic (as the weaker, or less far-sighted, French government discovered)?

The government stood firm and the lorry owners did back down, realising that they were in no position to win a full-scale trial of strength with a government able to mobilise emergency powers and the armed forces. Nor was it in their interest to set a precedent by toppling an elected government. Knowing this the blockaders' leaders were shrewdly able to turn their retreat into a propaganda victory by quitting before the state moved against them and while they still enjoyed a high degree of popular support.

That popular support, however, was not for their sectional interest of saving their failing businesses but for the idea of bringing petrol prices down by reducing the tax on fuel. This tax is, technically, an excise duty, i.e. the government establishes an artificial monopoly which allows the oil companies to sell their products at a monopoly price; only they don't get to benefit from this as the government creams off the resulting extra profits as the tax. The oil companies really are, as they protest, only collectors of this tax for the government. Actually, the price of petrol has gone up, but largely because the basic pre-tax price has. Having said this, a reduction in the tax would of course bring the price at the pumps down to some extent. Lorry owners and the motoring public would be happy but the government would find its revenue cut and, to maintain its expenditure, would have to increase some other tax. This is why it can be said that what the lorry owners were trying to do was to shift the burden of taxation from them to some other section of the owning class.

 Only the Greens made a stand against the demand to reduce the duty on petrol; if anything, they want it increased so as to discourage the use of petrol- and diesel-burning cars and lorries. They have a point. Burning fossil fuels is not the best use that could be made of them. The individual motor car has become an irrational means of getting to work—and, increasingly, even getting around—in urban areas. Long-distance freight should be carried on the railways. A comfortable, efficient and comprehensive public transport system is the rational answer. All this is true, but the problem is not going to be solved under capitalism where what happens is not decided by what is in the best interests of the community since there is no community but by the play of market forces supplemented by the lobbying of sectional interests. It is certainly not going to be achieved by "green" taxes and subsidies as advocated by the Green Party. What is required in fact is a complete change in the basis of society to create a real community through ending the division of society into classes by establishing common ownership and instituting production purely to satisfy human needs instead of for sale on a market with a view to profit.

The visionless thing

But talk of a "complete change" in the basis of society is precisely what is rejected by the campaigning charities and environmentalist activists. This wasn't always the case. In the not-so-distant past both the Labour Party and then the Green Party did talk in terms of changing society True, this was only as a long-term prospect, but the idea of an alternative society was there. Now this has gone and those of us who are left proposing this are denounced as "unrealistic" for continuing to advocate a "big solution" when supposedly there is none.

Isn't there? Let's suppose for a moment that there isn't. What would that mean? It would mean that we'd have to continue with what we've got—capitalism, to give it a name, if that's not too "ideological"—and try to make the best of it, as individuals and as sectional interests. Political parties have already become rival groups of professional politicians with virtually identical policies and certainly identical practices, offering themselves as the best managers of the system. So it would mean that politics would be reduced to pressure group politics as different sections of the population tried to persuade governments—whichever the party in power—to make changes in their particular sectional interest or, in the case of campaigning charities, of the disadvantaged group they have chosen to champion. Political action would consist of lobbying, backed up from time to time by direct action, for reforms in the sectional interest of some group.

This is not an attractive prospect but it is one that is, somewhat surprisingly, championed by a number of people who are severely critical of capitalism. What they like is the idea of "direct action" as such. This, they think, is the way to get improvements; electoral action via local councils and parliament, they say, doesn't get you anywhere. But "direct action" is merely a method, a tactic, not an end in itself and can in fact be employed for different ends. In the present political context it is being advocated as a better way to get reforms than elections. May be it is, but maybe it isn't. One powerful argument as to why it might not be has just been demonstrated: those with the biggest vehicles can reclaim the streets more effectively than those without. In other words, with direct-actionist, pressure group politics, those who can exert the most pressure will tend to come off best, and it is the more powerful who can generally exert the most pressure.

 In any event Socialists don't get involved in this argument because it is one amongst reformists as to the best way to obtain reforms while we seek to end capitalism not reform it. Our view is that those who concentrate on trying to obtain reforms within capitalism—whether by direct action or through the electoral process—are on the wrong track. What is needed is precisely what most of them refuse—and in fact have consciously rejected doing—and that is raising the issue of an alternative society as the only framework within which the problems for which they are seeking short-term relief can be solved.

Adam Buick