Editorial: After the bomb . . . (1984)

Editorial from the December 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Business As Usual" was a particularly apposite phrase for Margaret Thatcher to use after she and her ministers had survived the bombing of their hotel at Brighton, for that was the slogan commonly displayed outside shops after an air raid during the last war. The message then was that, apart from a few gaps in the buildings and in human lives, capitalism would carry on. Nobody could expect to go into the shops and take possession of anything unless they could pay for it. Business—the buying and selling of wealth—would be as usual.

It would have been no different if the bombers had succeeded in wiping out all the Tory ministers in the hotel. A couple of days after the event Michael Havers, the Attorney General, outlined what would then have happened. Havers' job in the government is to ensure that the property laws of capitalism are operating as smoothly as possible and that the privileges of the ruling class are as secure as they can be made. To anyone who is concerned that things should continue in that way, he had a reassuring message.

To begin with the leadership of the government would have quickly been assumed by the deputy prime minister, whose first job would have been to rustle up another government. Quite a few hopeful politicians would have found themselves catapulted abruptly onto the Front Bench. Some of the people discarded by Thatcher — Gilmour? Prior? Pym? — may have been rapidly restored to favour. All of them would have described their unexpected elevation as a selfless response to a call to duty in the nation's hour of need, without thought for the peril to themselves . . . 

The Tories would then have got down to electing a replacement for Thatcher. As he is a peer, Whitelaw would probably have stood aside from this contest, enabling front runners like Howe and Heseltine to battle it out. This would not have been an edifying spectacle; the battles within the Conservative Party are not fought as publicly as those within the Labour Party but they are no more gentle affairs for that. With the dust barely settled over the ruin of the Grand, the infighting would have begun. Politics, as well as business, as usual.

The chosen leader would have paid a visit to the queen, for the fictional ritual of her asking the leader to form a government for her approval. There would be a kissing of hands, a waving of swords, a making of speeches and the new government would have been in their seats. They would not have been looking to make the revolution. There would still be a privileged, owning minority living off the employment of the deprived, non-owning majority. Exploitation would have remained the stuff of life for tens of millions of people in this country — exploitation, poverty, slums, illness, stress, access to only inferior goods. All wealth would be produced in the cause of profit; everything would have its price, even things which are essential to human life and the legal and penal machinery would still be there to make sure that everyone conformed to the rights, restrictions and laws of property society. It would have been — as it had been, as it still is — Business As Usual.

But of course there would have been some changes, apart from the gap in the Brighton seafront. Wiping out most of the cabinet in a guerrilla bomb is unlikely to have blown a hole in the government's electoral standing. Certainly, it would have united the Conservative Party at large, which has recently been showing some signs of dissent over the plight of British capitalism, solidly behind the new leaders. There is no evidence that Tory popularity has suffered through unemployment, through their regular postponements, sine 1979, of the great day of prosperity, through the murder of Argentinian and British workers in the Falklands, through the pressures of the coal strike. Indeed, it is likely that what has been called the Falklands factor — an upsurge of mindless patriotism —and the Scargill factor — a distortion of reality to the enduring benefit of the ruling class — have proved to be vote-winners for the Tories. To have added a Brighton factor could have won them even more votes, made them even more secure in power. Perhaps Thatcher will succeed in her declared aim of a third term of power, of becoming the grandmother of British politics.

And if the Tories are more secure in power, what then? One reaction to guerrilla attacks in the past has been a backlash assault on civil liberties — partly through panic, partly through an assuagement of working-class prejudice and hysteria. The Birmingham bombs were an example of this, resulting in the Prevention of Terrorism Act, whose draconian powers were pushed through by a Labour government. The arguments used to support that Act — that what liberties the workers have should be restricted in the cause of resisting the guerrillas — have been used to justify many a ruthless dictatorship.

The perils of supporting a guerrilla movement can easily be obscured by the movement's reputation for romantic, clandestine brigandry. But organisations which aim to make their way through violence cannot be democratic. They must be built on a paramilitary structure which entails command, discipline and the brutalising which ensures that orders are obeyed without question. If they are illegal — as is usually the case — they must also be secret, with the knowledge of their plans and operations confined to an elite few.

These are not the characteristics of a socialist movement. At their most successful, the IRA can bring only a trivial readjustment of capitalism — the substitution of one style of coercive state for another. Socialism, by contrast, will be a stateless society in which human beings all over the world will co-operate for the communal good. The achievement of that society must be the democratic, conscious act of the world's working class and they will not need violence or coercion to introduce the fist age of human freedom, unity and abundance.

World hunger: why Harry Chapin failed (2004)

From the October 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the annals of popular music, Harry Chapin’s name is not one that particularly stands out. For starters, a couple of decades have elapsed since his untimely demise and besides, his twelve albums, according to biographer Peter M. Coan, typically gained the ‘anonymity’ of 250,000 sales; no way in the multi-million league of contemporaries Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Elton John. Chapin himself could muster a wry smile at his sobriquet, “Harry Who?”

 In truth, Chapin’s music was never designed to be ‘popular’ in the first place. Not for him the trite, maudlin, ‘boy-meets-girl’ mush of mainstream pop. His lyrics were literary, emotional, packed with detailed imagery and ironic twists; his melodies haunting and poignant. And furthermore, it’s generally acknowledged that Chapin could never quite capture on vinyl the warmth, empathy and rapport generated in his live performance. He was a dynamic, ebullient, larger-than-life character, devoutly teetotal and devoutly anti-drugs; virtues somewhat nullified by his being also devoutly promiscuous. He adored his audiences; his audiences adored him.

 Chapin’s recordings did nevertheless enjoy some successes. Cat’s in the Cradle from his 1974 Verities and Balderdash album was a US number one hit single. Several others, Taxi and W.O.L.D managed to loiter in the Top 40 charts and What Made America Famous became the theme for the film The Great Divide. Additionally, All my Life’s a Circle rode high in the British Top 10 despite the best efforts of the covering group, the unspeakable New Seekers, to render it unlistenable. Briefly, he was amongst the hottest of America’s musical property, earning around $2 million per annum.

   

Born in New York City in 1942, Chapin was a relatively late arrival on the music scene, releasing his first album Heads and Tails just prior to his 30th birthday. His earlier career as a film-maker had taken him in 1969 to Ethiopia and it was there that he first encountered the issue of World Hunger. In 1974, a more mature and reflective Chapin again addressed himself to the hunger issue, taking the view that his relative fame and high earnings conferred an obligation to ‘do good’, to ‘improve society’ , to ‘benefit humanity’.

   

The recent Bob Dylan and George Harrison Bangladeshi hunger concert had raised $400,000 and Chapin quickly realised not only the total inadequacy of this sum in relation to the scale of the problem in question, but also the futility of such one-off gestures. Henceforth indeed, he would rail against what he called the “event psychosis” of American culture and was openly scathing of celebrities who, with motives clearly more to do with advancement than altruism, would latch themselves on to these affairs. Chapin instead sought to identify the root causes of hunger and to this end he affiliated with the Institute for Food and Development Policy, more commonly known as Food First.

Food First

Food First had been founded with the proclaimed aims of highlighting those selfsame ‘root’ causes and establishing food as a fundamental human ‘right’. As sincere and well-intentioned an organisation as it undoubtedly is, an examination of its website (www.foodfirst.org) and in particular its “12 Myths about Hunger”, makes frustrating reading. In brief summary, it rightly observes that “abundance not scarcity best describes the World’s food supply”; many of the “most hungry” countries are in fact net exporters of food. Nobody need starve.

Similarly, those perennial old chestnuts, Nature and Overpopulation are discounted as significant factors in world hunger. In the former, “human-made” forces such as deprivation of land by the “powerful few”, low pay and debt are cited as responsible, whilst in the latter, abundance juxtaposes with hunger even in sparsely populated countries like Nigeria and Brazil. Again, poverty is the governing factor. Those with money eat; those without, don’t.

 Foreign ‘aid’ is exposed for the lie it is, operating directly against the hungry. Official government aid serves to impose advantageous trading arrangements and to arm and reinforce repressive régimes. Humanitarian aid, a mere five percent of the total anyway, helps enrich grain companies in the donor countries, undercuts local food production and frequently fails even to reach its intended recipients.

   

And the culprits in all of this? – the aforementioned “powerful few” – large landowners who “leave fertile land idle”, multinational corporations, World Bank, governments who “obstruct progress”, the “tightly-concentrated distribution of economic power”, a society that places “economic efficiency over compassion”.

   

In all but name they are describing aspects of the insidious, everyday workings of the capitalist system, but do they recognise it as such; do they draw any conclusions? On the contrary, they eulogise the Market’s “marvellous efficiencies”, arguing that it requires only a wider dispersion of purchasing power to enable it to work towards the elimination of hunger. And how will this dispersion be achieved? Through “genuine tax, credit and land reform”, and by (somehow) curtailing the unlimited private accumulation and unbridled use of wealth-producing property. Food First, sadly, presents as an outfit totally imprisoned by capitalism’s mind-set.

   

Having boarded, as it were, this rudderless, leaky vessel, Chapin set off, at full steam, on a voyage of campaigns, fund-raising and lobbying. He founded his own resource organisation, World Hunger Year (WHY), pretty much along the lines of Food First, financing it personally through a series of benefit concerts that would continue for the remaining years of his life.

   

Aside from the global issue, Chapin was outraged to learn that 25 million of his compatriots suffered malnutrition, that one quarter of all tins of pet food were purchased by impoverished elderly Americans and of an instance where institutionalised youngsters had supplemented their meagre diet with paint peelings, contracting lead poisoning in the process.

   

To highlight this, he organised a Congressional vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner co-sponsored by Senator Hubert Humphrey and Representative Tom Downey (both doubtless delighted to add a bit of “compassion” to their political CVs), and subsequently berated his motherland in the autobiographical 14-minute epic, There Only was one Choice:

Step right up Young Lady,Your two hundred birthdays make you old if not senile,And we see the symptoms there in your rigor mortis smile,With your old folks eating dog food and your children eating paint,While the pirates own the flag and sell us sermons on restraint.

Chapin persistently lobbied Congress, making a gruelling series of visits to Washington DC, becoming sufficiently well-known and informed to testify, successfully, before the House Committee on Oilseed and Rice, on a bill to outlaw price-fixing by growers.

Following this, he focused on a bigger prize – a Presidential Commission on Domestic and International Hunger. This was actually set up in February 1978, but thereafter it was all downhill. The Commission’s 20 members had initial difficulty even agreeing that hunger and poverty were actually linked and its final report in October 1980 was an assortment of palliatives and platitudes; that token increases in non-military aid be made and encouragement given to “self-reliant growth” and “a more equitable distribution of land . . . etc”. Carter’s Commission had been, in reality, a sop; a buy-off, much akin to Nixon’s previous 1969 effort.

After the election of Reagan, Chapin tried to woo fresh backers in the new Republican-dominated Congress, performing a May 1981 benefit to publicise the legislation and attempt to lobby it into law. The situation was, however, truly forlorn and with his own rather horrendous death, aged 38, a couple of months later in a Jericho, New York road accident it really was the end; the final nail in the coffin, metaphorically – and literally.

Vainly striving

It would be reprehensible to sneer at Chapin, at Food First, at the myriad worldwide charities and organisations all vainly striving to address and redress the countless oppressions and outrages that abound. Such activity is testimony to the highly social nature of the human species even in that most unpropitious, cut-throat of environments – capitalist society.

In the course of history, various socio-economic systems have, for many centuries at a time, prevailed. Primitive tribalism gave way to classical slave-based society which in turn was superseded by feudalism before it was itself supplanted by capitalism some 300 years ago. Capitalism is, therefore, a relatively recent incursion into human affairs. It features ownership of the means of living – the land, factories, etc. by a tiny parasite minority, the capitalist class – Food First’s “powerful few” – and production for profit rather than the fulfilment of need.

As a system, it did serve the vital function of developing society’s potential productive capacity to a level at which global need could be satisfied. This role was however accomplished around a century ago and capitalism, as is manifestly obvious, has since been a constraining influence upon further human advancement. To accept that it is here to stay is to demonstrate not only a slavish mentality but an ignorance of historical reality. Contrary to what “thinkers” like Francis Fukuyama and his ilk would have us believe, history has not ended. How could it? Have the clocks ceased to tick?

   

Food First and the others have yet to grasp that their own activities, however benign, in helping offset the privations that are the inevitable consequence of capitalism, actually serve to prolong the very conditions they seek to alleviate. Capitalism can only function in one way – the inexorable pursuit of profit. Large landowners do not wantonly “leave fertile land idle” nor governments gratuitously “obstruct progress”. In specific, transitory circumstances where adequate profits cannot be realised, then crops will not be grown (or alternatively, be stockpiled or destroyed), and governments, as the agents of the dominant class, simply help facilitate this process. The plain incontrovertible truth is that there is but one root cause of world hunger and that is capitalism.

   

Thankfully, an altogether grander option is available. Try this for size – a truly democratic, classless, moneyless, global society in which the consumption of food would not be a ‘right’, (which requires both a bestower and a recipient), but an act as spontaneous and natural as the drawing of breath; a society in which access to clothing, housing, transport, leisure, all the requirements for the leading of a full and fruitful life would be freely and instantly available; a society of communal ownership, liberated from exploitation, from alienation, from tyranny both terrestrial and celestial.

   

And the downside, the catch, the ‘small print’ to this seemingly fabulous arrangement? Simply that the members of that society contribute their sundry energies and skills to the common pot; or as Karl Marx succinctly put it, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. In short, a socialist society.

   

For this to become reality requires only that the overwhelming bulk of the majority working class recognise both its practicability and its achievability; that as they currently run society from top to bottom in the capitalist minority’s interest, then they could equally be running it in everyone’s interest and take the necessary political action to bring it all about. Humans are, after all, naturally gregarious, industrious and co-operative creatures.

   

Harry Chapin exemplified this. Heart firmly pinned to his sleeve, he responded in the best and only way he knew to the obscenity that is world hunger. Ever-generous both with his time and his wallet he was, in Coan’s words, “almost broke” at the time of his death. It is tragic that he was never able to make that leap of the imagination (or take the short single step through the Looking Glass), to realise that however much the capitalist system is tinkered with, it cannot be made to operate for the benefit of humanity at large. Lock, stock and barrel, it has to go.

   

Chapin will, notwithstanding, be quietly remembered not only for his fine musical legacy but also as a caring, committed and courageous figure. He could have made one helluva Socialist.

Andrew Armitage

Imagining a Socialist Society (2) (2013)

From the January 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

We continue the series, this time looking at work.

All around the world, in the environment of capitalism, most people consider themselves ‘lucky’ to be ‘in work’; ‘lucky’ to have the means to support themselves and their families; ‘lucky’ not to be one of those discarded as surplus to requirements. More thought is given to the remuneration for work done and the security of job tenure than to any concept of stimulation, satisfaction, fulfilment or contribution to the community – let alone to the collective aims of society.

In considering the difference likely within a socialist environment of voluntary work and free access we can begin to overturn these long-held values and explore the vastly wider possibilities of work being done for its intrinsic value and for its worth to society, unburdening all from the yoke of wage slavery and enabling each and everyone to extend their horizons in setting out to achieve their full, self-determined human potential.

Developing useful work

There is much work done today both formally and informally which will need to continue. That which is socially useful now, whether recognised as legal or informal or black market, will continue to be useful. There will be no antagonisms or fissures in society caused by protectionism or disagreements about who's taking whose work. The change will be that of ownership – everything will be owned in common and the best people to organise the running and functioning of workplaces will be those who understand and have experience of their particular discipline. In other words, the people who do the work now, but who will have become free from former constraints and are now able to determine different goals and outcomes.

Decision-making will be focused on benefits to society in general. Economy will relate to use of materials and reduction of waste. Doing and thinking, hands and head, will both be vital components in our socialist system – and as socialist consciousness will have grown to the point of enabling the change, so too the understanding and acceptance that all contributors to our new society are valuable. What are currently perceived as inequalities by some but as earned rights by others (reflected today in differences in pay scale, bonuses, holiday entitlement, pension) will be viewed quite differently. As we would wish to have our contributions recognised as worthy so too will we value the wide-ranging contributions of others.

All work that is paid now that is considered useful and beneficial to society will continue. Those now unemployed or underemployed will be welcomed into the world of free association as extra hands and heads. Likewise, work that is now undertaken voluntarily will continue to be useful and advantageous. The voluntary sector will bring forward many who already have well-developed social consciousness – previously having recognised the inequalities in society and the lack of access or opportunity afforded to others. Voluntary work after all is just another mode of occupation which currently fills many gaps deliberately left unfilled because they are a burden on the economy; where people are left needy according to the whims of the market and are rescued to some degree from their difficulty by people working for the common good.

What will become redundant because unnecessary in our society of free association will be the damaging, parasitical elements of current employment 'opportunities'. In a world of voluntary work and free access a sizeable portion of worldwide population will be freed up from spurious 'pseudo work', work that contributes nothing necessary, positive, useful or aesthetic to society. Work which simply moves money around or protects money and the moving of money around or incarcerates those who choose to defy the rules of the system by helping themselves to what, in the capitalist system, is perceived to be against societal norms. Instead they will have the opportunity to contribute positively to the aspirations of society as a whole. However, we can't simply denigrate those who work in these areas for doing so now. They, too, need employment in today's system and are merely doing what they have been groomed to do to fit into a niche deemed desirable and necessary. But what a huge number of individuals will be released from what will be looked back on as an era of useless, worthless bondage to money. Released to be themselves; to become useful, valued members of their communities to which they can now add real value.

Eliminating Waste

Waste of labour power, waste of resources, waste of time, waste of potential, there is so much unnecessary waste! One of our aims will surely be to eliminate waste of all kinds. Current waste levels, acceptable, even necessary to an extent in capitalism can be turned on their head in a socialist society which would redirect labour to useful, productive and creative occupations. All use and reuse of materials will be carefully assessed as to their most advantageous and least harmful outcomes. Work in general will be carried out in comfortable, healthy environments using the most appropriate technology where it's a positive requirement and always with the opportunity and options for creative work left open. Not accepting the requirement of growth per se, the aim will be conservation and the achievement of a steady state with the philosophy of 'do no harm' – to animal, vegetable or mineral.

Quality goods will replace the obsolescence culture and whole new looks at transport, energy and infrastructure will bring about a truly sustainable approach. Fulfilment of individual goals other than consumption; development of the wider human faculties and societies working together for common social and environmental benefits will be the modus operandi. This is part of Marx's ‘association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’. Also, as Marx pointed out, in socialism production is a question solely of planning and organisation in which producers do not exchange their products. All of us will be in effect involved in voluntary social work following a plan or plans endorsed by (most) of us. We will acknowledge the free association of producers, facilitators, transporters, administrators, caterers, carers, trainers, artists, educators, cleaners, entertainers, engineers etc, etc, all as necessary, indispensable cogs in a wheel – we each will play our part in keeping it turning and oiled for the benefit of all.             

Although we will all participate in the work to be done we shall presumably see many changes in the structure and demographics of work. One very simple example – just look at rush-hour traffic around any large town, anywhere in the world. Thousands of cars rushing or more likely crawling to get to their destinations. Most with a sole occupant. Travelling many miles in opposite directions in the morning and still travelling many miles in opposite directions in the evening upon return.

Does a plumber or an installer of alarms really have to travel several hours to do useful work? Isn't it possible that someone on the doorstep can perform such a function? Actually, will we need any alarm systems installed anyway? (Well, maybe fire alarms or other life-saving or life-enhancing systems.) It's the crazy job market that dictates where and how far people will travel. Imagine how much more efficient the whole caboodle will be in socialism – massive human energy savings, by vastly reducing travel miles (and fuel and emissions savings while we work on reducing these speedily to as close to nil as possible).

How much more pleasant and rewarding the whole work experience will become with easy access to the workplace meaning a less stressful day for a start – and a finish. With a fully integrated public transport system in place, cities could be restored, converted, transformed, even to be places in which it would be pleasant to live, clean and with expanses of green areas, woods, communal gardens, even agricultural areas. Gone will be the inglorious mix of slums and gated communities. Cities will become places worthy of living in when we've stopped seeking efficiency in money terms for every single thing and given back people the ownership of their communities and substituted the attitude of the best outcomes for people and planet in every situation.

The policies over the last few decades which have resulted in the demographics of rural and urban communities being totally changed, making it impossible for many to make a living in the rural areas and coercing them into cities and continuing poverty can be overturned with the will of the people. And when much of urban work will have become redundant, society as a whole will be free to choose the kinds of environments they wish to live in. In many parts of the world there will surely be a huge, voluntary shift back to the land, creating thriving, coherent communities with localised services.

Short-termism and consumerism as we have come to know them will be replaced by an understanding of the consequences of ignoring externalities. Capitalist corporations now largely ignore externalities; they don't factor the negatives into their equations. Cleaning up their mess whether in air, ground or water robs them of their profits; these costs in human health and environmental problems are not their concern. Individuals, being captives of the current system, are almost powerless to be in any way effective against the mighty machine. Whether adding hourly to the ever-growing mountains of plastic waste or depriving other communities of their potable water for us to be persuaded that bottled water is best, or propping up child labour through purchases of shoes and clothing, or simply putting petrol in the car – the system pretty well dictates what our choices must be. Whether as worker, consumer, tourist or activist we are obliged to choose only from what's on offer – and a choice that doesn't embody our principles is no choice at all.

Concludes next month with a discussion of other aspects of a socialist society such as food, healthcare and education.

Janet Surman

Mixed Media: Marx in Soho (2014)

The Mixed Media Column from the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx in Soho

Marx in Soho, the 1995 one-man play by Howard Zinn was recently produced at the Marx Library in London directed by Sergio Amigo and starring Daniel Kelly as Marx. Zinn portrays 'Marx as few people knew him, as a family man, struggling to support his wife and children' in a 'fantasy' where Marx returns but due to a bureaucratic error not to Soho, London where he lived, but to Soho in New York City. Marx has returned 'to clear my name!'

Zinn drew on insights into Marx's private life in Yvonne Kapp's biography of Eleanor Marx. Marx speaks of life in Soho: 'we were living in London. Jenny and I and the little ones. Plus two dogs, three cats, and two birds. Barely living. A flat on Dean Street, near where they dumped the city's sewage.' Marx speaks about his favourite daughter Eleanor, 'a precociously brilliant child' nicknamed 'Tussy' who is 'a revolutionary at the age of eight', plays chess with 'the Moor' (the family nickname for Marx 'because of my dark complexion'), drinks, smokes, and is enamoured of the Irish struggle which she learned from Lizzie Burns.

Marx is very witty: 'Marx is dead! Well I am … and I am not. That's dialectics for you', 'Understand one thing – I'm not a Marxist. I said that once to Pieper and he almost croaked' and 'My Ricardo! You pawned my Ricardo!' Zinn invents a visit to his home by the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, no record of such a visit exists although they had met in Paris in 1844. Bakunin was an irrepressible revolutionary who arrived in London in 1861 at Alexander Herzen's home, bursting into the drawing-room where the family was having supper. 'What! Are you sitting down eating oysters! Well! Tell me the news. What is happening, and where?!'

Zinn portrays 'Marx angry that his theories had been so distorted as to stand for Stalinist cruelties and to rescue Marx from those who now gloated over the triumph of capitalism.' Zinn concludes the play with Marx proclaiming we should be 'using the incredible wealth of the earth for human beings. Give people what they need: food, medicine, clean air, pure water, trees and grass, pleasant homes to live in, some hours of work, more hours of leisure. Don't ask who deserves it. Every human being deserves it.'

Marx in Soho is highly recommended for socialist theatre-goers: 'Look at it this way. It is the second coming. Christ couldn't make it, so Marx came . . .'

Steve Clayton

Imagining a Socialist Society (1) (2012)

From the December 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

First of a three-part series, beginning with reorganising society after capitalism.

Regarding the possibility of whether and under what circumstances socialism could replace capitalism, Marx wrote of two prerequisites:

(1)  a clear understanding of socialist principles with an unambiguous desire to put them into practice; and

(2)  an advanced industrial economy so that free access is technically possible.

As far as the latter is concerned, there's a broad consensus that there's no problem that couldn't be dealt with now, once we've collectively reached the former. The political ignorance of many of the working class has to be the major challenge.

Preparing for change

More and more people are recognising that the capitalist monetary solution is not viable for a sustainable world and it is here that we can see the schisms in society becoming deeper. If we look at these schisms through a different lens from the one we are regularly directed towards, we can see that the basic problems aren't actually between 'rich and poor' countries, or even between different levels of earners within countries, that is, not between the producers, the workers, the citizens.  Those situations, those schisms, have been manufactured to keep divisions between us. When we come together, we become dangerous –a threat to the established system.

The bigger schism, the real antagonism, is the one between power and the people. What stands out more and more is that:

(1) the capitalist class, through the global corporations (manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, agribusinesses and financial institutions) have dominance over governments, the very institutions that constituents might believe are there to serve the constituents' interests; and

(2) how weak governments are in responding - in fact how complicit they are. (Even a cursory glance at the revolving-door principle reveals the extent of the complicity worldwide.)

The people may fight back, strike or demonstrate, as they did in Seattle's WTO meeting in 1999, at the climate meeting in Copenhagen last December, and more recently in Greece, Ireland, Romania, Spain and other countries, following the ramifications of cut-backs in public spending.  People take so much and then, as they reach the final straw, they are compelled one way or another to seek to get their voices heard. By whom? By those who are supposed to be working in the best interests of their societies: their governments.  Why don't more people get the irony?

Placebos are offered and sometimes accepted, sometimes imposed, but these placebos are always finance-based, always describing how much a project will cost in monetary terms or how much can be saved if we cut this or delay that. Never are they based on the needs of people. 

Reorganising society

Science and technology –scientists and technologists or technicians –have in their hands the knowledge and the wherewithal to take humanity in any direction they choose to take, but like the rest of us they are constrained by the system we live in. They are not directed by the wishes, needs and aims of society as a whole but have to follow the logic of their master, the market.

Everything becomes possible when the tools are in the right hands, the hands of the producers. It becomes a matter of organisation to bring in the new society. There is plenty of work to be done to achieve the satisfaction of everyone's basic needs, but is deliberately left undone as the profit motive dictates. It takes a fundamental shift of emphasis away from the dictates of a small minority to the wishes and needs of the overwhelming majority.

This requires that majority populations worldwide capture the state apparatus politically in order to restructure social decision-making and administration according to their plan. A plan of a totally democratic system, from whose broadest possible base decisions will pass through the structure, representing the widest possible views. Once the motivation for cronyism and corruption is removed by majority will, the best groups of people (best in terms of most fitted to whatever the particular task) could be occupied for the common good in all areas. This bottom-up, proactive, participatory democracy would be used at all levels: local, regional and world. It's difficult to find other expressions away from the hierarchical ones we're so bound up in; the idea here is simply a logistical one, but this particular pyramid definitely has its power at the base with delegates elected to carry forward the message and speak for the whole community.

To attain the stage where the full development of creative human potential is widely recognised as being the goal of life for human beings: this is the change we need. Not achieving parity or possessions, or even getting out of poverty or beating hunger. We have to have a vision far beyond this stage, to see beyond the intellectual paucity that drives current day society to crave the material above the cerebral or philosophical, favouring or craving things above thoughts and ideas. Ending poverty, hunger, treatable diseases and enabling all to have adequate living conditions – all this goes without saying; these goals are all part of what is to be achieved in the period of social reorganisation and will be planned for in full consultation with local communities.

Once decided democratically that we are heading for a socialist world it becomes a much simpler matter. Quite how this will happen is open to conjecture. As expressed on numerous occasions, we have no blueprint. Depriving the capitalist class of the state and its functionaries is the first objective. Once the decision is made, then it becomes a matter of organisation.

Suffice it to say there will have been a period of planning and co-ordination by mass organisations in work places, in neighbourhoods, in educational establishments, in organisations with international links and in civic organisations, which will culminate in the collective and proactive decision of the people to take control over the direction of their lives immediately and for the future. The decision to turn their backs on the system that has failed them over and over in favour of one for which they are ready to work to make happen, ready to work to continue its progress and which will work for them, not against them. With ever-increasing numbers, discussion and debate will have begun to determine the direction of the path to be taken.

No money barrier

It just seems such obvious common sense to consider the cost of everything in human terms instead of putting a price ticket on it. To place the role of social, political, environmental and whatever other decisions firmly with the people, with no need for a pointless monetary budget (the inputs need only be manpower and resources). This will be the biggest shift of emphasis in the change from capitalism to socialism –with far-reaching effects and benefits for both people and planet.

What a much simpler life we could have with this bizarre third element removed from all equations! Why complicate what could be a perfectly simple arrangement? Why tolerate a third element that only confuses and complicates every issue.

Take, for instance, a project to plant trees on a massive scale worldwide – to prevent soil erosion, to sequester carbon, for water retention, to meet the need for fuel-wood etc. –what is taken into account is the cost of billions of seedlings, the cost of mobilising hundreds of thousands of people to do the work, and the cost of paying people not to farm where the land is erodible, where many of the trees would be planted –the total calculated in billions of dollars.

Now you could say the outcomes would be beneficial for many people, ensuring the continuance of farming, better air quality, reduction of CO₂ in the atmosphere, preservation of water tables, etc. But surely the simplest, easiest solution –if we recognise it's advisable to plant such numbers of trees –is to mobilise people to collect seeds and grow them, to take cuttings to strike and then plant them on. We would need to know when and how many people to mobilise in which areas, and how many tools would need to be supplied. These are the numbers we need to count. People working in their local communities for the benefit of all, recognising that everyone can't have direct access to the best soil but that all can share the produce from it and also share the indirect benefits of the tree planting initiative.

It's this middle element, money, and the problems arising from it, that prove to be such a difficult concept for many people. In any transaction, and at each and every exchange, it is what's given to and taken from it (i.e. money) that is essential in the capitalist system but absolutely superfluous to what's needed in a system built on communities' needs. What we must get folk to see is that if I work and you work and everyone else works without the complication of money, what will change is there will be no extraction of profit via the surplus labour because all of the labour will be voluntarily contributed. All products and services from our shared labour will benefit the new society as a whole through our system of common ownership and free access. As far as buying and selling is concerned, this exchange will be redundant when we willingly share our common assets, our heads and our hands. What a relief it will be!

Next month: how work will change in a socialist society

Janet Surman

Letter from Jamaica (1979)

From the January 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jamaica is at a cross road in political development. Just two years after since Manley's massive victory at the polls, the political atmosphere here is tense. Can his government last out its allocated five years? This is the kind of question many people are asking; the majority who ask don't think they can.

In 1974 Manley declared himself and his party 'democratic socialist.' Overnight socialism became a household word, particularly it became the language of the suffering poor. The speeches poured out from government ministers on their "socialist" policies. land distribution, setting up of cooperatives, establishment of food farms, passing a minimum wage law, ownership of the Bauxite industry, and various other reforms.

Since 1976 there have been widespread layoffs, swelling the ranks of the unemployed to something approaching 40 per cent of the work force. There has also been an increased exodus of skilled people, and capital, although the Government have set up an elaborate intelligence unit to prevent this. Foreign exchange is scare, resulting in constant shortages of essential items and a flourishing black market. To speak of "high" prices in Jamaica today is a polite understatement.

On the political front the main opposition party, the Jamaican Labour Party, has been very active. They have to be, seeing that there are so many issues. Their main contention however is their consistent stand for Electoral Reform. They have boycotted all by-elections since local government elections in early 1977, and have recently threatened to start a campaign of civil disobedience to dramatise their position. The JLP claim that they were robbed of victory in the 1976 general election by a massive, island wide, campaign of bogus voting. At present a commission is investigating government corruption, and the opposition is hoping to prove that the government used the state of emergency they imposed in June 1976 to lock up key opposition members thus causing their election defeat.

Violence, and violent crime, is very much a part of the Jamaican scene now. There is a dangerous army of gunmen who carry out daring heists anywhere that money is handled. Shoot-outs between cops and robbers have sent scores of youth on both sides to an early grave. Young people have learned their lesson well in this Caribbean paradise. If you don't have anything you are nothing. They are out to get something whatever the price, one way or another.

Jamaicans, like workers all over the world, take politicians too seriously and pay little interest to politics itself.

George Dolphy

New Internationalist: Forty Years On (2013)

First issue of New Internationalist.

From the April 2013 issue of the Socialist Standard

The magazine, New Internationalist, was first published in March 1973. Since then it has presented a lot of interesting material on global development, inequality, powerlessness and so on, and has found space over the years to include a number of letters from Socialists.

The fortieth anniversary edition published an article from its founding editor Peter Adamson, dealing with what progress there had been over four decades and accompanied by a page of statistics comparing some aspects of society in 1970 and 2010. As he notes, the first issues of the magazine were suffused by ‘the spirit of the times … overwhelmingly one of optimism’. Living standards in the UK were rising, abortion had been legalised and homosexuality decriminalised. Furthermore, many former colonies had become independent, and ‘we expected the war on want to be won.'

Over the forty years surveyed, there were many changes for the better. Life expectancy had increased from 56 to 70 globally, and from 43 to 59 in the least developed countries. Mortality rates for under-fives had decreased from 139 per thousand live births globally in 1970 to 57 in 2010; in the least developed countries, the reduction had been from 240 to 110; and in the industrialised countries from 24 to just six per thousand.

Adamson notes that ‘a great leap forward has been made towards meeting basic human needs,’ yet ‘the very poorest have often been excluded from the great gains that have been made.' Thus in Sierra Leone, life expectancy had gone up from 34 to a mere 47, and in sub-Saharan Africa almost one child in eight still dies before their fifth birthday. And want has clearly not been conquered.

Fortieth Anniversary Issue.

Above all, though, it is inequality that has become more severe over time. Measuring this is difficult, but between 1976 and 2010 average income in low-income economies increased proportionally less than that in industrialised countries. Moreover, the share of the richest one per cent of the population is far greater now than back in the 1970s. Adamson suggests that ‘progress’ be measured by looking at the lives of the lowest quintile in a country (the poorest 20 per cent, also known as Q1).

So despite the valiant efforts of many sincere and committed people, global inequalities of wealth and power remain major problems. This is without mentioning the onslaught on the environment or the destruction caused by war. Our solution: not to improve the lives of Q1 but create a world where such notions are meaningless, where everyone shares in the wealth produced co-operatively and has equal control over their lives. This cannot be done overnight, but in a Socialist world it could be achieved very quickly.

Paul Bennett

"The struggle" (1983)

Book Review from the December 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rethinking Socialism: A Theory for a Better Practice, Gavin Kitching (Metheun)

The title of Gavin Kitching's book would allude more accurately to its contents, if instead it were titled Rethinking Capitalism. This is a miserable book of appalling ignorance which most seriously ignores any sensible idea of what socialism is and therefore any sensible way of achieving it.

It has been suggested that one of the reasons capitalism lasts is that people on "the left" and particularly the Labour Party, keep trying to patch it up and make it work. This book is just such a set of suggestions. Kitching points out that "left wing" politics and trade union occupy a negative position, and this is seen by many people as being destructive. He says for example that strikes and  the chaos they can bring with them, particularly in a position where workers face mass unemployment are futile and easily construed by a hostile media as irresponsible and damaging to the "community".

There is nothing new in this. Workers are forced, under capitalism, to fight the same battles over and over again without resolving issues, and inevitably this aggravates chaos. It has been a great pity that those who formed the Labour Party at the turn of the century did not take heed of this when they pursued the false idea that socialism could be advanced within the economic framework of capitalism. Nor is there any excuse now for Kitching experiencing the belated revelation that "If the bosses don't have the money, they can't pay, can they? If they are making losses, they must lay off, mustn't they? Yes they must".

What is the logic of this in terms of the establishment of socialism? Gavin Kitching should learn from the Socialist Party the arguments which outline the political limitations of social reform which follow from the economic limitations of capitalism in general. If he comes to understand this he will have the weaknesses of working class action within capitalism in clearer perspective.

This is not a question of "rethinking socialism". For him it must be a question of abandoning the fallacious premises on which the Labour Party is based. The Socialist Party always had it right, and it is a question of learning what the Socialist Party has said. The predictive accuracy of socialist theory has been vindicated by experience on every important aspect of social problems and this includes the complete failure of the Labour Party.

To speak of the limitations of working class action is to lay this down only within the productive relations of capitalism. Outside this, the working class has immense power. This is the practical responsibility and the power to change society. Workers already run the apparatus of production, produce goods and maintain services, but they do it for the capitalist's profit. The straightforward issue which should be kept crystal clear is that socialism is nothing less than the working class taking over the entire apparatus of production and the earth's resources and organising production solely for need.

On the basis of common ownership and production for use socialism could immediately find the freedom to expand all its activities in response to need.

Gavin Kitching's response to the present depression and the difficulties that workers face rests on the retention of capitalism and on this basis he suggests a formula for what he terms "pre-emptive unionism". This amounts to workers foreseeing that certain branches of industry could get into difficulties and then co-operating with the employers to work for the smoothest economic adjustments in exchange for concessions including, for example, high redundancy payments, retraining schemes, housing and removal allowances, capital grants for the setting up of new industries, workers' delegates on boards of directors, some control of over management appointments, profit sharing schemes. This is the message of despair which provides as much hope as would advice to the condemned man that he should help organise his own execution in exchange for an "easier" time.

The re-organisation of capitalist industry under the blind dictates of the market and profitability is not a working class issue, and is the surest guarantee of continuing social problems. For the workers to concede continued ownership and control of the means of life to the capitalists spells out disaster.

While Gavin Kitching's book is useless as a work of practical socialist politics it does provide some evidence of the actual political role of the Labour Party. He is committed to what he sees as "the evolutionary and gradualist perspective", which is a euphemism for the abandonment of socialism. He is also committed to the "social and political struggle" which centres on "continuous social conflict".

Capitalism inevitably produces conflict but socialism is not a commitment to "continuous social conflict". On the contrary, socialism is the practical solution to social problems which envisages the speediest end to social conflict. The means by which a majority of socialists could end capitalism and organise society for need are more straightforward and practical than any of Kitching's recipes for continuous conflict.

So is the lure of the Labour Party partly the lure of this "struggle"? Is this struggle so blindly pursued; and is its object so lost in obscurity and mystification that it has become an end in itself? It is hardly imaginable that Labour Party confusion about what socialism means could be further compounded. however, Gavin Kitching contributes this book as an effort to do so. Inevitably he returns to the hopeless negativism from which he apparently first set out to escape - back to the treadmill of self-repeating "struggle".

Do the activists of the Labour Party avoid useful knowledge and shrink from the responsibility of solving problems because they prefer "the struggle" and the negative sectarianism of the broad Labour Church? If so, there will be a ready demand for this book.

Pieter Lawrence

Obituary: Freddie James (1992)

Obituary from the December 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freddie James, who was a Party member for many years, died on 29 August 1992, at the age of 67.

He joined the Party in 1948 and for many years was an active member of Hackney Branch, Although he did not continuously maintain his membership, drifting out and into the Party again at various times, he maintained his links with the Party and supported the party case until his death. He had a somewhat anarchic attitude towards payment of dues and replying to letters, and could rarely bring himself to ask for his dues to be waived, and thus became lapsed from the Party from time to time. However, he never left because of disagreement.

In the 1950s and after, he was a prominent and active member, frequently speaking at open-air venues in Hackney and elsewhere. He was also frequently to be seen at Head Office and Party meetings generally and was often active at Conference and Delegate Meetings. Fred had an aggressive and rumbustious style, which did not endear him to everyone, but he always displayed an underlying good humour, which softened many of his barbed comments.

Fred was also active for the Party in the Provinces, and for some time in the 50s stayed in Nottingham where he spoke at outdoor meetings and was active in the local branch. He also took an active interest in left-wing and anarchist meetings and was frequently to be found at meetings organized by other parties and groups, where he determinedly put forward the party case. He stood as a Socialist Party candidate in Bethnal Green in elections to the old London County Council in 1958.

Freddie James (as he was usually called) was a lifetime student of politics, history, psychology and social sciences generally. In his Hackney branch days he gave lectures and conducted classes on such topics as ancient society and anthropology. His former home in Weymouth Terrace, Hackney, was for many years a centre for party members and others to have discussions and arguments, drink tea and play chess. His last home, a flat near Euston Station, had every room and passageway crowded with the thousands of books that reflected his lifetime interests.

Apart from politics, Fred had consuming interests in psychology and music. He studied the guitar with Len Williams at the Guitar Centre, and himself became a teacher of the guitar, at GLC classes and at the City Literary Institute. He also maintained his enthusiasm for chess, and in recent years frequently had friends dropping in on him for a game. He also helped to found a community arts group in Kentish Town, and was treasurer of this group when he died.

About two years ago he was diagnosed as having cancer of the oesophagus, and underwent drastic surgery. During his periods of hospitalization he maintained a cheerful and lively demeanour and his hospital bed was often surrounded by relatives, friends and acquaintances, enjoying his company. He faced his frequently painful disabilities with remarkable courage and fortitude, and when there was a recurrence of his illness shortly before his death, he continued to display a calm but cheerful presence.

Fred will be much missed in the many fields in which he became well-known. A memorial meeting, to celebrate his life, was held on 25 October at Lauderdale House, Highgate, which was attended by party members who knew him, former members and many others.

Albert Ivimey

The Young Marx (1972)

Book Review from the December 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx before Marxism by David McLellan. Pelican. 40p

This book, now republished as a Pelican, traces the development of Marx's ideas until in 1844, at the age of 25, he became a Socialist (or Communist, as would then more usually have been said).

Marx was born in May 1818 in Trier in in the Rhineland, which had been annexed to France between 1795 and 1814. His father was a legal official who was originally a Jew but who, on the return of the Rhineland to Prussia, had to become a Christian in order to keep his job. Marx himself was baptized as a Lutheran Protestant and went to the local high school and later to university at Bonn, then at Berlin and then back at Bonn again, eventually getting a doctorate from the University of Jena for a thesis on the Ancient Greek philosophers, Democritos and Epicurus.

Marx had originally intended himself becoming a lawyer, but then planned an academic career as a teacher of philosophy. When political considerations made this impossible—Marx had become one of the Young-Hegelians who gave Hegel's philosophy an atheist and radical-democratic twist—he turned to journalism, becoming in October 1842 the editor of the liberal Rheinische Zeitung. At this time Marx was still politically a radical democrat and argued forcefully against censorship and for freedom of the press in Prussia. So forcefully, in fact, that the paper was banned in March 1843. In June Marx married Jenny von Westphalen (whose father had not only been a German baron but also related to the British Dukes of Argyll!) and in October moved to Paris.

Here Marx came into contact with German and French Communists (indeed he lived in the same house as one prominent member of the German Workers' League of the Just, which later became the Communist League for which the famous manifesto was written) and his writings take on a more pro-working class character. McLellan dates Marx's adherence to Communism as sometime during the first three months of 1844.

Marx's writings of this period are, to a modern reader, excessively philosophical, being full of the difficult terminology of the then fashionable German philosophers Hegel and Feuerbach. Marx's whole conception of the socialist revolution too was still philosophical: he saw it as the combination of man's most advanced consciousness (German philosophy or, rather, its outcome) and man's most suffering section (the proletariat). This conception had élitist undertones—the proletariat was to be the instrument of philosophy, i.e.,  a weapon in the hands of philosophers, to achieve Hegel's "rational reality" or Feuerbach's "true species-life"—which Marx was soon to abandon when he teamed up with Engels and the two of them began to put socialist theory on to a more scientific basis. Hence the title of this book of course.

McLellan here provides a good introduction to Marx's writings of this period: the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of the State (some unpublished notes written in March 1843 before he moved to Paris), on The Jewish Question and Introduction to a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law (both of which were published by Marx soon after moving to Paris, the latter containing the famous phrase about religion being the opium of the people) and the so-called Paris Manuscripts (again unpublished notes).

These works are not essential reading but they do provide the key to what Marx and Engels meant when in later works they wrote of "the end of philosophy" and of leaping "from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom" and of Socialism as "the beginning of history".

Adam Buick

Pathfinders: The Dark Rebellion (2014)

The Pathfinders Column from the October 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

10 years ago this month the British worker Ken Bigley was murdered in a video beheading by the leader of an Iraqi insurgency group, one Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, despite appeals and interventions from, among others, Yasser Arafat, King Abdullah of Jordan, the Muslim Council of Britain, the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams and even Libyan dictator Colonel Gadaffi.

Zarqawi’s group affiliated to Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network at this same time, and became known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The following year, 2005, Zarqawi received a letter from Bin Laden’s military commander, Ayman al-Zawahiri, outlining al-Qaeda’s four-stage strategic plan for expanding the Iraq war. The stages were, first, expel the Americans and their allies, then establish an Islamic caliphate, widen the conflict to engulf neighbouring states, and finally declare war on Israel.

Zarqawi continued to run AQI, specialising in extortion, kidnappings, hotel bombings and hostage beheadings, until a US Air Force F-16 dropped 460kg of high explosive on his safe-house in 2006. AQI lived on, however, and the same year merged with several other groups to form the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI).

AQI thereafter became increasingly unpopular because of its targeting of Iraqi civilians, and open war developed between AQI and other Sunni groups. Bin Laden himself was said to regard the brutality of AQI’s video beheadings as counter-productive, and his commander, Zawahiri, had also criticised Zarqawi for recklessly squandering civilian sympathy and support. The US in 2007 began arming rival Sunni militias who agreed to fight AQI instead of the Americans (Guardian, 12 June 2007). This resulted in the ‘Anbar Awakening’ of Sunni counter-attacks, and by 2008 the ISI described itself as being in a state of ‘extraordinary crisis’.

With the withdrawal of US troops in 2009, AQI’s fortunes started to pick up again. They began blowing up government offices in a bid to destroy the Iraqi administration and sabotage the 2010 elections. But they hit problems again as communications with al-Qaeda in Pakistan were cut and, it was estimated, around 80 percent of their leadership were captured or blown up.

But like the mythical Hydra, AQI could grow heads as well as cut them off. The new leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, began recruiting Saddam Hussein’s former military staff, and thereafter pursued an energetic campaign of highly successful prison breaks to free veteran insurgents held at, among other places, the infamous Abu Ghraib prison.

And then, the Arab Spring fell upon Baghdadi like manna from heaven. Suddenly the regional strongmen who were able to contain and maintain regional stability fell or were in trouble. Baghdadi seized the moment and began planting ISI seeds in Syria which sprouted into the al-Nusra Front. This Syrian group, unlike ISI, was not interested in establishing caliphates but only in ousting Assad, and recruited its foreign fighters solely on this basis. In April 2013 Baghdadi announced, without consulting either al-Nusra or al-Qaeda, that al-Nusra and ISI were merging as the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Isis or Isil). It was the equivalent of a hostile business merger, and the al-Nusra Front leader protested vociferously. Al-Qaeda promptly ruled against Baghdadi and ordered Isis to be disbanded. After months of argument, al-Qaeda got nowhere and severed all connections with Isis. After more months of internecine conflict, al-Qaeda resignedly told al-Nusra to stop fighting Isis. Elements of al-Nusra subsequently saw no option but to go over to Isis, as did parts of the Free Syrian Army, JMA and other anti-Assad groups. In June this year Isis declared itself a caliphate with Baghdadi as its caliph.

The brutality of what followed has been of biblical proportions. The Islamic State rolled over Mosul and cleared out its bank vaults, while crucifying opponents and non-Sunni Muslims, eviscerating women and reputedly executing children and putting their heads on spikes on Mosul Park. The West has looked on aghast at the scale of the atrocities.

Despite its chilling barbarity the Islamic State seems to know what it’s doing. With an estimated fund of US$2m it is building all the infrastructure of a new state with efficiently-functioning public services and administrative and military control systems amid continued revenues from robbing banks, ransoming hostages and allegedly, selling captured Syrian energy supplies back to the Syrian government. It is noted for its unusually professional management of social media and even its harrowing beheading videos, clearly a key part of its conception of asymmetric warfare, are described as looking increasingly slick and well-produced. It employs if not ‘awe’ then certainly ‘shock’ in its campaign to subdue opposition and deter western and regional powers from intervening.

Some commentators speculate that the brutality is so excessive that the world’s Muslim communities will recoil from it, if they haven’t already done so, forcing IS towards moderating its behaviour in the future. But this is the legacy of the killer of Ken Bigley ten years ago, and they didn’t get where they are today by being moderate.

A recent edition of New Scientist (13 September) carried two articles that bear on the subject. In the first,Lifting the black mask, academics have been demanding access to US intelligence data as part of studies to establish the factors which go towards radicalising western-based jihadists. Some conclusions are already in, however, in particular that the idea of jihadists being ‘brainwashed’ by recruiters or radical imams is wrong. These young people who go to fight for Isis have simply absorbed and applied the views of their own circle of friends and family. Socialists say that capitalism, in oppressing workers everywhere, spontaneously assists the spread of socialist ideas. What we also have to acknowledge is that capitalism is also fostering a ‘dark rebellion’ which is, in many ways, the antithesis of everything that socialism stands for. Capitalism plays the same hateful pop song on an endless loop, while socialists aim to press Fast Forward, but there are also those who are keen to press Fast Rewind, all the way back to the Middle Ages.

The second article concerns a reappraisal of two notorious and now considered unethical psychology studies, which now suggests that acts of deliberate cruelty are not perpetrated as a matter of routine by ordinary people who are ‘just following orders’, an argument known as the Nuremberg Defence, but only by individuals who can be characterised as ‘committed’ believers.

In the 1960s series of ‘shock’ obedience studies conducted at Yale by Stanley Milgram, it turns out that participants were regularly badgered to administer electric shocks, and that up to 50 percent refused, while in the 1971 Stanford prison experiment, participant ‘guards’ were heavily coached to mistreat ‘prisoners’ by having forms of mistreatment suggested to them. In both studies participants were repeatedly told to conform and obey ‘in the interests of science’. The reappraisal suggests that those who bought into this formulation of the ‘science ethic’ tended to conform, while ‘non-believers’ did not.

Capitalist ideology loves to demonise ‘human nature’, and media reports of torture and murder barely seen outside the Old Testament seem almost to justify that demonisation. But we don’t just do what we’re told, like mindless zombies. It matters what we believe. Whatever excesses the world’s unhinged fanatics manage to drive themselves to, the capacity for evil does not, after all, lie dormant in the banal heart of humanity.

PJS

The Second International and the 1914 War (1972)

Book Review from the December 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and the Great War, by Professor Georges Haupt. Oxford University Press. £5.00.

In this revised edition of a work published a few years ago in French and German, Professor Haupt sets out to examine the activities of the International Socialist Bureau and its affiliated national parties in the years before 1914 and to explain why it failed to prevent the war.

Professor Haupt has had access to the archives of the Bureau and claims that his re-examination of the reasons for the collapse of the International has led him to reject or modify various earlier attempts to explain why, when the war came, the International disintegrated. If we accepted the view shared by the organisations which belonged to the International and by Professor Haupt, that it was a body representing the Socialist convictions of millions of organised workers, there would be a mystery needing to be explained; but of course this belief is a myth. Most of the affiliated organisations were non-socialist, most of the four million workers supposed to be represented at the International congresses were indifferent to it and were neither internationalist nor Socialist in outlook. There was never any real unity among the organisation and not even the leaders who attended congresses took the Bureau seriously.

It is absurd to treat the electoral success of the German Social Democratic Party in 1912, with its 4 million votes, as a victory for Socialism, and the half-million votes given to the candidates of the British Labour Party in 1910 as another—the Labour Party at this time was running hand-in-hand with the Liberal Party. When Bruce Glasier made an impassioned speech declaring that "the British proletariat was ready to obey the International's instructions to the last detail", he was speaking without any mandate from British workers and simply deluding himself and the other members of the Bureau.

The material unearthed by Professor Haupt from the Bureau's discussions and resolutions shows an almost universal inability to understand how capitalism engenders war, and an equal ignorance of Socialist principles. When the war was about to begin the members of the Bureau were relying for the preservation of peace on the belief that capitalism had outlived its warlike propensities and on blind confidence that the German, French and British governments were all "against war".

It is not that the non-socialist outlook of the Bureau and its affiliated parties was entirely unknown. It was pointed out repeatedly by the Socialist Party of Great Britain but, strangely, Professor Haupt's researches into the Bureau's archives fail to disclose this. Having sent delegates to the Congress at Amsterdam in 1904, the SPGB tried in vain to secure that membership should be restricted to genuinely socialist parties based on recognition of the class struggle—at that time the British affiliates were the ILP, Fabian Society, SDF and Labour Representation Committee (later to become the Labour Party). Failing to secure this, the SPGB withdrew from membership of the International.

Though Professor Haupt still thinks that what happened in 1914 needs to be explained, it came as no surprise to the SPGB that war found most of the parties affiliated to the International supporting the policies of their respective governments and most of the prominent individuals who had declared their intention to oppose war—including Keir Hardie—supporting it.

Edgar Hardcastle