There's a good time coming (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

What a spectacle! Jim Callaghan receiving a standing ovation after telling the TUC Congress that restricting wage increases, plus reduced taxation, was in the best interest of trade unionists. Some at least, remained seated. Could it be that they have seen through the myth that pay increases are the cause of either inflation or unemployment?

Referring to "free collective bargaining" the Prime Minister claimed: "the race is to the swift, the lion's share goes to the lions". The real "lions" are the capitalist class with their built-in advantage of ownership of the means of production. An advantage which puts the debate on "industrial democracy" into perspective. As for members of the working class, though their level of wages can be influenced by strong unions, they are paid for the value of their labour-power. We agree with Callaghan that high wages have nothing to do with Socialism—a social system yet to be established in which money and trade unions will not have any role to play.

In the manner of his predecessors, regardless of party, the PM's message was not all belt-tightening. The Government wants a steady rate of expansion and given the right conditions, there would be no further reduction in the standard of living. In fact there are good times coming—"we have the best chance since the end of the war to make this year the best since the end of the war". Do not get too excited: capitalism with all of its problems will continue as usual.

Introducing the debate on pensions and welfare benefits Jack Jones, Gen. Sec. of the TGWU, said that too many pensioners were condemned to live below the poverty line. In 1906 J. R. Clynes MP declared "that the Labour Party would have been well worth creating if in the next ten years they did nothing more than settle the question of old age pensions". At the time the proposed settlement was for five shillings per week. 

Socialism was possible in 1906—in 1977 it is imperative.

Pat Deutz

Blair's Place in the Sun (2001)

The Greasy Pole Column from the April 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just in case he was in any doubt about whether he should have the election soon or wait for a bit, Tony Blair has had some help in making his mind up from the Sun. “It's in the bag Tony. You might as well call the Election now” he was recently urged by that newspaper, apparently on the basis of its less than penetrative analysis of Gordon Brown's budget. Furthermore the Sun, after some dithering, has at last decided about where its readers should put their cross on the fateful day: “Blair gets our support for a second term. Blair has done enough to get our backing” was the message, in appropriately heavy typeface. It was enough to have them punching the air in relief at Number Ten.

Well it would not be the Sun without some crafted, instant impact front page. Remember the word GOTCHA, which exulted over the killing of hundreds of Argentinean sailors on the Belgrano? Remember the crushing request on polling day in 1992, that “If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn off the lights”? And the triumphant, if perhaps overblown, claim, after Major's dramatic win at that election, that “It was the Sun wot done it”? By 1997 when John Major, whose victory the Sun claimed to be responsible for, went to the polls amid the near ruin of his government, things were a bit different. For one thing there had been a lot of work from New Labour's leaders, sucking up to Rupert Murdoch and other press barons. “The Sun Backs Blair” was their reward, screamed the front page on 1 May 1997; a few days before that an editorial had encouraged Sun readers with the advice that they needed “a leader with vision, purpose and courage who can inspire them and fire their imagination. The Sun believes that man is Tony Blair”.

Pandering

Well, as it happened Blair also thought he was that man and since then he has put a lot of effort into keeping Labour locked onto support from the tabloids, using a technique appropriate to the assumed prejudices of their readers. This has entailed the government pushing policies and attitudes which have outraged many of its supporters, who cling stubbornly to the quaint notion that the Labour Party has some connection with protection of the poorest and most vulnerable in society and an historical obligation to stand up for the international unity of all human beings. Ideas like that exist in defiance of the fact that the support of people in the position of Rupert Murdoch has to be bought. There may be some who, apart from needing urgent psychiatric care, believe that Murdoch would allow his newspapers to support a party because its policies would significantly benefit the majority of people in this country. The reality is that he wants to back the winner as the most effective way of protecting and expanding his interests. In 1997 the Sun thought the Tories were “tired, divided and rudderless”—in other words not the kind of government a global capitalist would want to do profitable business with.

Now that he has the Sun on his side Blair has only the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph to persuade. These are rather tougher nuts for him to crack but doubtless he will try; in fact that is what his government have been doing since they came into power. For some years now, carefully watching the circulation figures, New Labour have been busily pandering to the crass prejudices and political neuroses which are regularly stimulated in the Daily Mail, with the result that that paper has steadily climbed the sales ladder. Now the Mail is a leader among the papers for those who are frightened, not of what capitalism actually does to them but of what a newspaper tells them could happen unless they are protected by the more primitive of government policies. Some Labour supporters might have expected their government to stand up against this; in fact Blair and his ministers have pursued issues like asylum seekers, benefit fraudsters and public order offenders with a zeal which has given comfort to people who are suckled on the Daily Mail.

Disillusioned

It is unlikely that the Mail will change sides (although after what happened with the Sun nothing, it is clear, is impossible) but it is certain that if this were to happen Blair and his minions would not be put off by the content of that paper. For example on the day it came out for Blair the Sun devoted almost a page to such tedium as : “Randy Owl Savages Dad On Way To Pub”, “Major Can't Stand To Attention: Bungled Army Op Ruined My Sex Life, Claims Dick . . .” If that kind of rubbish did not persuade Blair to renounce the support of the Sun there is no reason to assume that if the Mail also supported Labour he would object to the kind stuff it publishes regularly:

On Crime: “The untouchable. This boy of nine is a thief, arsonist and vandal...Yet he is beyond the law”.On Asylum Seekers: “We didn't need the extraordinary pictures in yesterday's Mail of the luxury that certain Romanian 'refugees' leave behind to come to this country to know that there is no repression in Romania. When will the government stop being so naive about these people, who travel here to wolf down our precious resources?”On Foreigners in General: “William Hague's speech about Britain becoming a 'foreign land' was precisely the sort he should be making close to a General Election”.

The question, however, is what happens when Blair has won the election with the help of Murdoch's Sun and perhaps other papers? Well we have seen the answer to this, in what has happened since 1997. This has had its effect—a perceptible disillusionment among Labour supporters, who regularly complain that they have missed the thrill of Blair's “vision, purpose and courage” and feel definitely uninspired with their imagination anything but fired. Here. for example, is one grumble in the Guardian of 10 March:

“I have been a member of the Labour Party for 37 years and I first wrote to Tony Blair in 1999 expressing concern at the way my party was developing and gave the arrogance of Peter Mandelson as just one example. This letter was not, and never has been, acknowledged . . .”

Traumas

Perhaps they were wondering, in Millbank, how they could possibly reply to a man who has been in the party since 1963 and is so stubbornly unresponsive to experience as to maintain his membership through the traumas of those previous Labour governments. For example Wilson and his battles with the unions . . . Callaghan and the Winter of Discontent . . . support for the war in Vietnam . . . genocide in Biafra . . . Faced with that kind of discontent, what is Blair supposed to do? Well, he carries on trying to do whatever is necessary to run British capitalism in the interests of its ruling class, which means him ignoring irate letter writers while grovelling to the likes of Murdoch. On Breakfast With Frost on 7 January he spelled it out: “it is a good thing”, he said, for Labour to accept donations from their rich supporters, he was “absolutely proud of the fact that we have got successful entrepreneurs and disaffected Conservatives . . . who support the Labour Party”. What he did not say was whether he was proud of the fact that the people who give that kind of money—or, in the case of Murdoch, give an expensive endorsement in their papers— must expect some return on their investment. It may be the Sun wot will do it but there will then be pay-off time.

Ivan

Clause Four Resurfaces (2015)

From the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we go to press, it is with the Labour Party leadership battle raging and its four contenders spouting all manner of promises to secure votes. At the forefront of this contest is the long-serving and perhaps unusually principled left wing MP, Jeremy Corbyn. For a Labour MP, he is as radical as they come and a genuine throwback to the days when Labour was considered by many in Britain to be ‘socialist’. His attack on everything Blairism has come to represent, his stance on nuclear weapons, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and many social issues, has won him much support, a lot of it from other parties on the left.

In early August came news that Corbyn was championing Labour's old Clause 4 – its supposed socialist commitment to common ownership of production, distribution and exchange. ‘Corbynmania’ kicked in almost overnight, with social media sites buzzing with news that ‘socialism’ was back on the agenda, whilst the rightwing press, big business and big Labour donors have done all in their power to discredit him and anything to do with old Labour.

Liz Kendall, another Labour leadership contender and avid Blairite said: 'Life has moved on from the old Clause 4 in 1994, let alone 2015. We are a party of the future, not a preservation society.' Big Labour donor and businessman Assem Aklam, who swelled Labour’s coffers with £300,000 in donations, said he would stop funding the party if Corbyn became leader, announcing that he would not back a 'dead horse'.

Fabianism

Nostalgic workers, who mourn the demise of Clause 4 in the 1990s, would do well to remind themselves of its authors and who they actually were – the Fabian Society – and what they actually thought about the working class. Perhaps the closest we come to a definition of the Fabians is Engels' description of them as 'a clique united only by their fear of the threatening rule of the workers and doing all in their power to avert the danger.' What danger? A danger that had been prophesised by the ILP when they wrote 'that should there be a workers' revolt in Europe, there is nothing save a narrow strip of sea between us and what would then be the theatre of a great human tragedy.'

With Engels description in mind, however, we can begin to set Clause 4 in its real context. For it was penned in November 1917, when news of the Bolshevik takeover in Russia was still making news in Britain, when there were uprisings in Germany, Hungary and Ireland, when the Bolsheviks were arguing the case of peace with Germany, when workers all over Europe were war weary and sick of the social problems the war was creating, when crime rates in Britain were spiralling and when the ruling elite were beginning to realise that the Britain the soldiers would return to would not be, as Lloyd George had promised, 'a land fit for heroes'.

The fear of insurrection amongst the ruling elite – amongst whom the Fabian Society considered themselves – was real enough. The Fabians had in fact felt such qualms for thirty years, seeing in the working class not a mass of exploited workers, impoverished workers, in whose united strength resided their own emancipation, but rather a seething mass of potential revolutionary fervour that must be contained at all costs.

In the 1890s, Beatrice Webb could expect 'no hope from these myriad of deficient minds and deformed bodies – what can we hope but brutality, madness and crime?'  Two decades later, her views had not changed, for she saw unions as nothing but 'undertrained and underbred workers'. Bernard Shaw even toyed with a solution – 'sterilisation of the masses' – an idea later to be taken up by Churchill and Hitler.

From the outset, the Fabians did not wish to abolish capitalism and thus remove themselves from their privileged positions. They wanted to reform capitalism, to soften some of its harsher effects, to make capitalism worker-friendly. They wanted peaceful, gradual change from capitalism to what Shaw was to describe as 'state socialism'.

Rejecting the Marxian view that the state was a manifestation of the domination of the capitalist class, the Fabians believed the state to be impartial, neutral, to be used by anyone who could take power. However, the idea of the workers taking control was anathema to everything they stood for.

Their idea of socialism was one in which the state was controlled by experts and professionals 'like themselves' – trained in the new social sciences. They were, it appears, technocrats, believing that the technical administration of society should take the place of party politics. They certainly did not believe that the upsurge of protest against capitalism could be led by a class-conscious majority intent on social change in their own interest.

Moreover, the Fabians did not care who took their ideas on board and even harboured the notion of selling their wares to the Conservatives and Liberals.

They were arrogant, held the workers in contempt, feared them and were more than guilty of the charge of blatant class collaboration. Neither was Clause 4 written out of a genuine sympathy or empathy with the workers and with a view to changing the existing social system. It was penned to assuage, to pacify that section of society that was beginning to nurture the idea that it was time it took matters into its own hands.

Clause 4 was penned in an attempt to persuade that section of society that posed a threat to the ruling class that their lot could be bettered if they put their faith in an elite, an intellectual vanguard, who would work on their behalf in parliament and at a time when workers elsewhere were attempting to change society themselves, even if this was proving to be without any foresight.

State capitalism

Clause 4 did not mean socialism, only ever state-run capitalism, the nationalisation of capitalist industry, which would continue to be run according to the dictates of the profit system, only by a state-appointed board, not by private capitalist firms.

The 'common ownership' clause, which would eventually be reproduced on every Labour Party membership card was nothing short of a Fabian blueprint for a more advanced, as they saw it, form of capitalism, and with its adoption the Labour Party became the foremost advocate of state action to control and humanise the operation of private enterprise – which has nothing to do with socialism, because the profit system and its myriad shortcomings still exist and workers are always subject to the worst excesses of its contradictions.

To be sure, the idea of 'socialising' the means of production and distributing wealth was by no means a new idea in 1918. The notion had been mooted by previous Labour Party conferences and, although the idea attracted a lot of support, it never appeared in the party's constitution. Whilst many a delegate regarded themselves as socialist, it was believed that such a blatant expression of 'socialism' would be a vote-loser.

This is an important point, as it shows that the Labour Party then, as now, was not so much interested in promoting ideas that threatened the hegemony of the capitalist class, but in securing the most votes. What made it possible, and indeed urgent, that the Labour Party should adopt Clause 4, without it being an electoral liability, was the radicalisation of workers brought about by war. But the time would come when Clause 4 was seen as an electoral liability.

Electoral liability

In 1955, Labour had lost 1.5 million votes compared with the 1951 election. Conservative seats rose from 319 to 345 seats and Labour's share fell from 293 to 277.  At the 1959 election, Labour lost a further 196,000 voters, whilst the Tory tally rose by 448,000. One Labour commentator, Douglas Jay, speaking of nationalisation, said: 'We are in danger of fighting under the label of a class that no longer exists.'

After the 1959 defeat, the then Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell decided there had to be some serious changes in Labour Party policy.  At a specially summoned post-election conference, previous defeats were discussed. Gaitskell declared: 'In my opinion capitalism has significantly changed, largely as a result of our own efforts and the changing character of the Labour Party. Importantly, he argued, Labour had lost votes through its identification with common ownership – Clause 4'. Conference listened quietly, but cries of derision greeted his next words: 'Standing as it does on its own, this clause cannot possibly be regarded as adequate ... it implies that the only precise object we have is nationalisation, whereas we have many other socialist objectives.'

Although Gaitskell's idea to drop Clause 4 was supported by many, including Bevan, it was quickly rejected.

Seemingly, it was Mrs Thatcher who eventually brought the question of Clause 4 back to the debating table, when she decided to privatise anything that stood still long enough to be privatised.

In 1983, the Labour Party manifesto claimed that common ownership would be expanded. The following year, the party conference passed a resolution on a show of hands that reaffirmed: 'Clause 4 Pt 4 of the Labour Party constitution is the central aim of the Labour Party,' and called for 'repossession of all parts of the public sector privatised by the Tories.'

At the 1985 conference, Roy Hattersley asked for support for a resolution on 'the need to extend social ownership and democratic planning into a significant number of key organisations, in banks, manufacturing, new technology and the service sector.' Conference obliged. It also supported a resolution which called on 'the next Labour government to return all privatised services ... and all privatised industries to public ownership, and to repeal any privatisation legislation.'

By the time of the 1987 election, though Labour pledged to take back only BT and British Gas under 'common ownership', neither company would be in line to be nationalised. Instead, existing shares would be converted into new bonds, including varieties of ‘deep bonds’, designed to be attractive to institutional shareholders. Again, at the 1987 conference, the NUM moved a resolution to renationalise all industries privatised by the Tories. The union block votes were wheeled in and the motion was lost 3,869,000 to 2,397,000 votes. Within a few short years there was a gradual acceptance of Tory ideas that would continue.

Another nail in the coffin of 'common ownership' through nationalisation was the support for increased share ownership. Bryan Gould, Labour's campaign manager in 1987 argued, in an amazing piece of Tory logic: 'The idea of owning shares is catching on and, as socialists, we should support it as one means of taking power from the hands of the few and spreading it more widely.'

Enter Tony Blair

After three successive defeats at the polls, many in the Labour Party were now intent on burying Clause 4. One thing was certain, argued new Labour leader Tony Blair – if Labour was to stand a chance of winning the next election, Clause 4 as it stood had to be ditched. Blair declared this to be his intention at Conference 1994 and the party's new Clause 4 appeared in March 1995 in time for a specially summoned conference on April 29th.

The vote was put to the membership whether Clause 4 should be reworded. Jarrow CLP became the first to vote in favour of holding on to the original Clause 4, but only three more would oppose it.  Blair's new version won the day. A discussion document – Labour's Objectives: Socialist Values in a Modern World – had been available before the vote. If Labour Party members had studied it – Clause 4 aside – many would probably have resigned in the belief that it was penned by Margaret Thatcher. The document explained that the idea of common ownership only came about because 'there was a genuine revulsion at the sheer anarchy and exploitation associated with the free market of Victorian capitalism.' The reference to 'Victorian capitalism' was a clever piece of trickery, giving the reader the idea that capitalism in the 1990s was no longer 'anarchic' and was now worker-friendly.

And what of the new Clause 4? Again we could see regurgitated the same old lie that 'The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party'...which aims to put 'power, wealth and opportunity in the hands of the many' which was something Thatcher had claimed privatisation was doing. This startling new 'socialist' objective claimed 'we work for a dynamic economy' in which ' the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and cooperation to produce the wealth the nation needs.' Little wonder the Sun could announce (of Blair) 'He speaks our language.' Little wonder that when Labour took power, Thatcher could proudly inform a gathering of the Tory faithful that Tony Blair was her 'greatest achievement'.

It was a mammoth achievement for the Tories, so much so that Labour continued to lurch further to the right year on year.

Never was socialist

For over a hundred years this journal has been arguing that Labour was never socialist. Even with Clause 4 being held up as a sign of its commitment to real change in the interest of the many, it has always been a party of capitalism and, in office, ever willing to serve as the executive arm of the capitalist class, never hesitant to use the might of the state to club the workers into submission whenever they became uppity, whether using troops to break strikes, creating the Special Patrol Group, internment in Northern Ireland or supporting and indeed initiating myriad conflicts throughout the world, from World War I, right through the Vietnam War and up to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. For over 110 years, Labour has hoodwinked the workers, and endlessly led them down the blind alley of reformism, always mindful that its real allegiance was to the master class who own and control society.

Make no mistake. A Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn would make no departure from the historical record. Its task would be primarily to try to make capitalism – a system based upon the exploitation of one class by another – work in the interests of the exploited. Labour, under Corbyn, would not really control the economy, it would control him. The historical record shows that if the dictates of capital demanded, the workers would have to be lied to, betrayed and made out to be villains of the peace and a threat to the economic interests of the country. No Labour leader to date has failed to be cast in a mould created by the capitalist class, no matter how noble their intentions.

If workers are really attracted by ideas of common ownership they would do well to realise that a party which has stood uncompromisingly and unwaveringly for real common ownership and, more, real democratic control of the earth's natural and industrial resources, is still in existence – the Socialist Party.  Moreover, you will find no aspiring leaders within the Socialist Party, slugging it out and making rash promises to the membership, only a membership of equals in which Party affairs are decided democratically by the membership.

Neither are we keen on reforming capitalism or prostituting our principles on the high altar of opportunism as Labour has been doing since its inception and will continue to do even with Corbyn as leader. We seek the abolition of capitalism and all it represents, replacing it with a system of society in which money has been abolished, class antagonism eradicated and in which each person has free access to the necessaries of life.

John Bissett

************************************************************

Clause IV of the Labour Party Constitution, as originally drafted in 1918 and subsequently amended

Objects

1. To organise and maintain in parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.

2. To cooperate with the General Council of the Trades Union Congress, or other kindred organisations, in joint political or other action in harmony with the party constitution and standing orders.

3. To give effect as far as possible to the principles from time to time approved by the party conference.

4. To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

5. Generally to promote the political, social and economic emancipation of the people, and more particularly of those who depend directly upon their own exertions by hand or by brain for the means of life.

Inter-Commonwealth

6. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in the commonwealth overseas with a view to promoting the purposes of the party, and to take common action for the promotion of a higher standard of social and economic life for the working population of the respective countries.

International (Gaitskell amendment in 1959?)

7. To cooperate with the labour and socialist organisations in other countries and to support the United Nations and its various agencies and other international organisations for the promotion of peace, the adjustment and settlement of international disputes by conciliation or judicial arbitration, the establishment and defence of human rights, and the improvement of the social and economic standards and conditions of work of the people of the world.

Now for pro-socialism (2000)

Editorial from the November 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 26 September the latest in a series of events under the banner of anti-capitalism took place. This one was in Prague, and it followed similar events over the past two years in Seattle, Washington, London, Melbourne and elsewhere. The term "event" is used loosely to cover various forms of protest. According to the UK Prague edition of People's Global Action (PGA), protests include:

Strikes - demonstrations - critical mass bike rides - carnivals - street parties - reclaiming streets, government land or office buildings - music - dancing - speeches - handing out flyers - banner hangings - distributing community-controlled newspapers - street theatre - guerrilla gardening - handing out food - mock trade fairs - offering no-interest loans outside major banks

Faced with such a multi-faceted onslaught, it might be thought that capitalism would have felt shaken to the core. In the event it turned out to be what the New Statesman of 8 May said of the London carnival: "Just a pinprick for capitalism." It could not have been otherwise. PGA describes itself as "not an organisation but aims to support and strengthen the many growing grassroots struggles across the globe." Struggles against capitalism? Well, yes, as a declared aim.

In practice, all groups like PGA are doomed to fail to achieve their stated aims because those aims are entirely negative. They say they oppose capitalism, they are going to get rid of it, but they do nothing to put something fundamentally different in its place. So they end up at best with a slightly modified version of the system they "oppose". At worst, the time and energy wasted on reforms enables those who run capitalism to brush aside, to patronise, and even laugh at the protestors.

What do the capitalist media think of anti-capitalism protests? Of course they don't like the associated violence. The protestors "besmirch the Czechs proud history of peace", complains the Daily Telegraph (27 September). The Independent (28 September) notes that the approach of the IMF and the World Bank towards the opposition has been to debate with it. The head of the IMF said that "he welcomed the protests because they have made the IMF aware of poverty". Really? It just hadn't noticed it before, was that the problem?

The reaction of the Trotskyist press to the protestors is unsurprisingly two-faced. Rightly they recognise that the forces gathered for mass action in Prague were a very mixed bag: "insurgent youth mixed anti-authoritarianism, utopianism, and idealist third-worldism with liberal, single-issue reformism . . . a default political identification for dissident youth is 'anarchism', which can mean anything from vegetarian lifestylism to syndicalist trade unionism". (1917, Journal of the International Bolshevik Tendency, September).

But in that same issue the "deformed" workers' states of China, Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea are to be defended against "imperialist aggression".

We repeat what we said in a leaflet Against Capitalism?, produced and distributed in response to the London May protests:

"For a revolution to be any good, you have to be FOR something, besides being AGAINST capitalism. Any fool can be against capitalism. Some people are just against BIG capitalism (WTO, IMF, World Bank, GATT, etc) as if somehow 'small' national capitalism is a completely different thing, and perfectly nice. It's not. They're the same . . .Capitalism is commodity production for sale on a market. Instead of that you could have co-operative production for use and free distribution on the basis of need. This would involve no markets, no money, no commodities, no private property, no rich class and poor class, no Third World and First World, no profit-led profligacy of any description, and amazingly, no ecological destruction, no famine, virtually no crime, and no war."

New World Order (2015)

Book Review from the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

'The Deluge: the Great War and the Remaking of Global Order', by Adam Tooze. Penguin £12.99

Which side won the First World War? The straightforward answer is that it was the Entente – Britain, France, etc – that prevailed over the Central Powers, mainly Germany and Austria-Hungary. But, as Tooze shows here, it was rather more complicated than that, and the true victors were the United States and, to a considerably lesser extent, Japan. We should add the kind of provision that he does not make, that it was the ruling class in these countries that really won.

The lengthy fighting, with its incredible costs in materiel and its disruption to industry and agriculture, had greatly weakened the major European powers, with even the ‘winners’ owing vast sums to the US. In 1923 the British government agreed to repay $4.6bn to the US, with interest, over 62 years. Most of the reparations paid by Germany to Britain and France in fact ended up being passed to the US.

It can be said that the real end of the war came, not with the Versailles Treaty, but with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–2; holding it in the US was itself symbolic. There Britain in effect conceded naval and hence global power to the US, Japan was allowed a Pacific fleet, and other countries were relegated to the status of minor players in terms of their navies. In 1928 a British Foreign Office memo recognised the new situation: ‘Great Britain is faced in the United States of America with a phenomenon for which there is no parallel in our modern history – a state twenty-five times as large, five times as wealthy, three times as populous, twice as ambitious, almost invulnerable, and at least our equal in prosperity, vital energy, technical equipment, and industrial science.’ Even the fact that the US did not join the League of Nations gave it a kind of veto over the decisions of the major players who were in the League.

Not that the American ruling class had it all its own way, even in its own backyard. There were widespread strikes in 1919, often opposed violently by the employers. At US Steel, twenty workers were killed before the company won a comprehensive victory in January 1920. Immigration was drastically cut, and a ‘Red Scare’ led to many non-US-born labour activists being deported. All this was, says Tooze, ‘a shock from which the American labour movement was never to recover.’

Moreover, the official end of the war by no means meant anything approaching peace. From the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 and the French invasion of the Ruhr in 1923 to the British military defence of Shanghai in 1927 and other examples, fighting and preparations for fighting continued right down to the bloodbaths of the thirties. The outcome of the Great War was not Peace without Victory, as trumpeted by US President Wilson, but Victory without Peace. 

Paul Bennett

Class warriors? (2000)

Editorial from the July 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month, new Labour's credibility plummeted to new depths as they attempted to play the so-called “class card”. By focusing on the unsuccessful application by a comprehensive school pupil to Oxford University, one cabinet minister after another were trotted out to lambast the “forces of conservatism” which apparently lay behind this country's elitist educational institutions.

The fact that the aforementioned ministers were commenting on the specifics of a particular case to which they were not privy only underlines that this was a pathetic display of populist opportunism. Coupled with the fact that it is becoming increasingly more difficult for people from poorer backgrounds to attend university, New Labour could be charged with the more serious political crimes of cant and humbug with a large dash of hypocrisy. The politics of spin seems to have finally caught up with them.

And herein lies the rub. New Labour's honeymoon is clearly over. The Conservatives are closing the opinion poll gap as was proved by the local election results and grass-roots labour supporters increasingly cry that they have been forgotten as the government have played to the needs of “middle England”.

New Labour is well aware of this. The first two to three years has been characterised by financial orthodoxy, or “prudence” as Gordon Brown refers to it (sticking to Tory spending targets, the budget surplus, the cutting of the national debt, etc) much to the delight of the City and some sections of industry. However, this has meant that new Labour conceded ground over the NHS and education.

This is why the government may start to ease off the brakes and “left turn” slightly in the run up to the general election. This is the real context of the “class card”. Already the Chancellor has begun to earmark more money for hospitals and schools as Blair and co attempt to reposition themselves towards a more traditional populist approach.

In any case, this is all very cheeky. Not so long ago, Blair told us that the class war was over (although he never announced the winner) and that we were all on the same side. Indeed, this was the theoretical basis of the “Third Way”.

The class war is not over and will continue for as long as we have capitalism. By seeking to deny the class nature of capitalism, New Labour reveal themselves as one of the deadliest enemies of the working class. Such is the contradictory nature of capitalism that even they had to admit to the continued existence of class. But be under no illusions as to which side of the class struggle they are on.

The Human Condition (2015)

From the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Human society today consists of 7.4 billion people, each needing food, shelter, clothing, travel, education, health care and entertainment. The obvious, rational way to proceed would be for us to use all of the planet’s resources and technology to produce wealth and services to meet all of those human needs. However there is one obstacle to this which must be removed first. At the present time the bulk of our world’s resources are in effect locked away from us, and withheld from such use. They are under armed guard, controlled by a tiny minority. That small fraction of the population who own and control the vast majority of productive resources have shown time and again that they only ever allow them to be used when to do so will lead to their own further enrichment and empowerment.

This year’s the Sunday Times Rich List showed that in the UK the richest thousand people, or 1 in 30,000 of the adult population, own between them £574 billion, an average of over half a billion each. Their collective wealth has more than doubled in the past ten years despite the world recession during most of this period. The important point about this is that it represents actual control of society’s resources: minerals, land, machinery, and also the vast 'army' of human labour which they purchase day after day to generate further surpluses with which to further cement their complete monopoly over vital global resources for human survival.

From where does this huge surplus keep flowing? From the constant hard work of the 99 percent without that social power. There is no other way in which useful produce and wealth can be created, other than through the joint efforts of people like ourselves. As long as this extraordinary situation continues there is no point even discussing what 'we' should do with society’s resources, as they are not yet 'ours' to discuss the use of.

Obviously the increasingly extreme concentration of wealth and social power in so few hands is not limited to the UK. Look at Forbes magazine’s international research and reports on the global situation. Despite talk of 'everyone' having suffered in the recessions of recent years, there are 1,500 billionaires around the world, whose net worth has increased in the past few years.

Access denied

Let us be under no illusion. If any individual or group of people try to access or useany of those privately held resources – whether land, factories, transport or anything else – that 1 percent have never had any hesitation in using the brutal armed force of the state or private militias to deal with such a transgression. If the broad human community try to access those resources we will be threatened with armed force. And generally speaking, that use of force is quite legitimate because in most parts of the world today the electorate has given their permission and acquiescence to this, however passively, by voicing the view that this system of property relationships is the only way in which society can be run. What is urgently needed is for that majority who give their political support to that system – or at least vote on the basis that 'this is the only possible way of running human society at the present time' – to instead develop and express the opposite view, that there is indeed a viable alternative now, and that the current social system must be ended.

The richest man in the world is no longer Bill Gates, but Carlos Slim who owns Mexican telecoms. His wealth, now at 73,000 million dollars, also vastly increased in the past year. Figures like these mean something real; they represent a huge chunk of the Earth’s resources. That is the simple reality of the social system which political parties like Labour, Conservative, Liberal, Greens, UKIP and others are asking you in effect to vote for, to give your endorsement to, to recognise as the only possible way of running human society. Their policies are all based on this lie. The truth is that it is not the only possible foundation for human society today.

A recent report from Oxfam showed that the richest 85 people in the world – just one ‘busload’ - own £1 trillion, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion people. Their researchers said it was likely wealth ownership was even more skewed, with more than £11 trillion held unrecorded and off-shore. 7 in every 10 people live in countries where inequality has increased since the 1980s.

For over 99 percent of the population, on the other hand, the largest transaction they ever enter into throughout their lifetime, if at all, is to muster all their resources to implore those with wealth to loan them a mere few hundred thousand with which they might secure their own individual housing. On what terms would Carlos Slim allow us access to, for example, even just one percent of his wealth, or 730 million dollars, so that we could start producing food, housing and other resources for those who need them? The answer is very simple: never.

This is not about jealousy or bitterness toward these people: what makes these statistics about the social elite both important and infuriating is simply that their ownership is the same fact as our poverty and inability to make rational use of the planet’s resources. Technology has advanced exponentially, but social relationships have not kept pace. We are still stuck in the model of employment – which allows capital to accumulate in the hands of a minority, supplied from the unpaid labour of the active and working, majority class.

What capitalism is

So we have to end capitalism before we can even begin to discuss the rational use of the world’s resources. What is capitalism? Contrary to the confusion peddled by politicians, it is not a tendency or an attitude, a style of life or even a political regime – it is the actual way in which society is currently organised, and it encompasses every country, every company, every government department and every individual, regardless of their activities, lifestyle or individual choices. It is not an attitude or a state of mind, it is a system – the social system which currently exists throughout the world and needs to be ended, if humanity is to flourish or even survive.

Capitalism’s key features are: class division – 1 percent or so own and control almost all productive resources whilst the rest of us work for them directly or indirectly to create further wealth – and production for profit, rather than for use. Wealth is not produced simply to be used according to human needs, instead it is produced only if and when it can be sold in a way which will generate financial surpluses or profits for those who own and control the production process.

The many problems which result directly from the existence of the capitalist system as our current way of running human society include the relative impoverishment of the great majority who do all the work – ranging from hundreds of millions literally starving, to billions more whose lives are blighted by constant struggle and stress. It also creates constant war and the threat of war as rival ruling groups and profit-takers in different parts of the world enrol the rest of us to fight their battles, to determine which of them controls which minerals, land and trade advantages.

In particular capitalism has created a crisis in the very environment itself. Climate crisis is perhaps the most pressing example of capitalism’s madness. Naomi Klein, writing in New Statesman (29 Oct 2013), cited many of the world’s most respected scientists all reaching the same conclusion, that capitalism has to be swept aside if ecological catastrophe is to be avoided: ‘It makes the ditching of that cruel system in favour of something new (and perhaps, with lots of work, better) no longer a matter of mere ideological preference but rather one of species-wide existential necessity’.

How to end capitalism

How do we go about ending capitalism? We need urgently and rapidly to build a majority who reject the entire system which exists, who see that it is no longer viable, that it can and must be replaced with a system of common ownership and democratic control of all productive resources. A majority who will no longer look to politicians or leaders but are developing the knowledge themselves to see through this huge con-trick which has evolved, the lie that capitalism equals freedom and is the only option for society.

Anyone who sets out to look at society, to debate how we should live, to campaign for change or human rights, has three blindingly simple questions which they must consider and answer before all others. What resources do we have to fulfil the task of meeting the human needs of the global population? The natural resources, land, crops, minerals; the human labour; the machinery we have built. The World Health Organisation and the United Nations have reported over and over that current resources are actually sufficient to meet the needs of several times the current world population, if properly accessed and used rather than being laid to waste whilst high enough financial profits are awaited. For example, the UN has found: 'Growth in world cereal production has steadily outstripped world population growth. Yet each year there are more people in the world who do not get enough food. Global agriculture has the potential to grow enough food for all, but food is often not available where it is needed.'

Secondly, we must ask: what prevents this from happening, then? Because ownership and control of those resources is in the hands of a tiny fraction of the world’s population. They allow those resources to be used by the rest of us only under the most strict and anti-social of conditions: if and when further production might increase their wealth and power further. The third and final question we must ask is: do we stand for the retention of that kind of regime, or for its abolition?

Revolution is not a wild idea – it is an imperative. And this is why: human needs are not being met. Billions of children, men and women are in varying degrees of deprivation, and those of us in the more developed parts of the world who work for salaries or wages continue to be exploited and to face a huge array of unnecessary problems. In order to meet human needs universally and comfortably, we need first to repossess the Earth we inhabit. To do that we must first dispossess the minority who currently own and control it. And to do that necessitates a complete revolution and the democratic use of what structures we currently have, purely to enact that. And the only groundwork we can lay for that is the education of ourselves and our fellow workers to recognise that capitalism cannot ever serve our needs, in any form. Any other political programme than this, any attempt to improve or patch up capitalism, is futile, doomed to failure, and maintains the suffering which this system continues inevitably to cause.

Clifford Slapper

Some Notes On Party History pt.2 (1954)

From the June 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the inaugural meeting the E.C. had been instructed to open a fund for the purpose of establishing a Party Press and to submit a scheme in connection with this.

At the first E.C. meeting a committee of three was appointed to consider and report on the question of a Party Organ. It is curious to recall that until a few years ago the Socialist Standard was always referred to as the "Party Organ."

The Committee eventually reported on the result of their enquiries to the E.C. meeting of the 30th July, 1904. In their report that stated that the cheapest estimate they had received was from Jacomb Bros., who quoted £7 10s. 6d. for 3,000 copies of an eight-page paper. The E.C. decided to accept this estimate, to go ahead of the money could be raised, and to find out if branches were in favour of publishing a journal without delay, and the extent to which they would be prepared to support the venture by cash guarantees from members and willingness to take quantities of the journal when issued. 

The E.C. then came to the question of title. The following five proposals were submitted: —

The Socialist News.The Socialist Standard.The Socialist Republic.The Red Flag.Socialism.

It was unanimously agreed to recommend to branches that the journal be called "Socialism."

A delegation of the E.C. visited all branches for the purpose of explaining the E.C.'s proposals with the object of raising funds to publish the paper as soon as possible.

The cash guarantees from members amounted to £4 13s. 6d.; Islington branch guaranteed to raise a further £9. The branches undertook to dispose of 1,300 copies monthly. It was then decided to issue the journal immediately. An Editorial and Management Committee of five members was appointed from the Executive Committee.

After receiving the votes of branches on the name of the paper the E.C. found that four of the names received exactly the same number of votes. They then took a vote on the four names, the result of which was that "The Socialist Standard" was decided upon.

On the 1st September the first number of the Socialist Standard came out. It contained eight pages; was four inches longer and an inch and a half wider than the present "S.S.," and had three columns to a page. Its price was one penny.

The first column on the front page contained an editorial from which we quote the following paragraph:

"In the Socialist Party of Great Britain we are all members of the working class, and cannot hope that our articles will always be finely phrased, but we shall endeavour to lay before you on every occasion a sane and sound pronouncement on all matters affecting the welfare of the working class. What we lack in refinement of style we shall make good by the depth of our insincerity and by the truth of our principles."

The paragraph that followed this contained a prophecy that, alas, has not yet come to pass.

"We shall, for the present, content ourselves with a monthly issue, but we are confident that the various demands upon us, by the quantity of matter at our disposal, and by the growth of the Party, will necessitate in the near future, a weekly issue of our paper."

At first articles were printed from non-members, but the confusion caused soon led to the decision to print only articles from members. The columns of the paper were always open, however, to opponents to express their criticism of the Party and its policy.

The printing of the paper was done by Jacomb Bros., one of whom, A. E. Jacomb, was a founder member of the Party. Some time in 1907 Jacomb Bros, ran into trouble. A. E. Jacomb had written a book on the Woman Question which did not find favour in government circles. This book was censored. The police visited the printing premises to seize unsold copies and destroy the type. In the process they "accidentally" smashed the printing machines and thereby put Jacomb Bros. out of business. However, in spite of many vicissitudes, A. E. Jacomb continued to handle the Party's printing. He had an original method of quoting. He found out what the other quotations were and quoted less! He also forgot to send in his bill promptly and used to wait months for payment. By 1921 the burden became too much for him and he had to give up.

Two years after the Socialist Standard commenced we ran into trouble—a libel action. The front page of the August 1906 number contained an article headed "Found Out." Underneath the title was a lengthy sub-title: "Labour Leaders Sell the Union Members and their Apologist Gets a Warm Reception." The article gave a report of a mass meeting at which Richard Bell, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, defended his and the Executive's action in accepting an arbitration finding in opposition to the decision of a conference of railwaymen. The Socialist Standard containing this article was sent to all branches of the Railwaymen's Union. Bell took action against the Party for libel. At first writs were issued against each member of the Executive Committee. Eventually two of the members were accepted as defendants—Anderson and Fitzgerald—both of whom were out of work at the time. The proceedings dragged along for months. At last, on July 15th, 1907, the case came up before Mr. Justice Darling. Mr. C. F. Gill, K.C., with two other barristers, acted on behalf of Richard Bell, instructed by his solicitors; Anderson and Fitzgerald conducted their own case. In summing up Mr. Justice Darling said that under the rules the Executive Committee were not bound to obey the majority of the members who were employed by the North-Eastern Railway and who voted on the question, but they had to consider the interests of the society as a whole. If the plaintiffs had not betrayed their trust they were entitled to a verdict.

What the jury thought, after hearing the case, may be gathered from the trifling nature of the damages. They found a verdict for the plaintiffs for 40s.!

The August 1907 number of the Socialist Standard contains a report of the case. Some of the statements in that report are more libellous than the original article. The front page article on the case concludes with the remarks: "This is our first libel action, but it may not be our last. We will take that risk and others that may arise."

A well-dressed man, who had listened to the case, went over to Anderson and Fitzgerald afterwards and said to them, "You did very well boys"; then he gave them a sovereign to buy themselves drinks. What actually happened was the group of members who had turned up all went to a coffee shop and spent the money on a dinner.

Gilmac. 

On the Rocks (1975)

Theatre Review from the September 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Mermaid Theatre has revived Bernard Shaw's play On the Rocks, written in 1933 and given an up-to-date ring by the present depression. It is Britain that is on the rocks, with the unemployed protesting and the Prime Minister at his wits' end. Enter an ancient left-winger who tips off the Premier about Marx, and a lady homeopath, who prescribes a rest in which he reads all Marx's works.

Act two: Prime Minister, converted, is announcing the nationalization of practicality everything thereby winning approval from financiers, landowners, police etc. and the disapproval of the working class. Defeated by a Tory-Labour alliance, he retires from politics, accepting the left-wing sage's (Shaw speaking) view that a dictator is the solution.

It is excellently performed by a capable cast; much of On the Rocks is great fun. The types — trimming Prime Minister, choleric Tory, working-class representatives fiery and intellectual and stolid — are as recognizable as the situation, and Shaw's digs and quips are highly enjoyable. Who could resist the diagnosis that the Prime Minister ails not from overwork but because his brain is unoccupied?

The trouble about it is, of course, the message. For the sake of the play, overlook the idea of Marx's economics being absorbed in a fortnight; be charitable, and let pass also the allegation that nationalization is Marxism. What Shaw argues in this play is that democracy is no good. It had led nowhere and the working class has had enough of it. What they want is to be told what to do by a strong man who not only knows the answers but has the will to enforce them.

Shaw was speaking post facto, apparently without realizing it. Mussolini and Hitler had established themselves by 1933. Shaw expressed his admiration of them; On the Rocks contends, with the voice of one who has seen everything else tried, for more of it. Their rise was for the reason given, that democracy had failed. Yet how had it failed? The European countries had had one or two generations of full or partial suffrage: during which Labour and social-democratic reformism, for which Shaw was a spokesman, had promised the earth and produced only misery. As a result, large numbers of working people thought democracy useless, and were ready to listen to the demagogues who said so.

It is Shaw's Fabianism that is shown on the rocks and waggishly saying it needs a strong man to rescue it, regardless of expense. An evening at the Mermaid can be recommended — good theatrical entertainment, and food for thought.

Robert Barltrop

Youngsters (1965)

Book Review from the April 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Generation X by Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson, Tandem Books, 3s. 6d.

The authors' avowed intention is to get young people talking about war, sex, marriage, drugs, politics in fact, everything that makes the jolly old world go round. Recent developments in mass communication mean that problems are more concentrated, more universally shared, quickly absorbed, used up and cast aside. This, say the co-authors, is the young persons' problem; the pressure of social and scientific development at the expense of biological time.

According to which random selection of this book is sampled, one could emerge with an attitude of great hope for a glorious future in the hands of an up-and-coming generation, or leave one's money to a dogs' home and hightail off to a Trappist Monastery. The authors' claim that their collective work destroys the myth of the existence of the so-called average teenager is made good.

Hamblett and Deverson interviewed characters ranging from stalwart christians to thugs so mentally sick that they see salvation as a big punch-up; a young high-class tart who aspired to marriage and children; the deb, who thought the world was fab; haters of the status quo; one dreadful youth who wanted to sponge on his parents and others for the rest of his life. (The pity is he lives in Stoke-on-Trent, and not Blegrave Square, so he will not get very far in his vocation.)

Not one of the young people interviewed seemed to be aware that teenagers having no great family liabilities, are a golden egg for the purveyors of certain forms of merchandise. They frequently expressed a fear of war, and blamed their parents for the world's mess. They did not hint that this attitude was common in the 1920s and that the youth of those times supported a second world war, and enrolled in movements like the Nazis, which would have left the maligned Edwardians aghast.

They regard their youth as a time for enjoyment, without a damn for the future, or as a personal Gethsemane before entering the adult age. The long years of wage earning are not looked forward to by the lower income groups but there is a sense of resignation, a need to find a "nice" partner later on, and settle down. This same adult world they see as false, hypocritical and unctuous. The Bomb is blamed for the sense of restlessness and indifference; way out sensations, drugs, sex and speed are candidly recognised as forms of escape from this possible doom. Is it just the Bomb or is it a vague realisation of the frustrations of working class life that awaits these young hopefuls?

All sorts of the youngsters expressed sympathy for coloured folk, and some put the opposite view with an extremity of violence. Few showed any signs that the sum total of their ideas is vastly different from their parents'. Fears of the future, contempt of past generations for their follies, a desire to adjust to new techniques unrestrained by past morality, are nothing new. Young and old have yet to learn that the way to a new society free from poverty, race-hatred, war and class antagonism is by the abolition of private property. This can only be attained by understanding the nature of the problems and the social relationships we experience, and by acting accordingly—in short by political organisation and action.

The mass of ideas expressed in Generation X spring from a support, no matter how qualified, of propertied society. When all is said and done it's much ado about nothing!

Jack Law 

Cooking the Books: Is He a Leninist? (2015)

The Cooking the Books Column from the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

On a visit to Singapore last month the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, opined: 'Europe can’t protect itself and preserve its standard of living and social structure if it has to absorb millions of Africans’ (Times, 10 August). Is this true and, if it is, what would be the implications?

Apart from betraying an obvious race prejudice (why just pick on Africans?), he seemed to be saying that if millions migrated to Europe from outside this would have a detrimental effect on living standards by driving wages down.

This assumes that the migrants actually find jobs, but no employer is going to employ them unless they produce more than their keep which can be pocketed as profit and, if migrants do this, they will be contributing to more wealth being produced. This would have some effect on the wages of the low-paid jobs they would be doing but the wages and standard of living of workers generally would be unaffected.

Also, Europe has an ageing population and so capitalism here will need millions of workers to fill the gap as older workers retire. But Hammond is a politician not an economist and his concern is not losing the xenophobic vote to UKIP.

Suppose, for a moment, that he was correct and that the standard of living in Europe did depend on keeping out people from Asia and Africa, what would that mean?

That there’s a conflict of interest between people from different parts of the world, that the people in Europe should unite to defend themselves against ‘swarms’ and ‘millions’ from outside. Which is what Oswald Mosley’s post-war Union Movement preached and what Anders Breivik raved on about. It would also mean that people in Asia and Africa should unite against the people of Europe. In short, it would be a justification – and recipe – for race war.

It would also lend some credence to the Leninist theory of imperialism, particularly in its Maoist form. To try to explain why a majority of workers in Western Europe did not rally to the Bolsheviks after they seized power in 1917 he came up with the idea that the workers in the ‘imperialist’ countries had been bribed into supporting capitalism by being given a share of the proceeds of the imperialist exploitation of the rest of the world. Mao took this a stage further by changing the slogan at the end of the Communist Manifesto to ‘Oppressed peoples of the world, unite’.

Which also implies a conflict of interest between workers in different parts of the world.

This theory was wrong. Workers in the developed capitalist countries got (and get) paid higher wages because the value of their labour-power was higher than that of workers in the other parts of the world. In fact because their productivity was higher too they were robbed of a higher proportion of what they produced, even though workers in less developed countries suffered (suffer) much lower wages and much worse conditions of employment.

So, is Hammond a Leninist? Not really, as he’s not saying that the standard of living of people in Europe depends on exploiting people in Asia and Africa, though his view could be interpreted as implying that employers in Europe are paying workers a higher wage than they would otherwise have to. But no, he is just a racist, and judging by his singling out of Africans not even a pretend one out to steal UKIP votes.

Tabloid justice (2000)

Editorial from the September 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard

UK Civilisation, 2000—An ugly, wretched mob spews its anger towards the waiting cameras: “HANG PAEDOPHILES” say their scrawled banners. They scream for vengeance and teach their kids to cry out for the bogey men to be driven from their houses and then hanged.

Meanwhile, the putrid News of the World, where scantily-clad teenagers are paid to get 'em off for Murdoch's semi-literate customers, runs a campaign to Name and Shame sex offenders. The President of the US, who exploited the pathetic loyalty of an intern young enough to be his daughter and then lied about it for a year, is not mentioned. Neither is the dinosaur Pope who bullies his followers into fearing birth control and runs an organisation which requires young men and women to live as sexually repressed priests and nuns. Named and shamed are sick people who will be driven by the publicity to pursue their perverse sexual desires in shadowy secrecy.

The aim of the terror tactics against alleged sex offenders (several of whom have proved to be quite innocent of any crimes or even allegations) is to drive them away. It is a remedy with all the sensitivity of a pogrom. The truth is that anti-social behaviour cannot simply be cast out or exorcised, but will only disappear when its cause is treated. So, let's look at causes.

The overwhelming majority of cases of sexual abuse occur inside families, where children fall victim to more powerful relatives from whom they cannot easily escape. Very few offences are committed by strangers.

Most convicted sexual abusers were themselves abused as children. They are continuing a pattern of abuse and unless the cycle is broken this can carry on through several generations.

The kind of therapy needed to treat sex abusers is very expensive. It is cheaper to either leave such problems unattended or to lock offenders up in special wings of prisons. As ever under capitalism, money is the issue. It costs far less to spread scare stories about wicked men in dirty macs than to start the patient process of helping offenders to see their sexuality differently.

Money stands in the way of a proper response to sex offences. And it is the direct cause of other kinds of abuse of children. What about kids who have to work ten or twelve hours a day in Third World sweat shops producing cheap imports for multinational companies? What about kids who are forced on to the streets of Bangkok and many other cities to provide purchasable sex for visiting businessmen? What about kids who are pushed into armies and slaughtered for someone else's profits? What about kids who are allowed to perish for lack of food—millions of them every year—while food is dumped into the sea to preserve profit levels? When will the News of the World name and shame those responsible for such disgusting crimes against children? A conspicuous silence from the Murdoch lie factory is drowned out by its self-righteous shrieking in favour of vigilante justice.

Anarchist advocates of spontaneous "people's justice" should watch the scenes of recent weeks and recognise the danger of uneducated mobs trying to sort out the problems of capitalism. The people involved in these sordid protests are running on frustration and aggression fuelled by poverty and tabloid bigotry. Only an educated working class can solve its own problems, not chanting rednecks with a taste for vengeance.

Obituary: Nancy Kersley (1978)

Obituary from the August 1978 issue of the Socialist Standard

Old members will be sorry to hear of the death of Nancy Kersley, on June 19th, about two months before her 90th birthday. Although her activity was of a different kind from that of her late husband Ted, she was, in her quiet and unassuming way, deeply attached to the Party and its work. Comrades who knew them will remember how hospitable their home was, and how readily they were welcomed, with something, more often than not, to eat and drink. Her roots were in the working-class movement. Her father and her grandfather, going back to Chartist days, had both been active. Before the first world war she employed in the clothing trade, and, while still in her teens, became a Trade Union organiser. Nancy had been crippled for some time with arthritis — though no-one could have borne it with less complaint or more cheerfully — but her sight and hearing remained excellent, and her mental powers were unimpaired. Only a week before her death she was discussing an article in the Socialist Standard, every issue of which she looked forward to and read. Shortly before she died she said — uncharacteristically — that she felt very tired; a few days later the end came quite peacefully and without pain.

CD

Action Replay: From Ashes to Ashes (2015)

The Action Replay Column from the September 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first Australian cricket team to tour England was in 1868. It was made up entirely of Aborigines selected from western Victoria and coached by Tom Willis (the founder of Australian football).

The colonial view was that involving the indigenous population in sports created a kind of imperial glue that wedded the natives to their new British identity.

Despite an onerous schedule, and having no history in the game and playing in a foreign culture, the team managed 14 wins, 14 losses and 19 draws.

The Ashes originates later, from a satirical obituary published in a British newspaper, The Sporting Times, immediately after a White Australian team’s victory at the Oval in 1882.

The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and ‘the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.’ The mythical ashes immediately became associated with the 1882–83 series played in Australia, before which the English captain Ivo Bligh had vowed to ‘regain those ashes.’ The English press dubbed the tour ‘the quest to regain the Ashes.’

It has stuck ever since. In winning the fourth test at Trent Bridge by an innings and 78 runs at the beginning of August, England regained the Ashes from a below par Australian side. The standout moment of the whole series was the dismissal there of the Aussies in the first innings for a paltry 60 runs with Stuart Broad taking 8 wickets for 15 runs. The Australian fans were shell shocked into silence while the English supporters were ecstatic.

This was regarded as a national disaster in Australia where support for the national cricket team has become a glue to wed the population to their new postcolonial identity. The Australian captain, Michael Clarke, had to fall on his sword, like the leader of a political party which loses an election. Which is appropriate since the job of captaining the Australian cricket team is commonly regarded down under as more important than that of the Prime Minister of Australia.

Nowadays few Aborigines play cricket. Rugby and Aussie Rules football are more popular.

Kevin.