Nature as Ideology (2016)

From the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

As humanity’s relationship with nature has changed so has the meaning of the concept.

Now that the reactionary ideology of Christianity has been banished to the history books most of us believe that our origin as a species was in nature. It is very ironic, then, that in some ways nature has replaced religion in its use as an ideological component within the values of those who oppose human progress.

The worshipers at this altar look to nature as a realm of unchanging certainty and romance. It is conceived as an entity that transcends human culture; a bastion of reality where human, as well as every other nature, is frozen forever in an ideological dogma of despair. The Green movement see a return to Mother Earth as their saviour and the right wing revel in their concept of nature as an exterminator of weakness and compassion. How often is the metaphor of animal behaviour used to illustrate their contempt for the human struggle for reason and social justice? Perhaps a brief historical survey can illustrate how the concept of nature has been used to confront and deny cultural progress.

Unchanging

‘The Romantic Movement’ can be understood as a reaction to the realities of France’s bourgeois revolution of 1789/1793, which many believed to be the product of Europe’s ‘Enlightenment’ and its belief in reason as humanity’s guiding principle. This antithetical ideology centred on the emotions and the sublime within the natural world. Nature was conceived of as transcending human reason and the culture it had produced. It was also used as a metaphor for the passions, which represented nature within humanity. It is still retained by many as the principle of life that transcends the creations of technology and the social institutions, including politics, of cultural evolution. Despite this assertion, or more probably because of it, nature has become a continuing motif of ideology; from nationalism to fascism, liberalism to environmentalism and from human rights to animal rights. It is, therefore, not surprising that these ideals appeal mainly to the emotions and not the intellect.

Rather than transcending politics nature has, ironically, become one of the main ideological ideas within both right and left wing propaganda. The transformation of the ideologies of the free market and the nation state into the natural ‘deities’ of the liberals and fascists respectively, evolved from the same romantic emotional approach to politics. Both point to ‘human nature’ as the origin of their values; individualism for liberals and collectivism for fascists. What unites both these ‘wings’ of reactionary ideology is their disbelief in, and fear of, social change.

Once an ideology is identified with nature it, much the same as religion, becomes fossilised and unchanging. The owners of wealth and power in this capitalistic culture of ours obviously prefer an ideology that seeks to deny the concept of profound social change. It is therefore unsurprising that their media continues to relentlessly pump out this kind of propaganda. Let us take a rest from their sound track to our lives and consider another version of what it is to be human:

Being human

The first hominids made their appearance about 3 million years ago. The subsequent success of the naked ape has led some to claim that Homo sapiens is now the dominant species on the planet. This is contestable in the light of the innumerable viruses and insects but it would be illogical to deny our impact on the world for good and ill. Many have conjectured that it is our long learning childhood that gives us the ability to override any ‘natural instincts’ and so adapt quickly which is responsible for this success. Other creatures possess nominal cultural characteristics (occasional tool making, language etc.) but none have become as completely dependent on their technological creations as has our species. This technological development changed not just our environment but it transformed our humanity. In doing so it also gave us the capacity to understand how and why it was doing so both culturally and politically.

Political consciousness (towards socialism) is a direct consequence of social relationships inherent within the mode of production which is itself contingent upon technological evolution. That this (capitalist) mode of production creates alienation between the producers of wealth and what they produce can be seen as a reason for the ‘nostalgia’ of a ‘return to nature’ which is exemplified by the ideologies referred to earlier. But it is not technology itself that is the cause of so much suffering and despair but the use to which it is put – production for profit and capital accumulation.

Of recent times this old debate has been transformed by global warming and its probable dire results on the environment that even the capitalist class will not be able to escape. As long as pollution was only exterminating other species and those who lived in the ‘third world’, few ‘first world’ intellectuals were very interested. We now have two camps, both fiercely committed to their respective positions, one of which promotes the ideology of global catastrophe and the other who sees it merely as a liberal conspiracy with which to criticise some aspects of the market system.

Positive Development

That the ‘natural’ status of consumer capitalism is now under general debate can only be a positive development from a socialist point of view. Even without this catastrophic ‘sword of Damocles’ hanging over the world, socialists were - and still are - just as concerned about the impact everyday pollution is having on our environment. What we do not invest in, ideologically, is the moral superiority so manifest by the liberal participants in this debate because we know that any variation of capitalism would not, and could not, prevent global warming. In what is surely an expression of a most staggeringly complacent smugness some claim to be delighted that the planet is somehow ‘fighting back’ and that without the ‘plague’ of mankind it will return to some ‘natural’ balance. You can be sure that when these people’s houses are under threat from forest fires or flooding that their voices will be the loudest and shrillest in apportioning blame and calling for help.

Whenever ‘nature’ is used as a concept in debate you can be sure that there lurks beneath it a reactionary ideology (of either left or right). Socialists use the concept neither to support genetic determinism (unchanging human nature) nor in terms of a rose tinted romantic return to a utopian paradise. To be human is, primarily, to produce; to transform nature socially. That this can be done without the waste and pollution of capitalism is central to our cause.

A friend said recently that his boss had gone to China to clinch a deal for the manufacture of new computer hardware that they had developed. When I asked if his boss would concern himself with the working conditions and possible levels of pollution when making his decision my friend turned to me with a look of surprise at my seeming naivety, saying: ‘Oh no, he just wants to confirm the lowest price of production’. Then upon anticipating my next question he said: ‘If we didn’t compete by getting the lowest price for labour we would go bankrupt quickly.’ So there we have it, without ideological bias, a bald statement of the reality that without pollution there could be no capitalism and vice-versa. 

Wez.

Chess and Politics (1950)

From the December 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

One can find connections between almost any kind of sport or game and politics. Sometimes these things have profound international repercussions, as for example the “body line bowling” episode of the professional cricketers some years ago which nearly led to the breaking off of diplomatic relations between England and Australia.

Chess has been the game that has been played by revolutionists of various kinds for a century, and its enthusiasts claim it as the only really international game.

Many of the earlier Socialists were chess players; sometimes their chess was better than their Socialism. Marx played chess, and so did Engels. William Liebknecht was quite an accomplished player, and so frequently did he beat Marx, that the latter lost much interest in the game. Lenin, Trotsky, and their circle were all keen chess players and Lenin was constantly warning the Bolsheviks of his early days not to take too much interest in chess, as the revolution was “round the corner.”

A century ago the English and French aristocrats were the world’s best chess players, producing many brilliant masters; then the centre of the arena changed to America and Germany. Those who were able to devote the thousands of hours of study to the game that it needed were, needless to say, men of the leisured class.

When chess drifted to Russia it found many active participants in the Russian upper-class circles. When the first World War broke out, there was a masters’ tournament actually in progress at Mannheim. The participants (mostly Russians) were all interned for four years with nothing else to do than play chess till the war finished.

Meanwhile Soviet Russia has developed its chess talent, and given State support to chess in a way unheard of before. Enormous halls are used for tournaments with their walls covered by gigantic chess boards for recording the moves of the master games in progress. Chess players sit for hours and listen to a medley of Soviet propaganda mixed with chess. Chess talks are broadcast with all the enthusiasm of our football commentaries.

In the past chess could never command a “gate” and all efforts to commercialise it were frustrated; but Russia has not only commercialised it, but made chess a vehicle for political propaganda.

Four years ago a team of Russian players visited London and played in Holborn Town Hall. As soon as play was over each day, the Russian masters were quickly bundled into a number of gigantic Daimler cars (probably belonging to the Embassy), and hurried off without the possibility of anyone being able to have a word to say to them. Accepting the many invitations from chess clubs and private players who wanted an opportunity of making friends with them, was out of the question. The Russians were shepherded in and out very much like prisoners who were permitted to have a day off to go straight to church, and then immediately it was over, to return to their cells.

Now that Germany is divided into two zones, players in Eastern Germany are not permitted to visit players in the Western zone (in case they don’t come back—once a chess player’s moved, he’s moved, is the rule in chess). Consequently Western Germans visit the Soviet zone, after a nightmare of pass controls and form filling. But before play can start they are treated to lengthy speeches on freedom, peace, and the abolition of the atomic bomb. Before they depart they are pressed to sign numerous peace pledges against the aggressions of American Imperialism.

In recent numbers of “Schach Express,” a chess magazine published in the Soviet zone of Berlin, we find reports of speeches made by Stalin and his German comrades against the use of the atomic bomb. In “Schach Express” (August. 1950) the Editorial is headed “Chess masters outlaw the atomic bomb.” The June issue contains several pages of reports of mass political demonstrations with pictures of marching youths with flags and banners—all demonstrating against the atomic bomb. The main article is headed “German youths support the Front of Fighters of Peace.” In a tournament book, “Sommerda Thuringer 1950” pictures show famous chess players queueing up to sign protests against war, or declarations of freedom, and is headed “Chess players fight for peace.” On another page the main political article (of this chess book) concludes with slogans in extra large type:

“ Sportsmen; you are not cannon fodder for the Imperialists but fighters for democratic unity and the national independence of Germany.”

In the “nineteen-twenties” Cuba commercialised chess in a peculiar way by making Capablanca (then world champion) “Ambassador Extraordinaire”! If there was an international chess tournament in Moscow or Mexico; or Cape Town or Camden Town, he was sent along by the Government to look after the interests of Cuban nationals who might need him. It is reputed that he was paid £10,000 a year for this, and is probably the only one who has ever made any real money out of chess. The Cuban Government sponsored it to put them "on the map”!

While on this subject the question is always being asked—does chess develop one’s brains? If so it might have a therapeutic value, for those who are deficient in this highly prized quality. In reply to this question which the writer once asked Capablanca, the latter replied, "Most certainly, playing chess develops one’s brains for playing chess.” We therefore doubt if it could be used for developing the "latent brains” of the working class, so that they might more readily understand the social factors which are responsible for the continued existence of Capitalism.

H. Jarvis

Capitalism Means Conflict (1997)

Editorial from the September 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Despite the genuine euphoria over the peace processes in the Middle East and Northern Ireland in recent years the killing continues and the conflicts remain. Socialists have always maintained that the idea of a peaceful capitalism can never amount to much more than a hollow promise and little that has happened since the Downing Street Declaration or the Oslo Accords of 1993 has changed this fundamental truth.

Behind all their talk about peaceful negotiations and settlements nobody should be fooled about the real characteristics of organisations like the IRA or PLO. These terrorist groups who have waged merciless war on the working class will stop at little or nothing to achieve their aims—the creation of new nation-states with themselves at the helm.

In the Middle East, the PLO and other Arab nationalist groups have been severely weakened since the break-up of the Soviet Union (their major benefactor). With the parallel re-emergence of Israeli "hawks’' in Tel Aviv this has contributed to the break-down of the Oslo settlement when Israel ceded some powers to Palestine in the occupied territories in the "land-for-peacc” deal. In turn, this has fuelled the development of more militant Islamic groups like Hezbollah and Hamas whose predilection for using violence to achieve their ends—as in July's brutal bombing in Jerusalem—has even eclipsed that of the PLO itself, now for the moment posing as a "respectable" organisation dedicated to peace and democracy.

The situation in Northern Ireland is not dissimilar.The ending of the IRA ceasefire in February 1996 occurred because the peace process was going nowhere. As in the Middle East, the antagonists have aims which are mutually exclusive and almost every pose they strike is a tactical (rather than principled) one. If this is doubted does anyone, for instance, really believe that the IRA bombers and Loyalist gunmen are going to throw in the political towel without any progress towards achieving their wholly divergent aims? And, for that matter, just as the PLO's financial crisis focused its attempts to achieve some breathing space for itself, does anybody seriously think that the restoration of the IRA ceasefire and Clinton's decision to allow open Sinn Fein fund-raising in the US are not linked?

"Fudge” or compromise deals in Northern Ireland, just like in the Israel/Palestine situation, are only able to provide such momentary breathing space for the antagonists or else possibly “buy off” one or both side’s leaders in an attempt to mobilise them behind constitutional politics and capitalist democracy. When this happens—again like in the Middle East—it only serves to increase the power and significance of those even more hardline groups who openly deride constitutional politics.

It is for this reason among others that such “peace processes” usually emerge as the basis for future conflict (as peace settlements invariably have in capitalist history). Peace in Ireland and the Middle East is not impossible, but so long as capitalism remains, with its divisions, aggression and competition over artificially scarce resources, then nationalism and its bedfellow of international terrorism will not be far behind any peace deal. Socialists can therefore say without any hesitation that there can be only one way to achieve lasting peace across this planet and that means an organised retreat from nationalism in all its forms and an escalation of the struggle for global working class emancipation.

A Glastonbury Tale (1997)

Party News from the August 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Camping is not really meant to be enjoyable, but rather more like horror films, a sort of cathartic process from which you only really derive benefit at the end. Camping explains why you work the rest of the year to keep a bloody roof over your head. It’s to remind you of what it was really like to live in an Iron Age village and thank god you don't have to. It's the townie’s quick fix, paganism for a weekend, nature-loving all the way to Monday. And it enables every camper to think themselves rugged and outdoorsy, before returning to the ruddy indoors again. And during this ritual self-denial the last thing you expect to do is argue politics.

Glastonbury in a sea of mud is a funny place to be putting the socialist case. For one thing, everyone looks stoned on something, even the coppers. No-one has slept or washed in days and the toilets hum louder than the stage PA system. The myriad colourful stalls are selling, selling, selling at a furious rate while the punters are drinking, drinking, being sick and drinking at no less a pace. But over in the "Green Fields" a different, more sober air obtains. There is a healing field, for the "cosmic" set, and a Green Futures field for the more down-to-earth groups with ecologically-oriented proposals to make about the future, or else nostalgia-oriented proposals dredged up out of the past.

In this latter camp we find the Green Anarchists. Clearly a camping enthusiast, their representative informs us that they are opposed to all modern technology and factory production methods, and looks forward to a society of small self-sufficient farming groups whose every article is handmade by the community. This is interesting, for we note that the gentleman is wearing not only machine-made clothing from head-to-toe. but also spectacles. To the suggestion that he is condemning himself to a life of walking around bollock-naked and banging into trees he is impervious, and responds that he hopes to rely on his friends to guide him from place-to-place. Later they eat baked beans for tea. out of a tin. Using a machine-made tin-opener, naturally.

Another stall reminds us that This Land is Our Land, as in the Woody Guthrie song, but turns out to be a co-op land-reform venture whose most rebellious suggestion appears to be that you hire a good solicitor when buying your acreage. There are lifestylists galore in this most hip of hippy nests, and many too hip to have an opinion.

But not a sign of the Leninists, or the left in general. This inexplicable delight is due apparently to the anarchist leanings of the organisers, who have little sympathy for the authoritarian and leadership ideas which are an almost universal feature of such groups.

Over four days people stream past our stall, and turn, caught in the eddies of others who have stopped at a signboard, paused to write graffiti on our blackboard. We might have fifteen or twenty people in front of the stall, talking, arguing, swapping jokes or experiences, some puzzled and some intrigued by what they seem to see as a controversial statement. Abolish the money and property system? Think what you like, but no-one else is doing or saying that, either in this field or any other. What does it mean? Is it barter-systems they're after? Surely not. but what then? How would it work? What about lazy people? What about the rich? It can’t be serious.They can’t be for real.

And yet we were there, with a site at the biggest party in the world. They had to take us seriously, and many of them were smiling as they talked, and many were nodding agreement. We may have stood there with wet feet at times, craving the home comforts, but the conversations we had were heart-warming, and that gave us comfort aplenty.

Someone said in a tent: Just imagine if these 150.000 people decided they wanted to stay here for ever, well, they could do it, couldn't they? People smiled. We are suggesting something similar, but on a larger scale. Festivals may be a form of escapism, but sometimes when people escape it is when they are able to look around themselves and see a little further than usual. And when that happens, some funny ideas are bound to come out. We were lucky to be there. We made an impact. And this is just the beginning.

P. J. Shannon

IS ART THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE? (1980)

Book Review from the December 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Art, An Enemy of the People by Roger L. Taylor (Harvester Press 1978)

Last month the professors of fantasy returned to their State-funded studies in universities throughout the country. The scholars of literature and art; the men and women whose wisdom is based upon an intimate awareness of the motives of non-existent characters in unimportant novels, poems and plays. One’s reputation is based upon a detailed understanding of paintings that have no meaning to the ordinary person; another is respected for his analysis of an ancient Icelandic epic poem; yet another has written the definitive work on the meaning of the pauses in Pinter’s plays.

What have these “experts” got to offer the majority of people? Very little indeed. Literary scholarship and appreciation under capitalism has always been the preserve of an élite. Those who have no compulsion to enter the process of producing wealth spend their time engaging in superior social pursuits which they choose to call Art. The working class is generally excluded from artistic fulfilment because we lack the time, money, education and experience. The ruling class control social culture by owning the production of Art—and by controlling social culture they do much to maintain the workers in a position of political ignorance.

In an age when the mass of humanity commonly faces so many socially produced evils can we afford to divert our mental energies towards such considerations as currently dominate the world of artistic scholarship? In a badly written, but interestingly argued, book called Art, An Enemy Of The People (published in the Harvester Philosophy Now series), Roger L. Taylor has argued that the function of art is one of class domination and aesthetic scholars are responsible for illusions about art which give ordinary people an unjustified sense of inferiority. The book costs £3.50 and should be compulsory reading for trainee editors; if you make your way through the muddled exposition you will find much that is worth considering:

The bourgeoisie as a whole is not fulfilled by Capitalist society. The growth of applied science, the increase in mechanisation, the objective of production being the accumulation of profits, the fragmentation and dehumanising aspects of the production process . . .  all add up, within the bourgeoisie itself, to an impulse to deny, escape from, or compensate for the economic base upon which bourgeois, material security is dependent . . . the social need to make something out of the “cultural life” is not some mythical quality of human-ness expressing itself in the midst of bourgeois dehumanisation, but rather the expression of culturally conditioned expectations. Art, as we know it now, is the result of these various processes working themselves out (pp. 46-7).

You will also find much that is confused and confusing:

In the Third World Marxism is a number of things. It is terrorism, bombs, sporadic violence, guerrilla warfare, as well as being infiltration by the larger Communist powers, involving, as it does, things like liaisons between local capitalists and Moscow so as to expel the influence of American capital. Marxism is, also, and this is the main thing that it is, the history of the various societies referred to as Communist both by themselves and by Western, capitalist societies. The reality of Marxism in the modern world is, then, many sided.

The nonsense which finds its way into Taylor’s book need not prevent us from answering the question which the book seriously poses: Is Art an enemy of the people or can we envisage a society in which art will perform a healthy function for the majority of people?

Taylor says that art can only flourish where human existence is not socially harmonious. This view can be compared with William Morris’s contention that true art can only exist when it is social, and that socialism

. . . will give an opportunity for the new birth of art, which is now being crushed to death by the moneybags of competitive commerce (Art, Labour and Socialism).

Taylor certainly has a point if he is saying that the study of, and participation in, social art on the part of members of the working class is likely to inhibit political consciousness. By fantasising about unreal characters in unreal situations workers are less likely to perceive genuine social contradictions. When you are at school it is considered “cultured” and “classy” to talk at length about the rather dull plays of the sixteenth century court lackey, Shakespeare; to talk at length about Z Cars is considered “uncultured”; to talk about why the majority of kids don’t have enough money to spend is not only “uncultured” but “ill-mannered”. Anyone who has been to the theatre will have witnessed crowds of usually well-paid workers (those who imagine themselves to be middle class) talking in phoney accents about matters of characterisation and plot that are of no consequence to anybody. Can we afford to be complacent that, people’s minds are so diverted in a society which is so in need of change? The plays that they are watching and discussing usually have little social significance. We are entitled to criticise those who make such effort to blend in with the culture of capitalism for not using their energies to a more positive end. Taylor is probably right that the illusions, fantasies, prejudices and pretentiousness of Art is an enemy of the mass of the people in capitalist society. This reviewer takes with much seriousness Taylor’s advice that “Art is a value the masses should resist, not just ignore” (p. 155).

But Taylor’s arguments become unstuck when he claims that art will have no role when the ruling class no longer exists. Taylor’s failure to understand the need for socialised art must result from the fact that he clearly understands little about social history and less about socialism. The socialist, William Morris — whom Taylor strangely does not refer to in his book — did understand the meaning of socialism and thus recognised that in socialist society creative labour would be the highest form of art. When all members of society own and control the means of producing art there will be a synthesis of social productive activity and art which presently stand in antithesis to one another.

It is because Taylor fails to see the possibility of such a synthesis — a failure shared by all non-socialist critics of capitalist culture — that he cannot understand that art, like all other social features, is subject to historical development. The weakness of Morris is that he too occasionally succumbed to a romanticised perception of culture which led him to believe that true art, arising from a socialised environment, could be found in pre-capitalist forms of property society.

The only relevant role for art in modern capitalism is as the voice of social revolutionaries. Considerations of art in separation from the historical study of society is what professional literary scholars exist for. They have no ideas to offer to society which are relevant beyond the works of art that they spend their time studying; the class war rarely intrudes into the lives of the fictional “characters” with whom they are concerned just as the majority of the world’s population rarely intrudes into the exclusive confines in which they dwell. Masters of the values of fantasy, they are blind to the objective laws of society: are we too bold to predict that such “scholarship” will one day be behind us?

Steve Coleman

Miracles Made to Order (2016)

The Halo Halo! column from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Second miracle puts Mother Teresa on path to sainthood’ said the article in the Guardian (18 December). Well, that was lucky wasn’t it? They’ve been keeping their fingers crossed hoping for that second miracle, needed for her to become a saint, ever since she died and the first one took place.

But she did have a few critics. The article noted that a 2013 report carried out by researchers at the Universities of Montreal and Ottawa criticised her ‘rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce’. It also noted that ‘the vast majority of patients who visited Mother Teresa’s mission for the dying had hoped to find doctors to treat them, but instead found unhygienic conditions, a shortage of care and no painkillers’.

So what did these miracles entail? Well, the Vatican isn’t giving too many details of the second one. All they’re telling us is that an unnamed Brazilian man was unexpectedly cured from brain tumours after his priest prayed for Mother Teresa’s intervention with God. And they surely wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, would they?

We do have a few more details of the first miracle, although the late journalist Christopher Hitchens, who looked into it, was not entirely convinced. ‘A Bengali woman named Monica Besra claims that a beam of light emerged from a picture of Mother Teresa, which she happened to have in her home, and relieved her of a cancerous tumour. Her physician, Dr Ranjan Mustafi, says that she didn’t have a cancerous tumour in the first place and that the tubercular cyst she did have was cured by a course of prescription medicine’, he wrote in 2003.

‘Surely any respectable Catholic cringes with shame at the obviousness of the fakery’ he added.

What, then, are the requirements of a genuine, kosher, Catholic approved miracle? Fortunately we can consult the online Catholic Encyclopedia for an explanation of such arcane theological matters.

‘In analysing the difference between the extraordinary character of the miracle and the ordinary course of nature, the Fathers of the Church and theologians employ the terms above, contrary to,and outside nature’ they inform us. ‘Every miracle is not of necessity contrary to nature for there are miracles above or outside nature’. And they helpfully point out ‘The term contrary to nature does not mean ‘unnatural’ in the sense of producing discord and confusion. The forces of nature differ in power and are in constant interaction. This produces interferences and counteractions of forces’.

Well, they can’t be accused of trying to baffle us with science. You couldn’t imagine a more unscientific load of claptrap. This is like being baffled with pure, unadulterated bullshit.

Cicero, the ancient Roman lawyer who had looked into this hogwash, even before Christianity came along, explained it much more simply – ‘There are no miracles. What was incapable of happening never happened, and what was capable of happening is not a miracle’.

NW

Malthus, Ricardo & Marx (1972)

Book Reviews from the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, by Ricardo with introduction by R. M. Hartwell. 40p.

An Essay on The Principles of Population, by Malthus with introduction by Antony Flew. 36p.

The introductions to both these books claim that there has been a revival of interest in these early works. Both of them quote Keynes, but from opposite points of view. Flew quotes Keynes’ observation that the “almost total obliteration of Malthus’ line of approach and the complete domination of Ricardo’s for a period of a hundred years has been a disaster to the progress of economics”, while Hartwell points out that Keynes was writing against the background of the heavy unemployment of the nineteen thirties, and that since then economists have become increasingly interested in problems of “growth analysis” and this has led to a revival of interest in Ricardo’s analysis and especially in his attempt “to integrate the theory of distribution into a model of long-term change”.

So the wheel has turned a full cycle, and Ricardo’s stocks are high once again, and comment on his work frequent and complimentary.

So the conflict between Malthus and Ricardo in their lifetime is to be fought all over again by their respective backers.

Marx made many criticisms of Ricardo but regarded him (and Adam Smith) as the best exponents of "classical economy”. In particular Marx showed the inadequacy of Ricardo’s treatment of value and surplus value. On the theory of value Ricardo got into a dead end through failure to distinguish between labour and labour power. Engels summarised this in his introduction to Capital Volume II. (This and earlier formulations of a theory of value were dealt with in the Socialist Standard July 1934).

Marx and Engels were much less impressed by Malthus—Flew calls their reaction “apoplectic” (A very useful collection of their views will be found in R. L. Meek’s Marx and Engels on Malthus) Flew attacks Meek on the ground that he “speaks throughout in his Moscow’s Voice”. The criticism is valid to this extent, that Meek treats state-capitalist Russia as if it were socialist and argues that what Marx wrote about the laws of population under capitalism do not apply there.

Flew’s attack on Meek and Russia as if he were attacking Marx and Engels is therefore misdirected. Meek quotes the letter Engels wrote to Kautsky in 1881 about possible population problems in a socialist society, which contained the following:

There is, of course, the abstract possibility that the number of people will become so great that limits will have to be set to their increase. But if at some stage communist society finds itself obliged to regulate the production of human beings, just as it has already come to regulate the production of things, it will be precisely this society, and this society alone, which can carry this out without difficulty. It does not seem to me that it would be at all difficult in such a society to achieve by planning a result which has already been produced spontaneously, without planning, in France and lower Austria. At any rate, it is for the people in the communist society themselves to decide whether, when, and how this is to be done, and what means they wish to employ for the purpose. I do not feel called upon to make proposals or give them advice about it. These people in any case, will surely not be any less intelligent than we are.

It should be noted in the reproduction of Ricardo that in Hartwell’s introduction Professor Cannan and Professor Wicksteed are repeatedly referred to as Cannon and Wickstead. 

Edgar Hardcastle

The Party in Wales (1964)

From the September 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The story of political and industrial activity in South Wales is bound up with the twin products of iron and coal on which, until quite recently, practically the whole population depended. Hence the pattern of life has revolved around, and reflected, these two industries.

Although iron-smelting came first, it was largely conducted in small, isolated pockets. The advent of the Steam Age and the coming of the steamship and the railways gave a terrific impetus to coal-mining. The coalfields became the battleground and graveyard for future generations of the working class. As the army of proletarians marched in, and the verdant green of the Rhondda began to bleed with the wounds of countless coal drifts, a new epoch commenced. It set the stage for the novelist , playwright, and poet; an eloquent élite who dramatized to the world the lot of the S. Wales miner. Time, and the harsh reality of expanding capitalism, was to weld this army into one of common suffering-battalions with “immediate demands,” but with no knowledge of the only course which could end their problems.

And so these workers, who figuratively still carried the clay of their peasant ancestry on their boots, argued, pleaded— and fought—for elementary existence. With passionate doggedness they built their chapels and trade union lodges. Just as they discussed theology and poetry in the one, so they wrestled with politics and economics in the other. The vision of the ‘‘Sweet By and By” was an exciting prospect.

In those early “Frontier Days" charlatanism and sincerity jostled each other in the valleys teeming with a population density higher than anywhere else in the British Isles. Marxism vied with Methodism, hymns were sung at the coalface, and Darwinism was studied by the light of midnight oil. Christ and The Miners' Charter stalked the narrow townships. Even today, men talk of the Red Rhondda. “Not a penny off the pay. Not a minute on the day” floated out on the lodge banners—and men were locked out, speeded up and sacked. “Our Jimmy” became champion of the world —and workers lined up for bread and marg. Great novels and hymns were written, choirs sung on the lawns of Royalty and in the homes of the rich up and down the land—and women wailed in unison at the pitheads for their entombed men-folk.

Such conditions provided well-fertilized soil for the growth of leaders—not your college-bred variety either (not at first, anyhow), though later on the little railways stations that stretched like beads on a string along the valley bottoms were choked with the “Singing Welsh”— “Sending our boy off to the London Labour College.” “Then watch out! ” They were a motley crowd, these leaders and would-be leaders. Some were confessed Atheists, like Aneurin Bevan, whilst others were the respectable, God-fearing type like Mabon, who later became a saint to be remembered by future generations. And through it all, nothing really changed.

And so the years passed, years of feverish political and industrial agitation, years of courtship from all sides and from numerous factions, both “spiritual” and earthy. ILP, Syndicalist, “Communist ” and “ Latter-Day ” Nationalists and Religious Revivalists. Men like Evan Roberts preached tolerance and forgiveness all round between the miner and his boss—thousands followed his advice and the mineowners slept better at nights.

“Then “To Wales—the gift of a son.’ This saviour came into the valley like a fiery prophet, became Member of Parliament with an army of coal and steel workers at his back. He stormed the citadel of Westminster, proclaiming that his “Socialism” was taken from the bible. His chief argument for nationalization was that it would guarantee a supply of coal for the British Navy in time of war. And through it all, nothing really changed. Two great wars came and went, which brought only more exploitation—and death—for the sons of the valleys. At the present time, labour leaders in S. Wales assure us in their writings and public utterances that private enterprise will exist under the next Labour Government! Nothing is going to change. They're telling us!

So much for the background brief as it is—of industrial Wales, a story of skirmishes and day to day struggle. What of today? We have said that nothing has really changed. By that we mean, nothing has changed the fundamental position of the working class as wage-slaves. The coal mines have had a face lift and the motor car is a common possession. Pretty houses have, here and there, replaced the dingy rows of miners’ cottages and there is running water on tap.

The workers of S. Wales and the valleys are living in a state of near ecstatic illusion; an illusion broken from time to time by the same old troubles—speeding up, strikes and closures. Industry has now spread along the Glamorganshire coast-line where we have the biggest steel-producing mills in Europe. Recently, after a month's strike, Port Talbot was changed from a Welsh Klondyke to a ghost town where Salvation Army vans dished out “Christian Aid.” When things are going well our children get scooters and enough food. They also drink large quantities of milk contaminated with a higher degree of Strontium 90 than anywhere else in Britain, the present level being three times as high as it was in 1958.

It is against such a background that the Socialist Party in S. Wales has to work. The material to hand is no better, no worse, than anywhere else. At the moment there is a branch of the Party operating in the Swansea area. Recently local elections were in full swing and members were approached regarding our non-participation. We were asked whether we were really interested in standing; whether we were “practical politically conscious.” The answer to both questions is “yes.” Our aim is to let people know the principles for which we stand. To do this means building-up a strong core of Socialists. We can then challenge and defeat the ignorance and apathy which is rife. We can go forward as a whole, pushing out and up into those battle-scarred valleys bearing the one message that counts “Y Bobl yn Union—y Byd yn Un! ’’—One World, One People!

W. Brain

Sixty years on (1964)

Editorial from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was on June 12th, 1904, that a hundred odd men and women, at a meeting in London, formed the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

We do not intend to let the sixtieth anniversary of our foundation pass unnoticed—but neither shall we celebrate in the manner so popular with other political parties. We shall not arrange any great banquets (they would be a flop if we did) or balls (dancing has never been one of our strong points) or any of the other events which are notable only for their false glitter and pompous self- congratulation.

We regard our sixtieth birthday as an occasion for reviewing the work we have done, and the contributions we have made to the international Socialist movement; for intensifying our propaganda both written and spoken; and for planning more work to occupy the busy years ahead.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain came into existence without premises, a journal, literature or funds. Its founder members were derided on all sides as “Impossibilists” who would soon go out of existence. In some way the new party was a very feeble infant but it had a powerful heart—Socialist principles and understanding—the like of which no other organisation possessed.

It was that heart which brought our party through its first, anxious months. It conceived and nurtured the Socialist Standard and it built and expanded the Socialist Party into what it is today—an established revolutionary organisation with its own permanent headquarters in London, its own monthly journal, companion parties in a number of other countries and a library of pamphlets the consistency and correctness of which we feel entitled to take pleasure in.

That strong heart brought the idea of Socialism through the persecution of the First World War, through the black days of the rise of Fascism in Europe and through the battering of 1939/45. It has always been a heart which has beaten true. The members who make up the Socialist Party today have exactly the same principles and understanding as did the gallant few who set out on their seemingly impossible task so long ago.

In September this year the Socialist Standard too will be sixty years old. We shall mark the event with a special issue, which will review in some detail the history of our party.

For the moment, let it be enough to put on record our admiration for the comrades who took on unflinchingly the hardest job the Socialist movement will probably ever have to face—its own foundation. And let us declare that we who are the Socialist Party in the nineteen sixties will carry on the work.

We shall uphold the principles which were formulated, for the first time as a consistent whole, sixty years ago. We shall continue to be an independent, democratic, political party which maintains that Socialism can only come as a result of majority understanding. A party which has no leaders, which opposes all capitalist wars and is hostile to all other political organisations.

And lastly, a party which stands for Socialism; a social system in which the things which man uses to make and to distribute his wealth are owned by the whole of mankind, in which the barriers of race and colour are recognised for the falsities which they are and in which man is truly free.

Your Life - Their Country (1986)

From the May 1986 issue of Socialist View

Since the last World War - the second World war to end all wars - finished in 1945 there has not been a SINGLE DAY passed on which a war was not taking place somewhere in the world. Large wars . . . small wars . . . together they have accounted for the deaths of some THIRTY MILLlON human beings - about three-fifths of the total slaughtered in World War Two - and the maiming of probably four times that number of people,

As time passes and particular wars roll back into history, as the hate propaganda recedes and the politicians and generals write their memoirs, the truth about the REAL causes of these obscenities frequently emerges, Always, behind the death and suffering, the heroism and cruelty, are the economic interests of the ruling class - a ruling class that collectively owns and controls more than nine-tenths of the world's wealth; a class of international thieves whose members can, and frequently do, change their national identity with greater ease than could most workers change their shoes.

When countries are arming or mustering their wage slaves to fight, we are told that the conflict is about our interests, that it is concerned with our 'freedom' and our 'way-of-life'. The capitalist class and their pensioned politicians always become very preoccupied with 'our interests' when they want us to slaughter other workers on the alleged pretext that those other workers are our "enemies". Yet, when our crumbs of what passes for freedom in capitalist society are denied us, or threatened by poverty or unemployment, when we and our families are condemned to live in slums or have our health threatened by pollution or lack of medical care, when our children are given work-orientated training instead of education and our old folk have to choose between food and heat, what care our national capitalists for our plight - our denial of the most basic human rights, our misery or our gross degradation?

Think about it: did you ever hear 'a nation' marshalling its forces, proclaiming an emergency and amassing its reserves of wealth because the majority of its citizens, its working class - the only productive section of society in any country - are facing dire social problems? On the other hand, can you seriously believe that ‘the enemy' (whoever that may from time to time be) wants to make war in order to get possession of the things that ordinary working people possess or enjoy?

If a country is bent on conquest for gain, then, patently, the ruling class in that country will have nothing to gain from the conquest of the working people who own little beyond their ability to work. Equally obvious is the fact that the ruling class in the ‘enemy' country can have no designs on OUR way-of-life - our poverty, our poverty-ensuring jobs, our dole giros, our slums and our mortgages! The notion is too silly for words - as silly, indeed, as the notion that our ruling class want to wage war to win for themselves the social miseries of the working class in the 'enemy' country.

There is a mass of factual evidence to show beyond reasonable doubt that wars are caused by the conflicting world interests of the ruling class but, even without such evidence, it is abundantly clear that workers in ALL countries posses nothing of sufficient value to create thoughts of conquest and gain. WORKERS TRULY HAVE NO COUNTRY - indeed, most of us have to pay a rent of some sort even to occupy a ‘working class' dwelling. It is our masters, the capitalist class, who own the country we live in; it is in their interests, directly or indirectly that politicians pass laws and it is in their interests that judges and police enforce those laws. It is their interests - their markets, their trade routes, their areas of material and strategic interest - that represents the gain or loss in war. All we called on to do is to fight their bloody wars.

Most working people have seen and heard enough to make them cynical about the motives behind some, at least, of past wars. Unfortunately, when a new conflict of interests arises between sections of the ruling class and the politicians, the media and the other institutional prostitutes of capitalism get to work with a barrage of hate propaganda compounded of lies and fictions, it is all too easy for many of us to forget the last time. We are brought up on an ideological diet of nationalism and political ignorance; taught to mumble prayers for 'our leaders', and 'our country'; told that 'unlawful' killing is murder and excellence in battlefield slaughter is 'good' and 'heroic'. Given such conditioning it is a simple matter for the hate mongers - the political godfathers of capitalism - to convince the working class that they somehow share in the ownership of 'their country' and that they should become involved in organised murder to protect their 'national interests'.

Translating our experience of war and conflict into the present situation in Northern Ireland makes the phoney ideological rubbish being peddled TO THE WORKING CLASS by both the republicans and loyalists become evident for what it is. Why are working people killing and threatening other working people in Northern Ireland today? Do the poor of the nationalist ghettoes want to take something from the poor of the loyalist ghettoes - or vice versa? What have we to take from one another? Poverty? Slums? Unemployment?

‘Ah!' says the politician, the churchman, the republican or loyalist purveyor of ideological bullshit, 'There's more to life than poverty, slums, unemployment and the acknowledged miseries of ordinary working people. There's our British heritage, or our Irish heritage; there's our culture and our separate identities.'

Does this British or Irish 'heritage' do anything to help us to overcome our COMMON WORKING CLASS HERITAGE OF POVERTY, INSECURITY AND SOCIAL DEGRADATION - THE REAL, ACTUAL, FACTUAL AND PAINFUL HERITAGE THAT WORKERS SHARE IN EVERY COUNTRY OF THE WORLD? Our 'separate identities'! Some political nutcase might tell you that this is illustrated in the fact that some of us can articulate our working class miseries, or the common ‘cultural' experiences built on those miseries, in a different language BUT LANGUAGE BEARS NO RELEVANCE TO THE COMMON FACTS OF OUR WORKING CLASS CONDITION.

Our real problems are not caused by the ideas and superstitions that we absorb from parents, teachers or churches nor are they the result of the conflict and violence that arises from the exploitation of our conditioned ignorance by self-interested politicians and their capitalist paymasters, Our ignorance may result from our class position and may be fanned into hatred by those whose profits depend on our remaining ignorant, superstitious and divided. But the single cause of our problems IS CAPITALISM; it is capitalism that enforces on us the role of a propertyless, subject class. That enforcement can NOT be done by police forces, soldiers or repressive laws; It IS ACHIEVED BY THE CONTROL OF OUR IDEAS; by promoting among us, the working class who own nothing but our ability to work, the belief that we share ownership in a country or 'nation'; that patriotism somehow serves our interest or that religious superstition will earn us a good life in an afterworld if we dumbly submit to the miseries of the present life.

Those who promote hatred and division among us, those who preach nationalism or patriotism, who urge us to invest our blood in the cause of Britain, Ulster or Ireland, are playing the game according to the rules of capitalism.

WORKERS HAVE NO COUNTRY! When we have learnt to understand that we have made a giant stride forward from the obscenity of capitalism. The countries we live in, together with the machinery of production and distribution by which we live, are the property of the ruling class; theirs is the Ulster, the Ireland and the Britain that our loyalists and republicans want us to support and, if necessary, to be prepared to suffer or die for. Understanding that class ownership is the motive power behind all forms of patriotism and nationalism validates the time-honoured clarion; WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE FOR SOCIALISM!

Richard Montague

The Basis of Socialism. (1915)

From the February 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party cannot be accused, with fairness, of hiding from the world its Object, principles, and policy. The goal for which we strive, the reasons that direct us thither, and the methods by which we confidently expect to arrive at our goal are no secret. They are embodied in a summary form in the Party’s Declaration of Principles appearing on the last page of every copy of this, its official organ.

The Party’s Object is defined as the establishment of a system of society based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments of production and distribution. This brief statement presents in a nutshell the whole broad, general outlook of the Party, and the key to all aspects of its philosophy. '

In the first place the definition implies that the basis of society lies in economic conditions. It does not say, as some would have us believe, that society is purely economic, nor that Socialism is merely an arrangement for distributing wealth. The point is important in more ways than one; for while on the one hand it is a common accusation against Socialism that it will reduce us to mere animals, content to satisfy physical wants only, on the other hand we have the pseudo-Socialists who, in order to avoid awkward questions in the hunt for the votes of all and sundry, seek to confine their “Socialism” to a mere economic formula or an ethical generalisation, according to the particular circle of people to whom they appeal.

The Socialist Party, while failing to see how we can be degraded to a much more animalish condition than capitalism imposes upon us, claims that the exercise of our faculties in other directions than those concerned with food and the like, depends upon the satisfaction of our economic wants in the first place. “Man cannot live by bread alone.’’ True! but without bread man cannot live at all. Until we discover the means for dispensing with the raw material from which we generate our energies, the expression of those energies will, to a large extent, be determined, in quantity and in quality, by the amount of raw material obtained and the conditions under which it is obtained.

What applies to the individual applies to a society of individuals. Just as buildings must rest upon bases, so the social organisation of mankind springs from the essential economic conditions of its existence. It is the product of the response of the consciousness of society to the influence of its inheritance and environment. Politics, art, philosophy, the relations of the sexes, all expressions of human thought and co-activity, bear the stamp of their economic mould and inheritance.

If we examine the relations of mankind in the matter of obtaining a living we find them centring around the means by which that living is obtained. From the earliest times to which we can trace human life it would appear that the human race has been distinguished from the rest of the animal kingdom by the acquisition and use of tools and weapons.

Puny in physical powers in comparison with many of the living beings around him, and insignificant in the physical sense before the blind forces of nature, man’s co-operative thought has resulted in the production of means whereby co-operative action secures the triumph of mankind over these beings and forces. Mark that it is the capacity for “holding together,’’ for mutual protection, that has provided the leisure wherein individuals could discover and develop the instruments of social progress in the first place, and preserve and hand on these instruments to countless generations in the second place.

There are two main aspects of men’s relations to their means of living which it is as well to distinguish. We might define them respectively as the industrial and the legal sides of the economic basis of society. The industrial side consists of the relations of men as users of the means of production, that is, as producers of wealth. The legal aspect is comprised in the forms of property or ownership of the means of production and, as a result, of the wealth produced.

The industrial relations develop along paths largely irrespective of the conscious will of mankind according to the nature of the implements used in production. It is characteristic of modern machinery that it links up numbers of hitherto separate simple processes into a huge, complex, single series of processes. The specialised man, therefore, tends to become supplanted by the special part of a machine, and the workers are linked up in huge concerns which often deal with the article produced from the stage of raw material to finished commodity.

The ownership of the ever developing means of production, however, is determined in strictly conscious and deliberate fashion by the most powerfully organised section of the community in accordance with their material interests. The whole machinery of modern government simply exists to preserve and regulate the existing forms of wealth production.

We further find that the industrial and legal aspects of society's present basis do not harmonise. The users of the means of production are not the owners, and the wealth produced by huge armies of workers goes into the possession of a comparatively small number of individuals. Society is divided into conflicting classes. This brings us to another implication of our Object, namely, that it is possible to change the form of wealth ownership.

If we take a glance at history we see that the weapons of man’s war with nature, and the relations centring round them, have been subject to considerable change. Tools have been improved in the direction of time and energy spent in their use. Consequently there has taken place a progressive increase in the product of social labour-power, independently of the normal increase in population. This development may be divided into two main epochs. The first comprises the prolonged change from the simple weapons of hunting and pastoral man, capable of serving a variety of purposes (the knife and the axe, for instance), to the specialised tools of the handicraftsman and agriculturist (as the loom and the shinning wheel, the saw and the plane, the plough and the barrow).

The common feature of the tools alike at the beginning and the end of this period is that their motive power is derived direct from man. The second period, hardly 200 years old, embraces the application of scientific discoveries to industry and the control of natural forces on a large scale, for the purpose of driving the complex machinery which turns out the commodities of to-day.

The industrial relations of mankind reflect this development. Simple co-operation prevailed in the chase and the tending of flocks and herds. With the development of agriculture and handicraft it gave way to an individualisation of productive effort. This specialisation, however, in turn gave rise to interdependence which, breaking down local and national barriers, has led to the socialisation of industry in a more complex and universal form. It is difficult for a modern workman to consider himself detached from his fellows at a worker.

What of property? Here, too, we find the same evolution. The tribal and family collectivism of the hunting and pastoral epoch, in which all of the same kindred enjoyed economic and social equality, broke down in favour of the private ownership of land and tools which was essential to the progress of new methods of gaining a living.

The second change, however—to Socialism—demanded by the nature of modern production, has yet to be accomplished. That it will be accomplished is as inevitable as that an embryo chicken, having become complete in the relative development of its parts, should smash its shell.

The development of private property has had three distinct stages, and it is of importance to notice how each form gave way to its successor. The adoption of agriculture as a mode of production led to the break-up of the old tribal unity and the introduction of the patriarchal family, with its slaves—who were generally captives of war. The city-states (Babylon, Athens, Rome) represent the highest types of this form of society.

So extensive became the slave population that its supervision led to the development of a special military caste, which, as the progress of agriculture rendered a more intensive cultivation necessary, overthrew the local power of the patricians, and federating with the king at their head, became a feudal aristocracy.

Under their domination the slave was transformed into a serf. Whereas the former had his product directly confiscated by his owner, who was responsible for his maintenance, the latter was established in permanent conjunction with the land of his lord, to whom he was bound to render certain fixed services in return for the privilege of cultivating for himself certain portions of the manor or village property.

The development of handicrafts and commerce gave rise to another class —the merchants. Villages grew into towns, and again the struggle for mastery began. It ended in the downfall of the feudal class and their peculiar form of annexing plunder, and a new form took its place.

Divorced from the soil, the peasant became a wage-slave, forming a labour supply for the merchants turned manufacturers, enabling them to compete the independent handicraftsmen out of existence.

The power of the plutocracy has steadily increased from that day to this, but now it, too, is threatened. The modern ruling class stand face to face, not with a new prospective ruling class, but with a slave class amongst whom revolt against all class rule is rapidly spreading. Modern industry has massed the workers together, and they grow daily more conscious of their potential might. History shows that as the industrial conditions of society change, so the legal property relations are changed sooner or later by the conscious effort of the class on whom the further progress of industry depends. Thus is vindicated a third implication of the Socialist objective.

It remains to show what conditions remain to be fulfilled before the modern revolution is an accomplished fact. In the first place the workers must become fully conscious that the proposed change is necessary in their own interest. The facts of their every day life, whether they are perceived directly and independently or as a result of the agitation of their fellows in the Socialist Party, are sufficient to teach them this. Secondly, this consciousness must be followed by universal organisation, for only by this means can the established order be made to give way to a universal system of co operation. Finally, this organisation must at present take a political form. We have seen that all the social changes of history, from tribal communism to patriarchalism, from that to feudalism, and from that again to capitalism, have taken place as the result of a struggle between classes developed by industrial progress. Force alone decided the issue. Only when the revolutionary class can impose its will in opposition to its enemy can the new property conditions come into being. The classes of old fought their battles out in actual physical conflict. The modern ruling class is not a military entity, however: the defenders of its wealth are drawn from the ranks of the oppressed class itself. So physically insignificant are our masters that even their system of government dare not take its way without the support of the majority of the rest of society, while the direction of the political machinery is more and more entrusted to traitors from the ranks of the slaves. It needs only conscious organisation to wrest from the trembling grasp of the tyrants the only weapon with which at present they beat any rebel section of us down. Before any attack on their property they are impotent without the aid with which society supplies them. Conceive the great majority of society self-conscious, possessing control of their own political machine, and what stands in the way of the common ownership and use of the means of life in equality by all who accept the task of producing what they need ? Aye! what? That is the challenge to the intelligence of the working class which is embodied in the existence of the Socialist Party.

Eric Boden

Ridiculous economic moonshine (1981)

From the July 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

Economists zigzag from forecasts of gloom and doom on the one hand to rosy reassurance on the other. In the first group, we should include Dr. Ralf Dahrendorf of the London School of Economics who asserts that we shall never again see unemployment as low as 2 million. His crystal ball seems distinctly murky. In the other group is Arthur Seldon, doyen of the Institute of Economic Affairs. It is his view — stated in a debate against the SPGB recently — that capitalism is going to continue, whether we like it or not. Since he is a supporter (and publisher) of Dr Hayek — a firm believer in the benevolence of the market economy — Seldon can be termed an optimist.

Seldon told his audience that according to Adam Smith man has a “natural urge” to exchange things. (What did Smith know of genetics, or even biology?) This “natural urge” could only be overcome by “unselfish love” as preached by Christians. We note, in passing, that the Christian religion has featured conflict in Northern Ireland, and that most of those in the West who have developed and stockpiled nuclear weapons are Christians.

Seldon had a startling approach to economics. He told the audience that if we owned any property we should be regarded as capitalists, and even suggested buying a car or a house on the never-never as a means to become so. Even a push-bike would qualify one, it seemed. If the Seldon theory is right, it follows that we workers must be crazy to work for wages — giving away so much unpaid labour every working day. After all, if we are the capitalists, we could just sit back and wait for the dividends to accumulate without any effort from us, as they are derived from the unpaid labour of the philanthropic working class. (If every car, bike or house buyer is a capitalist, who are the working class?) In fact, capital is wealth which is used to create profits. A car owned by a car-hire firm is capital; one owned by a worker to help him get to work is not.

The prize for the silliest statement on economics must go to a Labour Council candidate who quoted from a textbook he claimed to have studied when learning how to be a banker. Here it is:

Money is a “medium of exchange for goods and services, without intrinsic value" (our emphasis).

It seems, then, that humans have a “natural urge” to exchange commodities of real value (a house, car, bike, or our time and labour) for something of no value! The way the system actually works is surely quite crazy enough without these potty professors and pundits giving us confusion worse confounded.

Obviously, money has some value. To start with, it has a use-value, derived from its function (at least in a market economy) as a medium of exchange, as the “universal equivalent”, so that we no longer have to barter goods, swapping TV sets, carpets, cars and coats-as children swap conkers and marbles. Money also has exchange value. This is measured by the amount of socially necessary labour-time used up in producing it. Whether solid gold sovereigns or today’s paper flotsam, money always costs some labour time to produce. It is an indication of how debased our much-inflated currency has become that economics students, would-be bankers, Chancellors of the Exchequer and the like, are actually taught that money is “without intrinsic value”.

One would have to be daft as a brush — or a Labour Councillor — to believe that such a statement holds good in the real world. Do we pay the same amount of money for 6 eggs as for 1 dozen? If our money has no value, why should the shopkeeper ask us to pay at all for these eggs? If the money we get as wages has no value, why do our employers object to giving us more of it? Indeed, if the money we earn as wages has no value, why should we sell our labour power for money we should insist on payment in kind, in goods which do have a value. And how strange it is that bank managers are so reluctant to give away these tokens “without intrinsic value”.

An unusual industrial dispute is going on in London where workers at the Time Out magazine are on strike. It seems that the owners want to scrap the existing agreement. All workers at Time Out get the same pay — switch-board operators and editors are all paid the same. The owners, far from being proud to have pioneered such an egalitarian policy, are rather ashamed of themselves. Maybe Thatcher and the CBI have expressed disapproval. Whatever it is, both sides are now locked in dispute on this point.

The fact is that, however agreeable it may seem for all workers to earn the same, there are economic factors which make this impossible as a general rule. At Time Out, editors are earning less than they could get elsewhere while switchboard operators and other “menials” are earning more than the going rate. Result: while Time Out is a switchboard operator’s idea of a well-paid Paradise (probably there is a queue for the next vacancy) the owners may well find it hard to keep their editors. It takes more to train a good editor than a competent switchboard operator: the one requires a high level of education and a long and specialised training, the other is a job which can be taught relatively fast to almost anyone. Labour power is a commodity and its value (and consequently its price) will depend generally on its cost of production and reproduction.

“Equal pay” carried to the Time Out extreme is economic moonshine, almost as ridiculous as Arthur Seldon’s idea that owning a car can turn a worker into a capitalist, or the textbook’s teaching about money being without value. The only sensible approach to the economics of capitalism and the world we actually live in is one based on Marx’s labour theory of value, which shows us why money does have value and why different workers earn different rates of pay under normal conditions. And it is this theory which shows how we, the working class, the wealth-creating class, are exploited by giving away our unpaid labour to the capital-owning class.

Charmian Skelton

(A pushbike owner)

Paddington going strong (1913)

From the November 1913 issue of the Socialist Standard

It has long been realised by the Paddington members that there existed in the surrounding districts ample material to work upon and thereby extend the Party's influence, the only barrier being the lack of speakers. Finding ourselves continually bombarded with inquiries as to when we intended opening up these sources for Socialism, we determined to meet this insistent demand for the Party’s propaganda with a series of week’s meetings at selected venues. Operations were therefore commenced at Kilburn, which duly materialised into an energetic branch that has completely pulverised the wobbly opposition formerly entrenched in the locality.

Fortified by that triumph, we made tracks for North Kensington, where further conquests were made. Our speakers had no difficulty in effectively smothering the smattering interruptions of the local illiterates, and the large audiences that nightly assembled showed that the time was never more opportune for the establishment of a branch of the Party.

That treacherous section of the Anti Socialist brigade, the B.S.P., till recently had a motley following, and to hasten the millenium they put up their chief mesmeriser as “Socialist” candidate for the General Election to come. The local sheets commented on the “self sacrifice of this well known gentleman,”and unkindly suggested that the prospect of £400 a year should bring forth quite a crop of budding M.P.s. The campaign was opened by inviting the constituents to nibble at a mish-mash of social reform. Street-corner harangues were held extolling the candidate's virtues, and for a while it looked as if the day of universal emancipation was at hand. Then dissension arose over his “programme,” recriminations were flung about, the '‘rankers” began to revile their “leader” and renounce bis unofficial candidature, and the branch went “nap.”

So we concluded that it was our duty to get our platform out and explain why it is the B.S P., so-called, is anti working class right through. This was done, and we have the satisfaction of knowing that our week's mission will fructify into a branch of our organisation.

In North Paddington an agitation is being worked up against the M.P. because be happens to be a foreigner. In spite of his Tory views and Tariff Reform ideas he is anathema to the local patriots because, to use their own words, “he is no good ; he does nothing for the working man." Well, this is what we have said for quite a long time. If anything is to be done for the working class, that class has got to do it itself. Millionaire Parliamentarians have not the remotest intention of abolishing unemployment and poverty. They are in Parliament to conserve their own privileges and power. Therefore we call on the working class to organise in the Socialist Party for the capture of this stronghold of capitalism.

Our itinerary for 1914 embraces the N.W. corner of London, but this cannot be successfully accomplished unless those who earnestly desire to see the pall of ignorance rent asunder by the spreading of scientific Socialism come inside and get on with the business. “The harvest, truly, is plentiful, but the labourers are few."

Ben Carthers