Marx's Address for the International, 1864 (1937)

From the April 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reprint of a Famous Speech

(The following address was delivered by Marx on the occasion of the inauguration of the International Working Men’s Association, September 28th, 1864. Apart from its interest as an historical document, it contains many timely lessons for the workers in face of present problems.
   The reader will notice that the tone and phrasing of the Address are moderate and indefinite by comparison with others of Marx’s speeches and writings —the “Communist Manifesto,” for example. This was a restraint imposed on Marx, as he explained in a letter to Engels, by the character of the organisations in the International. They were composed of Trade Unionists and others who had only made the first approaches towards accepting internationalism and towards understanding Socialism. If, too, Marx was more optimistic about some developments of the period than they deserved the essentials of the speech have worn well. How well can be seen by comparing this speech with a typical product of the man Marx was criticising, Mr. W. E. Gladstone. Who cares now what Gladstone said in 1864? Marx, on the other hand, with his remarkable understanding of the slow but inescapable trend of events, becomes every year a more vital figure in the task of moulding the society of the future.
   Some of the points in the speech are dealt with elsewhere in this issue. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE.)

Fellow Working Men: It is a great fact that the misery of the working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet this period is unrivalled for the development of its industry and the growth of its commerce. In 1850 a moderate organ of the British middle-class, of more than average information, predicted that if the exports and imports of England were to rise 50 per cent., English pauperism would sink to zero. Alas! On April 7th, 1864, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delighted his Parliamentary audience by the statement that the total import and export trade of England had grown in 1863 “to £443,955,000, that astonishing sum about three times the trade of the comparatively recent epoch of 1843.” With all that he was eloquent upon "poverty.” "Think,” he exclaimed, “of those who are on the border of that region,” upon “wages —not increased”; upon “human life—in nine cases out of ten, but a struggle of existence.” He did not speak of the people of Ireland, gradually replaced by machinery in the North, and by sheep-walks in the South, though even the sheep in that unhappy country are decreasing, it is true, not at so rapid a rate as the men. He did not repeat what then had just been betrayed by the highest representative of the upper ten thousand in a sudden fit of terror. When the garotte panic had reached a certain height, the House of Lords caused an inquiry to be made into, and a report to be published upon, transportation and penal servitude. Out came the murder in the bulky Blue Book of 1863, and proved it was, by official facts and figures, that the worst of the convicted criminals, the penal serfs of England and Scotland, toiled much less and fared far better than the agricultural labourers of England and Scotland. But this was not all. When, consequent upon the Civil War in America, the operatives of Lancashire and Cheshire were thrown upon the streets, the same House of Lords sent to the manufacturing districts a physician commissioned to investigate into the smallest possible amount of carbon and nitrogen, to be administered in the cheapest and plainest form, which, on an average, might just suffice to avert “starvation diseases.” Dr. Smith, the medical deputy, ascertained that 28,000 grains of carbon and 1,330 grains of nitrogen were the weekly allowance that would keep an average adult just over the level of starvation diseases, and he found, furthermore, that quantity pretty nearly to agree with the scanty nourishment to which the pressure of extreme distress had actually reduced the cotton operatives. But now mark! The same learned doctor was later on again deputed by the medical officer of the Privy Council to inquire into the nourishment of the poorer labouring classes. The results of his researches are embodied in the “Sixth Report on Public Health,” published by order of Parliament in the course of the present year. What did the doctor discover? That the silk weavers, the needle women, the kid glovers, the stocking weavers, and so forth, received, on an average, not even the distressed pittance of the cotton operatives, not even the amount of carbon and nitrogen "just sufficient to avert starvation diseases.”

"Moreover” (we quote from the report), "as regards the examined families of the agricultural population, it appeared that more than a fifth were with less than the estimated sufficiency of carbonaceous food; that more than one-third were with less than the estimated sufficiency of nitrogenous food, and that in three counties (Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Somersetshire), insufficiency of nitrogenous food was the average diet.” “It must be remembered,” adds the official report, “that privation of food is very reluctantly borne, and that, as a rule, great poorness of diet will only come when other privations have preceded it. Even cleanliness will have been found costly or difficult, and if there still be self-respectful endeavours to maintain it, every such endeavour will represent additional pangs of hunger. These are painful reflections, especially when it is remembered that the poverty to which they advert is not the deserved poverty of idleness: in all cases it is the poverty of working populations. Indeed, the work which obtains the scanty pittance of food is, for the most part, excessively prolonged.” The report brings out the strange and rather unexpected fact, "That of the divisions of the United Kingdom," England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, “the agricultural population of England,” the richest division, “is considerably the worst fed,” but that even the agricultural labourers of Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Somersetshire fare better than great numbers of skilled indoor operatives of the East of London.

Such are the official statements published by order of Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free trade, at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that

"the average condition of the British labourer has improved in a degree we know to be extraordinary and unexampled in the history of any country or any age.”

Upon these official congratulations jars the dry remark of the official Public Health Report: —

"The public health of a country means the health of its masses, and the masses will scarcely be healthy unless, to their very base, they are at least moderately prosperous.” 

Dazzled by the “Progress of the Nation,” statistics dancing before his eyes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer exclaims in wild ecstasy: —

“From 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased by six per cent.; in the eight years from 1853 to 1861 it has increased from the basis taken in 1853 20 per cent.: the fact is so astonishing as to be almost incredible.”

“This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power,” adds Mr. Gladstone, “ is entirely confined to classes of property.”

If you want to know under what conditions of broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin, that “intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power entirely confined to classes of property ” was, and is being produced by the classes of labour, look to the picture hung up in the last “Public Health Report” of the workshops of tailors, printers and dressmakers. Compare the “Report of the Children’s Employment Commission” of 1863 where, it is stated, for instance, that: —

"The potters as a class, both men and women, represent a much degenerated population, both physically and mentally,” 

that the unhealthy child “is an unhealthy parent in his turn,” that a progressive deterioration of the race must go on and that "the degenerescence of the population would be even greater were it not for the constant recruiting from the adjacent country, and the intermarriages with more healthy races.” Glance at M. Tremenheere’s Blue Book on the "Grievances complained of by the Journeymen Bakers.” And who has not shuddered at the paradoxical statement made by the inspectors of factories, and illustrated by the. Registrar-General, that the Lancashire operatives, while put upon the distress pittance of food, were actually improving in health, because of their temporary exclusion by the cotton famine from the cotton factory, and that the mortality of the children was decreasing, because their mothers were now at last allowed to give them instead of Godfrey’s cordial their own breasts.

Again reverse the medal. The Income and Property Tax Returns, laid before the House of Commons on July 20th, 1864, teach us that the persons with yearly incomes valued by the tax gatherer at £50,000 and upwards, had, from April 5th, 1862, to April 5th, 1863, been joined by a dozen and one, their number having increased in that single year from 67 to 80. The same returns disclose the fact that about 3,000 persons divide amongst themselves a yearly income of about £25,000,000 sterling, rather more than the total revenue doled out annually to the whole mass of the agricultural labourers of England and Wales. Open the Census of 1861, and you will find that the number of the male landed proprietors of England and Wales had decreased from 16,934 in 1851 to 15,066 in 1861, so that the concentration of land had grown in ten years 11 per cent. If the concentration of the soil of the country in a few hands proceeds at the same rate the land question will become singularly simplified, as it had become in the Roman Empire, when Nero grinned at the discovery that half the province of Africa was owned by six gentlemen.

(to be concluded).

Unemployment (1984)

Book Review from the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unemployment by Kevin Hawkins (Penguin. 1984)

It may be one of life's sick jokes to explain to the unemployed why unemployment exists; and to show how one form of poverty can more effectively be replaced by another. Hawkins begins his work by dismissing some of the myths as to why there is unemployment. It does not occur as a result of "the provision of generous welfare payments nor any other such diversionary nonsense" (p. 5). He points out that labour shortages can exist alongside unemployment. This is not because generous welfare payments make the unemployed too clumsy but often because there is a mismatch between the skills of the unemployed and the requirements of labour. Similarly. the existence of "scroungers" does not explain current high levels of unemployment. This myth can be exploded by examination of the levels of benefit which are supposedly being "scrounged”. Between 1971 and 1980, levels of unemployment benefit "fell from 70 per cent to 46 per cent . . .  of average earnings" (p. 26). Without earnings related supplement the figure dropped from 45 per cent to 33 per cent of average earnings.

Hawkins, as Director of the West Midlands CBI, views the problem of unemployment from the standpoint of the industrialist. He talks of the necessary "professional approach to the use of resources, especially manpower" (p. 78) that has arisen out of the current recession. Manpower is simply a resource that must be manipulated for the prime good of a social ethos whose only consideration is profit and “efficiency".

Hawkins accepts unemployment as a prominent feature of British society for the rest of the decade. This may seem to offer little comfort to the long-term unemployed but he does suggest some measures which he believes will alleviate the problem. He claims that his strategy to reduce unemployment is based on principles that are “humanitarian, economic and political in character" (p. 107), yet the humanitarian approach takes a nose dive two pages later when we are told that the rationale must be assessed “not by their effect on the unemployment figures but by the contribution they make towards improving the supply-side performance of the economy” (p. 109).

Hawkins' plan for the future lies in reducing business costs not generated by market forces, and by these he means taxes on employment. He argues that government must stimulate employment in roads and railways and that it should cease subsidising specific firms and increase the supply of highly-skilled manpower. His big plan for the future is to reduce the costs of labour — the main ingredient in this economic soup. He argues that wage costs must be adjusted to the current level, a sufficiently vague phrase which he explains “in more common language, until workers ‘price themselves back into jobs'” (p. 115). This is the old old story of when in doubt blame the workers. We are expected to accept the old adage of what is good for industry is good for the people.

Hawkins calls for an immediate wage freeze that will shock workers into a new sense of realism and keep them in their place. His alternative strategy is to further weaken the power of the unions, presumably to enable industry to dictate all conditions of service and levels of pay. He also advocates the subsidising of employment by central government and applauds the Community Programme Scheme. It is interesting to note the extent to which the humanitarian approach has given way to economic and political considerations when he says:

It has also been argued that the financial incentive to apply for a CPS place is inadequate insofar as the average wage of £60 a week on the scheme is less than the benefit income which a married man with several children can draw. Rather than increase the average wage to take it above the benefit ceiling, thereby increasing the gross cost of the scheme, the remedy may well be to expand the number of places available at the current wage and simultaneously reduce the benefit income. (P 124)

This is allied to such schemes as job-sharing in which the wage is split between two persons, supposedly to ensure a statistical reduction in unemployment but more realistically a statistical increase in poverty. To ensure that even this does not burden the employer by increased paperwork it is suggested that a grant be made available to implement the scheme. Hawkins recognises that his policies may well increase inequalities and social division but “no apology is made on this account", for he has already explained that he is concerned with “the importance of wealth-creation, as distinct from wealth-distribution” (p. 132). In this the book reads like some latter-day Capitalist Manifesto. The working class are punished for the inefficiencies of capitalism and its inability to satisfy the needs of society's members. To cling in desperation to such a system seems absurd. To justify that system by a more systematic exploitation of the working class is contemptible.

Philip Bentley

Municipal Elections. (1906)

From the October 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Struggle for Political Supremacy

The tremendous efforts made by the ruling class to retain control of the political machinery when seeking the suffrages supremacy of the workers in National and Local elections, is a most significant, though generally uurecognised fact; and the millions which are spent in parliamentary, and the thousands in municipal, contests should show to the thinking man or woman the immense importance the ruling class attach to this matter. An explanation is thus demanded from those who claim to represent the interests of the class that is ruled — the working class— as to why they also are in the political field and are fighting for the control of this machinery.

Let us at once point out that the term “Political Machinery” means all those methods and arrangements which the dominant class have found it necessary to collectively control in extending and maintaining their domination over the rest of Society. The National or Parliamentary section is. of course, the most important, although, due to geographic and social divisions, local and organic subdivisions of this machinery are formed and perpetuated in the shape of County, Borough, Town, and Parish Councils, Boards of Guardians, Asylum and Education Boards. It must, however, be noted that these are after all only subdivisions, and as such are ultimately under the control and domination of Parliament. This limitation of the powers of municipal bodies needs to be clearly understood by the working class, particularly as the various so-called “reform” and “labour” parties are either ignorant of, or else deliberately conceal the fact at election times, promising all sorts of measures quite without the power of a local body while the present system lasts.

The Necessity for Class Organisation

What must be clearly recognised by the workers is that to-day they are in the position class of articles of merchandise; they are quite cut off from any access to the means of living and wealth production (Land, Machinery, Mills, Railways, etc.) except by selling themselves for such price (termed wages) as they can get upon the Labour Market. All the means of living, and the wealth therewith produced, are owned by another section in Society (the capitalist class) who perform no useful function therein, but live in idleness and luxury upon the wealth they appropriate from the workers. Wealth in all societies being the matter of the globe converted to the use of mankind by human energy, it necessarily follows that if any able-bodied individuals are living in Society without doing useful work they do so by the robbery (direct or indirect, it matters little which) of the useful workers. Between the robber and robbed there is thus a direct and complete opposition of interests.

The capitalist class, however, are able to safeguard and preserve their position only by virtue of their control of the political machinery. They thus make and administer the laws, direct the police and judicial officers, and, above all, maintain the trained armed fighting forces in the country to keep the workers under control and to guard the capitalists' property. In other words the capitalist class know, or are conscious of, their position and interests, while the workers in the main are far from having clearly grasped the situation as it affects them. The first thing requisite on the workers’ behalf is a clear recognition of the deep gulf existing between the robbed working class and the robber capitalist class, and following thereupon the application of that fact to their action in the political field by taking up a position of uncompromising hostility to all supporters of capitalism in any shape or form.

Before the workers can better their position to any material extent, they must wrest the political machinery from the hands of the capitalist class. They should, therefore, ignore the shouting of "Progressive” and "Moderate" factious, admittedly capitalist as they are, as well as the so-called “Labour” or “Socialist” candidates who urge the saving of the rates, and who advocate the municipalization of the trams, gas, etc. for the purpose of providing safe investments for small middle-class capitals, to make sinecures for their friends and relatives, and to use the profit for reducing rates, all of which depend upon the continued exploitation of the workers.

The task of clearing the confusion created by these bogus “labour” parties is truly Herculean, and, were it not that the wage-slaves, municipal and other, are being forced to recognise that in municipal trading they only meet their old enemy capitalist exploitation in a new guise, the task would be well nigh hopeless. But the class antagonism cannot longer he masked. Whether engaged in sweeping the roads or running the trains, whether delivering letters or making army clothing, the fact is being brought home to the workers that to-day municipalization or nationalization is not Socialism, but that on the contrary the workers have to reckon with their must powerful enemy, to wit the capitalist class united in municipal and national government against any of the workers' demands.

The articles which have recently appeared in the columns of that Liberal advocate of municipal trading, the Daily Chronicle, on the strike of the Halifax municipal tramway employees are significant of much. They speak of the coming ‘"Labour Danger" in municipal exploitation, and evidence the determination of the ruling class that the workers shall not be any the less exploited because they happen to be employed by the municipality.

The Advantages of Municipalism Examined.

Upon closer inspection the boasted advantages of municipal or national employment are seen to dwindle: a "paper” ten hours day is in one instance found to cover sixteen hours in reality, and a few pence increase in wages is found to be really a reduction with the greater intensity of work involved. Neither does any greater security of employment exist, as the numerous "odd men" of the municipal services and the recent wholesale discharges from government works, eloquently testify, whilst sweating in government departments is a regularly recurring scandal.

  

The statement that municipalization and nationalization are object lessons in Socialism, is, then, an absurdity, whilst the assertion that they lead up to complete organisation of production is hardly more true of the municipal service than it is of the huge company or trust, since the officials are similar and the methods of exploitation the same. Indeed, the fact that tramway, lighting, and other services of the municipality cannot overstep the local boundaries. is evidence that, upon those fields at any rate, a huge company or trust would in reality present a greater economic advance by embracing larger areas. Moreover, the workers will have to fight as hard to gain control of municipal or national industries, as they will to gain control of the trusts.

We, however, no more wish to hinder the advance of municipal or national undertakings than to arrest the growth of the trust or combine: but to have them bailed as instalments of Socialism is utterly misleading when they are, in reality, only more efficient means of exploiting the working class for the benefit of property owners.

Let those who regard such things as Socialism ponder the meaning of the use of nationalization by Napoleon, by Bismarck. and even by the Tsar of all the Russia, for the purposes of the ruling class. In truth, it is to be feared that just as a splendid weapon may be powerful for good in just hands but quite as powerful for harm when in the hands of an unscrupulous enemy, so national or municipal industry, however powerful an agent for good when controlled by the workers, may nevertheless be an instrument of fearful economic tyranny when used by the capitalist class for its own ends

The Bogey of the Rates

The present municipalization  movement, however, appears to regard the condition of the workers as quite a minor consideration. Its great concern is, in fact, to save the rates. But where the shoe really, pinches may have been learnt during the past year from the great outcry raised by London property owners and their agents over the rising rates, which, they averred, caused residents and manufacturers to migrate to the outlying to the outlying districts. Their cry was that the high rates depreciated the value of their property. In several districts, as has already been pointed out in the Socialist Standard, there has been decrease in rents owing to the diminished demand for accommodation following on high rates. Obviously, also, anything which increases the advantages of any district or town, increases the competition for house room in the favoured district and forces up the rents.

If through the profits on municipal capitalism rates were abolished anywhere, neither the lodgers nor the tenant ratepayers would in the long run be one penny the better off, for the landlords would, through the increased number of people attracted by the absence of rates, be enabled to raise the rent until it absorbed the whole of what was formerly paid as rates. Indeed, in all probability the landlords would increase the rent immediately by the amount of rates saved, Judge, then, in whose interests the rate-saving munipalizers are working.

Even the Fabian Society realise the futility of grants in aid of rates, although, as might be expected of that middle-class body. their acts belie them. In Fabian Tract No. 107 they say: “You cannot relieve the ratepayer by reducing, or even abolishing, his rates, since freeing a house of rates simply raises the rent. In fact, the ratepayer is only a foolish catspaw for the landlord. At Tonbridge, Bedford, and certain other places, pious founders have endowed the schools so splendidly that education is nobly cheap there. But rents are equivalently high; so that the landlords reap the whole pecuniary value of the endowment. . . . Suppose a misguided billionaire were to take on himself the cost of paving and lighting some London parish, and set on foot a free supply of bread and milk! All that would happen would be that the competition for houses and shops in that parish would rage until it had brought rents up to a point at which there would be no advantage in living in it more than in any other parish. Even parks and open spaces raise rents in London, though, strange to say, London statues do not diminish them.”

The Only Way For The Workers,

Clearly, then, to save the rates is not to benefit the working class, nor is the matter mended if tram fares are reduced and municipal services made cheaper, for a precisely similar thing occurs. An improvement in means of transit, or a reduction of fares, immediately causes a proportionate rise in rents in the districts favoured, as numerous instances have shown during the past few years.

The workers, therefore, must beware of those who would lure them from the path of emancipation with the red herring of municipalization.

Neither municipal nor State capitalism can ease the worker of his oppressive burden. To improve his lot he must organise with his fellows for the control of industry whether municipal or national, whether under company or trust. And the workers cannot gain control of industry unless they first wrest political power from the hands of the master class in national as well as in local government.

But these facts also explain the extensive and untiring efforts of the capitalist class to retain control of the political machinery, often, it is true, masquerading in local elections as "Independent” or "Non-political” candidates: as though candidates for political power could be non-political! The capitalist class are untiring in their efforts to retain supreme political power, because their continued existence absolutely depends upon their control of that power.

The candidates of the S.P.G.B., therefore, whilst quite prepared to use the local powers for such small temporary benefits as may be forced from the capitalists' hands for the workers in those districts, nevertheless do not seek suffrages for this, which can only be a secondary business of the political party of the workers. The fact, pointed out above, must be strongly reiterated, that the powers of the local bodies are strictly limited and are controlled by the Government.

The Limitations of Local Authorities

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, therefore, enters into municipal contests as a step in the work of capturing the whole political machinery. Fully realising, and pointing out to the workers, the strict limitations of the power of local bodies, making no promises that are beyond our power to fulfil, we ask the members of our class, when (but not before) they have studied these facts and realised their correctness, to cast their votes for the candidates of the S.P.G.B. who alone stand on the above basis/

In those districts, however, where there are no S.P.G.B. candidates in the field, the workers are asked to abstain from voting altogether, since any votes cast under such circumstances can only assist the enemies of the working class.

Costa Proletaria (1987)

From the October 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Following the annual fortnight’s parole I, like thousands of other workers, am now once again chained in the bondage of wage slavery. During the long winter months we eagerly looked forward to the forthcoming sun, sea, sand and sangria experience. This was fuelled, as it is every year, by a television advertising blitz that began on Christmas Day immediately following the Queen talking about her unemployed family and the difficulties of managing on the pension and two thousand million quid.

Swayed by the alluring images of sun-soaked beaches, swimsuit clad models sipping bacardi, and the prospect of another year ahead full of the same old problems, we rushed off to the travel agent. We staggered back with all the brochures. Capitalism isn't so bad you know, especially if you can afford two weeks away from it all. The trouble is that all the problems and frustrations that we want to leave behind will still be here when we get back.

Come the big day and at the airport we discover why Package Holidays are so called. Hundreds of other packages are all waiting to depart too. Why do the companies selling holidays studiously avoid showing how crowded a beach or a hotel can get when everyone seems to be going to the same place at the same time?

Having been processed through the airport and fed plastic food, eaten with plastic cutlery, on the plane we finally arrive. When R. L. Stevenson wrote that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, he had obviously never been on a jam-packed Boeing 737.

As we transfer to our hotel (30 minutes by coach the brochure said but only possible in this time because of Spanish driving) how many of us give a thought to the many Ronan Points along the way which house Spanish workers? Does it occur to us that they suffer under capitalism too?

The entertainment opportunities afforded in the sunshine are myriad. Providing you can afford them. Spain may have a "socialist" government but try getting a drink from a bar without engaging in an exchange transaction and see how quickly the municipal police arrive.

What with crowded beaches, crowded bars, fighting for a table every time we take our buffet type meals, it's almost a pleasure to be able to rest in the airport for 11 hours because the aircraft taking us home has broken down through overwork.

And when we finally arrive home. 18 hours later than planned, to find a welcoming pile of bills on the door mat, we sit down, have a cup of tea and prepare to sell our labour power for the next 50 weeks to pay for our next holiday.

Dave Coggan

The Unknown Question (1958)

Film Review from the September 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently many film critics and many picturegoers have clapped their hands at the end of films that deal with war; the war with all the dead and wounded, the war with all the bullets and shells. Somewhere in these films we find the hero mumbles something that clearly shows how “confused” or “unnecessary'’ wars really are. “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Paths of Glory,” and “The Young Lions” are a few examples. “The Unknown Soldier” (shown at the Academy) has more bullets fired, and more blood spilled than any of them. It also provides a record of war that is seemingly harsh but really quite accurate in its two-hour-plus description of the Finnish army's advance and subsequent retreat in Russia during 1941.

The director, Edvin Laine, employed a largely unprofessional cast in the making of this first war film from Finland. There are no real heroes, certainly not in the Hollywood U.S. Marine tradition, for it is obvious from just ten minutes of this film that however unflinching heroes may be they rarely live to see the medals handed out.

A handful of agricultural workers forming a National Service machine gun detachment are the centre of the film’s interest. They are shown from their first time in uniform as awkward recruits, to their final savage battles in retreat from the overwhelming Russian army.

Presenting a faithful picture of war it does not employ any of the patriotic devices usual to most war films. Most noticeable is the absence of the enemy—the Russians. They are seen here and there marching or advancing as a body, but never are they identified as the aggressors by means of propagandist tricks showing the enemy as the rapers, monsters, and barbarians which is also common to war films. A typical example of the portrayal of the Russians is a marching column in the snow, vague figures in heavy uniforms. Two Finns sit behind a machine gun ready to fire upon the unsuspecting soldiers; one speaks, “If that bastard has a maker, start forgiving his sins now, and quickly!" This sums up the attitude of the film to the enemy.

Finns are not shown as brave and relentless fighters, everyone of them living proof of the term “plucky little Finland.” Many of them are shown as fools and cowards, two of them are shot for indiscipline.

A bitter humour pervades the film. As the detachment force their way into Karelia then suffer severe losses during the retreat the soldiers become unmoved by violent death; it has no real significance..

In a review in the Observer (Sunday, June 13) C. A. Lejeune says: “‘The Unknown Soldier’ is a rough work with certain qualities of greatness, but to watch it is a great ordeal.”

No punches are pulled, and scenes are brutal and horrifying in an arms-and-legs-all-over-the-screen fashion.

The final conclusion is that all the killing, all the dying, all the shooting and all the fear has been something of a waste of time. Forlorn and pathetic the soldiers stand in the trees of a vast forest, last shots have been fired, the sun shines through the tree tops. Voices swell in a last triumphant anthem and everybody is glad because of peace. Peace that is silence and the sun shining—the only trite device used by the director.

“The Unknown Soldier” is a war film that shows men, who have worked all of their lives, suddenly fighting. They fight because they have to. But no reason is given for war, nobody knows why, because if they did they would not be fighting.

“For religion and home" the soldiers cry together, a scared group of men who yell because it gives them courage. They fight so they can go home to their families and work hard and forget about it. The violence and fear are to be forgotten, put aside, just as any attempt to think why the soldiers fought was to be put aside. They would have no other choice but to go home and work after the war, but they would not think of that either.

Robert Jarvis.

Labour Governments and armaments (1965)

From the March 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party has always prided itself on being different from the Liberals and Tories it its attitude to armaments and war. It charged the Liberals with having been responsible for the First World War and has often called the Tory leaders war makers. It declared its trust in the League of Nations and later in United Nations as means of preventing war, and condemned the Tories in particular for lack of enthusiasm in supporting the League and UNO. It was always to the fore in declaring its belief in disarmament and in securing peace among the nations through peaceful discussion to settle disputes. It attracted and tolerated a fringe of self-styled pacifists. In its early days it gave a certain amount of lip service to ideas of international working class action to prevent war. One of its best known leaders, Keir Hardie, writing in 1907, claimed for the Labour Party and the parties in other countries with which it was associated that the evil of war was already on the way to being eradicated.

   "Whatever differences there may be in the International Socialist Movement concerning the tactics to be pursued in achieving Socialism, there is perfect agreement on two leading points of principle: hostility to militarism in all its forms and to war as a method of settling disputes between nations is the first. In countries where the Socialist parties are a real influence in the councils of the nation, the war spirit is suffering appreciable eclipse. It would, for instance, be a difficult task, and one yearly becoming more so, for the rulers of say France and Germany, to again embroil these two nations with each other. Probably the first effective service to which the growing forces of International Socialism will be put will be to make war upon war. The Holy Alliance which Socialism is achieving is not that of crowned heads but of homy hands and therein lies the only real hope there is of peace on earth. The other point of agreement concerns the essential principle of Socialism" (From Serfdom to Socialism).

These were the beliefs and hopes of Keir Hardie at that time: and all of them were wrong, as events were soon to prove. When the war came in 1914 the French and German governments had no difficulty at all in rallying the majority of the workers for war, including the majority of members and supporters of the parties Keir Hardie was writing about. They —and this included Keir Hardie—let themselves be tricked by the plea that in each country “National interests" were at stake and that these involved the working class.

The collapse of the International was represented as a failure of the Socialist movement to stand the test, a charge which was examined and shown to be false in lengthy article in the Socialist Standard fifty years ago. in the issue of March 1915. It was the collapse not of parties grounded in Socialist principles but of parties which, in the pursuit of mass membership, had turned aside from the hard task of spreading an understanding of the problem of replacing capitalism by Socialism, to follow the seemingly easy and fruitful road of chasing reforms of capitalism. They were parties aiming merely to take on the administration of capitalism and to show that they could do it as well as their Liberal and Tory rivals.

But the belief still persists among millions of Labour Party supporters that their party can indeed run affairs differently and in particular that they can bring a new attitude towards the avoidance of war. Yet all the evidence of the past Labour governments shows this to be a vain hope.

The Labour Party supported the war in 1914 and joined the coalition government to fight the war. In 1924, in office as a minority Labour government dependent on Liberal votes, they were responsible for expanding the navy and air force though claiming that by concentrating on more deadly but cheaper weapons they were able to cut the overall cost. And at the Labour Party Conference a year later (1925) the Executive was able to defeat a motion to support disarmament with the plea that “they could not afford to ignore the question of defence.” Ironically the “enemy" the delegates were asked to fear was not on this occasion Germany, but France.

The Labour Government had, to quote the words of one of their leaders Mr. J. H. Thomas, taken on the job of governing "while accepting the present order of society.” They were administrating capitalism, and armaments and war are an inescapable responsibility of those who do so. They carried on in the same way in the second Labour Government 1929-1931.

After the second World War, when again they were part of the National Government, they had six years of rule, this time with a large majority but again without any mandate for Socialism. Before they left office if had fallen to them to be involved in the Korean War and to initiate the great rearmament which sent expenditure up from £777 million in 1950-1 to £1,110 million in 1951-2. They were responsible for the development of nuclear weapons. In office again since last October they have made a special feature of their aim to reduce armaments but, according to forecasts of the forthcoming budget (Sunday Times 8.1.65.) the expenditure in the coming year is likely to reach the record figure of over £2,000 million.

The Labour government have already found themselves committed to sending troops to Malaysia, with the Navy Minister, Mr. Christopher Mayhew, voicing the possibility of sending additional forces to strengthen the 50,000 men and 70 warships already there. They may before long be involved in Vietnam.

Is it that they want war? Of course not, any more than Keir Hardie did in 1907. But they are pursuing a course which is equally fatal. Capitalism is a jungle of warring capitalist states—on both sides of the Iron Curtain- and in this jungle all governments live by the same rule of force in the pursuit of markets, raw materials etc. The only way out—half glimpsed by Keir Hardie—lies in united working class action to abolish capitalism and establish Socialism, not in alliance with the governments of the separate countries but against all of them. Far from endorsing the Socialist view on this, the Labour Government, like its predecessors, accepts the function of representing British capitalism against the rival capitalist groups.

The Government, and its supporters, devote their efforts to the task of gaining markets for British exports. As a first step towards understanding something about the nature of the capitalism they disown with words but support with deeds, they might ponder a wartime declaration of the late Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the earlier Labour government:

  If after the coming of peace, we were to start once again the vicious circle of international trade competition we should be lost, and in a few years would be confronting another war.

Edgar Hardcastle

Know your place (1984)

From the January 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

    "I can't cope with it. Sometimes I have to go hungry in order to feed the child. For two or three days at a time, I go without food. I just drink a cup of tea” (a single parent, Breadline Britain. LWT, 1983).   

  "Roland Waller (Tiny) Chairman and Managing Director of Lonrho, according to the company's latest set of accounts, picked up £266,034 in salary (1982). plus £3,990,513 in dividends. His income of £4,250,000 is the equivalent of £82,000 per week" (Labour Research, 1983).

What is wealth? It is the result of human effort being applied to the material environment. In order for human society to continue it needs to produce wealth. As our technology to operate on the environment has been changed in character, so the system of social relations in which we combine to produce wealth has changed. Very early forms of human beings arranged their production and distribution of wealth on a communistic basis. They suffered under no governments. They had no notion of individual property by which one person could exclude others from access to the wealth which many of them had taken part in helping to produce.

When, for reasons of scarcity of raw materials, competition between communities arose, the phenomenon of property took root. Since the emergence of property society the ways in which we have related to each other in the process of producing wealth have been changing. One epoch in human history was characterised by most of the wealth producers being physically owned and possessed by the ruling class. These were the ancient slave societies: what the doublespeak history books describe as the “ancient democracies of Greece and Rome".

Another era in our history worked on the basis of a pyramidal hierarchy with the monarch at the pinnacle and beneath him aristocrats, knights, serfs and peasants. The modern set of social relationships in which we work to produce wealth are those of the profit system — capitalism. We have reached a stage where we have developed a very efficient means of producing and distributing wealth, but the system (the set of social relations) that we use to produce and distribute wealth is one which conflicts with the needs of the majority of people. Today the factories, farms, offices, transport and communications networks are owned by a small minority of people and state bureaucracies. In return for wages and salaries the majority work for the minority. Each worker is paid less than the value of what he or she produces and the capital-owning minority live off the surplus value thus donated by the workers.

So the rich get increasingly rich by not working, while the workers remain in a constant state of poverty as wages and salaries are used up before the end of each week or month. Production in this system is aimed at the goal of profit. From the point of view of the capitalist there is no reason to allow commodities to be produced if there is no prospect of being able to sell them for a profit. This explains why millions of human beings die each year from starvation although society has the capacity to produce more than enough for everyone.

The nineteenth century social investigators Booth and Rowntree exposed and commented on the wretched poverty of Victorian society. Many subsequent improvements in society were, and still are, measured against this sort of backdrop. But the argument that “at least we are better off than we used to be" is not very helpful. You could say that compared with the workers of a century ago. the workers of today are not poor. But poverty is not measured by reference to the past. It needs to be measured by reference to the present. Bearing in mind the sort of prosperity that most people could enjoy today because of what we could produce, the majority are poor. There are, of course, degrees of poverty ranging from the millions who are destitute and starving to the millions who exhaust themselves each week in order to varnish the mediocrity of their lives with artificial fun.

Since the implementation of Beveridge's plan for social security by the Attlee government of 1945-50 some people have opposed the urgent need for socialism — that is classless society — on the grounds that you could, after all, make capitalism run well for the working class. Because capitalism works on the principle of continuous impoverishment of the working class it can never work in our interest, any more than a prison can be designed to work in the interest of the prisoners. The welfare state provides a careful system of indoctrination to produce literate, numerate. punctual, obedient and docile wage- slaves: state education; and a cheap medical service to keep workers just healthy enough. In a House of Commons debate on the Beveridge Report. Quintin Hogg MP (now Lord Hailsham) remarked that.

Some of my honorable Friends seem to overlook one or two ultimate facts about social reform. The first is that if you do not give the people social reform they arc going to give you social revolution . . .

(Parliamentary Debates. 17 February. 1943, Col. 1818)

In fact, Beveridge himself saw his plan as a means of making the existing social services “more economical". He observed that.

It is to the interest of employers as such that the employees should have security, should be properly maintained during the inevitable intervals of unemployment or of sickness, should have the content which helps to make them efficient producers.

(Beveridge Report. Social Insurance and Allied Services, p. 109)

In the same vein Samuel Courtauld, millionaire chairman of the great rayon company. said that he was.

   . . . strongly in favour of the principles and almost all of the proposals of the Beveridge Report . . .  I have not the faintest doubt that if we can survive the first severe business contraction which arises after the war, social security of this nature will be about the most profitable long-term investment the country could make. It will not undermine the morale of the nation’s workers: it will ultimately lead to higher efficiency among them and a lowering of production costs.

(Manchester Guardian, 19 February 1943).

The relative poverty of the majority is endemic to capitalism. The majority under this system will have to live second-rate lives. And being in this condition of poverty cannot be easily escaped from. Generally, you do not get rich by working hard. You just get tired.

Poverty is a social problem today not because there are insufficient resources. We can project laboratories into space. We can construct thriving cities where once there was desert. The current state of agricultural and industrial technique enable us to adequately feed and clothe all of the world’s 4.2 billion inhabitants. The political parties which stand to operate this present social system do not have a solution to the problem of poverty. According to the “virtuous" Victorian values advocated by vocal members of the Conservative Party it is individual frailty or idleness which is the cause of poverty although not perhaps in the case of the House of Lords and the top exclusive gentlemen's clubs.

Throughout its history, including prior to the seven occasions when it has formed the government, the Labour Party has made promises about reducing poverty. Perhaps more so than the other parties, it is seen as the party to do away with poverty. But because it has only ever stood to run capitalism the Labour Party has always, as a government, acted against the interest of the working class. During their last period of office, according to the Department of Health and Social Security, the number of poor families increased by 37 per cent between 1974 and 1977. Over the same period the number of individuals living in poverty increased by 43 per cent. The social service cuts introduced by the last Labour government meant the loss of 25,000 hospital beds. In its first two years, the share of the nation's wealth held by the top five per cent of people increased from 43.1 per cent to 46.2 per cent, while that of the bottom 50 per cent of the population fell from 7.1 per cent to 5.6 per cent.

Although the SDP/Liberal policy is difficult to discover, it appears that the Alliance is moderately in favour of moderately reducing poverty to an acceptable level. Before it eliminates poverty from society, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) seeks to sack Thatcher, reform the Labour Party and create more jobs. As jobs, or employment, or exploitation, were the cause of poverty in the first place, voting Labour to abolish poverty is about as logical as jumping into the bath in order to get dry.

The only solution to poverty is for the majority of people to act democratically and to put the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth into the hands of the whole community. With production carried out on the basis of "from each according to ability, to each according to need” there will be no poverty, just one prosperous world community. There will be no antagonism of economic interest between those who produce but do not possess and those who possess but do not produce. With one worldwide community democratically using the earth's resources to provide for our needs, we will finally have stepped from the contradictions of property society. The most painful and stark contradiction we suffer now is that the profit system itself has created a single, world-integrated society of production. Labour and resources come together from all over the planet to constitute many goods. Commerce has accelerated the development of highly efficient communications networks (including telephones, television communication, computer link-ups and holographs) and transport systems. But standing in the way, preventing this technology from being used to satisfy our needs, is the tyrannous idea that we need to have a social system with property owners, money, profits, wages, policemen, prisons, passports and nations. In his essay The Soul of Man Under Socialism, Oscar Wilde observed:

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else. That is the misery of being poor.

Gary Jay

Editorial: Society and nature (1985-6)

Editorial from the Winter 1985-6 issue of the World Socialist

In this issue of The World Socialist we raise some questions about the relationship of society to nature. These are vital issues affecting the quality of life not just for this generation but for generations to come.

The subject involves a paradox. Humanity is a part of nature which evolved as one species amongst many within the processes of organic evolution. Yet we commonly see ourselves as something separate from nature. The function of nature is perceived as providing for the means of human existence. Behind this human-centred view is the nature of human consciousness and this is simply that, we are a self-aware part of nature as a whole.

This consciousness now has its own history which is still in the making and a key part of its development has centred on accumulating knowledge of the natural world. This knowledge is now so complex and extensive that no individual could hope to master more than a sub-division of the total.

The discovery of the processes, principles and natural laws through which natural elements interact have been applied as practical techniques of production. This has been humanity's increasing ability to control and manipulate the natural forces of the environment. Since the Renaissance and particularly since the industrial revolution the application of science-based knowledge has gained a rapid momentum. In principle this has been held to be a great advantage and so much has this been the case that in the 19th Century the work of science was invested with high optimism. It was popularly equated with “progress".

But since that time, applied science has also been regarded as a social menace. Given examples include the fact that applied physics has led to the nuclear arms race so that we now live under the threat of self-destruction. Hundreds of millions of people have been killed during this century using the technical methods of modern war. The science of botany and genetic control has resulted in new agricultural techniques, but have these been used for the benefit of humanity? On the contrary, there are more people suffering malnutrition and dying from hunger today than ever in the past. Similarly in the work of energy supply, despite there now being a wide range of technical options for establishing a safe and adequate world energy system, people still die from the cold and hundreds of millions still rely on gathering firewood. The energy production methods in use pose an increasing threat to the environment. Although there have been some undoubted gains, our developed knowledge of the natural world has not led to a better society nor to a better relationship between society and nature. The story of applied science in modern society is a story of waste, destruction and increasing dangers.

Thus, the hopes invested in accumulating knowledge have eroded, leaving the scarred remains of disillusion and pessimism. The mood now is different, but it is a superficial response to blame our present problems on science or our greater understanding of the workings of the natural world. It can be admitted that previous optimism was unsoundly based but behind our problems lies the fact that science has been subject to a different kind of investment - capital investment. Applied science in the form of technology operates as invested capital. The consequences of this have meant that control of the natural world for the benefit of humanity has been subverted by the uncontrolled and anti-social objectives of invested capital and the militarism which has been part of this.

Our understanding of the way capitalism uses the earth and its resources is blurred by a popular misconception. In the ordinary way we may see ourselves simply as useful producers with a useful job of work to do. We think of the environment simply as the natural world. We are aware of land, seas, forests, river valleys and deserts. We are also aware of useful resources such as coal, oil or natural gas and such metals as iron ore, copper or tin deposits. All these features of the natural environment present themselves in our minds as useful means of providing for life. But in the property form in which present society operates we are not simply useful producers and natural resources are not used simply for the reproduction and enjoyment of life. In reality, what we think of as our useful work is economic activity. We are waged or salaried workers functioning as invested capital working on natural materials for the production of commodities for sale on the market with a view to profit.

A farming enterprise cannot view land simply as land, a useful resource for the production of food. In the eye of agribusiness, land and farm labour are the natural elements of invested capital operating for profit and further capital accumulation. Similarly, forests, seas, oil, coal, natural gas resources, iron ore, tin or copper deposits are all taken over as part of the class monopoly of the means of life to be worked upon by wage labour for profit.

As capitalism has spread across the world to become the dominant economic system, including the state capitalist countries such as Russia and China, so has the entire planet come to exist in an economic form as providing for the elements of capital. Rival capitalist nations struggle over control of resources, exploitable populations, and the various trade routes on land and seas. They adopt military strategies for maintaining economic and political control or influence over the various parts of the planet, Most recently, British and Argentine capital was at war over the profit potential of the South Atlantic and the Antarctic, with the Falkland Islands as the strategic gateway to them.

The interests of capital dominate in every branch of knowledge. Capital finances the institutions of education and research. This determines the direction of applied science and technology. Vested capitalist interests control the world’s air waves, the media and the centres of world information. As a consequence, within the prevailing boundaries of thought acceptable to capitalist interests there exists a wide gap between the way nature is perceived and the reality of its economic existence. But we cannot clarify this view of nature by looking outwards at the natural world. The way we use nature and the relationship of society to it is determined by the social relationships between people themselves. It. is in the nature of social organisation that we find the relationship of society to nature.

Society cannot consciously regulate the impact of its activity on the natural world unless it can first consciously regulate its own productive activity. The present inability of society to control its destructive effects on the environment results from the inherently uncontrollable operation of the economic laws of the production-for-profit system which arise from the class monopoly of the means of life. It is awareness of this and the political action to change society which must follow from it which is the important advance in ideas and action represented by the movement for World Socialism.

What is lacking in the present state of human knowledge will not arise from any further focus on the wider natural world. Our existing understanding of this is far beyond what is required for a proper care of the environment. The material in this issue of The World Socialist shows that care of the environment is not primarily a practical or technical problem. It is a problem arising from the prevailing social relationships of capitalist production. By freeing labour from its exploitation by capital, socialism will also free the natural environment from its exploitation by capital. With a direct relationship of work activity to needs, socialism will be free to work with methods which ensure care of the environment. With co-operation based on the common ownership of the means of life socialism would aim at an equilibrium within the balance of natural systems without altering them in any destructive way.

Exhibition Review: Saddleworth Museum (2017)

Exhibition Review from the May 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Saddleworth is an area of farms and villages on the western edge of the Pennines, about halfway between Manchester and Huddersfield, with some spectacular scenery. Traditionally part of Yorkshire, it has, since the local government reorganisation of 1974, been part of the Borough of Oldham (which is itself within Greater Manchester). This annoys some of the residents, who maintain it is still in its previous county and have set up the Saddleworth White Rose Society (as if it matters in the slightest). The area is often described as ‘a Yorkshire community on the Lancashire side of the Pennines’.

Saddleworth Museum is located in the area’s largest village, Uppermill, in what was once the steam house of a mill. Originally established in 1962, it re-opened last year after extensive refurbishment. It traces the history of the area, with artefacts and display boards. Castleshaw, in the north of Saddleworth, has the remains of two Roman forts dating from the first and second centuries CE, which were important bases on the road between Chester and York. But most of the museum naturally deals with more recent times.

The acidic soil meant the area was not good for crops, so farmers had to rely on keeping sheep and cattle, combined with home weaving of cotton and wool. It was not a prosperous area, and in the early 1800s one-third of the population were on poor relief, unable to find work. From the 1840s wool and cotton mills were established, becoming the main local employers. For a hundred years down to 1960, looms were manufactured in one of the local villages, for use locally and elsewhere. The displays include a replica of a banner carried by the Saddleworth contingent at Peterloo, with the slogan ‘Equal Representation or Death’. Suffragette Annie Kenney was born here in 1879, and worked in a cotton mill from the age of ten before becoming very active in the Women’s Social and Political Union.

In the course of the twentieth century, the mills closed in the face of competition and were either demolished or converted into housing. Saddleworth is now mainly a dormitory district for Manchester.

An interesting local museum which gives a very worthwhile account of a rather unusual area.       

Paul Bennett

Editorial: For A Democratic World (1985)

Editorial from the Spring 1985 issue of the World Socialist

The world today is divided into 140 or so states, each with its own flag, its own Head of State, its own government, its own nationalism and above all, since institutionalised violence is the essence of the state, its own armed forces. Only a minority of these states even pretend to be democratic. The rest are dictatorships of one kind or another in which the ruling minority uses the most vile means, including torture and murder (as documented by organisations such as Amnesty International), to preserve its power and privileges. We refer here not only to the host of military dictatorships in Asia, Africa and Latin America but also to the state capitalist countries like Russia and China where the privileged ruling classes have reached the depths of cynicism with their claim to have established a classless socialist society.

Even the “democratic” states are only democratic in the limited sense of allowing their subjects a say from time to time in the choice of the personnel to fill certain important posts on the administrative side of the state. This is not to say that universal suffrage, the right to express and propagate dissenting views from the ruling ideology, the right to organise and to go on strike are not of vital importance. They are and nobody needs to tell us that they had to be achieved by years of struggle against the direct ancestors of the present ruling class, but in themselves they do not amount to anything like democracy in its full sense of a society run by and in the interest of the whole people.

Freedom to cry ''exploitation” from the roof tops does not in itself abolish exploitation; indeed it can be used to give the impression that exploitation no longer exists, as is done by defenders of capitalism in countries like the United States, Britain and Canada. According to them the populations of these and other countries with the same kind of political regime form national communities with a common interest and elections there are about choosing the men and women to administer the common affairs of these communities in the interest of the whole population. This claim is as false as that of the ruling class in Russia to be the mere servants of the community in a classless society of equals. It ignores the fact that society, even in the so-called democratic countries, is divided into antagonistic classes.

Throughout the world, in all countries irrespective of their political regime, the means for producing and distributing wealth are monopolised, either privately as individuals and companies or collectively through the state, by a minority class. As a result the rest of the population of any country are economically dependent on the monopolising minority, being obliged to sell their mental and physical energies to them for a wage or salary far below the value of the wealth they produce and which the minority appropriate. Wherever a class is deprived of the fruits of its labour exploitation exists, and it exists just as much in the United States, Britain and Canada as it does in Chile, Russia or South Africa.

As they take place in class-divided societies, elections in the 'democratic countries” are not about choosing delegates to run social affairs in the common interest; they are about choosing the men and women who are to run affairs in the interest of the minority class which monopolises the means of life. The task of those elected is to use the powers of the state machine to further the interests at home and abroad of the capitalist class of the country concerned. At home this involves maintaining "law and order”, upholding the established social order where the law grants the members of the minority capitalist class property rights in the means of production; the interests of the capitalist minority must be protected against the "enemy within", i.e. against the majority class of wage and salary earners wherever they take action to defend their living standards, by strikes and other forms of industrial action, against the ever present downward pressures exerted by capital. Abroad it involves protecting and furthering the commercial interests of the capitalist minority over markets, sources of raw materials, trade routes and investment outlets by the threatened and if need be the actual use of armed force. To this end each state has to arm its forces with the most destructive and most devastating weapons it can afford. Hence the arms race, continual local wars and the ever present threat of another world war.

Elections, such as those which took place last year in the United States, Canada and Australia, are thus about who shall fill the top posts in the state and run affairs in the interest of the established capitalist class. The choice that is offered is not really a choice at all since the main parties involved all stand for the same system. This is obvious in the case of America where the Republican and Democratic parties are openly mere rival gangs of political place-hunters, but is also the case in countries like Britain, Australia and New Zealand where one of the contending parties claims to represent the interests of the working class. Experience over the years of “Labour" governments shows that in practice they are just as anti-working class as any government formed by openly pro-capitalist parties. This is inevitable since the capitalist system can only function in one way: as a profit-making system in the interest of the profit-taking class. No government could change this economic law of present-day class society. On the contrary, all governments are obliged to abide by it and apply it whatever their original intentions might have been.

Politics in these countries is a game of ins and outs remote from the lives of ordinary people who, even though they participate in this game by exercising a “choice” when given the opportunity, generally do so without illusions since they know by experience that it makes very little difference to their everyday lives which party—which particular gang of place-hunters—wins. Politics is seen, and presented, as a sort of never-ending TV serial in which various media-puffed personalities vie with each other for power and place. No wonder most people don’t want too much to do with “politics". This is how it is today, but it need not always be so. When socialist understanding has spread sufficiently amongst the majority wage and salary earning class in these countries elections can be turned against the minority capitalist class. But until this happens the spectacle will go on and the use to which democratic forms are put will remain a farce that is an insult to the intelligence of thinking men and women.

So throughout the world, state power is exercised for the benefit of minorities, even if this power is sometimes exercised by people who have been chosen by the exploited majority class living in the country concerned. It could not be otherwise since state power and minority rule are inextricably linked: states exist precisely to uphold and protect minority rule and privilege, To create a truly democratic world the people of the world must take democratic political action to abolish all the states into which the world is currently divided, along with all the privileged classes whose interests they serve, and establish in their place a global classless community with a democratic unarmed world administration. Only then will we be able to talk of democracy. Only then will have been created the framework within which can be solved once and for all manifestly world problems such as disarmament and the threat of war, pollution and the plundering of non-renewable resources, and mass hunger, disease and ignorance,

Banking for Food (2017)

From the May 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

Food banks are one of the most obvious examples of the extent of poverty, and more and more people have been using them. In the six months to September last year, the Trussell Trust, which operates a large number of food banks throughout Britain, handed out three-day food parcels to over half a million people, an increase over the same period in 2015. There are also more food banks in operation now than ever before. Many of the hungry are in fuel poverty too, and some food banks have even begun to give out tampons, as some women were using newspapers or handkerchiefs when they could not afford proper sanitary products.

Clearly, poverty is the reason why people resort to food banks to feed themselves and their families, but specifically two out of five who went to Trussell Trust operations cited delays in receiving benefits or changes to benefits as causing them to go there. A DWP spokesperson stated, ‘Reasons for food bank use are complex so it’s misleading to link them to any one issue’ (Telegraph online, 08/11/16). Individual cases vary, of course, but talk of ‘complex reasons’ just serves to muddy the water. To put it plainly, it is poverty and the inability to make ends meet that drive people to food banks.

In 2014 the Mail on Sunday ran a typically nasty story claiming that people could get vouchers for food banks without ID or checks and just by telling sob stories. Moreover, many of those who used the food banks were asylum seekers! This exemplifies the capitalist propaganda machine: focussing on a tiny number who supposedly ‘abuse’ the system rather than the widespread poverty that makes the system necessary, just as allegedly-dishonest welfare recipients are publicised in order to undermine the whole system and so humiliate, discourage and harass those who have genuine claims.

In 2015, 391 people in the UK died from malnutrition or hunger-related causes, and there were 746 admissions to hospital on grounds of malnutrition. There seem to be no reliable figures for the extent of hunger in Britain, but the increase in children starting school under weight and the rise in use of food banks suggest that the situation is bad and getting worse. One volunteer reported on some painfully thin people who attended one food bank: ‘There were people who had not eaten that day or the day before, or who had walked for two hours to get there, because paying for a return bus journey was out of the question’ (Guardian online, 29 January).

What is usually claimed to be the world’s first food bank was started in Arizona in 1967. In the US 42 million people still face hunger now, including nearly thirteen million children and five million seniors (feedingamerica.org). That is roughly one person in eight, which shows graphically why food banks are still badly needed.

One in nine of the world’s population – that’s 800 million people – do not have enough to eat, and nearly three million children die each year from hunger-related causes. According to the Global Foodbanking Network (foodbanking.org), households and nations suffer from food insecurity, ‘conditions where people do not have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food’. The GFN is currently aiming to raise $1m ‘to provide nutritious meals to eight million people facing hunger by the end of 2018’; but this is barely a drop in the ocean of what is needed.

Food banks are a classic case of dealing with the symptoms, not the cause. But the need for food banks and the increasing demands on them show very clearly that capitalism cannot provide a decent and secure life for everybody, despite the potential to produce more than enough of food and other goods. 

Paul Bennett

Editorial: Why capitalism cannot serve human needs (1984)

Editorial from the Winter 1984 issue of the World Socialist

It is an undeniable fact that throughout its history capitalism has been unable to meet the needs of the world's population. It has not done so in the past, it does not do so now, and it is not going to do so in the future.

We are interested in the needs of the community. Capitalism does provide for, and more than provides for, the needs of those who are rich enough to buy all they want. Nor are we interested in the total production achieved under capitalism, but only with that part that meets human needs. We are not interested for instance in armaments production, the vast allocations of resources and labour throughout the world given to the military. Tanks, guns, nuclear weaponry and their delivery systems do not contribute to meeting human needs as socialists understand them. We are interested in production which provides for life and not for the destruction of life.

Over one hundred years ago Marx wrote that "it is not a fact that too many necessities of life are produced in proportion to the existing population. The reverse is true. Not enough is produced to satisfy the wants of the great mass decently and humanely" (Capital, Vol III).

In modem terms, what is meant by providing for needs "decently and humanely" can be put in the form of a question. Does capitalism produce everywhere in the world enough good quality food, clothing, housing, water and sewage systems, energy for heating and lighting, health services and education facilities, books, radio and TV services, entertainment, means of travel recreation and so on? The answer is emphatically that it does not.

In the chapter from which the above statement was taken, Marx was dealing with the confusion which existed then, and still exists now, about the fact that periodically capitalism enters depressions in which it is found that some commodities have been "overproduced". But, as Marx showed, overproduction of a commodity for its particular market has nothing to do with the important question about whether capitalism produces enough to meet the needs of the great mass of the world’s population.

Frederick Engels put the position well in a letter he wrote in 1865:

Too little is produced, that is the cause of the whole thing. But why is too little produced? Not because the limits of production are exhausted. No—but because the limits of production are determined not by the number of empty bellies but by the number of purchasers able to buy and pay.

This is still the case. At the present time not only are productive resources not being used, but production is being cut back. In spite of the need for more food, the US and European governments are restricting food production because of limited market capacity for sales at a profit.

This difference between overproduction for the market and insufficient production for human needs demonstrates the contradictory way in which capitalism operates. When farms or industries have overproduced for their particular markets and have accumulated unsold stocks, it is precisely at that point that the ability of workers to buy decreases because of unemployment.

There are still many people who think that the appearance of unsold commodities is evidence that capitalism does produce enough to meet all needs. This is not only factually untrue but it would be a contradiction of the basic principle on which capitalist production is carried on.

In every country throughout the world, including the state capitalist countries of Russia and China, companies and governments own and monopolise means of production and distribution such as land, factories, shops, transport, communication systems, and so on. They employ workers to produce commodities to be sold in the market for profit. Selling at a profit is what the whole economic arrangement is all about. When, periodically, some industries find that they have produced more than can be sold in their particular markets at a profit, their reaction is immediate. They don't go on producing goods which they cannot sell. They curtail production and stand off workers they no longer need.

Capitalism does not go on producing commodities which it knows it cannot sell at a profit. The many millions of unemployed throughout the world are unemployed because they cannot be employed at a profit. Even at peak production during market booms capitalism never produces enough for the whole population, and in the recurrent market depressions it produces still less.

An accumulation of unsold products means that those who control them have a number of options. They can hold them at some expense until the market recovers. They can sell them at cut rates in order to get cash. In some cases they will be destroyed. There is one exception to these options about accumulated unsold stocks. World capitalism is not just a collection of industrial and trading organisations. It is also, of necessity, a collection of armed capitalist states with overriding political and military objectives. Governments, for political and military reasons, promote the production of some commodities beyond the demand of the market and accumulate stockpiles of petrol, food and strategically important metals. They do this because they are in constant conflict with each other over the acquisition and defence of sources of raw materials, trade routes and markets.

It is true that capitalism has greatly increased mankind's powers of production, but this has not been for the object of providing for human needs The economic stimulus has been profit and the accumulation of capital, and though these increased powers of production exist they are not available for the benefit of mankind. Quite apart from armaments production, they have been dissipated by the creation of a vast number of unproductive employments such as finance and banking which are essential to a profit system but which would be completely unnecessary in socialism which would be concerned with useful work producing useful goods and services.

Throughout the world today we find that powers of production are not being used to anything like their full capacity. Even in relation to existing market possibilities there is at the present time unused productive capacity in almost every line of commodity production.

The structure of capitalism and the way it operates always prohibits the full use of productive capacity. For a very short time at the peak of a market boom it is sometimes used to its full extent, but this can never last. But in any event such productive capacity as exists under capitalism is never in relation to the needs of the population. It is fixed at a level in relation to market capacity for the object of selling goods at a profit and this remains far below what would be required to meet the needs of the whole population.

Capitalist production is regulated by its own economic laws and cannot be controlled by any policy of so-called economic management. Nor is this position affected by the political complexion of particular governments, who for the most part remain in the powerless position of having to react to economic conditions which they cannot control. The conscious direction of production for human needs is only possible with the establishment of socialist society on the basis of common ownership, democratic control and production for use.