Editorial: Wealth and Directive Ability. (1929)

Editorial from the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists do not question the need for organisation in industry. What we do question is that Capitalist argument that industry is, and must be, directed by Capitalists. It is, in the main, already directed by salaried employees, members of the working class. Only in the field of financial operations do we find Capitalists themselves normally engaged and even these operations are more and more being performed by paid employees. The Capitalist class own and control industry. They do not direct it. Recently certain Capitalist politicians and newspapers have disclosed some interesting facts and opinions on the “directive ability” of our masters. 

First listen to Mr. Baldwin, speaking at Saint Andrew’s Hall, Glasgow, on November 22nd, 1928 (“Morning Post,” November 23rd) :—

   Since the days when private industry gave place to the joint stock company there have battened on the joint stock companies large numbers of men connected with management, and directors, who are parasitical to industry, and nothing but parasitical.

The City Editor of the “Manchester Guardian” (November 26th) commented on Mr. Baldwin’s speech. He wrote:—

  It is difficult in public life for a man to continue to hold a post after he has, through age or other cause, become obviously unfit to carry out the duties attaching to it. But in the administration of public companies a far laxer standard prevails. It is almost a matter of tradition that once a man has been elected to a board he shall continue to hold his seat for life, and that, if for any reason his retirement is called for, he is entitled to compensation for loss of an office which, in most cases, is legally terminable by the shareholders without notice.

Then Sir Malcolm Robertson, Ambassador to Argentina, tells us that he knows of —

   directors, chairmen, even general managers and passenger traffic managers, of some of the greatest companies connected with Argentina, who have never been in South America. (“Evening Standard,” 11 December.)

Sir Henry Slesser, speaking at Denaby on December 17th, related an incident which recently happened in the House of Commons. He met a man and asked why he was looking so happy. The man replied:—

    “Lord X has made me a director in one of his companies.” Sir Henry Slesser asked if the man knew anything about the business of the company, and he replied “ No, but it is worth £500 a year.” (“Daily Express,” 17 Dec.)

It seems, therefore, that directors do not have to know anything about the company, nor do they have to be where the work of the company goes on. If, then, directors do not direct, what do they do?

Mr. E. C. Grenfell, the banker and financier, answers that question. Speaking in the House of Commons, he said (“Hansard,” December 10th, column 1813):—

   The conception of a director, merely from his name, is that he directs the company; that he has a large share in appointing people: really, that he knows all about the company. Nothing is more fallacious. A director of most companies is a part-time man who serves the company to the best of his ability by giving advice when asked.

And these "parasites,” these "part-time” gentlemen who “don’t know anything about the company,” but who give advice "to the best of their ability” about companies operating perhaps on the other side of the globe, sometimes get quite well paid. Something like £10,000 a year was paid to the directors of Marconi Company, a company which, according to the Editor of "The Times,” was "scandalously mismanaged.” (“Times,” October 6tb, 1927.)

Eight directors of the Dominion Tar and Chemical Company received £104,000 as “compensation for displacement" when the company was bought up by Canadian interests. ("Daily Express," December 6th.) When the Bodega Company was bought up by Slaters, the directors received £15,000 "compensation.” ("Daily Express," November 30th.)

Two directors of Robert Ingham Clark and Co., paint manufacturers, received no less than £170,000 in similar circumstances, ("Daily Express," December 6th.)

And while we are on the subject of the special ability of our masters, let us turn from industry to the House of Lords, the special preserve of the leisured class. Lord Salisbury, speaking in the House of Lords on November 14th, 1928, said:—

  We are called upon to take action because we are conscious that the legislation we are turning out of this House instead of being good is very often bad. It throws an enormous burden upon unfortunate litigants who are the victims of it.

He went on to describe recent legislation as "clumsy, slipshod, incomprehensible and inefficient." ("Daily Mail," November 15th.)

Lord Banbury said that "the greater part of the legislation passed in the last twenty years had better never have been passed."

What would we do without Capitalists to direct industry and hereditary rulers to legislate for us?

The Kings of Capital and the Captains of Industry. (1929)

From the January 1929 issue of the Socialist Standard

Once again America’s rapid economic march illustrates the truth of the Socialist case. Twenty years ago we had occasion to point the lesson of the struggle between the Titans—Andrew Carnegie and Pierpoint Morgan. That was a conflict between two powers representing two factors in economic life. Not two individuals having a wrestling match, not a personal struggle between two great minds; but a dramatic and mighty clash between two social forces—one waning and outstripped by the economic advance, the other triumphant and in harmony with the economic trend. Carnegie’s personal knowledge of the steel industry and his life-work in personal conduct of the steel business—this could not withstand the influence of mere moneyed men, Morgan and his banking colleagues of Wall Street; men who knew not the making of steel, but who controlled vast financial resources. And so Andrew Carnegie’s Pittsburgh and other huge foundries became part of the United States Steel Corporation. Morgan won because those who controlled finance were able to buy and buy out those who knew the industry, but whose capital was smaller.

And that lesson illuminated industrial history since that day. The silent but sweeping changes in social life saw the passing of famous firms and famous names who had been absorbed by the huge financial combines. Men who boasted how much personal interest they took in the control of their business were pushed aside, crushed or swallowed up by the men who had a finger in hundreds or thousands of different businesses and who took no personal interest in manufacture. It was the day of the Big Banks, the Finance Company, the Debenture Loan or Stock, the Mortgage Bond and other strangleholds of finance that took charge of the title deeds of “the man of property and the men of industry.”

Then upon the scene emerges the ideal of all anti-Socialist arguments—the Man of Invention appears—Henry Ford. Henry Ford was a pioneer in the industry with a small workshop actually engaged in the manufacture of motor engines. The suitability of the cheap motor to the times gave a rapid and continuous fillip to Ford’s business. By using the inventions of many others and gathering round him the picked and trained brains of the workers to superintend and run the industry, Fords became the largest motor business in the world. .

Personal control and personal supervision played a good part in the early days of the business, but the time arrived in economic competition when mere personal control, brains and knowledge of an actual industry, no longer decided who was victor in the world of industry. The bankers of Wall Street, led by Morgan, heavily financed Ford’s competitors, who were able to produce a cheap car which sold quicker than Fords. Henry Ford closed down for nearly a year in 1927, while the whole factory was overhauled and new machinery installed to get out an improved car that would once more capture the market. The 1928 Ford car came and was heralded as the wonder of autos, but the power of finance in the modern world was hardly reckoned with. The great competitor of Ford was no personally conducted firm with personal savings behind it, but the General Motors Corporation, backed by the leading financiers of America—a combine which had absorbed dozens of motor companies and other firms making all the parts and trimmings of the modern car. Ford’s great asset—the use of the most modern machinery, each doing one small part and that only—this was duplicated and triplicated by the combine which had more finance than Ford. So the General Motors Co. at Detroit, Flint, and many other “plants,” completely re-planned their machine industry and laid down the best and most efficient machines with the latest speeding-up methods.

Henry Ford—God of the Individualists, Apostle of Competition, Father of the Gospel of Personal Service—finds his firm to-day losing ground heavily. The great concern opposing him—owned by men who know not engines, but who have finance and can hire the trained workers who do know engines—this General Motors Co. are able to say that their Chevrolet Car—the one put out to smash the Ford—sold 84,503 in July, against 43,094 Fords. 

Where will it end and what does it portend? The story of Morgan and Carnegie looks like being repeated. King Capital is no respecter of persons—Grow or bust, is his dictum! 

And so the firm of Ford looks like eventually being driven to combine with the large financial trust or go under. The workers will go on making cars and the bondholders will continue to reap the profits. Their employers will read stock exchange lists and thus get their knowledge of the industry. Henry Ford and his type will be shareholders in the concern which can do better by hiring hungry workers than by waiting for the working pioneer to get fresh ideas.

There is the lesson—ownership of wealth and more wealth is the winning card.

Finance buys up the personally-conducted businesses and becomes the ruler of more and more workers.

Shall the octopus grow or will the men and women who do the actual work in business and industry learn that they can run society without the parasite—financial or industrial?

Adolph Kohn

A Look Round. (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Communist "Intellectual."

Many workers imagined that the Communist Party were Revolutionary; but one of their leaders, R. Palme Dutt, admits in The Workers' Life (Nov. 15th), that it is not so. He says :—

  “The chief task of the coming congress is to revolutionise the party and its leadership in readiness for the developing period of mass struggles.”

According to his view they need to get rid of relics of Social Democracy and find new leaders and to get into contact with the masses. He is still talking of factory groups years after the “thesis” merchants declared that factory nuclei were the basis of the party. He states that “the question of leadership is at the centre of the whole situation.”

The article is full of the usual high-sounding phrases like “orientation,” “dialectics," “objective situations,” but one looks in vain for any understanding of the road to Socialism. He talks of the need “to press fighting demands on the Labour Government,” and never once points out that the sole need of the working class is to organise to control political power to establish Socialism.

#    #    #    #

Labour Deals With Unemployment.

The Labour Government, through its leaders, MacDonald and Thomas, are continually telling us that the only real road to curing unemployment is to increase our trade—especially our export trade. One of the chief defenders of the Labour Party is Forward of Glasgow, which has to admit that their leaders’ theory is all wrong. Forward quotes an answer in the House of Commons (Nov. 26th) by the President of the Board of Trade, and heads the paragraph, "More Work and Fewer Men.” This is the information given by the Board of Trade:—

  “The total mercantile tonnage launched in the United Kingdom in 1925 (excluding unregistered vessels of under 15 tons gross) was 1,123, 049, while the estimated number of persons in the ship-building, ship-repairing, and marine engineering, etc., industries, who were insured against unemployment in July was 301,340.
   “But while in 1928, the comparable tonnage had risen to 1,458,058, the insured workers in these trades had fallen to 257,460.”

The “great” schemes of granting millions to railways, gas companies, road boards, etc., to make these services more efficient; plans to cheapen costs in coal and steel industries, and similar policies, are therefore bound to fail to reduce or arrest unemployment, because efficient industry increases output faster than trade increases.

Mr. Thomas said in the House of Commons (Nov. 4th) that he did not attach so much importance to work schemes as a solution of our unemployment problem as he did to the wider aspect of the “development of our export trade.”

But the Labour Leaders know that when Britain’s export trade was good unemployment and poverty were widespread and now that productive powers have been vastly increased in every country the increase of export trade cannot cure unemployment.

Look at America with its vast Home market and great export trade—a country in which the Telegraph tells us there are millions of “out-of-works”! Was it not only the other day that leading commercial men warned the motor trade that there were a million surplus motor cars in the U.S.A. looking for a market!

#    #    #    #

The Labour Liberals.

Labour supporters criticise the Liberal Party’s legislation but they forget that the Labour Party supported all the leading measures passed from 1906 to 1914, although ever since they have claimed these measures were miserly and ineffectual. How close the Liberal Party and the Labour Party were during those years can be gathered from a quotation from the “Life of Philip Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer,” by Mr. Bechofer Roberts. The reader can gather how great was the Labour Party’s support of the Capitalist Reform Legislation of the Liberals.

  On the Insurance Act. Snowden took a line directly opposed to the majority of his colleagues, led by Ramsay MacDonald. The Labour Party had put down amendments to the Bill; MacDonald came to an arrangement with the Government not to embarrass it by moving them. Snowden thereupon stood down from the executive of the Labour Party, and threatened to leave it altogether if these tactics were continued. What was the I.L.P. doing, he demanded, to permit such backsliding among its nominees in the House of Commons? Really, the I.L.P. might just as well dissolve, and consider merging itself in the National Liberal Federation; there was simply no difference any longer between the Labour Party and the Liberal Party. And for his part, he wasn't going to acquiesce in this sacrifice of principles to prudence.
  Followed by George Lansbury, F. W. Jowett and Will Thorne, he refused to obey the Labour Whip; they voted against their colleagues. In articles and speeches, Snowden derided the motives which dictated the tactics of MacDonald and the others. Everyone knew, he said, that four-fifths of the Labour Party's members held their seats through arrangements in their constituencies with the local Liberals; was it not ridiculous, therefore, to expect that they would dare to quarrel with the party to whose goodwill they owed their election?

The Labour Party still appeals to and depends on Liberal "goodwill.”

#    #    #    #

The Great Left Wing.

Mr. Cook, the Miner’s leader, has declared his entire support for the Labour Government. Mr. Cook, who said that he had a pledge for a 7-hours’ day given by Mr. MacDonald locked up in his desk, is still keen on the Labour Government after they have declined to redeem that pledge. Cook still supports the Labour Government though he confesses that "during the last five months, up to October, 92,655 claims were disallowed by Insurance Officers on the grounds of "not genuinely seeking work'." During the same period, "308,001 claims were disallowed under all the various vile provisions of the Unemployment Insurance Act.” Mr. Cook evidently "forgets” that the "vile” clauses of the Insurance Act were a part of the Insurance Bill passed by the Labour Government in 1924. Yet he sobs, "he has played the game with the Labour Government.” He has ! The Editor of the I.L.P. paper, Forward, describes him (Dec. 14th) as "The greatest cry-baby in Socialist Politics,” but forgets to mention that neither Cook nor the I.L.P. has ever entered Socialist Politics. Forward refers to that curious document called "The Cook-Maxton Manifesto,” in which Maxton and Co. demanded that the unemployed should get maintenance at the same scale as the employed man (since reduced by Maxton and Co. to £l per week). Forward quotes a speech by W. Gallagher, the alleged Communist, to show that he wrote the Manifesto for Cook and Maxton. The Communist Party, it should be recalled, allowed their members to join the Cook-Maxton campaign though they didn’t like the Manifesto.

Gallagher’s speech at a Communist meeting in Glasgow City Hall, on April 7th, was as follows:—

  I have worked with them for years, trying to instil a working-class point of view into them, and all to no purpose. They sent for me to the House or Commons, and there I took Cook down to meet them. There was Wheatley, Buchanan, Campbell Stephen, Kirkwood, and Maxton, and they informed me that they had decided to fight MacDonald and the Labour Party leaders, and wanted my advice as to what they were to do. I told them that a manifesto must be issued and I wrote it for them, and helped them to organise the campaign, and persuaded Cook to go down to St. Andrew's Hall for the opening meeting. When Wheatley was assuring me that he was out to fight the Labour Party leaders, he was busy arranging to bring Arthur Henderson down to Shettleston to speak on his behalf. No, I am absolutely finished with them, and am out to fight them.

Such is the mess that Labour and Communist Politics result in. All reform and "something now” politicians are inevitably involved in the rotten game which Cook says he has played so well.

#    #    #    #

Too Much Production.

"Is there enough wealth for all?” is a common question put by anti-Socialists. The existence of luxury all round us and the stored-up wealth that cannot find a market to-day is one aspect of the answer. But what would be the possibilities of wealth production in a society where the workers had access to the raw materials and the machines? That can be seen by the continual reports of the deliberate limitation of production to-day. In the Observer (Dec. 15th) there is a long article on the "Sugar Crisis,” which explains that the only solution for the owners of that industry is to restrict the supply and limit production in Cuba, Java, Czechoslovakia, etc.

The increase in production of sugar has been so immense that the firms such as the Sugar Trust of America are working out a policy to keep the price up by cutting down the production.

In the same paper, on another page, there is an article on "Tin Restriction,” which states that the Tin Producers’ Association, in order to maintain an "economic price” for their metal, propose the cessation of work for 32 hours each week in the mines, and a total cessation of work for one week in January and February, and, if necessary, in March. This applies to all Eastern sources of supply, and also places like Nigeria.

In modern society the ease with which wealth can be produced means lack of work for the worker but only to assure the maintenance of owners’ profits. More wealth could be produced but it does not "pay” the owners to allow that to be done.

#    #    #    #

A Social Democratic Curiosity.

Walton Newbold, late Communist M.P., previously in the I.L.P. and now in the S.D.F., explains his "ideas” in the issue of Forward for Dec. 14th. He says :—

   “I am convinced that the propertied classes will never evacuate without the exercise of force. By force I mean physical compulsion. And physical compulsion is absolutely certain, in some phases, to involve an armed clash.”

Walton Newbold, the Labour Party Candidate for Epping, has recently joined the Social Democratic Federation, which holds that the road to Emancipation is by means of the Labour Party. Newbold says that you can only get emancipation by an armed clash, so he joins an organisation that is opposed to it! He does not tell the electors of Epping about the "armed clash” stuff, although he claims, “I did not say one thing on the public platform and do a different thing in Parliament.” And to crown all, he says, “I accept as axiomatic the Class War.” In the next sentence he says, "That is why, viewing the forces ranged on either side, I have declared for a truce.” So he accepts the Class War but wants it suspended for a while! No wonder the S.D.F. welcomes Newbold. He ought to make a good addition to their professional politicians. The Class War with truce!

#    #    #    #

More Bibles In Russia.

An answer both to screeching Christians and uninformed Communists is contained in The Tory Daily Record of Glasgow (Dec. 3rd), which reported a meeting of the directors of the Royal National Bible Society of Scotland.

Letters were read from Germany with regard to the introduction of Russian Scriptures into Russia. It was stated that the demand was so great that for some time it had been out of print. "The Soviet Government had itself been printing large numbers of Bibles in Leningrad, Kiev and Odessa.”

Religion is evidently still widespread in Russia under dictatorship.

#    #    #    #

The Class Warriors of the I.L.P.

Mr. James Maxton’s recent opposition to Ramsay MacDonald on details of Unemployment Insurance recalls to us how often he has voted for him as leader, and made the usual sentimental eulogies and declarations of loyalty to MacDonald. At the Memorial Hall debate with our late comrade, Fitzgerald, Mr. Maxton said the I.L.P. were not heresy hunters and therefore did not expel their members who supported the Capitalists. Of course, the I.L.P. could not be expected to do this as it would leave them without a membership. When, however, it helps them to catch votes they do expel members, but not on Socialist grounds. They expelled some of their members in Glasgow recently for voting for booze licences. They did not want to lose a lot of their "unco guid” supporters.

#    #    #    #

Peace!—But More Arms.

How much nonsense is being written and spoken of the great achievements of the Labour Government in promoting peace schemes! The Kellogg pact was one of the so-called great pillars of peace of which Labour is proud; and it is interesting, therefore, to read in The Daily Herald (Dec. 16th) of the U.S.A. Senator Borah’s speech:—

  "I think that the best evidence of a belief that the Kellogg Pact had removed all question of neutral rights at sea would be a drastic reduction in armaments.
   "If the Peace Pact eliminated all question of rights of neutrals at sea, what can be the reasons for such vast navies? If we do not expect any conflicts at sea, and all conditions in that regard are removed by the Kellogg Pact, then let us manifest our faith in the Pact by taking away the crushing burden of armaments which we are now carrying".

The Senator doesn’t realise that Labour Governments intend to "humanise” war!

Adolph Kohn

Party News (1930)

Party News from the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sheffield.

A meeting of members and sympathisers will be held at the A.E.U. Institute (Library) on Tuesday, January 21st, at 7.30 p.m. with a view to forming a branch in Sheffield.

Edinburgh.

A meeting was held on the Mound, Edinburgh, on December 8th and a large number of questions were asked and answered relative to the Party’s position, especially on Russia and the Labour Party. An apologist for the Labour Party opposed and was dealt with. Literature is now available most fine evenings on the Mound and those wishing to reorganise a Branch should communicate with D. Lamond, 15, Barclay Place.

Answer to a Correspondent: Socialism and the Gold Standard. (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialism and the Gold Standard.

We have received a further letter—too long to print in full—from Mr. Edwin Wright, in which he attempts to substantiate statements made in his last letter (see December "S.S."), and introduces a number of fresh points additional to those already being discussed. We deal below with the issues raised last month.

The first issue was Mr. Wright’s denial of our statement that banks make profit by receiving money on deposit and lending it out at a higher rate of interest than the rate they pay to depositors. Mr. Wright’s "evidence” to support his denial consists of a statement which he attributes to Mr. McKenna. Mr. Wright says :—

  Mr. McKenna denies that banks pay their way by merely borrowing from one person and lending to another. His exact words are: "Every bank loan creates a deposit," which is a denial that banks lend money already deposited, if cheques are used.

In our last issue we invited Mr. Wright to say which part of our statement he considered to be wrong. It will be noticed that he does not attempt to do so, but relies entirely on a mere assertion by Mr. McKenna; an assertion unaccompanied by argument or evidence. Let us therefore repeat the statement :—(a) banks receive money on deposit; (b) they pay interest to depositors; (c) they lend money at interest; (d) the interest they pay is less than the interest they receive. Neither Mr. Wright nor anyone else can deny the accuracy of these four propositions.

And now let us see what another banker has to say about the statement attributed to Mr. McKenna.

The late Mr. Walter Leaf, Chairman of the Westminster Bank, in his book "Banking” (Williams & Norgate. 1926) dealt with this question. He wrote as follows:—

  It has indeed been argued that every loan by the banks creates a deposit; that as long as the banks go on increasing their loans, so long will their deposits grow in the same degree, and that thus the banks can be regarded as creating credit. Unfortunately, this theory will not stand confrontation with the facts . . . the course of events in the first half of the year, 1925, gives a decisive answer to this hypothesis.—(P. 102.)

He then gave figures showing that an increase in the amount of loans and advances made by the "Big Five” Joint Stock Banks, from £746 million in January, 1926, to £776 million in June, was accompanied by a decrease in deposits from £1,515 million in January to £1,490 million in June.

The second issue raised by Mr. Wright was his statement (see December "S.S.”) that Marx and Marxians "approve of a gold standard.” We denied this and asked for evidence. Mr. Wright now offers his evidence. He writes:—

  In “Value, Price & Profit,” Marx says, “ Even in England the mechanism (of banking) is less perfect than in Scotland.”—(P. 28.)

   Now Marx unfortunately helps the banker and the rich rather than us. On page 110/111 of 1 Vol. Edition of “ Capital,” he states: “ It is necessary that the quantity of gold be greater than that required as coin. This condition is fulfilled by hoards,” and (P. 110) "this mass of gold must be capable of expansion and contraction.” On page 90 he writes, “The erroneous opinion that it is prices that are determined by the quantity of money . . . this opinion is based on the absurd hypothesis that money is without value when it first circulates.” On page 102, Marx states, “ Money based on credit implies conditions totally unknown to us.”.

These quotations, according to Mr. Wright, show that Marx “approved the gold standard,” and that he “admired our money system,” and that he “defends bankers.”

We would first point out that the last “quotation” is not as Marx wrote it but as it appears after being “doctored” by Mr. Wright.

The correct quotation is "Money based upon credit implies on the other hand conditions, which from our standpoint of the simple circulation of commodities are as yet totally unknown to us.” (Capital, Volume 1. Kerr Edition. P. 143.)

Taken in its context this passage is clear enough and has a meaning totally different from the one assumed by Mr. Wright. Marx is developing an argument stage by stage and in this passage he reminds his reader that he was not “as yet” considering “money based upon credit.”

He did consider it later in Volume I and in Volumes II and III, the existence of which appears to be unknown to our critic.

Mr. Wright fails to realise the whole purpose of the work “Capital.” Mr. Wright imagines that the passages he quotes are intended to be statements of the policy which Marx advocated. This is a childish misunderstanding. “Capital” in general and the passages quoted are statements of the way in which Capitalism was in fact working when Marx studied it.

They are offered as statements of fact, not as tributes to or attacks on bankers.

Mr. Wright’s further contention is that his schemes for money reform "will enable Socialism and Communism to be established far more easily than you hope for.” He himself provides the answer to his illusory hopes. Having quoted Mr. McKenna as his authority for what he erroneously believes to be a fact about banking, he then admits that Mr. McKenna “thinks that Capitalism can be saved by money reform.” So that Mr. Wright’s short cut to Socialism is believed by Mr. McKenna to be a way to the salvation of Capitalism.

Next Mr. Wright bases the operation of his scheme on the existence of “a Socialist Government.”

In other words, Mr. Wright’s schemes cannot be operated until after the working-class have become Socialist and have obtained power. When that condition exists the working-class will use their power for the purpose of establishing Socialism not for the purpose of introducing some trivial alteration in the method by which Capitalism manages its currency. Socialism involves production for use, not for sale and will therefore require no currency system. We, therefore, in agreement with Marx, do not advocate a gold standard or any other currency system. We advocate Socialism.

Editorial Committee.

How To Get Rich. (1930)

From the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ex-Sergeant Goddard was recently defendant in an action brought by the Crown for the recovery of money which he was believed to have received as bribes. The amount was about £12,000 and everyone knew that he could not have saved £12,000 out of his pay. One of the newspaper gossip writers remarked that an “ordinary honest man” would take a lifetime to save so much money. - He would indeed if by “ordinary honest man" were meant the average worker. According to the Ministry of Labour, the weekly earnings of manual workers numbering over five million and spread over all the principal industries, averaged about 50/- per head in 1924. (See Ministry of Labour Gazette, July, 1927.)

The Capitalist class live out of the difference between the value of the goods produced by the workers and the amount paid to the latter as wages and salaries. The Capitalists are able to do this because they own and control the means of production and distribution and can, in consequence, compel the workers to accept employment on these terms—the alternative being unemployment. It is interesting to consider how these fortunate property-owners came to be in the privileged position which they occupy and to consider what hope members of the working-class have of climbing up beside them.

To save £l2,000 in a working life of 40 years would necessitate the putting away of more than the British worker’s total weekly earnings even after allowing for the accumulation of interest. We can, therefore, safely assume that people do not get rich by saving, if all they have to save out of is the wage of a worker. We are nevertheless always being reminded that this or that millionaire started life as a paper boy or a boot-black, and is a “self-made man,” the implication being that wealth is normally the result of the individual’s hard work and ability. Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, B.Sc. (Econ.) has now given us the results of a special inquiry which he undertook in order to find out exactly where the rich get their money.

The results of the Inquiry are set out at length in “The Economics of Inheritance.” (George Routledge & Sons. 1929. Price 12s. 6d.)

It is impossible in brief space even to summarise the elaborate material on which Mr. Wedgwood bases his conclusions. It is, however, interesting to notice that in a review the “Economist” (23rd November) recognises it as “an important book” and has no criticism to offer of the method by which the conclusions are arrived at, nor of the conclusions.

Mr. Wedgwood’s first important conclusion is that

  The proportion of the total property before the War derived from inheritance may be put at round about three-fifths. (See p. 120). 

In other words, our propertied class in 1912 derived less than half their accumulated wealth from savings out of their annual incomes. They were rich mainly because their fathers were rich.

Mr. Wedgwood made a separate inquiry into the sources of the wealth of a considerable number of wealthy people who died recently, basing his examination on documents filed in the Probate Registry at Somerset House. He found that

   Of the Men in the upper and middle Classes at the present day, about one-third owe their fortunes almost entirely to inheritance, . . . another third to a combination of ability and luck with a considerable inheritance of wealth and business opportunity, and the remaining third largely to their own activities.—(P. 163.)

Mr. Wedgwood points out that “many in the third category, though receiving little or no actual property by inheritance or gift, had received a superior education or relatively expensive training.” (P. 164.)

We see, therefore, that the way to get rich is to choose your parents wisely, failing which your chance is small. It is still possible to climb but possible only for the very few who are very lucky.

Lastly, Mr. Wedgwood tells us what are our chances of getting our foot on the ladder.

  The figures . . . suggest that not one in a thousand of the sons of working men (or wage-earners) ever accumulate as much as £10,000 (P. 157), and perhaps 1 in 100 leave £1,000 and over. (Footnote to P. 157.)

We would add a note of warning to any reader who fancies himself as a likely starter for the £10,000 stakes. Ex-Sergeant Goddard, who was paid by the propertied few to protect their property against the propertyless many, thought he saw a way of proving that Capitalism never keeps a good man down. But he committed the unforgivable crime of being found out and is now serving a sentence of 18 months’ hard labour.

The moral of all this is that if you are born into the ranks of the Capitalist class you have an excellent chance of living well and dying with more wealth than your father before you; if you are born a worker you will live hard and die as poor as you began—unless you join with us to get Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Death of a Comrade. (1930)

Obituary from the January 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

We regret to learn of the death, at the age of 82, of John Haughton, for many years an active worker for Socialism and well-known to members of the Edmonton Branch of which he was one of the earliest members. He was interred at Old Southgate Cemetery.

Against capitalism (2019)

Book Review from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘The Machine and its Discontents: A Fredy Perlman Anthology’ (Theory and Practice and Active Distribution, 2018). Available from Active Distribution

Fredy Perlman (1934—85) is perhaps best remembered in connection with the publishing cooperative Black & Red. His life story, lovingly told by his wife Lorraine in her memoir Having Little Being Much (1989), is a complex one: born in Czechoslovakia and raised in the US, he lived several years in France and Yugoslavia before settling in the Midwest. Equally complex was his development as a radical thinker, influenced at various periods by anarchism, Marxism, situationism and primitivism. However, he never fully identified with any particular school of thought: the only self-descriptor ending in -ist that he accepted was cellist.

Darren Poynton has brought together, edited and introduced a selection of Perlman’s writings that had become difficult to find. They are organised in five parts under the headings: worker-student uprisings, critique of political economy, critique of leaders, critique of nationalism, critique of ‘progress’. The book is illustrated with several of Perlman’s eloquent photo montages.

The writings in Part One pertain to the social upheavals that took place in France and Yugoslavia in 1968. There is a lengthy excerpt from a text co-authored by Perlman and Roger Gregoire describing and assessing their experiences in Paris in May and June 1968 while members of a ‘worker-student action committee’. The detailed account reveals the sorts of things that really happened – and did not happen – in the course of the ‘Paris Spring’. The authors discuss why a more fruitful interaction did not occur between student protestors and striking workers at the Citroen car factory. The crucial obstacle, they conclude, was the fact that the ideas of most participants in the events, students as well as workers, remained within the confines of capitalist reality. In particular, they aspired at most to turn the factory into the collective or group property of its current workforce rather than into social property.

Part One also includes an account of the student protests that broke out in Yugoslavia in 1968 and the reaction of the Yugoslav authorities to them. Perlman exposes the chasm that existed between the ideological façade of ‘self-managing socialism’ and the real functioning of the power structure.

Part Two consists of two excellent essays that in a clear and vivid style explain key concepts in the Marxian critique of capitalism, with special emphasis on capital, alienation and the ‘commodity fetishism’ that makes relations between people appear as relations between things. The second essay, originally published in 1971 as an introduction to the English translation of I.I. Rubin’s Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value, contrasts Marx with Paul Samuelson, author of the standard economics textbook used in American colleges. Perlman demonstrates that Marx and Samuelson do not give different answers to the same questions; they are concerned with quite different questions. This is because Marx belongs to the old school of ‘political economy’, which studied conflicting class interests, while Samuelson represents the new discipline of ‘economics’ that displaced political economy early in the 20th century. ‘Economics’ focuses on technical issues of resource allocation and is therefore better suited to the justification of capitalism.

In Part Three we find excerpts from a text entitled ‘The Seizure of State Power’. This text, which marshals quotations from Lenin, Mao and Machiavelli, purports to be a guide for would-be ‘revolutionary leaders’ intent upon seizing power. It is really a satire designed to highlight the contrast between the seizure of power by an elite and a genuine popular revolution. Some critics did not realise that it was a satire and took it at face value.

The essay in Part Four exposes the class interests behind movements for ‘national liberation’ and argues that nationalism cannot play a progressive role in the contemporary world. Perlman’s views on this subject fully coincide with those of the World Socialist Movement.

In the last few years of his life Perlman went beyond the Marxian critique of capitalism to assail modern concepts of ‘progress’ and ‘civilisation’. Some have accused him of rejecting technology as such – see, for instance, the review of his book Against His-story, Against Leviathan! (1983) in Aufheben. The short article on ‘progress and nuclear power’ that makes up Part Five does not suffice to assess his views at this period.

On the whole, the new Perlman anthology is a very welcome addition to socialist literature.

Stefan

After Greece, Italy? (2019)

From the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 23 October the European Commission asked the Italian government to revisit its budget plan. This is unprecedented as no EU member state had been asked to do this before. The Italian coalition government, constituted by the populist Five-Star Movement and the Lega, had proposed a 2.4 percent deficit of Gross Domestic Product, and a structural deficit of 1.7 percent which was far beyond what the member states had agreed back in 2012 under the ‘fiscal compact’. The EU believes that the deficit is more likely to be 2.9 percent. The EU has threatened Italy with sanctions, which may result in concessions by the populist leaders.

The fiscal compact, (not agreed upon by Britain and the Czech Republic) set the limit for a general deficit not exceeding 3 percent of GDP, and a structural deficit (the part of the deficit due to spending programmes and not to how the economy is doing) not exceeding 0.5 percent of the GDP for countries with large debts such as Italy. This is nothing more than an austerity measure mirroring the debt brake model adopted by Switzerland in 2003 and by Germany in 2009. This consists of separating the structural deficit from the cyclical deficit, where the latter takes into account the fluctuations in economic growth. In simple words, the state was to not allow deficits when the economy is growing but only when the economy is shrinking. By doing so it would reduce the public debt across the business cycle.

Although this austerity measure has so far worked in Switzerland and Germany, it may have worked because of lucky circumstances, namely strong economic growth at the right time, but this may not be sustainable in countries where the GDP is consistently low. Not allowing for deficits or allowing minimal deficits in a struggling economy may be a recipe for strangulation.

Annual government budget deficits in a country with a huge historic national debt like Italy (138 percent of GDP) are, on average, more likely to be greater than in a country with a smaller national debt (for example, 57 percent of GDP for the Netherlands). For the record, the UK has a national debt equal to 88 percent of GDP. It should be noted that Japan has an even higher national debt than Italy (199 percent of GDP), yet only 11 percent of it is to foreign creditors, while in Italy’s case one third of it is owned by them.

The total annual deficit takes into account not only government spending being higher than tax revenues, but also debt interest payments. Thus, it would be unfair to judge the Italian or other governments in a similar situation as necessarily being extravagant. They are, in part, working to pay off the interest on the debt. As we know, government spending does not just supposedly benefit public infrastructures (see the bridges falling down), or education, health and pension systems. Italian spending on those services is in line with, if lower than, the other EU countries. Yet, Italy is stuck with this huge debt. Why?

Out of control

According to many, the Italian national debt spun out of control in the early 80s when the Bank of Italy and the Treasury ‘divorced’. Basically, the first stopped buying Italian bonds that were not sold.  State bonds are the way the government borrows money to finance its spending and to pay back its previous debt plus interest. Unsold state bonds triggered a steep rise in the interest rate. As with loan sharks, the Italian state found itself having to pay out more to borrow money, which in turn increased the accumulated national debt payments.

This ‘divorce’ was a defensive measure and, although it did mitigate the fleeing of savings and some argued that it helped reduce inflation, it did not help slowdown debt issuance. Yet, if we were to plot Italian public debt over the decades no particularly steep increase is to be seen after the 1981 divorce either. The oil crises in the 70s, political nepotism, which created an inflated state infrastructure, and a money-wasting corrupt administration, are probably more obvious original sins. Nevertheless, the real problem with Italy is the lack of economic growth. If we were to plot Italian GDP over time we can see that after crisis of 2007-8, this has struggled to increase and actually decreased by 10 percent (UK GDP decreased by 7 percent in the slump). Government spending on research and new technologies has also been neglected.

The official version of events for the M5S and Lega is that things started to go wrong in 1981 and that the EU limits and restriction did not help the ever-growing national debt problem. Both M5S and Lega had an anti-EU, anti-Merkel electoral campaign. Now they are continuing to play this card in view of the European elections later this year. However, it is fair to believe that the Italian government is not doing this only for the sake of going against the EU and being successful at the next elections. They do believe that an anti-austerity policy will help to boost the economy and will promote 1.5 percent economic growth (real GDP). The EU, on the other hand, do not trust this plan and are interested only in what Italy can pay back to their creditors. The EU’s doubts about this seem to have some validity as the spread, that is the ‘gap between Italian and German bond yields which the Italian media follow obsessively’ (Economist, October), is up to 3.2 percentage points.

Past experience shows that the type of ‘pump-priming’ Keynesian policy as proposed by M5S and Lega does not work. It will not reduce the public debt, and it will not promote research and development of new technologies. As with the Greeks (who the EU and the IMF forced the government there to squeezed), the Italian workers will be portrayed as lazy extravagant tax-evading people. This does not reflect the reality, but benefits the ruling class. We workers should look beyond national borders and opt for a society where meeting people’s needs is not subordinated to meeting interest payments to international loan sharks.

Cesco

Pathfinders: Missionary Positions (2019)

The Pathfinders Column from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Lord, is this island Satan’s last stronghold where none have heard or even had the chance to hear your name?” So wrote John Allen Chau, the 26-year-old Christian missionary, just before his last visit to North Sentinel Island in the Andaman chain in November last year. His death at the hands of the Sentineli islanders made world headlines, largely because it was like something out of the eighteenth century. The pious missionary rows his canoe to the shore, brandishes a Bible and starts singing hymns, and the Stone Age natives shoot him full of arrows.

Interestingly, all the media blame for this fateful encounter fell on Chau himself, who was visiting illegally and in defiance of the island’s special protection status. The Sentineli have a history of killing intruders, and Chau himself had already been shot at with arrows on a previous visit, so he knew very well what might happen. The Indian police arrested seven fishermen who had helped Chau get to the island, though no arrests on the island itself were made or even mooted. Some blame should also fall on the organisation that sent him, the All Nations Church of St Louis, Missouri, whose stated mission ‘to do whatever it takes so as many people as possible can see Jesus’ is what got Chau killed. The fact that imported viral or bacterial diseases are the number one killer among newly-contacted tribes does not seem to have occurred to the moronic bible-bashers. What’s worrying is the thought that other church groups will now view the Sentineli as the ultimate challenge.

Billed as ‘the last uncontacted tribe on Earth’, the Sentineli have in fact been contacted off and on since 1867, and received tools and cooking implements as gifts, but encounters have frequently gone badly. Not much is known about them except that they use fire and know how to rework scavenged iron for arrowheads. What can be speculated is that, like most ‘isolated’ tribes the world over, they know far more about the outside world than the outside world suspects. Their hostility is almost certainly due to fear than to some supposed innate aggression.

Inverting the usual colonial assumptions about what such people could gain from the modern world, the BBC instead approached various anthropologists to ask what we might learn from the tribes (BBC Online, 24 November). Apart, that is, from stealing their local medicinal plants and patenting them for the pharmaceutical industry.

Thus we learn that the 14,000-strong Piaroa of Venezuela are egalitarians who practise individualistic autonomy without hierarchies or private ownership. They see competition as evil and don’t play any competitive sports, and anyone who gets above themselves is treated with pity as being immature. Wikipedia also attests to this ‘functioning anarchist society’ and notes that they are ‘opposed to the hoarding of resources, which they see as giving members the power to constrain their freedom.’

Well quite, and what we’ve been saying all along. Not that every remote tribe is so enlightened, of course, and the BBC article warns us not to ‘over-romanticise’ how they live. But socialists can easily relate to groups like the Piaroa, who seem to have hit on the principles of common ownership and equality as a successful survival strategy and would presumably look askance at modern capitalism and its habit of pursuing the exact opposite of a successful survival strategy. Maybe the Piaroa should send out missionaries to the capitalist world. But the world would probably tell them their society is logically impossible because of human nature. Or shoot them full of arrows.

What’s cooking?

‘When we’re confronted with abundance, we’re hardwired to take what we can, and it’s difficult to overcome that impulse’, says the founder of a UK food-waste reduction organisation in a recent article about how to reduce the approximately 30 percent of food that is wasted every year (New Scientist, 8 December). The blame for this apparently lies with supermarkets, which pile high and sell cheap, leading to runaway overconsumption and waste in fresh perishable goods. But this makes it sound as if consumers are mindlessly greedy, when the reality is they’re having to pay for all this waste and many are hard-pressed to afford it. The more likely explanation for such waste is that, despite endless food-porn TV shows, people are not very good at managing the business of domestic cooking. It’s not taught effectively in schools because they don’t have the time or the facilities to achieve more than a tokenistic effort. And parents who can’t cook are not going to pass the skills on either. No wonder poor people resort to expensive and environmentally wasteful takeaways and TV dinners.

The article discusses a new business model which aims to supply meal ‘kits’, comprising the exact proportions of ingredients in compostable packaging, however the take-up rate is slow and the value for money questionable. What has not occurred to anyone is the idea of socialising the process. In socialism it would be deemed sheer lunacy for each individual to do their own cooking in their own kitchen with their own larders and fridges full of their own food stores, when most people would be happy to share the job communally and thereby only need to help cook once a month or so. Think of the savings in space, storage, waste, time, effort, and indeed safety, given the huge potential for burns, cuts and fires. You might call that plain old common sense, but capitalism doesn’t have an abundance of that.

Brave New CRISPR World

In December a Chinese researcher achieved a historic landmark but earned general condemnation including from Chinese regulators by announcing the world’s first IVF twins born after modification with the CRISPR gene-editing process (New Scientist, 8 December). The researcher is widely considered a renegade for ignoring international ethical standards, employing an experimental technique for no valid medical reason, and including clauses in his test agreement that compelled participants to continue or else pay a large forfeiture. The targeted gene coded for HIV resistance, however it would only ever be partially effective at best. Meanwhile nobody can tell what side-effect damage may have been caused, and it will be years before this can be known. Ethical oversight aside, designer babies are where the smart capitalist money is. Huxley’s famous dystopia just came a step closer.

Paddy Shannon

Letter: Rose by another name? (2019)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Rose by another name?

Dear Editors

It is good to know that there is still a socialist party for people to join and stay with and encourage others to become party members. So why don’t they? What are they looking for? The very same as the bulk of most countries. A fairer share which, under present circumstances, they won’t get. How could they? There needs to be a radical change, and that change is the removal of the market economy by a resource economy. The party that marched under that banner would gain votes that would put them into a majority in parliament and the means to enforce it. All the problems that presently assail us would be swiftly dealt with and met away. To put it succinctly, S.P.E.R.T.

Space from empty financial premises converted to housing and medical premises and so on. Namely hospitals asap. Existing ones refurbished.

Personnel pared down to those operating a debit and credit system to deal with our booming and expanding productivity, gained from full employment; servicing our imports with our exports. So many filling our employment gaps.

Energy. In the shape of electricity, gas, water and human, being wasted in inconceivable amounts by institutions manipulating money for profit and pure greed and advantage often leading to global conflict and inevitable sufferings of innocents.

Resources. In the shape of aforementioned space and personnel plus all furnishings, vehicles, equipment, trappings, accoutrements and servicing appertaining to financial institutions made available to worthwhile social endeavour.

Time which could be and should be devoted to the welfare of every individual born is applied by too many in the pursuit of wealth and thus power and the gratification that arises, thereby wasting irrecoverable time repetitively.

Raise the SPERT banner. You may well attract far more support than you do now.

E.W. Reynolds, 

Reading.

Reply:

We can agree with the gist of what you say – that if the physical and human resources currently devoted to running a market economy’s financial and monetary institutions were redirected towards meeting people’s needs, then people would no longer need to face the problems they do.

This presupposes that productive resources are owned and controlled by society as a whole and no longer by rich individuals, capitalist corporations or governments. Under these circumstances money would become redundant as goods and services would be produced directly for people to take and use instead of for sale and profit as at present.

In this context the language of your second point – ‘debit and credit’, ‘full employment’ – is confusing as these words could be taken as suggesting, contrary to what you say elsewhere, the continued use of money. We assume that what you mean is that organising the production and distribution of wealth will be pared down to calculating and recording the use of physical resources, and that by ‘full employment’ you mean that everyone will have work to do (as opposed to having an employer who pays them a money-wage).

Similarly, talk of ‘imports’ and ‘exports’ implies that you think that a ‘resource economy’ could exist in one country alone. We disagree. Capitalism is already an integrated, world-wide system of which all countries are a part. So must its successor, socialism, be. We don’t agree that calling such a society in which money will have become redundant ‘Spert’ or whatever rather than ‘socialism’ will attract more support for it than at present – Editors.

Where Charity Begins & Why it Should End (1996)

From the January 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists refuse to support charities on the grounds that such organisations are merely trying to deal with the symptoms of capitalism rather than capitalism itself.

Socialists seldom win popularity contests in the current ideological climate. Take for example our opinions on the subject of charity: I believe that charity ought to be abolished. Am I unfeeling, uncaring, when confronted with the evidence of great misery and poverty in the world? Hardly, but I think I understand, as do other socialists, that misplaced caring within a capitalist system is as useful to the poor and dispossessed as no caring at all.

The word charity comes from the Latin caritas meaning love or affection, so we could assume that charity in its abstract sense was bound up with the loftiest feelings, but it was soon complicated by its link with morality and organised religion. Where Christianity was the theory, charity became the practice.

Socialists believe that poverty is unacceptable and unnecessary, whereas Christians tend to see poverty as acceptable, perhaps even a necessary tool in the moral teachings of the bible. Jesus could always lay a hand to someone wretched and needy in order to illustrate a point— rather like Princess Diana. Forget any fantasies of Christ as the first great communist—Christianity has sought to alleviate some suffering but never abolish poverty. Ultimately for it, the poor have one recourse . . . God will reward this world’s suffering in the next. Socialists dismiss this as ludicrous.

Guilty rich
Even removed from the clutches of Christianity, most of us would define charity as ‘the giving of help to those in need’, but socialists recognise that charity is used as a mask: a pretty face for many less lofty motivations. Most obviously charity is used to assuage rich guilt from the bourgeois straight-on up to the monarch: “Well, yes, they do cost us an awful lot of money, but look at all the good work they do for charity.” Are the ladies who lunch really so concerned about Ethiopian famine, or are they just looking to fill their filofaxes with good deeds? Is charity just a brilliant excuse for the idle rich to stay idle because they are too busy with “good work” to actually work?

It’s not just the rich who use charity as an excuse for other behaviours. Gone are the days of skulking into dark betting shops or poring over the football pools. Now when we want to gamble, we can buy an establishment-approved lottery ticket and say we are “making a charitable donation” to such “worthy causes” as plush velvet seats in a London opera house.

Surveys reveal that charitable donations are hardly proportional to income. Poorer people give a higher proportion of their income to charities than their better-off counterparts, a fact that offends my Robin Hood sensibilities. When it comes to using charities to pay for essential services, the poor pay the most, thus, like the lottery, charity is merely a regressive tax in sheep’s clothing.

So even if charity redistributes wealth in the wrong direction, doesn’t it still help those in acute need? No. Charities are at best, ineffective, at worst, downright harmful in addressing society’s needs.

First, they are ineffective, because they put the responsibility for dealing with some of our biggest problems in the hands of well-meaning but ill-equipped do-gooders. Thus, the government is very happy to relinquish this chore of providing essential services to charities eager to pick up the slack, charities who are accountable only to their trustees. The current government has made an art of such surrendering, and John Major even speaks of the widening role of charities with pride.

Because, as we are told, charities are doing us such a favour (and saving millions for the government—a dividend we never see) they are allowed to run their “businesses” as they see fit, with their own priorities, and in isolation from other organisations. Crucial tasks are left to well-meaning amateurs rather than well-rewarded professionals, a practice that undermines workers. Don’t get me wrong— I know that volunteerism is the basis of a truly socialist society, but that’s volunteerism across the board, not replacing a decently paid, well-trained builder by someone who likes to dabble with a hammer on the weekends when the squash court is booked.

Tin rattling
In the past charities used to top up services mostly provided by the government. Now charities are involved in every aspect of our lives and there is seemingly nothing we will not trust them to do. Ambulances used to be well-stocked, but now they are delivered bare to communities until a charity fills them with the most basic resuscitation equipment. Is it any wonder you are more likely to die of a heart attack in the poorer neighbourhoods?

The other day someone came to my door rattling a tin for life-saving gear for the neo-natal intensive care unit of the local NHS hospital. A worthy cause, I agreed, and one that should be publicly provided. Ah, yes, but you see the government won’t pay, the tin-rattler retorted. Why should they when they can count on you to collect the funds for them, I answered. Something is severely sick in a society that regards its children so lightly. Think of this the next time you are asked to get vouchers at Tesco’s for your local school’s computers, and just wait … next year you may collect vouchers from McDonald’s to buy your neighbourhood a police constable. It’s already happening in some places. Every pound you give to charity is a step in the wrong direction.

A car sticker slogan echoes in my head: “It will be a great day when our schools have all the money they need and the airforce has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.” The popularity of this slogan in America, further illustrates my point. Does the military ever have to resort to the effort- and resource- wasting tactic of a cake sale to fund its operations? Did anyone ever come to your door during the Gulf War rattling a tin for a new tank? What a preposterous notion! When the military wants a new toy, they draw a cheque from public funds, and we have little recourse to challenge them. The money is always there, so why isn’t the money there to fund schools and hospitals properly? Is there a sudden shortage of money, material, or human resources? Socialists know better.

Anyone with a whiff of understanding of socialist ideas, and anyone who has ever been a have-not under a capitalist regime, knows that “caring capitalism” is a contradiction in terms. Capitalism in order to maintain itself has to put profit and economic growth ahead of people’s needs. If in a time of “economic boom” profit and people’s needs coincide, then we are told to believe that this will always be the case, that capitalism brings the greatest good for the greatest number of people. Socialists see this feeble brainwashing technique a mile away. It insults our intelligence, as do the advertisements that tell us that world hunger will only stop when we all phone the 0800 number with our credit cards ready.

Glossy campaigns
Millions of pounds and thousands of working hours are spent every year devising glossy campaigns to part us from our charitable contributions. There is no way to ensure under capitalism that Cancer Research will fare better than Holidays for Hunting Hounds if the latter can pull more heartstrings with Saatchi & Saatchi on its side. When they run out of sympathy pleas, the agencies try hard-sell and harassment: “How many more babies will die before you pick up the phone?”

Charities are a poor way of dealing with society’s problems. Even the most efficiently run charity is grossly inefficient because of the nature of the beast. Charities respond to constant needs with inconsistent sources of income subject to the tides of a boom/bust economy and the public’s response to this year’s advertising campaign. Corners are cut as charities try desperately to balance their books. Charities look for quick-fix schemes that will impress contributors; long-term planning is an approach they can ill-afford. This is why, in the long run, charities are likely to damage more than help a worthy cause.

Charity is a means of economic oppression because it maintains an ideology that is directly in opposition to socialism. Charity reinforces so many misconceptions about society: that social change relies on us being nice and feeling generous with what little disposable income we have; and that the disadvantaged should wag their tails with gratitude every time the wealthy toss them a bone labelled “charity”.

Every charitable donation strengthens the notion that our basic needs –food, shelter, adequate medical care, basic education –are actually privileges. We have no right to expect our needs to be met, and we are meant to grovel like the degraded beggars we are when by accident we get what we need. We are conditioned to rightfully expect little of our ‘democratically elected’ governments. Capitalism and Charity have worked hand in hand to turn us into a world of few benefactors and millions of beggars. For those of you happy with the world as it is, by all means carry on dropping your change into the nearest charity box. But for those of you who seek solutions to our problems beyond the quick fix, rage against the charity machine.

Or better put in the words of Jack London, in The Iron Heel, his visionary novel of socialism:

  “I had become convinced as Ernest was when he sneered at charity as a poulticing of an ulcer. Remove the ulcer was his remedy; give to the worker his product; pension as soldiers those who grow honourably old in their toil, and there will be no need for charity. Convinced of this, I toiled with him at the revolution, and did not exhaust my energy in alleviating the social ills that continuously arose from the injustice of the system.”

Megan Miranda

The Kurdish Question (1997)

From the January 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

 There is always a load of myth and romanticism surrounding so-called nationalist struggles and one of the most tortured and least understood is the case of the Kurdish people scattered amongst various states. The popular ‘solution’ is for the Kurds to have their own state, but, in time-honoured fashion, the Kurdish working class would soon find out that this was no solution at all.

The breakdown and imperialist carve-up of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s left Britain and France with a series of subordinate Arab kingdoms, several of which were enormously rich in potential oil resources. But the carving-up process was somewhat disrupted when a senior officer of the defeated Ottoman army refused to abide by the Sultan’s surrender to the victorious Allies, Mustafa Kemal (renamed Ataturk), regrouped like-minded officers and organised a popular resistance movement. This turn of events drew upon strong pressures for reform and modernisation that were already manifest in Turkey before the outbreak of the First World War and it skilfully harnessed the Turkish nationalism which the former theocratic state suppressed almost as ruthlessly as the many other nationalisms festering within the regime known as the “sick man of Europe”.

During the Great War Turkey was an ally of Germany. Berlin found the Pan-Turanian ideas of Enver Pasha fitted in well with their war objectives and gave positive encouragement to his dream of bringing the vast area of Russian Turkestan into the unified control of a new Turkish entity in close association with the Kaiser’s Empire. In marked contrast the rebel officer, Mustafa Kemal, took a less visionary and far more realistic stance. He opted for a Republic confined to the heart of the old Ottoman Empire consisting essentially of Anatolia (Asia Minor), the majority of whose inhabitants were Turkish-speaking Muslims. There were important exceptions nevertheless. Port communities all round the coast but especially on the Aegean had been largely populated by Greeks from classical times onwards. In central Anatolia there were considerable numbers of people who were Greek Orthodox by religion but Turkish-speaking. And there were, of course, the survivors of the Empire’s Armenian population which either had identified with “Holy Russia” during the war or was perceived to have done so. They were targeted as a scapegoat for popular wartime discontent and were subjected to a scale of massacre only surpassed by Hitler’s genocidal elimination of the Jews and Stalin’s mass liquidation of political opponents and recalcitrant ethnic populations.

Imperialist carve-up

The victorious Allies had decided to reward Italy and Greece with Ottoman territory. Italy was awarded the Dodecanese Islands (Rhodes) with their mixed Greek and Turkish population and the Aegean coast and Constantinople (Istanbul) which was the historic seat of the Orthodox Church, to Greece. Athens soon landed troops to enforce the new arrangement but they were rapidly repulsed by Ataturk’s forces. The outcome was a level of “ethnic cleansing” fully up to mid- and late-twentieth century standards. In the process most of Anatolia’s Greeks were expelled and re-settled in Greece. These League of Nations supervised population transfers included the transfer of Greek-speaking Muslims from Crete.

But of all the exceptions to the general truth of there being a Turkish majority in the area Ataturk designated as the territory of Turkey, the most important by far was the Kurdish in eastern Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Even in the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire there had been moves reflecting Kurdish aspirations towards autonomy and when the Kemalist struggle was still not assured of victory, noises were made in the direction of the Kurds suggesting that their assistance in consolidating the new republic would be rewarded with a degree of recognition of their cultural and democratic concerns.

Once the new Turkish state was firmly established any “understandings” arrived at with the Kurds rapidly evaporated and the new Turkish nationalism, confined to Asia Minor only, paradoxically meant that not only was Ataturk’s right-hand man, Ismet Inonu, a Kurd, so too was the ideologist of modern Turkish nationalism, Ziya Gokalp. This hocus-pocus of a theory classified the Kurds as a sort of “lost tribe” of Turks who had forgotten their mother tongue at some point (the Kurdish language is related to Persian and belongs to a quite different language group from Turkish) and who were to be described as “Mountain Turks”. The utterance of their language in public was made illegal.

Meanwhile, Kurds further down the Mesopotamian river basin of the Tigris and Euphrates had the good fortune (bad luck?) to be where the oil was (the Arab-speakers being where the dates were) Britain’s imperial scheme was to incorporate the Kurds into the Iraqi state they were creating. This served the dual purpose of including the oil-field and providing a mixed Arab/Kurdish population where the old divide-and-rule formula could be of imperial service. In the division of Arab-populated territory France got the Lebanon and Syria, the north-east of which included districts mainly inhabited by Kurds. Persia’s western border areas are also populated by several million Kurds and, a small but significant number of Kurdish speakers is to be found in what in the early days of the Soviet Empire was called Trans-Caucasia.

Turkish nationalism

Quantifying the Kurds in any of their home areas has been vitiated by their well-founded fears when it comes to identifying themselves as such to the census enumerators. It is also true that the great growth in Middle Eastern population generally means that the official numbers of Kurds tend to be both out-of-date and massaged by each regime. The usual pattern of migration from rural to urban areas has occurred to a large extent over the last fifty [years]. Ankara’s fourteen-year war to subdue the east. Here Turkey’s NATO weaponry and western-funded, modernised road network has been deployed against the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) guerrillas led by Abdulla Ocalan. Roughly speaking there are at least 15 million Kurds in Turkey, 6 million in Iran, 4 million in Iraq and perhaps 2 million in Syria. Germany’s “guest-workers” include something like a million Turkish Kurds and there are significant numbers of both economic migrants and formal refugees in all the Common Market countries.

During the twenties and thirties, Ataturk’s Republican Party was looked upon very favourably not only by colonial “liberation” movements within the European empires for their successful example of resisting imperialist designs but also by western feminist and reform groups for Turkey’s secularisation of the state, abolition of the caliphate, purdah and religious forms of dress and the establishment of a westernised educational and legal system, equal in its treatment of men and women.

Ataturk’s dictatorship claimed, like so many others, that it was paving the way for parliamentary democracy. Rather less usual was that less than ten years after his death from cirrhosis of the liver (a non-Islamic disorder) a significant level of electoral pluralism was introduced. No sooner was this in effect than the electorate plumped, to the extent that such an option was provided, for the rejection of a substantially state-capitalist economy and an essentially secular social system. This being the trend it was not long before the army which saw itself as the guardian of Kemalist reforms, stepped in to restore the unquestionable, statist, secularist and nationalist set-up whether the electorate wanted it or not.

Just as Lenin’s dictatorship radically altered many aspects of Tsarist Russian society but quickly re-established Moscow’s rule over most of the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire so the Turkish Republic, whilst unable or unwilling to restore any of the former empire, was soon to subject its Kurdish “citizens” to an intense programme of assimilation. This could well have been much more effective were it not that eastern Turkey where they mostly lived, like Italy’s South is the poorest and least economically developed part of the country .So whilst there is no chance of the kids there being made literate in their mother-tongue, a very large proportion are provided with nil or solely primary tuition in the state language. It is often the case that eighteen-year-old army conscripts are screamed at by sergeant-majors in what is effectively a foreign language which they have to learn PDQ.

Language Rights

When I first encountered Kurds in London in the sixties they were mostly here on Iraqi government scholarships to acquire British professional qualifications but in those days the idea of a fully independent pan-Kurdish state was considered a wholly unrealistic objective. This view was normal in Turkey where the prevailing aspiration was the achievement of language rights within a democratised federal version of existing states which retained their existing external borders.

Subsequent events in Iraq were to result in a chronically authoritarian system conceding its Kurdish region in the north of the country a considerable degree of autonomy. This was wrested from Baghdad at the cost of a protracted civil war. The war leader, Mustafa Barzani, father of the present head of the KDP (Kurdistan Democratic Party), owed his defeat largely to the weight of Russian-supplied arms. And the conduit within the Baghdad government through whom these munitions were routed was the long-standing Kurdish Moscow-liner, Jalal Talabani of the PUK (Patriotic Union of Kurdistan), now in receipt of Teheran’s help in his current rivalry with Masoud Barzani over control of the northern Iraq “safe haven”.

As stated, Persia too has a Kurdish population, of some 6 million. However, unlike the case of Turkey and Iraq there have not been large outward movements of Kurds from either pre- or post-Khomeini Iran. As a consequence there is less contact or interaction with them than with any of the other locations. Nevertheless it was a Persian Kurd who, although his Marxism was reflected through a Leninist distorting mirror has provided us with the most penetrating historical analysis of Kurdish society. Kurdistan and the Kurds by Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was published in London in English in 1989 (by Collets). The author was assassinated by the Iranian secret police, in Vienna in 1989.

In recent months the war in eastern Turkey has proved so destructive that the demand for federal status within the Turkish republic has been revived in Kurdish circles. For a socialist who has no desire for yet more flags and frontiers and who anticipates that the setting-up of a Kurdish state will no more solve the problems of members of the Kurdish working class than has been the case with scores of other “successful” national struggles, the most promising line of action would seem to be for Kurds in each Middle-Eastern republic to join with other workers to maximise their trade-union and democratic rights so that these can be used as a spring-board for the early attainment of a classless and borderless society. Such a socialist or communist society (they mean the same) will not only enable us to have free access to our material requirements but we shall democratically control the pace and nature of work that we freely choose to undertake. It would also be a way of life in which the language in which we express ourselves and the clothes we wear will be freely determined by each one of us.

Edmund Grant