What is happening in Venezuela? (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 23 January the president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, declared himself ‘Interim President’ of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, denouncing the elected President Nicolas Maduro as an illegitimate dictator. The US government immediately announced its support, followed by a declaration from the Group of Lima, which is an institution embracing several countries of Latin America, all supported by the US government. Canada and a number of European countries also declared their support for Juan Guaidó. They all asked Maduro to step down or face imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay.

The US government, Juan Guaidó, Canada and the European countries indicated that they were supporting the interim government on the grounds that Maduro was a dictator who has reduced Venezuela to a situation of hunger, unemployment, repression, corruption, and lack of freedom. They asked him to call a fresh presidential election in eight days. In response, the government of Venezuela decided instead to call for a new election to the National Assembly, while the Supreme Court of Venezuela declared the self-proclaimed Interim President illegal.

The popularity of Nicolas Maduro has decreased since he was elected due to the government’s authoritarian measures and corruption. Others blame him for the economic and political crisis and the violence that exists in the country. Many workers have taken to the streets to protest against his government. During the last presidential election other candidates did not participate and there were a large number of abstentions.

US opposition

Since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, the Venezuelan government has been opposed by the US and sections of the capitalist class in Venezuela, but during his initial period he had the support of the majority of the Venezuelan workers and most of the governments of Latin America. His popularity was so high that in 2002 the US was forced to back away from a coup d’état that they had orchestrated with certain sectors of the military forces.

Due to the then high international price of oil – which is the country’s main source of income – and as a member of OPEC, Chavez was able to implement certain social reforms, such as housing for the poor, medical services, educational programmes and a food programme. The level of poverty of the country decreased. And all these measures were considered by his supporters to be the implementation of socialism by the Bolivarian Revolution, or so-called Socialism of the XXI Century.

Chavez also helped create many cooperatives around the country and expropriated several corporations and turned their assets over to state ownership; others became joint ventures. Oil and gas were sold to China at a lower cost to compensate for the cost of transport and to penetrate the Asian market, and several agreements were signed with the Iranian government. Oil and gas were sold at low cost to the Cuban government in exchange for medical services using Cuban-trained doctors.

Social conditions in Venezuela have since deteriorated enormously due to a drop in the oil price and the embargo and sanctions imposed by the US, and also due to the largely state capitalist mode of production – which is the real system of production that exists in the Venezuela.

The US and Canada will also have their eye on the large deposits of oil and natural gas, and also on the oil and large deposits of minerals that exist in the Orinoco Belt, such as lithium, nickel and iron ore. Several of these resources have been given to the Russian and the Chinese corporations, and the ecological impact in that region has been enormous.

The US government has indicated that all options are on the table including military intervention. The government of Venezuela has responded saying that it might turn into another Vietnam and has called for a dialogue including the members of the National Assembly. All have refused to have a dialogue with Nicolas Maduro, and the US government has frozen all Venezuela’s international accounts and sources of income; they have taken over Gitco which is Venezuela’s international petroleum corporation situated in the US, and Britain has held back $550 million of gold that the Bank of England had been keeping in trust for the Venezuelan government. In addition, the US is going to transfer all the oil proceeds – more than $7 billion – to the interim president. According to some economic statisticians, the loss from the embargo on Venezuela has cost the country more than $350 billion in total.

Due to the measures taken by the US government against Venezuela and the implementation of new sanctions, the Venezuelan government is going to transfer all the proceeds of their oil sales to a Russian bank in Moscow as Russia has lent more than $50 billion to Venezuela in military aid and for mining. China has lent more than $60 billion in exchange for oil. Both countries have opposed the actions of the USA at the United Nations and have indicated that they reject the new government and support Maduro as president.

A possible military confrontation with the US and alliances of military forces of other Latin American countries, such as Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, against Venezuela would become a very bloody battleground, due to the fact that all the armies have been heavily armed by the US, Russia and China, and most of them have modern armaments. It would be a war where many class brothers and sisters would kill each other defending one or other side in the conflict.

Not socialism

Since the very beginning when Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela and declared himself a socialist, we have shown that he was just a left reformist, not a revolutionary socialist, and that socialism cannot be introduced by a leader in the name of the working class, by implementing reforms within the framework of a capitalist society and nationalising enterprises to be run by the state apparatus. We added that the problems that Venezuela was confronted with and its failures could not be blamed on socialism because a form of state capitalism was the economic model that was going to be established by the leaders of the Bolivarian revolution; that Chavez, Fidel Castro, Peron, Cardenas, and other Latin American leaders were bourgeois nationalists who were opposed to the influence and domination of the US ruling class in the region. They wanted to expand their own markets and capitalist interests there, as was reflected by engagement with Mercosur which is a Latin American version of the European Market, by the Bank of the South, a Latin American version of the IMF, and showcased by the Cooperatives in Bolivia which are joint ventures between the state and the peasants of Bolivia based on a capitalist mode of production and run as typical capitalist corporations.

The USA and its president have used the crisis in Venezuela as a pretext to blame its problems on socialism and to attack the emergence of socialist ideas within the youth and some sectors of the US working class. Both are confusing social democratic reforms with socialism such as: Medicare for all, increase of taxation on the rich, better housing conditions for the poor, elimination of inequality, renovation of the country’s infrastructures, more state regulations, and better programmes for the elderly and the veterans. Most of these measures were implemented by Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression and none of them are an indication that socialism was established in the USA.

For many years the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties, including the World Socialist Party of the US, have established a clear distinction between social democratic reforms, state capitalism, and socialism. Our aim is socialism-communism as a post-capitalist world society based on the common possession of the mean of production administered democratically, which is a stateless, moneyless, wageless society of free access to available wealth. This cannot be established by a leader, or a vanguard party acting in the name of the working within the framework of the capitalist mode of production; capitalism is an economic system which cannot be reformed to work in the interest of the workers.

Whatever is taking place in Venezuela has nothing to do with socialism or communism, and all the failures of the Bolivarian Revolution, its leaders and the so-called United Socialist Party of Venezuela, cannot be blamed on socialism or communism. Venezuela is a capitalist society where workers are economically exploited to produce surplus value and are wage slaves like in any other capitalist country, as in all other parts of the world. It is a state-run capitalist system similar to the ones established in the former USSR, Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam adapted to their local circumstances.

Marcos

Dear Theresa . . . (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Theresa . . . 

Apparently, at exactly 11.00 pm on Friday 29 March 2019, Brexit will descend upon us. I am wondering whether I should stay up and watch it as I do when there is a total eclipse. If a deal is not struck by this time then hell-fire and damnation is forecast to rain down upon the people of the British Isles, as alluded to by the ignominious EU President, Donald Tusk. I suspect that, if I wake up on Saturday morning 30 March to total darkness, it is much more likely to be due to the onset of Nuclear Winter than a failure to renegotiate a variance of the Irish Backstop.

I was wondering if, in all the hoo-hah and razzmatazz of Brexit, you have had the chance to consider the latest development on our path to Nuclear Armageddon. In case you haven’t I’ll just remind you. Your partner in crime, The Donald, has given notice that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, claiming that Russia has violated the terms of the Treaty, whereas Russia claims that the United States violated the terms of the Treaty first. I love an adult conversation, don’t you, especially when the outcome may well determine the survival of our planet.

As a result of the dispute over the INF Treaty Russia has announced the reactivation of its Perimeter System which was de-commissioned following the end of the Cold War; that is the first Cold War ending in 1991, not the current one. The Perimeter System is a nifty little arrangement to counter the United States posture of First Use of nuclear weapons by anticipating that such a pre-emptive strike could destroy Russia’s command and control systems; in which case a cluster of SS17 ICBMs will launch automatically on detection of seismic activity, compatible with that caused by a nuclear explosion. As these Russian SS17 missiles fly over the nuclear armed ICBMs in their silos they will transmit a launch signal to them. If the United States doesn’t already have a similar defence system no doubt it will feel it prudent to build one and, hey presto, planetary annihilation without any need for fallible human intervention!

I find it strangely reassuring, in a psychotic sort of way, that MAD – Mutually Assured Destruction – has been fully restored after faltering in recent decades and without even the need for a mad man or mad woman to press the button. Given that the UK is a major player in this ultimate game of chicken with its – soon to be dazzlingly new – Trident nuclear submarines I hope you will find time to give this matter a few minutes of your attention amid the Brexit fever. From our perspective we in the Socialist Party have a rather simple solution. We advocate a world devoid of imperialism, nationalism and all sabre-rattling murderous manifestations of warfare which emanate from such pathologies: a world where there are no nation states, no borders and no private property, where resources are held in common for the benefit of all; which will leave very few things to fight over.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Hart

Rear View: Afwerki’s boot (2016)

The Rear View Column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Afwerki’s boot

Socialists are not fools: we prefer the limited democracy to be found in some capitalist countries over dictatorship. The 99 percent suffer worldwide, but in some places more than others. ‘As huge numbers of Eritreans continue to flee the country, Isaias Afwerki’s regime is increasingly retaliating against their families. The government already demands payments from families whose children have escaped—50,000 nafkas (US$3,333) per child. Families who can’t pay are jailed. Now the government is demolishing houses and seizing property, too . . . Experts say Afwerki needs a constant supply of young people to maintain his police state. A June 2015 UN Commission on Inquiry report on Eritrea documented in detail the regime’s indefinite military conscription. The military has drafted children younger than 15, tortured its own members and engaged in the systematic sexual abuse of women. But despite the report’s conclusion of possible crimes against humanity—and an Eritrean government official’s recent admission to a Wall Street Journal reporter that the regime engages in torture—some countries and right-wing political parties in Europe are jostling to send a signal to Eritreans: Don’t come here anymore’ (thenation.com, 2 December).

Daddy’s girl

If you want a vision of the future, wrote George Orwell, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. Dictator’s daughter and current president of South Korea, Park Geun-hye, is using the might of the state against tens of thousands protesting her increasingly authoritarian rule. Trade unionists, students and others object to her labour policies and desire to impose one version of history over others. She knows, like Orwell, that whoever controls the past controls the future, and her vision is one without the masses objecting to her rule. She has ‘equated the protesters—some of whom wear masks as protection from riot police—to terrorists’ and for good measure her Justice Minister Kim Hyun-Woong vowed to ‘uproot illegal and violent demonstration … no matter how much sacrifice is required’ (thenation.com, 1 December).

Open platform

‘Maryam Namazie is the latest in a string of people to fall foul of university ‘safe space’ policies which attempt to keep controversial speakers off campus. In October, feminist activists attempted to cancel a talk by Germaine Greer at Cardiff University because of her belief that transgender women are not real women. Historian David Starkey was recently edited out of a Cambridge University fundraising video after students protested over his history of outspoken statements on race and gender’ (dailymail.co.uk 2 December). The Socialist Party has a proud history of open debate. We oppose these so-called ‘safe spaces’ for the same reasons we oppose censorship. Atheist? Cultural relativist? Conservative historian? Bring it on!

God and the Price of Copper (2016)

From the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

  A socialist in Zambia explains how politicians and governments in countries like Zambia that export one basic commodity are at the mercy of world market conditions. Zambia is not alone in this respect.

Zambia is currently gripped by an economic crisis, characterised by falling copper prices, the depreciating kwacha, and electricity blackouts. Prices of essential commodities have shot up due to the depreciation of the kwacha. Sensing danger, President Edgar Lungu of the ruling PF despatched his deputy secretary-general Mrs Mumbi Phiri to the ZNBC, where she gave an assessment of the significance of the economic problems facing the country.

The radio interview took place on 14 September and the public were invited to ask her questions through the phone calls. She explained that the reasons why Zambia was facing social and economic problems was because of the falling copper export prices to China – the largest purchaser of Zambia’s copper exports. She went on to assure listeners that the reason why Zambia was experiencing electricity blackouts was due to low water levels in the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station occasioned by poor rainfall. The depreciation of the kwacha, she said, took effect after the death of President Sata in September 2014 and was due to reasons other than the fall in copper prices.

However, the Kariba North Bank hydro-power station was initially designed to generate power for up to three years regardless of poor rainfall received in the previous years. At the inception in 1976 the power station had four turbines with a capacity to generate 600 MW of power (150 MW each). During 2011 the turbines were upgraded to 180 MW each, bringing the total to 720 MW. Further expansion of the facility initiated through the Kariba North Bank Expansion Programme saw the addition of two turbines of 180 MW each, bringing the total generating capacity to 1080 MW.

The real reason why the Kariba North Bank power station is experiencing low water levels is because the turbines are being overused – they are run at longer hours than they were initially designed for. That is to say that the engineers at ZESCO have been operating the known peak units beyond the normal three to four hours a day, thus resulting in increased water usage and ultimately low water levels in the Kariba dam.

Falling copper prices

The copper mines consume much of the power, with domestic consumers accounting only for a small fraction. Power supply to the copper mines has been cut to 30 percent. This had led to production costs increasing 40 to 60 percent as the power deficit worsens.

Zambia is a capitalist country dependent on copper exports from which it derives 90 percent of its revenue (in taxes and royalties). The drop that has now taken place in the price of copper exports in the international market has had a great influence upon political developments taking place within Zambia. The price of copper originating from international political and economic events is in fact the main reason affecting the history of politics in Zambia.

During the 1980s there was a letdown in inflation in western Europe that led to the fall of ‘Communism’ in Eastern Europe, and later spread to Africa where single-party political dictatorships were hastily replaced with multi-party political systems. When the MMD came to power in 1991 copper prices were at an all-time low – the privatised copper mines failed to make any impact on the liberalised economy. Both Wanslea and Konkola copper mines were closed down due to falling copper prices. The Chinese state capitalist investors saw a chance to open up new copper mines and went forth to set up NFCA and Chambishi smelters in Kitwe.

In 2008, after the death of President Mwanawasa, a bank mortgage crisis began in the USA and later spread to every part of the world. In Zambia copper prices tumbled to their lowest on the London Commodities Exchange. People lost confidence in the MMD and voted for the PF under President Sata in the 2011 presidential elections.

It is fair to point out the vivid fact that when Sata came to power in 2011 the banking crisis that had struck the USA and western Europe was on the wane. China was catching up with the USA in terms of international trade and investment. Thus Sata thought he had found a trusted political and economic partner in economic development.

The social changes initiated by Sata were mostly carried out by Chinese state-controlled companies. The price of copper was rising on the export market– this led Sata to revise tax incentives of copper mining companies in 2013. However, this increasing of the mineral royalty taxes upon the copper mines had a deleterious effect upon the operations of the copper mines, resulting in job losses.

The economic slowdown that has since taken place in the Chinese economy has contributed in total to the collapse of copper prices in Zambia today and thus the diminishing profitability of copper mining.

The fact is that the significance of social and economic policies pursued by any political party in Zambia can only succeed in relation to the prevailing copper prices on the international market,. .

Turning to God

In late August 2014 there was a sudden collapse of copper prices in China which caught President Lungu unawares. The foreign exchange rate relative to the USA dollar sunk to the lowest ebb. Facing incessant criticism from both the church and the political opposition, President Lungu found himself helpless. He turned to God for help. He appealed to the people of Zambia in strong terms and told them to fast and pray to God on 18 October for him to bless the nation.

People responded to the President’s appeal and duly converged in their respective places of worship and paid homage and reverence to God. Some congregations reported having seen a rainbow envelope the Sun during the said occasion.

Whether God did answer the prayers that took place remains to be seen, but it is certain that the prayers of those people with political careers and private property will have been duly answered. But for the workers, peasants and students the prayers seem to have made them less emotionally and spiritually bewildered.

The fact is that the kwacha has kept on depreciating and electricity blackouts remain unresolved. And the price of copper remained depressed.

In our scientific prognosis of capitalism– we in the WSM are of the view that the economic factor plays a major role in determining political, intellectual and religious whims of a given society. Our message to the workers, peasants and students in Zambia remains the same: capitalism cannot offer a permanent solution to social, political and economic crises.

Voting for another set of recycled politicians into parliament is not a solution. The workers must utilise the limited political freedom granted it through the medium of the vote to vote capitalism out of the world. Vote for socialism– the alternative to capitalism.

Kephas Mulenga, 

Kitwe, Zambia

Letter: The Labour Party (2016)

Letter to the Editors from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

The article on the Labour Party in the December Standard clearly exposed their failures. That’s not how the Labour Party themselves see it of course, claiming that their actions in government ‘have revolutionised the lives of the British people’ (www.labour.org.uk/pages/what-is-the-labour-party).

Even after several Labour governments, the lives of workers in Britain still involve exploitation and varying degrees of poverty. The revolution is yet to come.

Paul Bennett

Manchester

50 Years Ago: Prospects for 1966 (2016)

The 50 Years Ago column from the January 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist standing on the brink of 1966 must survey the social scene with mixed feelings. It is depressing that the landscape should still be dominated by the ugly facts of Capitalist society, with its inequalities, exploitation, poverty, violence and neuroses. From another point of view, there is relief that the scarred body of humanity has at least survived. By itself, survival creates a fresh opportunity to do better in the future, but it is only an opportunity. The bitter experience of the past guards against undue optimism.

It is a time of ferment. There is a general will towards a better life. Social consciousness is on the move. Controversy, frustration and discontent abound. There is one thing that cannot be done with Capitalism. Capitalism cannot be made to work in the interests of the whole community. In the context of history, Capitalism is a condemned society.

In spite of everything, there is encouragement. With modification of the crude assumptions of religion a dent is being made in the barrier of superstition. Organised religion is on the defensive. Recent discussions about homosexuality, abortion and contraception indicate that sexual attitudes are freer from taboo.

To embark on a full-scale war this year, the Government could not rely on crowds outside Buckingham Palace chanting “we want war”. The propaganda machine would be required to work hard in producing convincing pseudo reasons for the fight. The politicians’ watchword in his relations with the voter is caution. The technical gains of the sixties have extended man’s control of his environment and emphasised the contradiction between the potential abundance and actual poverty of production. These are peripheral gains that help to create a more receptive atmosphere for Socialist ideas.

On the other hand frustrations still tend to be diverted into attitudes of hate. The incidence of racism is ominous. Above all, that steady statistic 10% of the population owns 90% of the wealth, still forms the background of class ownership that dominates life. To the modern commercial animal, profit still remains the yardstick of virtue and success. Property is his God. The lingo of advertising and the subtle mechanics of the hard sell is his new theology.

(from editorial, Socialist Standard, January 1966)

Rear View: Looks like Smeagol, acts like Sauron . . . (2016)

The Rear View Column from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Looks like Smeagol, acts like Sauron . . .

. . . and ‘cites Hitler’s Germany as an example of effective government’ (theguardian.com, 1 January). Who can this be? None other than Turkey’s ever power-hungry president, Erdoğan. Last year a Dr. Çiftçi compared him to a character from Lord of the Rings. Legal proceedings ensued and a team of academics, psychologists and a media expert were asked to prepare a report, due this month. Socialists may find such antics amusing at a superficial level, but the election of this precious president is a reminder that our class continues to support the status quo. Hitler and the fundamentalist Islamic Salvation Front, just to give two other odious examples, won elections.

Trump’s doublespeak

‘Not only does he refuse to be held to any standard of truth, he refuses to act ashamed when he gets caught in a lie, or even grant that he might have been mistaken. And his supporters go right along — if Donald says it, it’s true, and no bunch of media jerks are going to tell them otherwise’ (truthout.org, 1 January). But, of course, Trump is not alone. How do you know when politicians lie? When they open their mouths. Marx’s favourite motto was doubt everything.

They have the technology

‘Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin. It is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020. But cattle are only the beginning of chief executive Xu’s ambitions. In the factory’s pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, pets, police dogs specialised in searching and sniffing, and even humans’ (dailymail.co.uk, 1 January). The future is bright! The future is full of cloned, iron-heeled dictators, Erdoğans, Kardashians and Trumps. Meanwhile, they can comfort themselves with a cloned version of their pet dog for a mere $100,000.

Down and out

‘There is a war on, and it concerns the homeless’ right to sleep. Across the United States, recent years have seen a spate of municipal laws that criminalise the act of sleeping in public places. These laws often target the act of sleeping in private vehicles under the guise of anti-camping legislation’ (alternet.org, 2 January). Wrong! The war in question has been correctly identified by none other than Warren Buffett: ‘there’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.’ Consider, the 400 richest Americans now have more wealth than the bottom 61 percent of the population and every 38 seconds a U.S. citizen dies of poverty and poverty-related social conditions. There are over 578,000 sleeping rough in the US alongside at least 10 million unoccupied homes. Houses are built for profit not need. Thus, particularly during a slump, brick mountains, empty houses, mothballed developments, and unemployed builders exist alongside the homeless and those existing in sub-standard accommodation.

Freedom for them

‘Something important and, freedom lovers may think, rather wonderful seems to have happened at the United Nations, and it went largely unreported in mainstream media. The UN General Assembly approved a draft resolution Permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources’ (dissidentvoice.org, 1 January). Campaigners for Palestinian ‘freedom’, who often argue that sanctions brought down the apartheid regime of South Africa and they are what will bring down the apartheid regime of Israel, ignore the lesson of history. The election of the ANC to power was supposed to see the grinding poverty of the townships ended, but the ANC have turned out to be powerless to run capitalism in a way that would end exploitation and poverty. Capitalism means the continuation of war and want. Workers have no country.

Capitalism is bad for you

‘An Ofcom report . . .  found, on average, adults spend more time using technology than sleeping each day. Work has become more intense as new technology enables, and even forces, people to work faster, do more, and multi-task, said Kinman. Her research also finds rising presenteeism – for example people working when they are ill’ (theguardian.com, 2 January). Studies have found that health problems stemming from job stress, like hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and decreased mental health, can lead to fatal conditions that wind up killing about 120,000 people each year—making work-related stressors and the maladies they cause, more deadly than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

Letter: Words and Propaganda (2016)

Letters to the Editors from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors

I read ‘What is the Islamic State’ (Socialist Standard, December). I’d also got the Nation at the same time and read ‘No Cause for War’ by Juan Cole. The Paris attacks have filled newspaper pages and the airwaves since 13 November and last week.

The article cites Juan Cole’s blog site as a source. Because words have sensuous power, words matter. Cole for his part uses the term ‘Islamic State’ the first time and then introduces the term ‘Daesh’ that is commonly used for the group in the Arabic press. It is Daesh that Cole uses from then on.

Propaganda works. We tend to categorise new information according to a generalisation of the prototype that heads each of our mental categories. Using the label ‘state’ tends to reify a gang of Mafioso or a drugs cartel into a conceptually real state. This is ideological thinking and we should avoid doing it and spreading it.

Look what the USSR did to the perception of socialism through the power of a misapplied word. Cole introduces the commonly accepted term, defines it away and uses the new signifier in its place which I think is perhaps a proper practice to achieve greater clarity.

Joe R Hopkins. 

Florida, USA.

50 Years Ago: The Keynesian Myth (2016)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

The basic proposition of the Keynesians comes to this: steady growth at full employment level can be kept if the State controls spending and investment so that when a boom is developing it cuts down, and when a slump threatens it increases its spending.

Keynes had been a critic of laissez-faire for a long time before he wrote his General Theory. He was a member of the Liberal Party and sympathetic to the kind of State capitalist schemes the Fabians pushed. When he wrote this book he already had an international reputation as a leading economist. His book was given wide publicity because in it a well-known economist provided a theoretical justification for policies already being tried in the 1930’s. Keynes’s theories and policies—equalizing taxation, cheap money. State control—were eagerly spread by the Labour Party and “progressives’’ generally. After all, this was what they—and Keynes himself, for that matter—had long been advocating. Helped by these partisans Keynesian economics has become the dominant theory. In Britain it completely conquered the universities and government departments. In America some conservative economists are still fighting a rearguard action on behalf of laissez-faire against Keynes’ theories which they see as State Capitalism (to them “socialism”).

It is true that Keynesian economics is a theory of State Capitalism. It is a theory that Capitalism can be managed by professional economists from government departments. It is Fabianism in a new guise: capitalism run by “experts”.

In Britain the first Keynesian budget was that of 1940 so the “experts” have been in charge for over 25 years. How have they fared? Have they been able to control capitalism?

Under capitalism the market is the king; it decides what is produced and when. After the last war there was an expansion of the world market which, with a few minor upsets, has continued ever since. It is this expansion of the world market rather than State control which has been the major factor in the relatively full employment in some parts of the world.

This particular combination of circumstances has allowed the Keynesians to claim as the benefits of their “economic management” what in fact are the results of world market conditions favourable to the capitalists of the countries concerned.

(From article by A.L.B, Socialist Standard, February 1966)

The One Big Union (2019)

From the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

  ‘The One Big Union, therefore, seeks to organize the wage worker, not according to craft, but according to industry; according to class and class needs. We, therefore, call upon all workers to organize irrespective of nationality, sex, or craft into a workers’ organization, so that we may be enabled to more successfully carry on the everyday fight over wages, hours of work, etc., and prepare ourselves for the day when production for profit shall be replaced by production for use’ (One Big Union Constitution).

In late 1918 Western Canadian unionists placed a number of radical resolutions before the delegates at that year’s Trades and Labor Congress Convention. In particular, they wanted the Congress to abandon craft unionism for industrial unionism, but their criticism extended to such difficult questions as conscription, censorship and the war effort. Every one of the proposals was defeated. Before returning home, the western delegates agreed to hold a special western Canadian labour conference in 1919 to discuss ways that they could have more impact on the TLC. By the time the delegates from western Canadian unions arrived in Calgary for this meeting in the spring of 1919 they were no longer interested in fixing the TLC. Instead, they believed the time had come to create a new industrial union that would not discriminate between skilled and un-skilled, foreign-born or Canadian-born workers

On 13 March a conference of trade union activists was called at Calgary who had grown discontented with the TLC. The 237 delegates who attended agreed to secede from the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and the American Federation of Labor and to form a new industrial organisation. They adopted the name One Big Union, along with various economic and political resolutions. Delegates called for ‘the abolition of the present system of production for profit.’ A central committee was elected, that included five Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) members and which provided many of the activists of the OBU. However, those from the SPC did not abandon their own project of building the party for an anti-political syndicalist dream. The OBU, unlike the Industrial Workers of the World stressed class organisation rather than industrial organisation. The OBU in Canada was structured more on organising workers geographically than by industry (which caused an early dispute within it). In pursuance of this class policy it did not condemn political action, but rather declared that the only hope for the workers was ‘in the economic and political solidarity of the working class, One Big Union and One Workers’ Party’ (The OBU. Bulletin, 20 December, 1919). The founding members of the OBU were determined to create a union that was opposed to capitalism itself.

‘The OBU was not expected to free the workers from wage slavery any more than the trade union were. There was no question of industrial vs. political as in the IWW 1908 schism. The two were seen as complementary phases of the working-class movement. The One Big Union and the general strike were limited weapons in a battle which was ‘defensive as well as offensive,’ explained an OBU Bulletin editorial.

The concept of the One Big Union was that all workers should be organised in one union – one big union, the OBU. Most notable was the attempt of the Industrial Workers of the World to organise in the United States, Canada, Australia, and other countries. The debate was over whether unions should be based on craft groups, organised by their skill, the dominant model at the time, carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers, each into their respective unions. Capitalists could often divide craft and trade unionists along these lines in demarcation disputes. As capitalist enterprises and state bureaucracies became more centralised and larger, some workers felt that their institutions needed to become similarly large based on entire industries (industrial unions). The One Big Union movement supported the ‘entire industries’ model over the ‘craft groups’ structure:

  ‘it is not the name of an organization nor its preamble, but the degree of working class knowledge possessed by its membership that determines whether or not it is a revolutionary body… It is true that the act of voting in favour of an industrial as against the craft form of organization denotes an advance in the understanding of the commodity nature of labour power, but it does not by any “means imply a knowledge of the necessity of the social revolution”, Jack Kavanagh, union activist and SPC member, explained. “There can be no question of industrial vs. political. The two are complementary phases of the working class movement” he concluded in the fall of 1919’ (LINK).

Unholy alliance

The weakness of the members of the OBU was not in daring to dream and to act on those dreams, but not realising how many and how powerful the guardians of capitalism were. The OBU would be broken by an alliance of the officials of the mainstream unions, the employers, the federal government and the Communist Party.

Naturally Canada’s various federal and dominion governments were not friendly towards the OBU and most definitely not the employers who would regularly blacklist OBU workers and refuse to negotiate.

The Canadian Labor Congress LC and its affiliate the United Mine Workers was anti-socialist and against militant industrial unionism and the OBU stood for everything it opposed.

Lenin argued against dual-unionism and against the setting up of revolutionary unions so in the Communist Party, in accordance with Comintern instructions, the party-line was to work in the mainstream unions to oust the various labour leaders and this meant rejoining the CLC. The Communists began a campaign of disruption to pressure the OBU members back into the CLC unions, even if it meant destroying the organisation outright. But the OBU nevertheless endured.

The OBU at its peak had 101 locals and 41,500 members—almost the entire union membership of Western Canada. The OBU faced very powerful opponents. Nevertheless, in 1925 the membership was 17,000 and grew slowly throughout the 1920s to reach a maximum of 24,000 members. The year they joined the Canadian Labor Congress the membership stood at 12,000.

Today, union activists continue to strive for collective forms of organisation capable of superseding bureaucracies and cumbersome legalistic procedures. Driven by the same dreams that mobilised the generation behind the OBU, contemporary workers can learn something from the possibilities and pitfalls of the OBU. The OBU did not have all the answers but what they represented was a tendency that was stopped short by so-called revolutionary proponents of Leninism and the reformist apologists of labourism. Who knows what might have resulted had this development not been cut short.

Jack Houston the founding editor of the OBU Bulletin wrote:

  ‘The O.B.U. was not created out of pure thought, but from the objective industrial situation. Craft unions have grown obsolete… The O.B.U exists not only because some labour leaders determined to bring it to birth, but because the workers would not remain in the old-style unions. This is a fact and not a theory’ (OBU Bulletin Editorials, LINK).

Houston went on to explain in more detail that:

  ‘The official ‘impossibilism’ of the SPC guaranteed the party’s political purity and proletarian principles, but did not prevent the socialists from participating in non-revolutionary working-class struggles as well. As it is usually understood, syndicalism implies the creation of worker-controlled economic structures within industry, opposition to the use of political parties and the political system as a means to further the workers’ cause, and, finally, the withdrawal of labourers’ services in a great general strike which would topple the capitalist system.’

He pointed out that:

   ‘The Socialist Party of Canada rejected the idea that a socialist society could be created by workers’ councils or soviets. The SPC did not regard the general strike as the ultimate weapon in the class struggle. They never promoted sabotage as did the Industrial Workers of the World. They sought, instead, to build an inclusive united working class movement as the next stage in the class struggle. They decided to reduce their emphasis upon political action, formerly their major weapon, because the new militancy of the union membership demanded new strategy—a better union movement… Unions would confront the real rulers of society, the owning class, in another way. Socialist Party members understood that a shorter work week and the creation of a new union organization would not topple the capitalist system. But, as a first step, it would provide an example and a base of operations. The object was to continue the education of the worker, to secure badly-needed immediate improvements in working conditions, and, thus, through organization, to further the solidarity of the working class and to prevent premature violence. The workers’ revolt could begin on a regional basis, the socialist revolution must be national, continental, and, ultimately, world-wide.’

We in the World Socialist Movement can envisage a socialist party growing in the future along with many other expressions of working class organisation including trade unions and workers’ councils. We have never stood aloof from the industrial scene and class struggle, as our critics keep repeating until such claims have become an urban legend for many on the Left. However, what we strictly adhere to is that decisions about industrial disputes and work-place agreements are to be made by those directly involved and not by outside-the-union political parties.

ALJO

What is Capitalism? (1984)

From the September 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wealth of capitalism takes the form of value. Everything has an exchange value which has nothing to do with its real utility as a means of satisfying some human want or need. The exchange value of a product depends not on its usefulness but on the amount of time taken under average conditions to produce it from start to finish; or, expressed in another way, on the amount of socially necessary labour incorporated in it. The aim of production under capitalism is to increase the amount of exchange value in existence, to accumulate capital — a sum of exchange values.

We are so used to wealth taking the form of value — to everything having an exchange value and a price — that this seems to be quite natural. It is only when you think about it a bit more deeply that you realise how strange this situation is. What human beings need to survive are specific, tangible things — food, clothing, housing and the like. This in fact is what wealth is: a product of nature or of human labour that is useful to human beings.

All societies previous to capitalism produced most wealth directly as useful things for consumption. This was so even in class-divided societies where the aim was indeed to produce more and better useful things for the ruling class than for the oppressed class, but where there was still production for use. When you think about it. producing wealth directly as useful things is the obvious, natural aim of production. But under capitalism this is not the case. Wealth now takes the form of value and the aim of production is continually to increase the amount of value in existence. It is completely mad and illogical from the point of view of satisfying human needs.

If you don't believe that the aim of production under capitalism is to increase abstract exchange value (to accumulate capital) rather than to produce concrete useful things to satisfy human needs, just turn to the business section of any newspaper and you’ll find them talking about the “Gross National Product” and saying what a tragedy it is that it has remained stagnant for a number of years now, and so on and so forth. But what precisely is the Gross National Product? How is it measured? From its name it should logically be a catalogue of all the various items of wealth produced in a particular part of the world over a given period. Since it is not possible to compare potatoes with slabs of steel, or tins of paint with wooden chairs, and so on, this would have to be a long list of items expressed in tonnes of this, yards of that, cubic metres of something else. But of course it isn't. The GNP is expressed in a single figure, as so many billions of pounds. How is this possible? How is it possible to compare potatoes, steel, paint, chairs and so on? Well, it isn't, but it is possible to compare the economic value which all these things have under capitalism and this is what the GNP is: an aggregate of the exchange values — prices — of all the items of wealth produced in a country in a year.

Wealth under capitalism is produced as value, in more or less autonomous economic units — enterprises — which employ wage-labour. For, under capitalism, labour power — the human ability to work, a person’s mental and physical energies — is also a commodity, an object of commerce, having an exchange value and a price, more commonly called a wage or a salary.

Basically, an enterprise is an economic institution controlling a sum of capital which, as we saw, is a sum of exchange values expressed as a sum of money. Its economic aim is to end up, after producing and selling its commodities, with a greater sum of exchange value (money) than it started with. Of course as exchange value is an abstraction it must be embodied in real concrete things and, since the things necessary to production are raw materials, machines and labour power, it is in these that exchange value (money) is embodied or invested.

The source of the increase in exchange value which enterprises seek and, generally, obtain is the unpaid labour of those who work in the enterprise. For labour power has the peculiar property of being able to create new value. This is a consequence in capitalism of the unvarying fact that wealth, as something useful to human life and survival, is produced by human labour applied to nature-given materials. But labour power produces not only new value but an amount over and above its own value which it is paid as wages. This extra value, or surplus value as Marx called it, belongs not to the workers but to the enterprise. At first it is embodied in concrete things, in the particular product that the enterprise produces, but when these have been sold it has been converted into money and becomes the monetary profit which is the practical aim of production under capitalism.

But enterprises are not free to do what they like with these profits. They are compelled by the economic forces which come into operation precisely when production is carried on for profit by more or less autonomous enterprises, to re-invest the greater part of it in expanding production. Thus capitalism is essentially an economic mechanism, that of the accumulation of capital out of the surplus value produced by wage-labour. It is an impersonal mechanism in the sense that it operates independently of human will. Those in charge of enterprises and those in charge of governments have to implement it: they are cogs in the mechanism. Who benefits from the process of capital accumulation, and how, is also irrelevant because everywhere a part of the surplus value is in practice consumed in good living by a privileged group instead of being re-invested. A whole range of different arrangements are possible here and exist in practice.

In other words, it is not legal property forms and the internal organisation of enterprises that define capitalism. Capitalism is not a particular form of property ownership nor a particular form of industrial control, but an economic mechanism. Where this mechanism exists and operates, there capitalism exists, irrespective of who controls enterprises or enjoys a privileged consumption. This is why neither the state ownership nor the workers’ control of industry nor even the abolition of legal private property incomes amounts to the abolition of capitalism. What must be ended to abolish capitalism is the production of wealth as value: production directly and solely for use must replace production for sale on a market with a view to profit — which can only be done on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production.

Adam Buick

Popularity Contests (2019)

Book Review from the March 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘National Populism: the Revolt Against Liberal Democracy’. By Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin (Penguin £9.99)

‘National populism,’ the authors tell us, ‘is an ideology which prioritizes the culture and interests of the nation, and which promises to give voice to a people who feel that they have been neglected, even held in contempt, by distant and often corrupt elites.’ The word ‘national’ is added to distinguish it from left-wing populism, as seen in Podemos in Spain and Bernie Sanders in the US. (For a socialist take on populism, see the March 2018 Socialist Standard.)

The book is, however, not mainly concerned with the views of populist politicians, and certainly not with how they fare when in government. Rather, it emphasises the characteristics and opinions of those who support them. The authors have little difficulty in showing that national populism is not backed solely by the poor and the unemployed, or by angry old white men. Many people under forty support populists, but one significant point is that people without university degrees are more likely to vote for populist candidates (Trump, for instance).

The reasons why increasing numbers side with national populist candidates are said to include distrust of politicians and other elites (who are rich and had expensive educations) and the weakening of links to mainstream parties, which also lies behind the growth of the Greens and parties like the SNP. The increase in inequality over recent decades is also seen as a major factor, with a feeling of relative deprivation giving rise to political action.

But what marks national populism out from the less successful left-wing populism is its attitude to immigration and what Eatwell and Goodwin call ‘hyper ethnic change’. This is where national populists really tap into many people’s concerns that their way of life is undermined by large-scale immigration, especially of Muslims. And here the book becomes rather unpleasant: racism is defined in narrow terms (so discrimination is not in itself racist), and is contrasted with xenophobia, ‘a distrust and rejection of that which is perceived to be foreign and threatening’. Blatant racism is said to be less successful than appeals to culture and values, yet national populists accept ‘the critical importance of ethnic ancestry’ and want to ‘stem the dwindling size of their group [and] advance its interests’. This is just a euphemism for white people wanting to discriminate against non-whites, or general discrimination against those from abroad.

The authors accept that national populism has a dark side, on which they say very little, but also maintain that it raises ‘uncomfortable but legitimate issues’. However, they do not clarify who counts as a national populist, and, for instance, say little about Latin American populists. Many writers would regard Recep Erdoğan in Turkey as a populist politician, but here he is seen as part of a Muslim plot, arguing that Turkish families in Europe should have lots of children. His repressive rule can therefore be overlooked, as is that of the uncontroversially populist Viktor Orbán in Hungary, where a law was recently passed increasing the amount of overtime that employers can demand from workers.

Above all the book provides no evidence whatever that populist leaders can in any way deliver on their promises. They have allegedly ‘set out an alternative to the status quo’, by which is meant higher pay and more infrastructure projects. This is no alternative at all, for populism, national or otherwise, accepts the existence of capitalism and its elite – the capitalist class – and combines this with intolerant and authoritarian policies.

Paul Bennett

After The Poll. (1924)

From the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The election is over and the result has left each of the aspirants to governmental power faced with a situation probably unique in our political history. Of the three parties—Conservative, Liberal and Labour—not one has a majority over the rest.

The writhings and squirmings of the different groups, in the endeavour to find a way out of the difficulty, enlivens the
dullness of our lives.

Immediately after the election the official papers of the different parties united in the view that of course Mr. Baldwin would resign, as his main proposals for dealing with the unemployment, trade stagnation, and the Ruhr, had been turned down by a majority of those voting.

The Observer, a supporter of Baldwin, lays the defeat of the government at the door of a “Trust-controlled Press.” In its issue of 9th December, Garvin complains that the Unionists were deprived of their chief resort at previous elections, the popular newspapers. This is a peculiar admission, particularly for a paper that has the Astor millions behind it. This is equivalent to admitting that the interests behind the Trust-controlled Press swept the Unionists into power, and have now swept them out of power!

The same issue of the paper, uses up considerable space to prove that there is no point in Mr. Baldwin retaining office until kicked out, that the obvious policy is for him to hand in his resignation immediately and go into opposition.

Mr. Baldwin, however, has declined to oblige either friends or foes, and proposes retaining his position. This has destroyed the beautiful Unionist and Liberal schemes of “sympathetic opposition.”

The Observer promised the Labour Party or Liberals, whichever took office, a sympathetic assistance in the carrying out of certain general proposals for dealing with unemployment, Russia and the Ruhr. It finally recommended that the Liberals should take over the government because, as they, with the assistance of the Trust Press, had made the mess, they should be left to clear it up.

The Liberals, however, are not anxious for office; there are too many reasons at present, from the capitalist standpoint, in favour of letting the Labour Party take over office.

Writing of the Labour Party the Daily News, Dec. 10th, 1923 says:—

  One of its chief claims to national confidence is the way in which, under its present leadership, it has rallied elements which might have drifted into disruption and dangerous discontent to the support of constitutional charges to be attained by constitutional means. To pretend otherwise is merely to obstruct this laudable and valuable service.
  For either Liberals or Labour men, on the other hand, to contemplate a fresh dissolution now, with the tariff issue eliminated, would be a piece of unspeakable folly, fatally destructive of the reputation of those guilty of it for sanity and common sense. The only possible course open to them is such a degree of co-operation between them as shall keep this Parliament with its progressive majority in being for the enactment of the wide range of social and political reforms on which they are agreed. 

So spoke the Liberal journal, but the Unionists spoke in an even more amiable way to the Labour Party.

The Observer (9th Dec., 1923) had the following :—

  There is not the smallest fear of a capital levy, or of any other proposal of Marxian Socialism. In these circumstances, the majority of Unionists would prefer to see the Labour party in office during the six months of transition between now and another general election. The extraordinary thing is the growth of personal sympathy between Unionists and Labour. Unionists recognise that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald from his own point of view has made a fair and decent fight, if he were sent for by the King and took office, Unionists would be prepared to give him every facility for dealing with the Budget and routine business. He might propose a new electoral law. In the Unionist Party there is no fear of it. It is bound to come. Unionists stand to gain by the transferable vote more than any other party.

The Observer gave the Labour Party a further suggestion. It may be remembered that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald declared a short time ago that the Labour Party’s aim was to develop the resources of this country. The Observer has met this view by pointing out:—

  What this country requires above all is cheaper power and cheaper transport. (9th December, 1923.)

This cheaper power is to be provided by the use of coal for generating electricity, and the application of electricity as far as possible to means of transport.

The Observer further points out:—

  Nothing like a wrecking policy on the part of Labour is possible, if the leader of the Labour Party were consulted by the Sovereign, it would be an historic but not an alarming event. (9th December, 1923.)

How has the Labour Party met the offer of this olive branch?

In the first place there have been assurances of no coalition or agreements with Liberals or Tories. Those who remember the times when the Labour voted against their own amendments to save Liberal governments from defeat will not give serious attention to the “no coalition” attitude.

However, fierce protestations are often but the prelude to an inclination to negotiate. But a suggestion of the way the Labour Party would meet the situation was given in the New Leader on the 7th December (before the secret of the poll was revealed) which harmonises with the Liberal and Unionist view given above:—

   The reform of our grotesque electoral system is necessary for the restoration of honest politics.  . . . The problems of the moment are too grave for tactics of wrecking or negation. We should certainly not refuse in the lobbies a discriminating support to a minority government, so long as it was realising ideas common to both our programmes. (Italics ours.)

The nearness of Labour to Liberals is suggested by the following quotation from the same issue of the New Leader :—

  In some constituencies, where Liberals are strongly attached to Free Trade, it is probable that some of them have voted for Labour in the absence of a Liberal candidate.

and, we may add, the same is probable in the absence of a Unionist candidate.

After the Labour Party’s victory at the polls they found themselves in a dilemma. The New Leader (7th Dec.) stated :—

  If Labour had a chance, it is not in the Ruhr that it would begin to save the Ruhr. It would recognise Russia. It would stop the fortification of Singapore. It might offer to demilitarise the Dardanelles and the Baltic. It might give Cyprus to Greece. It would quit the oil wells of Mosul. It would make India a Dominion and lift the yoke from Egypt.

There is a more or less definite statement of things it might do and things it would do. Now that Labour looks like having a “chance,” what is the position? The boot is now on the other leg, and they frankly admit that they don’t know what to do. Various views of the situation are put forward by different writers in the New Leader (14th Dec.). The following lengthy extracts from the editorial article by the New Leader's £1,000 a year editor may be useful for present and future reference :—

  We are facing one of those situations which admit of no ideal solution. Any proposal which any section puts forward can be riddled with destructive criticism. Government by coalition is an evil which the party rightly and unanimously rejects. Government by minority is no less an evil. An immediate election might be fatal to the party which precipitated it. It is in the last degree unlikely that at this stage any Liberal-Tory combination will be formed. It is theoretically open to us to allow the Baldwin Cabinet to retain office on terms; but this solution would expose us to grave misunderstanding. To allow the Liberals to take office would be interpreted as a confession of our own incapacity.

#    #    #    #

   For any wide and comprehensive programme it will not suffice that Liberals should refrain from Votes of No Confidence. We must be able to reckon on a measure of goodwill. It is easy to say that we contemplate no arrangements. Face to face with Liberals, side by side with them, our Party would have to realise that they too have their point of view, their interests that must be considered. We shall be every hour at their mercy.

  To talk of ignoring the Liberals and refusing any understanding with them seems to me difficult, if we are contemplating as much as six or eight months of office. If we are going to walk down this long road we should have to carry them with us, halting, limping and breathless perhaps, but not jostling or tripping. With any weighty programme on our backs we should soon find ourselves consciously drafting our Bills with the fear of Mr. Asquith before our eyes Would he object to this or jib at that  Then out it must go.

#    #    #    #

  But the moment one faces public works, to say nothing of any increase in the dole, then money must be found. An adequate housing scheme cannot be cheap. Apart from unemployment and housing, we have denounced the cruel economies of past Governments on education, child welfare and every social service. We have given pledges as to the removal of the thrift restriction on old-age pensions and the abolition of duties on sugar and tea.

Oh! Those awful pledges! How some of the Labour members must curse themselves for their election pledges. Without these pledges and their campaign against “broken pledges” the situation would be much easier.

  We have not forgotten our own campaign for the Levy. Are we going to undertake to compose a Budget without it ? The alternative would be a tremendous addition to the unpopular income tax, which the Liberal Party would not assist us to vote.

Evidently one of the pledges must go; but which? That is the question. According to the Labour programme the Levy was to provide the means to carry out certain reforms which were alleged to be of advantage to the workers. In fact, it was a corner stone of their programme. Now that they have secured their “chance,” the Levy is beginning to retreat into the distance along with most of their other “pledges.”

  The struggle with France, however, would be no easier for us than for our predecessors—indeed, the inclination of M. Poincaré would be to treat us as an ephemeral administration, a passing episode in the life of Europe. America would regard us as "radicals,” the sort of people whom the Ku-Klux-Klan would deal with, if we lived beneath the statue of Liberty. Nor could events march swiftly. We should aim at a conference at least as wide as that which General Smuts proposed; but would it be wise to call it before the French general election decides in May whether M. Poincaré is still the Dictator of Europe ? One hope I see, and only one, for a conference. It is that we should first create, before it meets, an atmosphere of expectation throughout the world. 

#    #    #    # 

   The recognition of Russia and the symbol of Singapore would help. Dare we next make Egypt truly “independent” by withdrawing the British garrison from Cairo? What if we were to give Greek Cyprus to the Greek motherland, or offer to discuss the demilitarisation of the Black Sea? When we had relaxed our hold on the oil-wells of Mosul, we might with less inward hesitation invite M. Poincaré to quit the coalfield of the Ruhr. By such calculated acts we should rally the peoples behind us, and might without hypocrisy organise at a conference moral pressure against French militarism. But we should fail, as Mr. Wilson failed, and for the same reason, if our Parliament, like his Senate, were hostile. Everything once more turns on our relations with the Liberals; would they, sitting in the shadow, help us to face the Tory assaults on such a policy ? We cannot accept their alliance. It follows that we must limit our own ambitions.

On paper, for months before the election, the above matters were easily settled by airy statements—and “moral” flourishes. But now the situation has changed ! “Evolution”—blessed word !

Brailsford winds up his “ifs” and “mights” as follows — with a mournful remark on the pre-election programmes and speeches :—

  By April the problem of the Budget would overtake us, and we should compromise our own case if we undertook to solve it without a capital levy. The danger before us leaps out from some of the extensive programmes which have already appeared in Labour speeches and in print. If we set our hopes on a big agenda, if we talk even of six or eight months of office, then inevitably we shall drift into the fatal attitude of buying it on the only possible terms — by arrangement with Liberals, which would obscure our Socialist policy, compromise our independence, and make us in the end mere caretakers cf a capitalist and Imperial system. (Italics ours.)

In the same issue of the New Leader as that from which we have just quoted, Clifford Allen, Sidney Webb, Pethick Lawrence, and Ramsay MacDonald contribute articles on the situation.

Clifford Allen says :—

  We must only take office with a definite and publicly declared design, namely, that we will form a purely temporary and emergency Government for a few months to deal with two or three selected urgent questions, such as unemployment and the European chaos. The War Debt could be submitted to a Commission.

This is certainly a handy way out of the Capital Levy difficulty. But the Capital Levy was to provide the means for dealing with unemployment. How then are they to raise the necessary funds? And what about “reduced taxation”?

Sidney Webb informs us that:—

  I am quite sure that we need fear no bias or dislike at the Palace that would cause the Labour Party to be treated with any unfairness.

With this view we could hardly disagree in view of the fact that Labour members have so frequently had their knees under the same mahogany as Royalty !

Webb joins the chorus of mourners and points out :—

  the plain impossibility of passing into law in this Parliament any large and contentious measures.

Pethick Lawrence states that he addressed “a meeting of business men, most of whom were Liberals or Conservatives, to a discussion limited to the Capital Levy” and heard privately afterwards :—

  that many of them entirely changed their view as to what the Levy was, and not a few actually voted Labour for the first time on this issue alone.

Under the heading "Sacrificing Luxuries” he is careful to point out:—

  In this it is essential to make it clear that we are not animated by hostility to any section or class of the community. We are merely calling for a sacrifice on the part of the wealthy to meet a national emergency.

Finally Ramsay MacDonald sums up the difficulties as follows :—

  At times it is as necessary to preserve the forms of government as to produce legislative changes, even when the latter are very pressing. Can the Labour Party devise a policy which would enable it to do some useful and urgent work, like helping to settle Europe and increase the provision for dealing with unemployment, without compromise in any shape or form?

Having put the question, one would expect MacDonald, as the leading figure in the Labour Party, to give us an answer. But this is all he has to say :—

  That is the difficult problem which we have to face now, and I venture to ask our supporters in the country to help us with their trust.

A very satisfying answer, is it not? Note, too, the slimy appeal for "trust,” proving once more how leaders depend upon a sheep-like following.

The plain fact of the situation is that the Labour Party is in a fix. It is composed of individuals with a hotch potch of ideas and has been voted into its present position by individuals similarly placed. Its fundamental weaknesses have placed. it in the dilemma. It has been voted to Parliament on a vote catching programme and not on fundamental questions. If it does not justify these vote catching pledges it will lose a good deal of the support so far given. Had the Labour group been voted in on a Socialist programme by class-conscious workers, the voters would have understood the position themselves; they would have defined the path to be followed ; there would have been no dilemma.

The Reward of Genius. (1924)

From the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

  "New York, Saturday. — Johannes Sophus Gelert, the famous sculptor, attempted to commit suicide at the Danish Home for the Aged. He slashed his throat with a razor, but will probably recover."
  "He is without friends and practically penniless, and owing to creeping paralysis was unable to continue working.  — Reuter."

Rates, and Rates of Wages. (1924)

From the January 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The National Council of the Independent Labour Party have issued a manifesto entitled “How to deal with the rates; what a Socialist Government would do.”—New Leader, October 19th, 1923. In a final paragraph they say :—

  Socialism approaches the subject of rates from a new point of view. To-day most people denounce rates as an imposition. To-morrow they must look upon them as a first-class instrument; as a method of providing cheap communal services, and therefore, a means of increasing real wages; as a protection against slums, diseases and dirt; as a guarantee of decent education for their children; as a contribution towards a healthy and fully developed community.

This view is neither new nor socialistic. The Progressive Party have claimed it as their policy, in and out of office, for many years, while never once making the dishonest claim that it was socialistic. The constitution of the I.L.P. is not socialistic and no fundamental principles have ever been laid down by that party that could be described as the necessary basis of the socialist movement.

The National Council speaks for the I.L.P. It thinks for the I.L.P., reproaches the workers for their apathy and indifference, yet up till the present moment has never once set out a simple straightforward statement outlining the workers' position in modern society, the cause of the evils from which they suffer, the line of action they must follow to remove them and the principles upon which society must he established for that purpose.


The I.L.P. in the course of its propaganda completely ignores the facts of vital importance to the workers if they are to consider fully any public question from their own point of view as workers : The class ownership of the means of wealth-production, the consequent slavery of those who do not participate in this ownership; the antagonism of interests between these two classes and the consequent struggle between them, which can only end in favour of the workers when the latter take over the means of wealth-production and control them democratically for the purpose of satisfying all their needs.


These are the vital and indispensable facts for the workers to bear in mind when considering any question of political or industrial interest. Any party that claims to represent the workers should base its antagonism to capitalist governments on these principles. It is not sufficient that it should be opposed to both Tory and Liberal. It is possible to oppose both these parties on purely capitalist grounds and for purely capitalist reasons without being socialist.


If the workers are to come to a right conclusion on the rates question, they must first understand clearly their class position and how they are enslaved by the capitalist class. Wage-slavery is different in form from all preceding systems. It is more effective in binding the worker to his task while at the same time conceding him the freedom to leave it. How this can be is easily seen without much knowledge of economics. Every worker is free to leave an employer but his physical needs compel him to find another. To use an economic phrase, he is compelled to sell his labour-power in order to obtain the necessaries of life. His wage is the price of his labour-power.


In their general propaganda the I.L.P. denounce the capitalists for treating the workers as mere commodities. As human beings they say that the workers have rights above material commodities. The facts are, however, that the workers themselves are not commodities, nor are they treated as such by their masters. Every worker is the undisputed owner of his labour-power. He can sell it to any capitalist who is willing to buy. He sells it for stipulated periods and can discontinue the sale by giving notice according to the terms agreed upon. These are the extent of the workers’ rights, his actual position.


Moreover, it is all that they claim. Nor does the I.L.P. claim any higher rights. The right to work. The right to a living wage, with or without work, is their latest ‘cry; concede them so much : How is it possible for the workers to pay rates while their share of the wealth they produce is a living wage? How may they consider themselves ratepayers when their wages are subject to modifications with changes in the cost of living?


Let the National Council carry out its programme, municipalising supplies and services in order that the prices of necessaries may be reduced, and what happens? Cost of living falls and wages, the price of labour-power, follows; with greater certainty, too, because the cheapening of supplies and services is effected by labour-saving methods; in other words, by increasing the number of unemployed. If wages always fall for the bulk of the workers, when the cost of living falls, the workers would not benefit if rates were entirely abolished. Nor would the fact that their wages fell prove that they previously paid rates. On the contrary, it would go to show that the capitalist paid them, by the mere fact that he reduced wages to that extent. The result for the workers being a living wage based upon the same standard as before the reduction in rates took place.


Commodities are always subject to changes and fluctuations in price. The price of a commodity changes under three sets of conditions: when it is produced with a smaller or greater expenditure of labour-power; when supply and demand are unequal, and when the material of which money is made can be produced with a smaller or greater expenditure of labour-power. Labour-power is a commodity and subject to fluctuations in price under all three sets of conditions.


During the few years immediately preceding the war, wages were affected by the last named condition. Through improved methods of gold-production the sovereign bought less of the necessaries of life, and as a consequence the workers were compelled to struggle for higher wages. During the war prices rose still higher, with the result that capitalists were compelled to raise wages in order to avoid widespread discontent through serious depression of the workers' standard of living. How the cost of living more than doubled during that period is common knowledge, but the workers were in a favourable position to enforce a rise, though never as a whole to the new level of prices, because there was little or no unemployment. The demand for labour-power was exceptional.


Since the war new sliding scales have been introduced into a number of industries. Cost of living figures have been systematically used by employers in a continuous effort to “get back to pre-war standards." The fact ignored by most people is that the standard of living for the workers to-day is approximately the same as it was in 1914. The money name of the amount of necessaries they obtain in a week has risen, but if anything, their standard of living has slightly fallen.
The policy of employers to-day is to keep before the workers and their leaders on the industrial field these cost of living figures. They form the plea and the reason for every reduction of wages enforced. A living wage is the demand of trade unionists; their leaders dispute the figures but never debate the principle. Why then does the National Council confuse the workers' minds with questions that do not concern them?


By their schemes of municipal ownership and production they propose to reduce the cost of living while making the workers more efficient. A reduction in the cost of living means a reduction in wages that need not mean a reduction in the standard of living. An increase in general efficiency, however, would intensify competition and increase unemployment. In operation their policy would be as harmful to the workers as its propaganda is confusing.

F. Foan