Pathfinders: Latter-day Neros (2019)

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

‘The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe—it doesn’t exist today. We need to change the system, as if we were in crisis, as if there were a war going on’. Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who shot to global prominence in 2018 by missing school days to go on strike alone outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, is disarmingly frank about herself and the task as she sees it:

  ‘I have Asperger’s syndrome, and to me, almost everything is black or white. I think in many ways that we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange. They keep saying that climate change is an existential threat and the most important issue of all. And yet they just carry on like before. If the emissions have to stop then we must stop the emissions. To me, that is black or white. There are no grey areas when it comes to survival. Either we go on as a civilization or we don’t. We have to change.’

It’s no longer a matter of worry or concern. Now there’s desperation in the air. Following Greta Thunberg’s initiative, schoolchildren around the world are going on strike. She was invited to speak to the World Economic Forum at Davos, where she gave them short shrift: ‘Some people, some companies, some decision makers in particular have known exactly what priceless values they have been sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money. I think many of you here today belong to that group of people’ (Wikipedia).

Many politicians, eager to retain their eco-credentials while also neutralising a disruptive influence,  have showered hypocritical praise on her, even nominating her for the Nobel Peace Prize, but it hasn’t melted much ice. The girl who’s been compared to Joan of Arc and Pippi Longstocking has made it plain that tokenism isn’t enough, she wants direct action: ‘So everyone out there, it is now time for civil disobedience, it is time to rebel.’

Thinking along similar lines, a new non-violent direct action movement, Extinction Rebellion, has formed in the past twelve months, making Chartist-like demands for immediate government action including a Citizens’ Assembly to oversee climate action ‘as part of creating a democracy fit for purpose’. In London this past month demonstrators have been gluing themselves to trucks and trains and bringing traffic in the city to a standstill in action reminiscent of Reclaim the Streets back in the 1980s. The movement is supported by hundreds of academics through open letters which state among other things that ‘ Our government is complicit in ignoring the precautionary principle, and in failing to acknowledge that infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources is non-viable […] The “social contract” has been broken, and it is therefore not only our right, but our moral duty to bypass the government’s inaction and flagrant dereliction of duty, and to rebel to defend life itself’ (Wikipedia).

If that wasn’t clear enough, a second open letter in December last year was even more direct: ‘Political leaders worldwide are failing to address the environmental crisis. If global corporate capitalism continues to drive the international economy, global catastrophe is inevitable.’

Strong stuff. Their solution? ‘We further call on concerned global citizens to rise up and… do whatever’s necessary non-violently, to persuade politicians and business leaders to relinquish their complacency and denial. Their “business as usual” is no longer an option. Global citizens will no longer put up with this failure of our planetary duty. Every one of us, especially in the materially privileged world, must commit to accepting the need to live more lightly, consume far less, and to not only uphold human rights but also our stewardship responsibilities to the planet.’

Now David Attenborough, to many people the ultimate authority on life on Earth, has produced a new BBC documentary warning of biblical End Times: ‘If we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies’ (Climate Change – The Facts, BBC One, 18 April).

Drastic as this sounds, it’s not even the worst forecast out there. A 2018 paper by a University of Cumbria academic is so damning that it has reputedly resulted in people seeking therapy (LINK). Arguing that it is now simply too late to consider how to limit global warming, Professor Jem Bendell instead promotes the idea of ‘deep adaptation’ in the face of ‘imminent near-term social collapse’. That’s starvation, violence, permanent water and power outages, riots, and all coming to streets near you within the next ten years, he says.

The evidence for global warming is so well known that it is not worth repeating. Even the most die-hard denialist has to face the fact that the twenty warmest years on record have been in the last 22 years. Professor Bendell’s evidence for imminent social collapse rests largely on two factors. One is Arctic ice melt and the loss of the ‘mirror effect’, where heat is mirrored back into space. The loss of this effect is expected to add the equivalent of an additional 25 percent of all global warming over the last 40 years. The second factor is more speculative: submarine methane hydrates, gigantic deposits of frozen methane on the ocean floors, could be released into the atmosphere by oceanic warming causing general social collapse and possibly a wholesale extinction event from which humans would not be excluded. ‘If all the methane gets out’, said an International Energy Agency spokesman in 2014, ‘we’re looking at a Mad Max movie’ (see this column, July 2017).

Socialists, if we were numerous enough and had a sufficient media profile, would be getting out in front of this debate and telling Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion in no uncertain terms to stop putting any faith whatsoever in governments and business leaders, because these people aren’t the solution to the problem, they are the problem. It’s no good talking about ‘global corporate capitalism’ as if there was some other form of ‘clean’ capitalism we could adopt instead. A system predicated on private ownership and the accumulation of profit simply cannot be made to work in the interests either of the majority of people within it, or of the planet itself. It might seem self-evident to activists that we are all in the same boat, environmentally speaking, but the biggest environmental mistake of all is the one they are themselves making, which is that the rich 1 percent who ultimately control what happens on Planet Earth can be cajoled, persuaded or reasoned with if it means them giving up their power and ownership. Like a lot of latter-day Neros, they will keep their wealth and privilege at all costs, even if means watching the Earth burn.

Greta, and Extinction Rebellion, if you’re reading this, now is not the time for rebellion, it’s the time for global revolution. We need to stop making helpless appeals to princes, and start taking over their palaces.

Paddy Shannon

People as Commodities (2019)

From the May 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

A slave is the property of another person, just like a book, a shirt or a car. A slave can be bought, sold, punished, mistreated, ordered around, with no power or means to object or resist. Slavery was a lengthy stage in human history, found in the Roman Empire among many other places, and, with the slave trade, played a significant part of the development of countries such as the UK and the USA. It still exists today, and one of its most prevalent forms is human trafficking, the trade in human beings, which brings in vast profits for some and is accompanied by unspeakable human misery.

Human trafficking ‘involves recruitment, harbouring or transporting people into a situation of exploitation through the use of violence, deception or coercion [where they are] forced to work against their will’ (antislavery.org). It applies to perhaps twenty million people, though statistics are unreliable given its secretive nature; in 2016, there were globally fifteen thousand prosecutions for trafficking, with 66,000 victims identified. It need not imply actual transporting of a person from one place to another, as people can be forced or duped into working without necessarily being moved around. The term ‘modern slavery’ is sometimes employed in a slightly different sense, without recruitment having to take place, as some people are actually born into slavery. But ‘slavery’ and ‘trafficking’ are frequently used interchangeably.

Often people are lured with promises of well-paid work in a comfortable situation with plenty of time off, only to find that they are effectively enslaved, living in dreadful conditions, forced to work long hours, with no pay and no holidays, given just enough food to maintain them; moreover, they have no dependants who need to be supported. Their passports will often be confiscated as a way of controlling them, and they may be threatened with violence or deportation if they complain too much. Women trafficked into sex slavery are a prominent example, with them having no say in how many men they have sex with. Other examples include domestic servitude and forced labour, including people having to work to pay off huge debts. Promises of a career in top-flight football are used to entice boys to travel to Europe. Even when released from slavery, the victims may be deported, or else left in limbo for months or years while police and government agencies decide what to do.

Some individual cases will put a human face on the statistics and general descriptions. In December 2017 two men pleaded guilty to trafficking a vulnerable 19-year-old woman who was compelled to carry drugs from London to Swansea (Guardian, 13 April 2018). After an exchange on social media, she had been lured into a car and driven to South Wales. Her mobile phone had been destroyed, and she had been beaten and forced to store Class A drugs inside her. One estimate is that thirteen thousand people in the UK are held in slavery.

In a Bangladesh town, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar were trafficked to Malaysia, sometimes paying for the journey, sometimes taken in by promises of relatively high wages (New York Times, 23 July 2015). It began as a small-scale operation but gradually became much larger, even involving people being abducted so they could be trafficked. As many as twenty-five thousand made the journey in the first three months of 2015. People would be held in camps and their families asked for a ransom before they were released; and mass graves were discovered. It became a multi-million-dollar business, and any arrests were confined to low-level participants, rather than the police or politicians who were rumoured to be involved.

The US food industry makes much use of trafficked workers, in restaurants, bars and agriculture (npr.org, 29 March 2017). The workers come mostly from Asia and Latin America, are housed in squalid conditions, have no medical care, and can be controlled by being threatened with deportation. Poor knowledge of English helps to isolate them and makes it hard for them to fight against their situation.

The border between Nepal and India is a busy route for traffickers. Often men make contact with girls on Facebook, and then convince them to leave their families and run away with them, but with the sole aim of selling them to a brothel once they are over the border in India. One woman who now helps to spot trafficking victims at a border post said, ‘My boyfriend sold one of my kidneys and then he sold me. I am only alive today because I was rescued’ (Guardian, 8 February).

In 2017 the US State Department published a comprehensive report on human trafficking. The then Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, noted there that trafficking robs human beings of their freedom and dignity. But he also stated that it ‘distorts global markets’ and ‘undermines the rule of law’. This is one reason why capitalism is opposed to trafficking and so attempts to stop or at least restrict it: it disrupts the ‘proper’ functioning of the profit and market system. If some employers can get round laws relating to minimum wages, health and safety, and workers’ abilities to defend their working conditions, they are likely to make bigger profits than those who abide by such regulations. Politicians and so on may have moral objections to trafficking, but there are economic arguments too.

Slavery is fundamentally different from wage labour. Whatever the restrictions on workers who sell their labour power for a wage, slaves and trafficked workers are in a far worse situation. They have their whole lives controlled by those who own them, and cannot stand up for themselves in any way. Their living and working conditions are much inferior to even the most badly-paid and insecure wage workers.

The causes of slaving and trafficking are not hard to see. A few people make massive profit from such activities, while far more – often desperate and perhaps somewhat naive – are fooled into thinking that they have found a way to get on in the world, or coerced into working for a slave master. Basically it is their poverty that causes them to be trafficked, a situation that is likely to continue for as long as capitalism does.

Paul Bennett

Are We Utopian? Reply To A Correspondent (1950)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Editorial Committee.

Socialist Standard.                                                                                                    

Silsoe, Beds.

Dear Friends,

I have been a regular reader of the Socialist Standard for 10 years, and often subscribe to your funds.

Since you welcome correspondence I write to criticise Gilmac’s article “What Socialism Is” in the March S.S.

He says that under Socialism no one will want those things which can only be produced at the cost of injury to the producer. Few care about the producer, or such things could not be sold, and without a market they would not—even to-day—be made. Assuming that under Socialism industry still depends chiefly on coal for power, will most people be willing to dispense with coal because of the frequent danger and discomfort to the miner? I doubt it.

Without State power, and without armed forces there could not be war; but certainly discord. In the past so-called religious wars men fought for their beliefs, whatever the economic motives of the governments commanding them; and I understand that even to-day the religious difference between Northern Ireland and Eire is strong enough to survive the political frontier between them.

Gilmac continues, “there will be no prisons, police, warders, etc.” Not all offences against the present law are offences against private property. For instance, murder has often been done entirely to make way for a second marriage. Will Socialism relieve us of unsocial behaviour by individuals here and there so serious that the community must impose violent restraint?

I infer that the man will always consider society before himself. If so he will have advanced in social consciousness as well as in the knowledge and intelligence which make him a Socialist. If this is inevitable I should like to be convinced of it. One reason why I desire Socialism is because it would be a better life for me. and it is not moral superiority which makes me a sympathiser with the S.P.G.B.

Gilmac pictures the Socialist world as very Utopian, and it seems a pity to sound so unrealistic. Nor is this necessary, for whatever evils may survive under Socialism will be the merest fraction of those it will remove.

I shall be grateful for your reply, and I think it will answer the unexpressed thoughts of other readers of the Socialist Standard.

Yours truly,

G. K. Strachan.

Reply:

Under Capitalism the aim is to make a profit out of what is produced and to reduce costs accordingly. Under Socialism no effort would be spared that would make work as comfortable and as enjoyable as possible. Taking our correspondent’s assumption that industry would still depend chiefly upon coal for power (an assumption with which we do not agree, as power can be got from many other sources) coal would be mined where it was easiest, with tools that deprived it of labouriousness and danger and with spells and rotation of work that deprived it of its harmfulness. Neither speed of production nor location would concern society in the way it does to-day.

All wars have sprung from economic motives. Speaking accurately there have been no religious wars; they have only been, as our correspondent rightly puts it. “so-called religious wars.” The economic motives have been cloaked by religion just as the last war was cloaked by such things as a fight for democracy. The motives are there even though the participants may not be conscious of them. If our correspondent knew a little more of the history of Ireland he would realise the part economic motives had played. What, on the surface, appears to him to be a conflict between Protestants and Catholics commenced as land grabbing by groups from outside.

Our correspondent sees the effects but not the cause. All offences against the present law, as well as the present marriage system, spring from private-property society. Conditions in a free society, where everyone has social security, will eliminate unsocial behaviour that might have serious consequences. What our correspondent possibly has in mind is people who may suffer mental injury or mental disease which would lead them to commit violent actions. Assuming that such things occurred they would affect such a trifling number of people that society could deal with them without the need for prisons, police, warders, etc.

In thinking about what Socialism will be like our correspondent should realise what will be the outlook of those who establish Socialism and what Socialism itself will involve. Conditions determine the behaviour of people. When the mass of people have decided to abolish the conditions that cramp their minds and bodies they will already have recognised the evil of unsocial behaviour and the value to themselves of social behaviour. When the new society has got upon its feet the conditions that breed unsocial behaviour will have disappeared. Some inkling of this can be gained by the behaviour of people in tribal societies although tribal society is far short of the conditions that will obtain under Socialism.

What the present writer was doing in the article criticised was simply painting a realistic picture of the future based upon an understanding of the present and what was emerging from the present, in spite of “whatever evils may survive under Socialism will be the merest fraction of those it will remove.”

If our correspondent will examine the article again, in the light of what has been set down here, he will see that it simply points to the evils that will be removed, why they will be removed—because they only arise out of private-property society—and what will be left after their removal. He has mistaken a statement of facts and logical inferences for a beautiful dream!

Gilmac.

Party News Briefs (1950)

Party News from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Glasgow Branch at the start of the year found itself in serious difficulties in that it had lost, by transfer to Kelvingrove Branch, a proportion of its active members. The extent to which the branch faced up to the problem is evidenced by the increased general activity and the fact that 17 propaganda meetings were held in the quarter January-March. Included in this total are three addresses to other organisations and two debates, one with the 'Workers Open Forum' on a question of Parliament and the other with the 'Church of God ’ on the question 'Socialism or Religion?'

With this renewed extension of branch activities there is solid reason for taking a bright view of further development. Immediate plans include a literature sales drive and a rally to be held on May Day (May 7th) in the commodious and popular Cosmo Cinema.

A further attempt is being made to encourage the hitherto coy Labour and Tory M.P.s in the West of Scotland to debate with a representative of the S.P.G.B. Some years ago challenges were sent to every M.P. in Glasgow, and one Tory M.P. accepted. The “firebrands ” of yesteryear, the McGovern crew, lacked the grace to even acknowledge receipt of the challenge. This time the Glasgow Branch members hope to be luckier.

Leyton Branch is holding a MAY DAY rally at Coronation Gardens in Leyton High Road on May 1st at 7.30 p.m. The branch is operating a scheme to send the Socialist Standard together with a list of local activities, with details, to ex-members and everyone who may be interested. The interest of some old members has been rekindled and a number of other contacts have become interested. The branch is continuing its fortnightly lectures at the branch meeting place. During May they will be held on the 2nd and 4th Monday evenings.

West Ham Branch has appointed its own Parliamentary Committee. An attempt to build this committee on a ward basis was not encouraging. Now, four enthusiastic members form the committee and are getting everything set in preparation for the next election fight. In particular the committee is considering means of effecting economy of effort and finance in the next campaign. The regular meetings at the Cock Hotel commenced on Sunday, the 16th of April.

Our Summer School this year will be held at Tree Tops Holiday Camp as it was last year. The camp is to be booked for Saturday and Sunday, June 10th and 11th, and accommodation to be arranged for 75 students. The same sports and social facilities that were available last year will again be at the disposal of all visitors as well as the school lectures and discussions. It is proposed that one discussion shall be on the subject of methods of fighting elections. Full details of all arrangements will be announced in the next issue of the Socialist Standard. In the meantime, those who wish to be assured of accommodation at the school should contact the Central Organiser.

Head Office Library is in a state of flux. Old and less useful books are being eliminated and, as far as possible, are being replaced by new ones that are beneficial to borrowers. The Librarians are trying to duplicate or triplicate the books that are used at the Economics classes. The pamphlets department of the library is being enlarged. Members and friends who have spare copies or early Party pamphlets are urged to subscribe them to the library.

The Socialist Party of Ireland members who visited us during our Annual Conference period sold over 200 copies of their recently issued manifesto. Three of them spoke in Hyde Park on Sunday, April 9th, and a comrade from Cornwall spoke at Lincolns Inn Fields on Tuesday, April 11th. All of them acquitted themselves well and are congratulated by London members who listened to them.

Collections at our Conference amounted to £45 13s. 1d. First day collection was £11 10s. 6d., second day £5 18s. 6d., and third day £4 16s. 9d. The collection at the rally on Sunday, April 9th, was £23 7s. 4d. Details of income from catering, raffles and the Saturday evening social and dance are not yet available.

The Literature Committee reports an increase in the number of Socialist Standard subscribers following the inclusion of a subscription form in a recent issue of our paper.

A History of the S.P.G.B. and companion Parties has engaged the attention of the Executive Committee following a recommendation from Conference. An ex-member, now resident in South Africa, made the suggestion that such a history should be compiled and his letter was read to the delegates at the Conference. The Executive Committee considered that such a work would be extremely valuable but that it would require full time work by some comrade who was in a position to collect and collate all the material. As most of the members who are best situated to devote themselves to such work are already engaged to the full in Party work, and as the E.C. was unable to delegate the task to anyone, the matter is held in abeyance.

Ballot Papers for the annual election of our Party officers are to be printed. The Executive Committee has decided to implement the Conference recommendation to send out these ballot papers direct to every member from Head Office instead, as at present, sending them to branch secretaries. Each ballot paper will be accompanied by a pre-paid postage, addressed envelope for its return to the Ballot Committee at Head Office. This practice will operate next year commencing with the election of officers for 1951.

The Amendments to the Declaration of Principles proposed by the World Socialist Party of United States was duplicated and sent out to our members some time ago. Our companion Party in America was requested to send us a reasoned statement for the proposed change. This has been received and is also to be circulated to the membership of the S.P.G.B. The letter received from the W.S.P. of U.S. states that the proposed amendments have been rejected by the members of that party through a referendum, but as the matter is likely to be raised again it is considered advisable to keep all our members informed.

Our Dagenham and Romford branch was dissolved some months ago following the decline of the branch due to its members being dispersed around the country during the war years. Some of these members have now returned to the south Essex area and an attempt is to be made to re-form the branch. All such members and anyone else interested are requested to contact Comrade F. Johnson at “ EREHWON,” The Mount, Noak Hill, Essex, or Comrade W. Waters at Head Office.

W. Waters.

Misery From Surplus: Profit From Disaster (1950)

Editorial from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the end of the war a battle of words has been going on between those, like Lord Boyd Orr, who were alarmed about the danger of world starvation through growing population and low production of food and those who said that it was merely a short-term deficiency that would soon right itself. Among the optimists the lead was taken by the Express group of newspapers whose editors scoffed at the “prophets of disaster.” In this wordy warfare the early battles were won by Boyd Orr’s army and he succeeded in impressing his views on many Governments and international agencies but lately the tide has turned and the Express is now celebrating its victory. A Daily Express editorial (12th April, 1950) fires the following salvo at Boyd Orr: —

  “At this moment the United States Administration has 76,000,000 lb. of dried eggs in store and does not know what to do with them. It has 50,000,000 tons of potatoes. It is the embarrassed owner of a wheat surplus sufficient to bake 12 loaves for every man, woman, and child in the world. It has enormous surpluses of butter, prunes, dried milk, cheese, rice, and countless other articles of food. The American Government is at its wits' end to know what to do with those stocks of food—particularly the perishable varieties. Almost without noticing the transformation, the world has swung from the shortages of wartime to sufficiency—to abundance—to glut! How foolish the calamity howlers look in the new age of food plenty!”

The Express goes on to appeal to the Minister of Food to get rid of rationing, bulk purchasing “and every other barrier between the British housewife and the world of plenty.”

It all looks very simple and unanswerable but in fact both of these schools of thought are wrong, they both leave out of account the world of capitalism that we live in. As they see the problem the world sometimes has too much and sometimes too little, or there is too much in one part of the world and too little in another—a food surplus in America and starving millions in China; not to mention the harassed British housewife whose votes the Conservative Express wishes to win at the next election. The real barrier between people's needs and the things they want but can’t afford to buy is a class barrier. Neither in China nor anywhere else do the wealthy go without food or other things they want but in America itself, as another correspondent reports, “American housewives would take up the surplus at cheap prices. But sale to them below the current high price levels in banned. . . Millions of poor Americans are deprived of cheap food.” (People, 26th March, 1950). Thus correspondent reports the recent discovery of 100 children who were starving in Arizona; “The cold weather had thrown their fruit-picking parents into the ranks of America’s 4,684,000 unemployed.”

The crazy situation is one of those necessary results of capitalism. Food stuffs and all other articles are produced for sale in order to make profit, not with human needs in mind. If there is more produced than can be sold at profitable prices to those who have the money to buy, then prices fall and production is curtailed. In the crisis of the nineteen thirties we were told that the unemployment of industrial workers was due to the low world prices of food; the farmers were facing bankruptcy and could not buy industrial products. Then in the years immediately after the second world war we were told that the austerities imposed on British and other industrial workers were due to the excessive world prices of foodstuffs due to scarcity. The high prices encouraged more food production and now we are facing another glut which will again hit food producers. It was to ward this off that the American Government introduced the policy of paying high prices to American farmers and of putting their produce into store, with, as a result, the Gilbertian situation that has now arisen. The Manchester Guardian (14th April, 1950) has the following comment on it.

  “Nature is after all turning out not too unkind to the United States Government. The problem is the surplus of crops such as wheat, which under the price- support programme the Government has been having in effect to buy from the American farmers in order to build up stocks that cannot be sold. To prevent its financial commitments from growing still heavier the Government a few months ago got the farmers to agree to sow 15 per cent less winter wheat than they did the year before. But then the weather proved exceptionally good; it seemed likely that after all the crop from the reduced planting would be almost as high as last year’s. Lately, however, dry weather, dust storms, and insect damage in the south and centre of the Great Plains have come to the rescue. This month’s official crop report estimates that the harvest will after all be 15 per cent smaller than last year’s. The issue is still, of course, in doubt. A wickedly smiling Nature in the next few months may force the estimates up again; on the other hand, the insects and the rest may remain obliging.”

One of America’s problems is too many potatoes. The Government pays the farmer the guaranteed price for his potato crop on the farm, then the farmer pays a trifling price to the Government and buys them back again, but only on condition that he does not sell them in the market but uses them as animal feeding stuff. He can if he likes let them rot. Some potatoes are painted with blue dye so that they cannot illicitly be sold to the public for human consumption.

The truth is that capitalism can produce a surplus in terms of the market, the final result of which will be a cutting down of production, but it never has produced enough of all the things human beings need to satisfy their requirements.

The powers of production reached under capitalism could, if fully used and if devoted to human needs instead of being largely wasted on armaments, etc., satisfy all the requirements of the human race. But to allow them to be so used would wreck the complex and delicate marketing and profit-making organisation of the capitalist system.

The Shape of Things to Come (1950)

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

An American invention, “Maddida,” the mechanical foreman, may open the way to robot factories, producing goods without human help, according to its inventor.

Maddida—its name is short for “magnetic drum digital differential analyses”—is a computing device which can take information from other machines, interpret it, and run the machines, says Reuter from New Brunswick.

Mr. Heyd Steele, 31-year-old physicist, who showed the machine at Rutgers University, said Maddida could do the work of a full aircraft crew, and handle 4,500 additions to eight-place decimals per second, working to an accuracy of one part in a million.

Maddida is the size of a pin-table. If the foreman should go wrong, a robot “doctor,” also shown at Rutgers, can diagnose the trouble. The above was a news item in South Wales Evening Post (29.3.50).

This news should be most encouraging for the unemployed, for would-be foremen, and other aspirants for promotion.

However, under a condition of Socialism such inventions will be welcomed.

Then each labour-saving device will mean more leisure for the community, and not, as now, longer dole queues, or other pleasantries of Capitalism.

P. J. Mellor.

To the Electors of East Ham (1950)

Party News from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the recent election campaign many workers who attended our meetings in the East Ham South constituency passed such remarks as “The case put by the S.P.G.B. is sound, BUT . . .” or “I would support you IF . . . .” Such statements imply a recognition that Socialism, offers the only remedy to present-day social evils together with a vague doubt as to how or when it can be established. The IFs and BUTs show that the full significance of the Socialist alternative, the means by which it will be achieved and its place in the process of social evolution has not been completely grasped. The West Ham Branch wants to clear away all doubts, its wants to prove our case to the hilt. So it offers the facilities of its meetings to all workers in the area to help them clear away the cobwebs from their political thinking. Branch meetings are held at the Salisbury Road Schools (behind the “Earl of Essex” at Manor Park) every Thursday evening at 8 o’clock. A discussion follows every business meeting and special meetings of an educational nature are being arranged. All East and West Ham workers who attend will receive a warm welcome and will have all their questions answered in a comradely atmosphere. Don’t wait until the next election to get the “low down” on the many political sharks who will then be seeking their prey and cadging your vote. Get them in line and learn how you can take your place in the struggle to end wars, the wages system, class society and all the consequences that you abhor.

Annual Conference (1950)

Party News from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

What a difference our conferences are from those of other organisations. Our conferences are the means by which the membership exercises democratic control over the Party. All delegates come with the instructions of their branches. These they have to obey whether they agree with them or not. Now look, for example, at a Trade Union conference. This is opened with a flourish by the Presidential address. In this address the struggle of the workers on the industrial field is generally secondary. Rather the President deals with Government policy in foreign affairs, or, as in more recent times, gives support to such anti-working class measures as wage-freezing. The conference is then studded with speeches by the “stars” and the ordinary delegates find it difficult to get a word in. Our conferences belong to the Party and the Party runs them. They provide a vivid example of democracy in action.

A very wide range of subjects was covered by our conference this year. Literature, Party funds, propaganda and electoral action were among subjects that received careful consideration. The Party literature was discussed at length, the present literature being critically examined and also receiving support. Finally the conference recommended to the Executive Committee that they should explore the possibilities of. publishing a weekly paper.

On electoral action the conference expressed its wholehearted support of this form of activity. The delegates were obviously undeterred by the small number of votes received at the last election, not expecting larger votes at the present stage of working-class development They recommended to the Executive Committee that, providing the next General Election did not take place until May, we should place at least two candidates in the field.

Another item of interest was the question of Head Office premises. It appears that our present tenancy of our Head Office premises is somewhat insecure. A member of the Premises Committee suggested that we should consider purchasing premises, and, while no action was taken on this, it will undoubtedly engage the attention of the Executive Committee.

During the conference greetings were given by Comrades A. Fahy and M. Cullen of Dublin and J. Kane of Belfast from that most recent member of the Socialist world family. The Socialist Party of Ireland. Greetings messages were also read from South Africa. New Zealand, and Austria, the message from Austria being particularly encouraging, telling as it did of the activities of a group there.

On the Saturday evening members and sympathisers unbent in a dance and re-union. After this, no one could say that Socialists are always severe, stiff-lipped revolutionaries. We do sometimes let our hair down.

On the Sunday evening the conference was concluded by a rally in the Conway Hall. There was a large audience who listened attentively to J. Kane, J. Higgins, C. Groves and H. Young. Kane dealt with the struggle in Ireland, Higgins with some aspects of our Party history. Groves with high lights of the conference and Young talked about Socialism and Science.

We had a very good conference and we come back into the struggle with renewed vigour, determined to put an end to the vile system we live under now, and establish a world in which men can live as men and not as lower forms of animals. 

Clifford Groves.

Puzzle Corner (1950)

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you do not know who spoke the following words of wisdom you will find the names below. Remember them when these people or others of their kind make you promises in order to enlist your support

(1) “Capitalism is now, we are told, well on the road to permanent recovery; all talk of breakdown, of impending wars and revolutions is now happily out of date; an epoch of peace and plenty is opening out before us. What are we to say to scientists who give way to such 'wishful thinking’? A dozen times now the cycle of boom, crisis, depression, recovery, boom, crisis has gone through its phases, and as each crisis has passed into depression, and then as symptoms of recovery have appeared to lighten the depression, the shallower prophets of capitalism have told us at length, but now for ever, all was well. Do they still believe it? Certainly we cannot.

  “Unfortunately, however, as we have seen, whatever else may happen upon this uncertain planet, the establishment of a planned stable and high-wage-paying Capitalism is impossible.

(2) “It is impossible for the capitalist system to give to the workers the rewards that are promised under a policy of social reform. It is impossible . . .  to carry out a policy of getting as much as we can out of Capitalism, it will lead to a fresh crisis in Capitalism as arose in 1931, and we shall find that the force of economic power still residing in the hands of the capitalists will again be called in to defeat the workers' Government.”

(3) “Unlike the investors of capital, the investors of labour cannot cash in on any accumulation of wealth they have helped to create'.

   “It is doubtful if this injustice will be remedied within a capitalist structure."

W. Waters.

Puzzle Corner Answers.

(1) Mr. John Strachey, M.P., Minister for War in the present Government, in his book “The Nature of Capitalist Crisis,” pages 19 and 354.

(2) Sir Stafford Cripps, Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking at the Labour Party Conference at Southport in 1934 (page 159 of the conference report).

(3) Mr. Arthur Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers’ Union, writing in “Tribune,” May 14th, 1943.

An Inspector Calls (1950)

J. B. Priestley

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

Recently the B.B.C. broadcast a play by J. B. Priestley entitled “An Inspector Calls.” It concerned an influential capitalist and his family who are visited by a police inspector, who is enquiring into the tragic suicide of a young girl.

It would appear that all the members of the family had at one time or another known this girl, and, it became apparent as the inspector questioned them, that each one had in some way contributed to the circumstances that led to her miserable end.

The capitalist had employed her in his works but had dismissal her for her part in a wage strike. His daughter had been responsible for her dismissal from her next job in a gown shop, and his son had discovered her on the streets where poverty had driven her, and left her pregnant and destitute. Finally the wretched girl turned in desperation to the local charitable institution for fallen women. But alas! even this miserable crumb was refused her, largely due to the vindictive and respectable spouse of the capitalist, who happened to be a prominent and influential member of the committee.

The police inspector then reveals himself as a moralist in disguise and proceeds to denounce this family, who, hidden under a veil of respectability, were capable of so shamefully treating a fellow human being. This attitude, the bogus inspector claims, will bring dire and terrible results to society unless people do not quickly have a change of heart. If only the wicked capitalist had not victimised the wretched girl for striking for more money, if only the young man had contained his sensual desires, if only people would stop persecuting others and learn to live harmoniously, man helping man instead of kicking each other in the posterior on every available opportunity—and so on, the world would be a better place. This is the gist of the moralist's attitude towards human behaviour, assuming all the time that it is man and not society which decides his relationship with his fellows. The Socialist recognises that man’s relations to man are dependent on very material conditions. In other words, our behaviour, our morals, even the way in which we amuse ourselves, can be related to the method which society employs at the present time to produce and distribute the things we need.

Man is not born with an inherent instinct to perform all the most insidious and diabolical cruelties to his fellow creatures. The capitalist does not oppose workers’ demands for higher wages and better conditions because of a desire to see millions of people squirm in poverty, filth and degradation. His economic position dictates his policy and if he ignored the rules he would soon find himself ousted from the markets by more astute members of his class, and possibly flung into the exploited class himself.

It is the capitalist system with all its ridiculous contradictions and anomalies that puts class against class, race against race and nation against nation. It is the capitalist system that twists and perverts people’s sense of values so that they are shocked and disgusted at an unmarried mother but accept and condone the mass murder and butchering of millions of helpless people.

You do not need to delve into the mysterious labyrinth of the human mind to discover the reason for man’s inhumanity to man. The fault lies not in man but in man’s inability at the moment to understand and grapple with the economic machine which dominates his whole outlook and relationship with his fellow beings. Once man has discovered the real cause of his problems, there is no power on earth that can stop him sweeping away capitalism and introducing a new form of society based upon different economic laws.

This will not only abolish man’s persecution of man but also the economic problems of war, insecurity and want. These things are the root of all the mental phenomena and disarrangements which our psychologists and moralists would have us believe can be cured and finally abolished if only we could learn to control ourselves a little better.

G. L.

That's Different (1950)

A Classic Reprint from the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

A man with an ax flew by Socrates, chasing another man :

“Stop him! Stop him!” cried he of the weapon. “He’s a murderer!”

But the old sage wasn’t taking any chances, and jogged along imperturbably.

“You fool!” quoth he of the ax. “Why didn’t you stop him? He’s a murderer, I tell you!”

“A murderer! What’s a murderer?”

“ Fool! One that kills, of course.”

“Ah! a butcher.”

No, idiot! That’s different. One that kills a man.”

“ Oh! Ah, a soldier.”

No! No! That’s different altogether. One that kills a man in times of peace!”

“A hangman!”

No! No! No! That’s different. One that kills a man in his house!”

“ A doctor, then!”

No! No! No! No! No! That’s different”

Running along after him (2,000 years after) comes another man with flaming eyes : “Stop him! Stop him!” he cries, pointing to something he sees, or thinks he sees, ahead of him. “Stop him! He’s a Socialist!”

“A Socialist! What’s a Socialist?”

“Why a believer in state industries, of course.”

“ Oh. I see? The railways, post offices, customs, drains, and all that.”

“No, that’s different! I mean competing against private enterprise.”

Oh! schools, universities, and the like.”

“No! No! That’s different. I mean state trading. The fellows that expect everything done for them by the state! A loafer that wants to share the earnings of the industrious workers!”

Ah! Ah! A nobleman who has inherited land.” 

“No! No! That’s different. I mean—.”

Sydney Bulletin. 

(The above is reprinted from the Socialist Standard, September, 1909).

While Capitalism Lasts (1950)

From the May 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the socialist worker asserted that the condition of the working class in capitalist society grows steadily worse, his work-mates just can't make it out. They compare certain aspects of their way of living with those of their fathers or to their earlier days and disagree. The socialist explains that the difference between the conditions and ways of living in the past and those at present make it very difficult to draw any comparison. It is a very controversial question, whether it is preferable to listen to “Wilfred Pickles" and “Ignorance is Bliss” whilst living under the constant threat of the H-bomb or to be without the radio and occasionally hear the distant rumble of cannon; to succumb to some illness because there are no such things as M. and B. tablets or to live to be shrivelled up by an intense heat many times greater than that existing in the centre of the sun. The Socialist viewpoint is that the only way to estimate the progress made by the working class in society is in relation to the wealth they produce, or in relation to the wealth they could produce with the existing productive forces. From this aspect, what they receive in relation to what they produce, the standard of life they have compared with what they could have, the working class are worse off than they ever were. When workmates hear this they say, “Well, I suppose, looking at it that way, you’re right, but things are a bit better.”

They can't have their cake and eat it. Two Labour weeklies, the “Tribune” of March 5th, and the “Forward” of March 11th, quoted Mr. John Kenney, Chief of E.C A. Mission to Britain, in his report to U.S. Congress as a tribute to the Labour Government’s achievements:—

  “The voluntary policy of restraint in seeking wage increases followed by the Trade Union Congress has resulted in wage increases of slightly over 1 per cent, during 1949, even in the face of a higher cost of living caused by devaluation and a 5 per cent. increase in industrial productivity.” (“Forward,” March 11th, 1950.)

An achievement in the interests of the capitalist class, but, for the working class, a smaller share of the wealth, in relation to what they produce.

And just to make doubly sure that there is no doubt to which camp the Labour Government belongs, the further statements from the report are helpful: —

  “About 20 per cent. of her total resources available in the present fiscal year is being devoted to capital formation.
  “By greatly increasing her total production and by diverting an unusually large part of it into investment, Britain, with foreign assistance, has been making good these war-time losses, and is now approaching the pre-war level of capital. This programme of capital formation is a real stride towards economic recovery.” (“Forward,” March 11th, 1950.)

Capital is wealth used to extract profit. Profit arises from the difference between what the workers produce and what they receive, in other words from the exploitation, the robbery, of the working class. So more capital formation means more working-class exploitation.

Do the parties of Capitalism offer any change to this continuing deterioration of the position of the working class in society? In their election manifesto both Tory and Labour pledged themselves to increase production and lower costs. Labour maintains this can be done better by nationalisation and controls. The Tories claim that free enterprise and a minimum of State interference is the better method.

For the working class, increased production means working harder, and lower costs means less wages, at least less wages in relation to what they produce. While Capitalism lasts these conditions will remain. The only alternative is to study socialist propaganda and equip yourselves with the knowledge necessary to abolish Capitalism and establish Socialism.

Jim Thorburn

The Fat of the Land (1975)

From the January 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Even a newspaper like The Sun should be asked to explain itself at times. On 22nd November its editorial said: “Britain’s future is bleak, sombre and perilous . . . the British are fat, lazy, complacent — and deeply in debt”.

Who are “Britain” and “the British” in this statement? Clearly, The Sun does not mean everyone. Harold Wilson and Edward Heath are both fat, but they are not deeply in debt with bleak futures. Denis Healey is fat. So is Reginald Maudling. The Houses of Parliament are full of fat people, and they are only outweighed by the Institute of Directors. Nobody supposes, however, that these are the target of The Sun's unkind words and its sombre warning.

What it means is the working class, and it’s a funny thing how the idea of a working man being fat is equated with national disaster. In the late nineteen-fifties a report that 5 per cent, of working-class children were obese was greeted in much the same way as Noah received the forecast of rain. The proper, acceptable proletarian physique is thin as a whippet, with only muscular development in the working parts. Anything above that is degeneracy, and doom to the rate of surplus-value. Haven't you ever wondered why they put weighing-machines in public places everywhere ?

The Sun was in fact commenting on, and supporting, a report on “Britain’s plight” by the Hudson Institute of America: experts say poverty is on the way. On the same page, pronouncements to the same effect by James Callaghan, the Labour Foreign Secretary, were reported :

Britain is teetering on the edge of a plunge into poverty . . . Mr. Callaghan said: “I hope we are touching bottom. I hope we don’t go further down—but the indications are not good.”

On 5th December similar forecasts and warnings were given in a review by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. According to this, in 1975 prices will rise still higher and unemployment will grow. Both teams of “experts” had plans to urge. The National Institute thought import controls would prove necessary; the Hudson Institute would remedy things by “a new national six-year economic policy” run by “Britain’s best economists and administrators”.

The latter scheme is presumably to ensure that, whatever happens, the fat and the thin remain distinguishable. How little use it would be otherwise is shown by one of The Sun's remarks:

Leadership—or lack of it—is one element, of course. We are all of us unfortunate to live in an age of political pygmies.
But perhaps we are already beyond the stage where we could be rescued by inspired leadership.

Which is saying that things have come to a crisis under unimpressive dolts, but would be no better under geniuses.

The fallacy of all this is treating the impending crisis as an abnormality. Words like “doomsday”, “peril”, “saving Britain” and “the Dunkirk spirit” imply it to be a millennial catastrophe; but that is only a way of calling for more sacrifices from the workers. The reality is that the crisis is a normal phenomenon of capitalism.

It has nothing specially to do with Britain, with policies adopted by governments in this country or the attitudes of trade unions. It is in fact world-wide. Other countries have trade crises and large-scale unemployment (how does the Hudson Institute, which attributed Britain’s problems to the “lazy, complacent” population, explain the depression in America ?).

What is most normal of all is working-class poverty. Callaghan’s talk of a “plunge” into poverty is, for the majority of the population, like warning someone standing on a cigarette paper that he’ll fall. What kind of “plunge” for the homeless? or the pensioners, the unemployed, the low'-paid who cannot afford to buy newspapers? It recalls the Liberal speaker in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists frightening his hearers — “men wearing broken boots” and “toil-worn women” — about the “Black Ruin” of Socialism, and the author’s comment:

It never occurred to any of these poor people that they were in a condition of Ruin, Black Ruin already.

Because of the perennial cry that “we” must wake up and (vide The Sun) “fight to make it all right”, it is useful to bear in mind that British industry was highly prosperous when that episode was written.

The 1975 outlook for the working class is bleak and sombre; not for the reasons given by the “experts” (whose predictions are only guesses), but as the perpetual situation under capitalism. It is worth pointing out that in the post-war years Socialists have been told repeatedly that capitalism has changed or is under control, and a major slump could not happen again. Will you believe us now, please ?

One other statement made by The Sun needs explaining. It said:

For too long we have deluded ourselves into thinking that "redistribution” of wealth—i.e. soaking the rich— was the answer to our problems.

The “delusion” has been spread by the reformists of the Labour Party, which The Sun supports. The “plain fact” that insufficient wealth is produced is the consequence of capitalism, which Labour and The Sun support. Socialists have for over seventy years exposed these phoney remedies and pointed to the only solution to the problems.

The plain fact is that there simply isn’t enough wealth to redistribute.

Robert Barltrop

Our cover illustration is of the successful Socialist Party meeting held in Trafalgar Square in September. With acknowledgements Suomen Kuvalehti, Helsinki.

A New Year Message (1975)

From the January 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

I had thought of writing up Mrs. Margaret Thatcher and her hoard of processed peas and baked beans. But does she warrant room in our journal for what after all is only a “shadow”? Anyway, by the time this is in print it will be 1975. A New Year and the beginning of the fourth quarter of the twentieth Century.

Doubtless Old Moore’s Almanac will map out the year ahead. “Trouble for a Royal Family; the death of a prominent Statesman; floods; dissent in the Labour and Tory Parties.” Events that repeat themselves year after year, and apart from the first and the last, there’s not much you can do about it.

We can prophesy that despite the claims of Wilson’s government to be building a “Socialist society”, Capitalism will continue through 1975, and for ever and a day, unless you are prepared to do something about it.

It is a constant source of amazement to us that you are content to put up with a world of stark contradictions. Don’t you think it just a trifle odd (to put it mildly and not rouse your hackles) that you spend your life either working or worrying about a job, and then at the end of it all, you’ve nothing to show? Don’t you think it a little crazy (mutterings: “these Socialists are a funny lot”) that everything carried on in this world of capitalism is first of all subjected to a financial yardstick? Don’t you think it just bloody stupid (“I know these Socialists are prejudiced”) that people should starve in the midst of potential abundance?

Socialists claim that capitalism has gone on for far too long. And only because you are willing to support it, and help it along. You read the papers; listen to the radio and watch the box like us. Frankly, what is your reaction when you listen to all that old chat about recessions, inflation, deflation, Common Market etc? Don’t you feel like putting your foot through the screen and saying to “hell with it all”? This at least would be a, healthy, if expensive reaction, but it doesn’t go far enough.

We want a different type of world — a new way of life. We think this earth and its riches should be at the disposal of the whole of mankind. That it should be used to meet our needs and not wasted on a market economy. A way of life based upon co-operation for the common good.

But we can’t get it without your assistance. After all, you will be running the world of Socialism, so you’ve got to know something about it and what is involved. You’ll need to take an intelligent and active interest in politics before you take the eventual plunge to strip the capitalists of their ownership and herald a new society.

In short, it’s well past time that you cast aside your political blinkers and joined up with the SPGB in the only worth-while task. We can promise you hard work; a fulfilment not to be equalled, and the comradeship of a group of men and women who put principles before expediency.

During the next week or two, many people will wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year. They do it out of habit. They and you know that 1975 will be much like 1974 — if anything more harrowing. We can do nothing about your prosperity but we can offer you a Happy New Year in the ranks of the SPGB helping to make known the Socialist idea.

Of Mrs. Thatcher, I feel she has possibly lost her chance of leadership of the Tories for a mass of tinned foods. But then, she’s only a grocer’s daughter in a pretty hat.

Cyril May

In The Year ?? (1975)

From the January 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

The old man said, if he knew then
What he now had known
Sooner, would he have helped the seeds of socialism to be grown
He regretted being foggy minded
Being ignorant, being blinded
All that he’d been told about man's nature, about mans greed
Now he knew, it was only man’s behaviour indeed
It was only capitalism that had stopped him thinking
Stopped him reasoning, stopped him becoming a human being 

We listened in awe to his stories
None of them were fiction !
Of days when the world was full of contradiction
Of love and destruction
Of society and loneliness
Of plenty and destitution
He told of the few that advocated socialism
And their task of breaking out of a prism
That held ignorance, fear and superstition
A fuller, better life they said could be
Now it’s fact ! it’s true !
And we can vouch for that
Us children sitting on this comfortable mat
Our heads are not filled with crazy notions No forces at work to sway our emotions
Intelligence and co-operation is what we use
We come and go, we are free, you see ! 

I ask you now, who will you be
The old man ? though happy now but full of regret
Much sooner, his freedom was his to get
Or us children with lots of life ahead
No chains of slavery, all work and bed.

David Wright