Has Christianity a Solution for Social Problems? (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism is its own grave-digger. That is to say it provides and develops the means by which the capitalist social order will be brought to an end. Before historical processes mature thus far capitalism will have virtually buried many of the philosophies and religious ideas which in its day it nurtured. It is almost self-evident that where capitalism is the more developed there religion has the least influence over the minds of the workers. The explanation lies in the material conditions peculiar to capitalism.

Religion had its origin in the childhood of the human race. The farther man’s history is traced back, the cruder his religious superstitions. Each group had its god, which primitive man invested with the miraculous powers of being able to influence tribal fortunes in the struggle for existence. In the workings of nature he saw manifestations of the god’s pleasure and displeasure, of his power to deprive him of his sustenance. Crudely, therefore, he supplicated the gods with offerings and sacrifices. Refined examples of these rituals are practised among Christians to-day.

Tribal man’s god-ideas were related to his material conditions of life and to his degree of understanding of those conditions. As the material conditions changed, so his god-ideas changed. With the growth of larger tribes and confederacies of tribes, the tribal gods disappeared and new ones took their place, which reached maturity in the slave civilisations. Thus the way was prepared for a new conception of the god-idea—the abstract God of Christianity. The slave empires had reached the civilised stage where man’s knowledge of the world, his philosophic speculations upon life, demanded a conception of God which the older religious superstitions did not meet. In the Roman Empire Christianity arose to meet that need. It did not introduce the god-idea, but a particular conception of it, which was a modification of the God-ideas evolved from savagery.

Socialist teaching is not concerned with controversies which favour one god concept against another: it is concerned only with god-ideas in themselves and how they arose. This approach is in conformity with the Materialist Conception of History, which holds that, broadly speaking, the ideas of any particular epoch are related to, and can only be explained by the material conditions then prevailing. This approach religionists find devastating. To deny its fundamental correctness would seem like denying what appears to be self-evident. Yet its logic explodes the basis of Christian teaching. The Christian conception of the revealed God, eternal and unchanging, is destroyed by history’s revelations. The Christian god-idea is shown to be just one of the manifested forms through which the god-idea has evolved. The idea of an independent, all-powerful god, laying down laws and precepts which hold good for all time, is just a man-made myth. True, Christianity has persisted beyond the times which gave it birth, but only by adjusting its teaching to changing conditions. Protestantism appeared when Feudalism was breaking up and expressed in a religious form the antagonisms of the new capitalist class to the old regime. No theologian can explain why the Reformation arose in the fifteenth century and not the fifth. To simple minds the amours of Henry the Eighth might seem a sufficient explanation—but that cannot explain its rise in Germany, France and Holland. Nor, except by the material conditions, can it be explained why the Christian god-idea arose in the days of Rome and not in the period of savagery. God-ideas have changed and have become modified as society has evolved to higher forms and man’s knowledge has increased. Capitalism has brought into existence and has developed scientific knowledge of the workings of the world in which we live. Manifestations of nature, which man understands and can explain, are less attributed to the unseen activities of a god. Hence the modern tendency to the abstract and the impersonal in the god concept among many modern Christians. Yet modern Christianity and savage superstition are fundamentally alike: in both the god-idea has its basis in ignorance.

Socialism and Christianity, therefore, are opposites. The one arises from a knowledge and understanding of the material world and the other from ignorance of it. Socialism is based upon science, Christianity upon faith. It is the refined equivalent of savage superstition. Its ritual has features common to the Pagan and earlier savage practices with which they have a common origin. Christian-Socialism is a meaningless phrase. Yet capitalism has produced movements which claim adherence to both ideas. In the early nineteenth century, Charles Kingsley was a prominent advocate of Christian-Socialism. Kingsley’s “Socialism” expressed nothing more than a compassionate interest in the worst evils of working-class poverty. He gave no support for, and, indeed, had no conception of a social order in which class society did not exist. To the workers he was condescending, conventional and pious: he was as sincere as his Church training permitted him to be. Kingsley’s successors in the Christian-Socialist tradition conformed more or less to type. There is, however, one movement which claims deviation from the type. It is a movement within the Church of England which describes itself as the Catholic Crusade. They pose Christ as the militant and revolutionary agitator, opposed to the tyranny and oppression of his day. They claim that general acceptance of Christianity will end oppression and class society; would, in effect, bring about what Socialists are working to get: though they call it the “Kingdom of God on Earth.” It is a pretty theory and adds just one more to the countless |varieties of “true” Christianity.

But it does just not bear critical examination. The Crusaders have the usual Christian habit of giving Biblical extracts just that twist which suits their purpose. Thus they quote such excerpts from Christian writings as “He shall drag the mighty from their seat and shall exalt the humble and meek,” as though such exhortations were intended to have worldly significance. They can bear no such interpretation. To early Christians they meant nothing more than an adjustment in the next world of the inequalities and sufferings endured in the earthly life. It could not have meant adjustments in this world: for the very good reason that the world had not then reached the stage where it was ready for classless society. The idea of Socialism had not, and could not, have shaped itself in the mind of man. Any “dragging down of the mighty from their seats” might have clothed in religious form the antagonisms of the oppressed slaves of the Roman Empire for their particular ruling oppressors, but it had no connection with the idea of society organised without a ruling class. Society then could not have been organised in any other way than on a class basis. The Christian ethic was the opposite of what some of its modem unorthodox interpreters imply it to mean. It offered compensation in the “next world,” not in this one. It exalted poverty and submissiveness. The ruling class of the Roman Empire adopted it because it made the slaves more contented. With modifications it has been adopted by subsequent ruling classes. To the slave, compensation in another world was attractive, because the material conditions of this world did not show a way out of their miseries. It is different with the modern working class. The system of society in which they are the subject class, the wage-slaves, shows the material social forms through which their oppression and poverty can be ended. True working-class consciousness of its purpose is incomplete, but the unmistakable evidence that it is moulding itself is everywhere.

The duty of the Socialist is clear. The material world demands critical analysis in order that social problems are understood. The solution to those problems must be explained in unambiguous and practical fashion. Working-class problems are material; their solution, Socialism, consists of material proposals. To countenance the clothing of those proposals in the mystic garb of a dying superstition does not assist working-class understanding and would be a disservice to the Socialist movement.

Harry Waite

Christianity's Diminishing Returns (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Thy Kingdom Stands, nor Falls for ever.”—(Well-known hymn.)

Thirty-five years ago, when the S.P.G.B. was founded, religion was an issue in debate. To-day the churches are trying to recapture their failing interest, and preserve what is left. A year or two ago the Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, loudly announced a Recall to Religion. The promoters of a united faith have been busy. At the world conference on “Faith and Order,” in August, 1937, the Scottish Roman Catholic Archbishops departed from a long-established practice, and sent observers with a watching brief. On the one hand, growing scientific knowledge has lowered the Church’s stock. The pundits thought they could find refuge in the  writings of the oracles of modern physics. But they found none among recent discoveries in other fields, and especially in psychology. These latter were much more intelligible to most people, equally exciting, and widely read. On the other hand, week-end amusement, ready to hand in the shape of cheap transport, radio and cinema, has eclipsed the churches in their appeal. Even the cheap-jackery of advertisement fails to fill many a parson’s empty pews. God is on diminishing returns.

One of the attempts to weld together the faithful appeared in the form of a report on “Doctrine” last January. Ostensibly, the Committee was set up in 1922, by the late Dr. Davidson, then Archbishop of Canterbury, and Dr. Lang, the Archbishop of York, to—

  Consider the nature and grounds of Christian doctrine with a view to demonstrating the extent of existing agreement within the Church of England, and with a view to investigating how far it is possible to remove or diminish existing differences.” —(Page 55, Manchester Guardian Weekly, January 21st, 1937.)

but it is patently an attempt (adapting the words of the Manchester Guardian at the time) “to make the acceptance of the traditional doctrine of the Church easier for men of modern ways of thinking.”

The Committee was prepared to modify what were once thought to be central tenets of the Anglican faith in order to make adherence less exacting. (For instance, they no longer demanded belief in the Virgin-Birth. Some were prepared to grant the “symbolism” of the creeds and the miracles. They were, likewise, not prepared to insist upon the historicity of the Gospel accounts, but were willing to accept a wide variation of opinion on the character of the Sacraments.) They practically omitted to deal with more fundamental matters, on the ground that these lay outside the terms of reference. As a matter of fact, to face the issue squarely in the light of modern knowledge, would be filing a petition of Christian bankruptcy.

True, as the report sometimes states, even members of the Commission were not always unanimous—a circumstance which they bore with greater composure than the history of the Church would have led one to expect.

But even though unification may be achieved, religion is rapidly losing its claim on the people. C. E. M. Joad wrote two articles in the New Statesman and Nation (January 22nd, January 29th, 1938), in which he analysed the losses on various flanks. Between 1906 and 1936 the Anglican and Free Church schools lost over three and a half million scholars—about fifty per cent. The number of clergymen active in the Church of England has also halved during the same period. An analysis carried on in churches and chapels shows a drop during this time of over seventy-five per cent, in attendances. This drew one resentful letter from a cleric, who tried unsuccessfully to discount the facts. There is also a shortage of candidates for Dedication. A memorial submitted to the Archbishops (December 13th, 1937) proposed to combat this by a number of simple devices. One of these was to urge celibacy as a less expensive mode of life, which would enable the ministers to live on a more meagre salary: —

   The memorial deals with the changes in the social aspects of country districts. Fewer sons of the wealthier classes are being ordained, it is stated; fewer ordinands have any private means. Filling country livings becomes increasingly difficult.

   The remedy at present sought is the amalgamation of benefices, very unpopular in the parishes. This, says the memorial, is surely wrong. The remedy is for the priest to live not in the big glebe house but in a cottage, like his humble parishioners.”—(Daily Telegraph, December 13th. 1937.)

The growth of the poorly-paid element in the Church has been partly responsible for a new outlook, especially in the great cities. In the words of the New Statesman and Nation (January 22nd, 1938): "The Church of England, once the backbone of Conservatism, has become increasingly sympathetic to the more moderate aspirations of Labour ” (p. 107).

But now that working-class demands and actions are a factor in the life of the nation, the Church has had to trim its sails accordingly. The working class will find little support, however, from the classical upholders of privilege and wealth. The Bishop of Durham's letter to The Times (September 24th, 1935) is quoted because, typically, it hides under a cloak of apparent devotion to the miner’s interest a deep antagonism:—

   As matters stand with us in England, I am fully persuaded that strikes and lock-outs are not only widely calamitous to those directly concerned, but unfair to the nation as a whole, and, in the true sense of the word, immoral. It has been my experience to live through two great strikes in this Diocese, and I am unable to see that any other result came from them than suffering, economic confusion, and lamentable social embitterment

   Therefore, in the interest of the whole community, and therein specially of the miners, the clergy cannot, in my judgment, rightly or wisely associate themselves with movements which contemplate, and logically result in, open conflict.

But, to confine ourselves to exposing the religious sham would be a sterile undertaking. Belfort Bax wrote in 1902, in ”The Religion of Socialism ”: —

  There is a party who think to overthrow the current theology by disputation and ridicule. They fail to see that the theology they detest is so closely entwined with the current mode of production that the two must stand or fall together . . .

And that, indeed, is the truth. Religion has slavishly adapted itself to the needs of the hour, and can in these latter days even court the working class. The Kingdom of God has been proven a myth. The Church is no longer militant. Religion serves no ethical, moral or social purpose other than that which corresponds to the need of a privileged class, who take little further stock in it. And the sooner the workers get rid of both, the better; and so much the quicker find a more prosperous state than they are likely to get from the declining ministry upon earth.

C. J. Kilner.

What Do You Want From Life? (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

All men and women of the working class who think clearly, and feel deeply, must come to one conclusion when they consider the worker’s existence under capitalism. They cannot help seeing the great contrast existing between their own lives, as a class, and life as it might, and could, be.

To very many of the workers life seems one long round of economically-forced toil, with very little of the so-called “leisure” we read so much about, insufficient rest and sleep, impaired health, and precious few opportunities for real enjoyment. It is painfully evident that, in this country to-day, existence has its worst phases in the “distressed areas.” The conditions obtaining there are a disgrace to a country vaunting its " civilisation" and evince the callousness of capitalism.

We, as Socialists, are out to abolish, not only these conditions of poverty, privation and preventable misery, but the very system itself which causes them.

Being Socialists, we have an Ideal ever before us—an attainable Ideal. Socialism, we claim, is the only practicable solution for abolishing the many evils that are the product of the operations of capitalism. Socialism, we claim, is the only system that can effectually realise for the world’s multi-millions of toilers a real, true and full Life, such as should be theirs who are the wealth creators.

We want a world where peace reigns from Pole to Pole; a world where war and the very causes of war are abolished.

We desire a full, joyous and unfettered life for the peoples of all climes. And, for this purpose, we seek the complete emancipation of the world’s workers from their wage-slavery, so that all these desirable things should be theirs in complete fulness.

And, to obtain this, we must overthrow the capitalist system, and establish in its place the Socialist Commonwealth of the World.

The three primary essentials in the life of man are food, clothing and shelter. It is to obtain these basic things that the workers seek employment. To “make a living” is the chief concern of millions of people.

Socialism concerns itself with “making life worth living” for every human being: life in its fullest and finest sense—life that is Life indeed! Socialism, being based on the facts and experiences of working-class existence, is pre-eminently a practical social system.

Now, the social system of to-day does not assure or guarantee that the world’s inhabitants shall be amply fed, adequately clothed and properly housed to suit human needs. Based on the private ownership of the means of life, capitalism exists simply for the benefit of those who live on “Rent,” “Interest” and “Profit.”

Nothing is sacred to the capitalist class but their own capitalistic rights. Their ownership and control over the sources of wealth; their “right” to exploit human labour-power; and their ”right” to the surplus-value they appropriate (from which is derived rent, interest and profit)—these are, to them, sacred.

So long as we continue to tolerate this system of private ownership and production for profit, so long will the needs of humanity be disregarded. The starving poor want food, and they cannot buy it because of their poverty. They are ill-clad and poorly shod, yet there are immense quantities of clothing and footwear unsold. They live in hovels amid squalor and filth—while the race-horses of the wealthy are splendidly housed and cared for. “Man's inhumanity to man,” as Bums so aptly phrased it, is exemplified to the nth degree by the social system we know as capitalism. In time of ”peace” or war, human considerations are the last things the ruling-class think of.

Now, as Socialists, we want to make it very clear that we are not only concerned about the ”bread-and-butter” business of "making a living”; we know that is fundamental, and that we must have the three essentials: food, clothing and shelter. We consider our objective is such that these are but the basis of living. We desire that Life for mankind should be the freest and fullest possible, and that every part of his physical, mental and cultural nature should have the finest opportunity for splendid development. In spite of the sneers of anti-Socialists at our "materialistic outlook,” we claim that Socialism, alone, being based on a splendidly firm economic basis, can assure mankind of a perfect foundation on which humanity can build, ever upwards towards the ideals which are possible of attainment only through the Socialist Commonwealth.

We must have a goal to reach, a splendid purpose to fulfil far beyond the petty idea of working for wages in order to get a living; or the parochial ideas of reformers.

Socialism, alone, opens up an immense vista of boundless development for the individual and for the world’s multi-millions.

For Socialism will come to free Man from his age-long bondage.

Now, this bondage—this wage-slavery which holds the world’s workers in its grip—is, in spite of what unthinking or prejudiced non-Socialists say, a very real thing. It is the essential outcome of the means of life being in the hands of a small, but immensely powerful, ruling-class. Owning the means and instruments of wealth-production and distribution, and being in complete control of Political Power, they thus have the means to exercise their will and wish over the world’s toilers in any and every way they desire.

It is obvious that, having these powers and this control over our lives, they are the Master Class.

The capitalist system exists for their benefit as a class; it is operated to increase their wealth; and lives and thrives as a system of thievish gain by systematically robbing the wealth-producing working class.

Let us get rid of our intellectual blinkers, and look squarely in the face of the economic and political facts of our working-class existence.

The vast majority of youths at school-leaving age embark on the hazardous business of trying to “make a living” (if they can “get a job” !), little thinking that, perhaps for fifty years of their life, they will have to work as wage-slaves. They will have to create surplus-values for their employers, which they, as workers, will be robbed of, and will not benefit by. After being exploited and robbed for, say, fifty or sixty years, by the operations of a ruthless wage-system, they will be very little better off financially than when they started. What a prospect! 

Such is the economic life of the average working man. He has worked all through his working life, and his labours have been chiefly to enrich an idle, parasitic and thievish class who live on “Rent," “Interest” and "Profit." This is only one aspect of the case.

For the average working-man is, throughout his toiling years, like a harnessed horse that goes round and round a central mechanism which is kept in motion by his constant movement in a prescribed circle. Occasionally the horse is allowed to stop and feed or drink. Yet, outside his slavish circle, are the luscious fields of sweet sunlit grass— and Freedom!

Of those delights that real freedom would bring he has no opportunity.

And, ask yourself, what opportunity does the working class have to participate in the advantages and enjoyments that are appropriated by a leisured and privileged class?

Most of the things that we, as workers, desire, are unprocurable; for the life of most toilers is arid, cramped, and limited to a very great degree. It in no way approximates to the life that we, as Socialists, visualise and desire all men to have and enjoy.

We desire an equality of opportunity for every man and woman in the world—an opportunity to reach the very peaks of development for the individual’s sake, and for Mankind. Talent and ability should have every encouragement and scope; and self-expression in all that is worth while should be full and free.

To enjoy life to the full in their own way, whilst participating in the greatest freedom possible, should be each man’s right—so long as his actions were not anti-social or prejudicial to the interests of Mankind.

We have not yet reached such a splendid state of human society—but we visualise it! ! And we know that the Socialist Commonwealth, alone, can realise in full a social condition of equality and concord that is expressed by the phrase: “Each for all, and all for each!”

What, then, do you want from Life?

If you have the Ideal before you that we, as Socialists, have, you must be profoundly dissatisfied with capitalism; and if you chance to be a Socialist you will know that the things you desire you will not obtain under the present system—at any rate, not to a satisfactory degree.

Let us, briefly, summarise a few of the most important that, having, will make Life, for you, worth living.

You want good and sufficient food, adequate clothing, and a shelter which is really a home in the fullest sense. You want to feel that these things—the primaries—are assured to you.

You want a reasonable amount of work to do to usefully occupy your active brain and hands— work that is socially useful and productive of good to the community and yourself as an individual. That work should not be a drudgery, or a means of stunting the worker’s mind by its deadly monotony, or wearying by its duration. You want radiant physical and mental health, and every opportunity to sustain it at a splendid pitch of human efficiency for yourself and those around you. Freedom—economic, political and social—is as the breath of life to us. We must have Freedom!—as we Socialists understand it. Leisure, in abundance, in which to develop our many-sided natures, and cultivate the garden of our talents and abilities, so that their finest flowers shall blossom forth. Recreation, too, that shall be productive of splendidly healthy men, women and children, as well as a source of joy. Access, in full, to a knowledge of all the finest products in the field of Art and Science, Literature and Music. Opportunity to travel and enlarge one’s international sympathies and see the marvellous beauty that Nature so prodigally displays. You want an existence that is as productive of joy and happiness to yourself and others as it can possibly be. In one sentence: You want a useful, satisfying, free and happy life.

This, in the main, is probably what many of us desire.

Well, when the working class understand what slaves they really are to the master class, they will begin to start on their splendid wayfaring. When they realise that, if they desire to accomplish their emancipation, they must, as a class, emancipate themselves, they will really be on the move. And when they fully understand that Socialism is their only hope, they must, if they intend to achieve its triumph, study it, and find the way to the goal.

They will become convinced Socialists, and be bent on the one means that will realise a Socialist Commonwealth—the capture of Political Power by a majority of Socialists. Capitalism will thus be overthrown, and a Socialist administration will be ushered in. Nought else avails.

Do you want Life to yield you and your class joy and peace and freedom in all their fulness and splendour ?

You will get these only through your own wise and determined efforts—by establishing a worldwide Socialist Commonwealth !! 

Graham May.

Editorial: Peaceful Manifestations. (1939)

Editorial from the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

For many months, leading statesmen of various nations have made moving pleas for peace. If we were to take their statements seriously, we would be compelled to believe that England, France, Germany, Italy and America had but one object in their foreign policies—to secure a lasting peace.

But capitalism is a curious system and has strange ways of securing its ends.

While, on the one hand, the newspapers have a great deal of space devoted to reports of these peaceful speeches, on the other hand they have pictures of the new gigantic battleships that are being launched for the strange purpose of securing this peace. The peace aimed at is peace among the European nations. Peace among the nations, each of which is building huge armaments, competing against each other in building faster and more destructive aeroplanes, tanks and other killing machines and methods.

The real facts, of course, are that capitalist spokesmen are following the honoured methods of using hypocritical phrases to cover their murderous designs. The basis of these designs is simply the securing of a more favourable position by which to obtain a larger share of the wealth wrung from wage workers.

Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg (1939)

Pamphlet Review from the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg 53 pp; 25 cents. Three Arrows Press, New York.

So far as we know, this is the first English translation of Reform or Revolution. Originally, it appeared in German in 1899, its aim being to show the weakness of the case of Eduard Bernstein and Kondradt Schmidt, which stated that the German Social Democratic Party should abandon all idea of a revolutionary transformation of society and aim to improve the status of the working-class by means of the winning of reforms. Bernstein and Schmidt held the view that reforms themselves, if continuously enacted, would gradually make an inroad into capitalism, with the result that Socialism would slowly arrive.

Two groups formed themselves in the Social Democratic Party which hitherto had claimed to be Marxist; one group led by Rosa Luxemburg, Wilhelm Liebknecht and Karl Kautsky, which still called itself Marxist; the other which gathered around Bernstein and advocated gradualism or reformism.

The pamphlet under review, written in defence of scientific Socialism and to demonstrate the fallacies of gradualism, deserves to be widely read, and we recommend it especially to members of the Labour Party, trade unionists and Co-operators.

Before dealing with the pamphlet itself, there is one aspect of its history that is worthy of note. From it can be learned a lesson in party organisation.

The arguments of Reform or Revolution, though sound in the main, were not accepted by the majority of the German SDP. Bernstein’s reformism was preferred. The question arises, “Why did a party which claimed to be Marxist, reject Rosa Luxemburg’s teaching and adopt that of Bernstein?” The answer is that the SDP, while declaring Socialism to be its aim, entered the political arena from the first with a programme of demands for immediate reforms. Consequently, despite the wishes of many of the founders, adherents were gained who were interested in the reforms offered, rather than in the Socialist objective. Because of this unsound foundation, the party became overwhelmed with reformists. As Liebknecht said in his No Compromise, written in the same year as Reform or Revolution, “When once the thin end of the opportunist wedge has forced itself into the policy of the party, the thick end soon follow”. Readers of Liebknecht’s pamphlet will know that very soon the German capitalist class lost its terror of the SDP, many of them joined its ranks and the class basis of the party was gone. The unsound basis of the party was again revealed in 1914, when it supported its own national group of capitalists in the war, just as the British Labour Party supported the British capitalists. Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution had been powerless against the strong waves of reformism within the SDP.

The lesson to be learned from the above facts is obvious: when organising for Socialism, the offering of reforms on the party programme spells ruin. Thousands may flock into the party, but they are mostly interested in the reform of capitalism, not in its abolition, and these members swamp the Socialist element. Here is a definite answer to those who urge Socialists to join the Labour Party. History has proved, in the case of the German Social Democratic Party, that Socialists inside a reformist organisation cannot convert it and bring it on to the Socialist path. The only logical thing they can do is to break with the reformists and organise on the clear-cut programme of Socialism. Says Liebknect: “Once . . . we have started upon the inclined plane of compromise, there is no stopping”.

And now let us turn to the pamphlet itself.

The argument put forward—and shown to be true—is that the working-class cannot hope for Socialism from trade unions, Co-operatives or from reform movements.

Trade unions, Rosa Luxemburg, shows, are a part of capitalism itself. They are the workers’ weapons of defence against the capitalist class which aims at increasing its profits. They are useful in that they enable the workers to sell their labour-power under more favourable conditions than would otherwise be the case. However, they are not able to take the offensive against capitalism, to overthrow it, because they are badly handicapped. They are handicapped because the continued increase in the use of machinery makes for a greater productivity of labour, and therefore enables the capitalist class to employ fewer hands for the production of a given quantity of goods. Furthermore, trade unions cannot increase the share of wealth going to the working class. Owing to the development of capitalism and the greater productivity of labour, this share is continually being reduced. When the workers produce more, their wages do not rise in the same proportion (pp. 16-18 and p. 37).

Co-operative Societies are no more able than trade unions to end capitalism. As Rosa Luxemburg points out (pp. 35-6) they can survive within the present system only if they become pure capitalist enterprises. They have to compete with capitalist firms, and to do so successfully they must adopt capitalist methods of production.

  “Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all the methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production . . . are obliged to take toward themselves the role of the capitalist entrepreneur—a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives, which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving”.

How capitalist the co-operatives have become in England may be seen from the fact that their employees, like employees in any capitalist concern, have frequently had to strike against their conditions of work.

Those who hope to establish Socialism by means of a long series of reforms will find in this book an explanation of why they are doomed to disappointment.

A revolution and a legislative reform are two completely different factors in the development of society. “A social transformation and a legislative reform do not differ according to their duration but according to their content.” A revolution is the work of a class which has gained political power in order to transform society to suit its interests; a reform is carried out only within the framework of the social system created by the previous revolution. Hence reforms cannot end capitalism; they can modify it to some extent, but they leave its basis untouched. To establish socialism, a revolution—a complete transformation of private property into social property—is necessary.

  “That is why people who pronounce themselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place of and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modifications of the old society” (p; 43).

Furthermore, the State to-day is a class State, established by the capitalist class and carried on in its interests. It is the representative of capitalist society, wherein capitalist interests dominate. Any social reforms that are passed, therefore, will not be injurious to capitalism. Says Rosa Luxemburg (p. 21):

  “The present State is, first of all, an organisation of the ruling class. It assumes functions favouring social development specifically because, and in the measure that, these interests and social development coincide, in a general fashion, with the interests of the dominant class. Labour legislation is enacted as much in the immediate interest of the capitalist class as in the interest of society in general.”

Since the struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, it ends by bringing indifference and disillusionment to the workers who look to reforms for emancipation.

  “Since the social reforms can only offer an empty promise, the logical consequence of such a programme must necessarily be disillusionment” (p. 26).

If trade unions, Co-operatives and reform movements are unable to oust capitalism and usher in Socialism, what must we do to reach our goal? Rosa Luxemburg indicates the way.

“From the first appearance of class societies . . . the conquest of political power has been the aim of all rising classes” (p. 42). 

The workers, too, being an oppressed class, must aim at capturing political power. And they must make use of democracy for that end. Democracy is indispensable to the working-class “because it creates the political forms which will serve the proletariat as fulcrums in its task of transforming bourgeois society” (p. 45). Democracy the working-class needs, and this can be best preserved, not by compromise, but by struggling for Socialism. Lovers of democracy should ponder carefully the following:

  “Democracy does not acquire greater chances of life in the measure that the working-class renounces the struggle for its emancipation, but, on the contrary, democracy acquires greater chances of survival as the Socialist movement becomes sufficiently strong to struggle against the reactionary consequences of world politics, and the bourgeois desertion of democracy. He who would strengthen democracy should want to strengthen and not weaken the Socialist movement. He who renounces the struggle for Socialism renounces both the Labour movement and democracy” (p. 41).

Rosa Luxemburg puts forward certain points of view with which we do not agree. For example, we hold that she lays too much emphasis on the decline of capitalism and its collapse. Readers of Reform or Revolution would do well to study also our penny pamphlet Why Capitalism Will Not Collapse.

Clifford Allen

("Reform or Revolution" is obtainable from 42 Great Dover Street, S.E.1, at 1s, post free 1s. 1d.)

Learn about Leaders, Old and New. (1939)

From the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are many politically uninformed members of the working class who repeat “We can’t do without a leader.” Socialists know that the political circus meetings, staged alike by leaders of both the Fascists and Communists (or rightly Confusionists), are harmful to the real interests of the working class. These revivalist meetings, with their rampant emotionalism and the cult of “leadership," hinder the growth of a clear understanding of the nature of capitalist society. Unquestionably, the more astute of the propertied class are well aware of the value to them of these Confusionists, who turn the normal healthy discontent of the workers into the Reformist Maze. Very occasionally we see the capitalists clearly appreciating the real function of these careerist demagogues. Recently the capitalist Press mentioned the eightieth birthday of Mr. John Burns in the following headlines: “80th Birthday of the first Working Man to become a Cabinet Minister.” So, fellow workers of the younger generation, you may see that the Labour trio, MacDonald, Snowden, Thomas, were not the first to use a politically ignorant working class for their own political and personal advancement. Maybe the following paragraph, taken from The Socialist Standard, April 1st, 1908, will help you to appreciate the rôle played by the Pollitts, Citrines, Gallaghers and Morrisons of to-day: —

BOANERGES BELLIGERENT.

  In other words, John Burns rampant. In fact, he is overdoing it.

  His greatness, John Burns himself admits; but it is evident that it was not the “Great Man” himself, but the workers who followed him, who were sold to the Liberal Government for lucrative office.

  And the capitalist Press is at times cynically frank in discussing the merits of its faithful servants. Thus the Observer, doing the “candid friend," said (March 15, 1908)—

Mr. Burns may play a strong role in the national struggle against Socialism, and we like his unstooping courage. But he overdoes the part of Boanerges belligerent. We do not want him to lose his influence over the masses. We want him to retain it; but unless he modifies his later manner his words will carry less weight with the masses than those of any man in England. Once that is seen, his present popularity with plutocrats will fade. These are not pleasant things to say, but they must be said if the President of the Local Government Board is to be prevented from spoiling his career by excess of temperament.

 Clearly, if John is not careful, he will have nothing left to sell.

Vic.

Party Funds. (1939)

Party News from the March 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades,

Last August an urgent appeal was made to every member and sympathiser to help reduce a debt of £125. The hope was expressed that the Party’s financial position would be in a sound state by Christmas.

The statement of the Party’s financial position in January’s “S.S.” revealed that the hope was well founded, because by the end of 1938, the income had considerably exceeded expectations.

I understand from the Treasurer that a good start has been made for 1939, and there seems reason to expect that progress will be maintained.

It seems almost certain that a General Election will not be delayed beyond Autumn of this year. Therefore, I want to urge all members to make every possible effort to strengthen the Parliamentary and General Funds.

We must not rest content with past achievements, because there is a steady drain on the Parliamentary Fund as a result of pre-election propaganda expenses. Whilst it is important to maintain the drive for donations, it is more important to increase literature sales and organise collections at meetings.

The Finance Committee is with me in this appeal to members, and it is our optimistic belief that every, comrade will co-operate.

H. G. Holt,

February, 1939. Party Funds Organiser.

Health Service under attack (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a capitalist society there is. inevitably, a conflict between the health needs of the working population and the pursuit of profit. Workers are viewed predominantly as economic units to be exploited for their labour power. The cut-throat nature of capitalist competition obliges manufacturers to keep production costs as low as possible to maintain profits and avoid being undercut by rivals and forced out of business.

Conflicts occur because the unchecked efforts of manufacturers to produce goods as cheaply as possible lead to the impoverishment of the workers by the payment of low wages, longer working hours, hazardous working conditions, exploitation of child labour, environmental pollution, and stress from alienating, repetitive, boring work on factory production lines. But a considerable amount of ill-health is caused by the interplay of factors resulting from the exploitation of labour. Accidents are caused by fatigue and hazardous working conditions. occupational disorders are common; gross exploitation leads to poverty, bad housing and malnutrition. However, the provision of health care represents a cost against production to be avoided if possible. The workers try, with partial success, to mitigate exploitation through trade unions and parliamentary reforms by pressing for better working conditions, higher rates of pay and the provision of health and social services.

In the early days of the industrial revolution the large-scale migration of labour from rural to urban areas provided a plentiful supply of unskilled labour. Consequently, there was no incentive for the capitalists to conserve the workers' health. By the 1830s the misery endured by the working class led to labour agitation which found expression in syndicalism and Chartism and posed a threat to the stability of the state. At the same time cholera epidemics threatened the rich as well as the poor and led to the reform of sanitary facilities initiated by the 1848 Public Health Act. By contrast tuberculosis, a disease of poverty, which did not seriously threaten the affluent in large numbers, continued to be a major cause of death for the poor for nearly a century longer.

Iliffe (1983) has examined the political motives underlying the 1911 National Health Insurance Act. with its attempt to placate labour agitation and undermine the influence of the emergent Labour Party; provide a fitter fighting force for the impending war with Germany, and make the workers believe that substantial social change afterwards would make the war worth fighting. The position of workers as economic units under capitalism was exemplified by the exclusion of women and children from even the limited provisions of the Act.

The modern welfare state was drawn up by William Beveridge in 1942 with apparently more humane and far-reaching provisions for health care than previous legislation. Many absurd claims have been made that the creation of the welfare state was "revolutionary" or "socialism in action", but Kincaid (1973) states:

  In his plan Beveridge gave expression to a broad section of hardheaded opinion in the ruling class of his period. He was for social reform. so long as the existing structure of society remained fundamentally the same. In fact he was for social reform precisely because it would allow the existing order to continue essentially unchanged. It is not as a visionary that Beveridge deserves to be remembered. Rather his particular distinction lay in an ability to translate the general objectives of ruling class reformism into detailed and technically workable proposals.

The National Health Service of 1948 introduced a comprehensive system of health care "free at the point of use” for the first time. This principle has been undermined from the beginning and now, at a time of industrial recession, the very foundations of the welfare system are under attack. This is because there is now a surplus of labour and capital does not need to conserve the workers' health. Indeed, in terms of profitability — the motivation which drives capitalism — it is uneconomic to spend money on the health care of "non-producers" such as the unemployed or the elderly.

The class bias of mortality rates is often not fully appreciated for it is believed that illness strikes at random, that modern illnesses are diseases of affluence, and that progress is being made towards a better life (Mitchell. 1984). The facts show otherwise, for as Mitchell states:

  The National Morbidity Survey reveals a clear pattern among long-term and recurrent illnesses. Chronic bronchitis is a major cause of time off work and a persistent and disabling condition. Women with husbands in unskilled jobs go to see the doctor with it three times more often than women married to men in professional jobs. Among their husbands there is a four-fold difference. With bad backs, bones and joints, the picture is similar. Women in social class one go to see the doctor with arthritis half as frequently as women in social class five Doctors see men in unskilled jobs with slipped discs, back pain and sciatica three times more often than men in professional jobs. Ulcers, another so-called "businessman's disease", drive men at the bottom of society to the doctors twice as frequently as men at the top. Top men die of ulcers four times less frequently than men in unskilled jobs. Other common conditions for which there is the same kind of class pattern include varicose veins, phlebitis, chronic digestive problems, epilepsy and diabetes.

For middle-aged men in social class five the death rate has actually risen in the last thirty years compared with a fall in social class one (Black Report. 1982).

Although the "welfare state" was created to patch up the problems caused by poverty without damaging the wealth and privileges of the few it does, nevertheless, alleviate some of the misery and insecurity of the system and was not gained without considerable. if misguided, struggle on the part of the workers. But like all reforms it has been only partially successful and has shown how vulnerable to attack it can be. In the last two decades hospitals have closed all over Britain. By contrast, private insurance schemes increased by 25 per cent between 1971 and 1979 (Iliffe. 1980). For the poor, the old. the disabled, the chronic sick, mentally ill and mentally handicapped a move to insurance based medical services has frightening implications because of difficulty obtaining insurance as they lack profitable investment prospects. Iliffe has described how the closure of mental hospitals without adequate alternative provision causes mentally ill people to drift into the "homeless, workless population that sleeps in cardboard boxes and derelict buildings, rummages through litter bins and provides police, courts and prisons with an unpunishable stratum of hopeless recidivists".

Capitalism rewards its other large group of "non-producers" — the elderly — with incarceration in former workhouses when they fall ill. But with hospital places failing to keep pace with demand larger numbers of the elderly are looked after by relatives. Community care has become a euphemism for sacrificing families to care for incontinent or demented relatives at home — risking health, suffering financial hardship and marital stress. Most of this burden falls on women who are considered marginal to the workforce and. although permitted to work during a time of labour shortage are expected to care for the elderly, the sick and handicapped at home when public services are cut.

Private residential homes for the elderly have flourished in an attempt to profit from the lack of adequate public services and have been encouraged by the present government. However, Philipson (1985) has provided examples from several different countries to show that when profit is the dominating force the standards of care leave much to be desired. The privatisation of catering. laundry and domestic services threatens the job security of many hospital employees; breaks the strength of the trade unions; forces down wages to subsistence levels. All of these moves are more difficult to resist at a time of unemployment which damages the bargaining power of the unions.

Good health is best maintained by avoiding poverty, dirty, dangerous work, poor housing and polluted environments. The National Health Service, valuable though it is in times of illness, cannot remedy these problems.

The National Health Service represents the best and the worst aspects of reformism. It has undoubtedly ameliorated some of the more health damaging effects of capitalism without tackling the misery of the system itself. High technology medicine continues to flourish at the expense of psychiatric, geriatric and community care. But if private medicine replaces the National Health Service the poor will not be able to afford such treatment as heart transplants or micro-surgery. And if only insurance schemes are available then workers will pay to be at the back of the queue and it will cost even more to move to the front.

Carl Pinel

References

Iliffe. S. (1980) "Private medicine and the Tory government". Medicine in Society 6(1) 12-15. 

Iliffe. S. (1983) The NHS. A Picture of Health? Lawrence and Wishart. London, pp 17-19. 

Kincaid. J. C. (1973) Poverty and Equality in Britain. Penguin. Harmondsworth. pp 45-46. 

Mitchell. J. (1984) What Is To Be Done About Illness And Health? Crisis in the Eighties. Penguin. Harmondsworth.

Philipson. C. (1985) "Private care or no care at all? — a socialist dilemma" Medicine in Society 10 (4) 21-23.

Townsend. P. and Davidson. N. (1982) Inequalities in Health: The Black Report. Penguin. Harmondsworth. p 51.

Why unemployment? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

In Britain today over three million workers — 12.6 per cent of the working population — are officially unemployed. If those not claiming benefits or registering as unemployed are added to that figure we can safely say that the number of unemployed is well in excess of four million — and rising. Forty per cent of the officially unemployed are under the age of twenty-five and 400,000 are classified as being long-term unemployed, in some cases having had no full-time job between leaving school and their mid-twenties. It was estimated in 1984 that one in two people leaving school in London last July would not have a job by the end of the year — and in some areas the problem is far worse. It is not only in "Thatcher's Britain" that millions are out of work: in the USA nearly ten million are on the official unemployment scrapheap and in the EEC countries the figure is fifty-five million and rising by the month.

The statistics do not tell the full story of what unemployment does to workers. When a young worker comes out of school, trained for work and wanting to express his or her talents, what can be more frustrating than to be told that there is nothing but the boredom of the dole queue? If they are lucky, then after writing many — sometimes hundreds — of letters they might end up in a low-paid, dead-end job. It's what they call "getting experience". Or they might be placed on one of the government's youth exploitation schemes, where profits for the bosses can be supplemented by exploiting the desperate position of the young unemployed. What about the workers in their late forties and fifties who have worked for years on the same job and are told that they are no longer needed by the boss? Skilled as they may be. workers losing their jobs in many occupations will stand little chance of ever being employed again if they are over fifty. What does that do to a person's confidence? Is it any surprise that heroin addiction has increased rapidly in recent years in the areas of mass urban unemployment? Is it any surprise that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of unemployed workers who are ending their own lives? What a tragic and disgusting waste! Workers have a right to be angry about an economy which is inflicting unemployment on those who need and want to work.

If we are to eradicate a problem we must discover its cause. This is the first principle of science and, as scientific socialists, we must ask why unemployment exists. Why are men and women who are fit and eager to work and have diverse talents which are needed by a society full of human deprivation excluded from the labour process?

The reason is that under capitalism people's ability to work — labour power — possesses the status of a commodity; it is an item of purchase, to be sold on the market to the highest bidder. There is a crucial difference between work (the expenditure of labour power) and employment (the sale of labour power). To work all that we need is a desire to use energy, and we all need to do that. But to sell labour power for a price, referred to as a wage or a salary, requires a buyer who will find it in his or her interest to make the purchase. The employer of labour power is concerned with purchase on a purely economic basis: the employer buying labour power is like the farmer buying a horse — the farmer does not go to the horse market in order to provide a home for the horses and the capitalist does not go to the labour market in order to pay our rent. Workers are employed when the capitalists can gain from our labour power. Workers have no choice, within capitalism, but to sell labour power so that the capitalist may exploit it. We are often told — and it is theoretically true — that we are free not to work for the capitalists if we so decide. It is the freedom to exist in destitution.

The capitalist employs the worker to make commodities which can be sold on the market. Anything from bombs to boots are legitimate items for labour power to be set to work on, but one economic law of capitalism is that there will be no production unless the capitalist has reasonable expectation of a profit. Production is for sale and profit, not simply to satisfy human needs. In buying the commodity labour power the object of the capitalist is not simply to reproduce the price he has paid for it. but to exploit labour power so that it will produce a value over and above its own. The profits obtained by the capitalist class are the result of the legalised robbery of the working class. So workers who are "lucky" enough to be employed are not being given a wage by the capitalist — they are giving an unearned income to the capitalist who must then pay the cost of keeping alive the goose that lays the golden egg.

But why are millions unemployed? Surely, if the capitalists can make a profit out of exploiting labour power they will employ everyone. Indeed, this is what the capitalist class would like, and that is why they are in favour of full employment. To suggest that unemployment is caused by the capitalist wanting it is to misunderstand the nature of the capitalist system.

The trouble with capitalism — from the angle of those who want to run and reform it — is that the market is out of control. When the market is expanding the capitalists can sell more commodities, profits rise and there is a market demand for labour power. When markets are not expanding, but stagnating or contracting, then capitalists' profits fall and less labour power is needed. Economists are the intellectual vandals who are hired to watch the market and tell the capitalists whether to expand production, which ultimately means employing more producers, or to cut back on production, which means forcing workers to be unproductive: unemployment. So, if workers produce so much wealth that the markets are glutted it is necessary to lay them off. So much for the theory that unemployment is caused by laziness: in a sense, it is caused by workers producing too much. Of course, "too much" means more than the market will take, not more than people need. Thus, we have a world crisis of milk over-production at present while babies in Africa are dying for want of milk. This is the economic logic of capitalism.

So we can say that unemployment is caused by the fact that there are more workers on the market than are needed by the exploiting class in order to make profits. This can be shown by example: in 1983 the pre-tax profits of ICI more than doubled — from £259 million to £619 million. In order to achieve increased profits during a period of market recession ICI had to cut its workforce by 18 per cent (since 1980). In all, 25,000 ICI employees lost their jobs so that profits could be doubled. Similarly, the Delta Group increased its pre-tax profits in 1983 from £14 million to £32 million. In order to achieve this they had to cut their workforce by one third so that, although they have only had a 6 per cent increase in sales in 1980. sales per worker have increased by 57 per cent. They are paying out less money (in paying the price of labour power) and so receiving more profits. Other firms are not increasing their profits, but are still having to cut the workforce just to stay in business. And the record number of firms which went bankrupt in 1984 (under a government which claimed to serve business) put hundreds of thousands out of jobs.

Unlike all the other political parties, which seek to reform capitalism, the Socialist Party does not propose any policy to create full employment or to reduce unemployment. We agree with Thatcher and her horrible mates that this is the only way capitalism can be run and that there are no remedies to unemployment. Keynesian kidders like Kinnock and Benn might claim that printing more money will create more jobs, but Keynesian policies have been tried and failed by both Tory and Labour governments which presided over rising unemployment. The Socialist Party is unique in pointing out that there is no way to run capitalism but in the interest of the rich, privileged scroungers who live off the back of the working class. We tell workers this in an open and rational way, refusing to make promises which cannot be kept.

In 1983 the top thirty-five companies in Britain increased their profits by 42.3 per cent. The rich do not suffer in the recession, but do their best to ensure that the workers pay the cost of the market malady. One part of that cost is that our class is forced into the dole queue so that the bosses can profit from the production of wealth.

Let us dispose of the fallacy that unemployment is caused by immigration; it will not take long. In 1979 195,000 immigrants entered Britain and 189.000 emigrated. In short, 6,000 more entered than left. By 1980 the trend was reversed: in that year 174,000 entered and 229,000 left. In 1982 202,000 entered and 253,000 left. If immigration causes unemployment, then why has unemployment increased as the number of people emigrating from Britain has increasingly exceeded the number entering? We might also ask any proponent of the theory why it is that Glasgow and Northern Ireland, two areas of the UK with the lowest number of black immigrants, are areas with the highest unemployment. Clearly, the argument that immigration causes unemployment is a fallacy, spread by those who seek to divide the working class and accepted by wage slaves who are foolishly blaming other wage slaves for their condition.

The starting-point of any understanding of how unemployment can be eradicated is a recognition of the fact that it is an inevitable feature of capitalism. So, if we want to end unemployment we must put an end to the capitalist system. This means abolishing employment, because there is only unemployment where there is a social system in which labour power is sold.

In the socialist society which the Socialist Party advocates as an immediate, practical alternative to the chaos of the present there will be no classes. All people will work for society according to their ability, doing so in a voluntary way, and they will be able to take freely from the common store of goods and services. Wage labour will cease to exist; we will work so that society can operate for the full satisfaction of human needs. In a society of production for use no person will be forced not to work; we will need the talents and creative energies of all people to ensure that the abundant resources of the planet can be utilised for the benefit of all. Co-operation will be the driving force of socialism, and by conscious co-operation we workers, whether employed or unemployed. can unite now to organise politically for the real socialist alternative. The so-called right to work under capitalism amounts to no more than the miserable right to be exploited — a "right" which workers do not have and should not want. Let us instead demand and achieve the revolutionary right to live.

Steve Coleman

Blue bloods for progress? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many noble eyebrows must have arched in astonishment and indignation, when the House of Lords was congratulated by Red Ken Livingstone's County Hall on their resistance to the government over the abolition of the GLC. This uneasy alliance between blue blood and left wing bogeys was another example of the Lords' changing reputation, from a home for senile aristocrats to a crucible of incisive debate and defence of democratic freedoms. Whether this reputation is deserved or not, the Lords press on; now they have dared to experiment with live TV coverage. Perhaps we shall have a show to rival Game For A Laugh, with a more elegant set and rather wealthier — if more menacing — participants.

The reputation which the Lords seem to be trying to lose, for obstinately refusing to recognise the times. let alone move with them, was set hard in a century of battles with the Other Place, sometimes known as the Lower House or the House of Commons. Joseph Chamberlain in 1884 responded to their obstruction of the Reform Bill with the unoriginal sneer that the Lords represented a class "who toil not. neither do they spin" (he was probably meaning to be offensive). In 1910, at the height of the Asquith government's long crisis over parliamentary power, Lloyd George described the peers as "descended partly from plunderers who came over with William the Conqueror and partly from plunderers of the poor at the Reformation" (he was in favour only of plunderers of the more modern kind).

The Lords have always defended themselves, apparently against the odds, on two main grounds. Firstly, they have asserted that their privileged standing in parliament, free of the need to campaign for the votes of the lower class, enabled them to be more objective and independent; secondly they have been sure that as a vetting chamber they do a much better job than the Commons anyway. Lord Salisbury, speaking in 1907. claimed that the hereditary principle had the merit of "trusting a man because of his sense of public duty", which was like arguing that a few people are rich because they are worthy, and worthy because they are rich. In 1910 Lord Cawdor, referring to some of the issues at dispute between the Lords and the Liberal government, said that the former were the closer to the people's will on Home Rule for Ireland, the Licensing Bill, the Education Bill and the Budget.

Cawdor was speaking at the time of the most important clash between the two Houses, which ended in victory for the Commons when the Parliament Bill of 1911 was pushed through (in theory the Lords could have blocked it) on the threat to ensure its passage by the mass creation of Liberal peers. (When it was all over and the Bill had become law the king, obviously exhausted by the prospect of all those ennobling ceremonies, rushed off to holiday in Yorkshire.) The 1911 Act cut the Lords' power to delay a Bill to a maximum of two years and less in the case of finance Bills. That remained the situation until 1949 when the Attlee government, to ensure the passage of measures like steel nationalisation, pushed through another Parliament Act which reduced the delaying power to nine months. That government, in the overall interests of the British capitalist class, planned a lot of state ownership and they could not tolerate any obstruction by the Lords. Their case was much the same as Lord Roseberry's. in a letter to Queen Victoria in 1894:

  When the Conservative Party is in power, there is practically no House of Lords: it takes whatever the Conservative Government brings it from the House of Commons without question or dispute: but the moment a Liberal Government is formed, this harmless body assumes an active life. and its activity is entirely exercised in opposition to the Government . . .

The Lords' image as a bunch of diehard, crusty Tory backwoodsmen who would travel up from the slaughter of the grouse moors to kill off the policies of a popularly elected government, was potent ammunition for their opponents. Persistent criticism on these lines undermined their own confidence in their superfluous function; clearly. British capitalism could do without the House of Lords. There was irresistible pressure for reform, if not for abolition. The only chance of this happening seemed to be in the Labour Party, which had once stood clearly for abolition but had since then failed to make it a priority in their election programmes. The more impressionable Labour supporters were quite excited by the prospect of abolition, regarding this, in the face of all the evidence about the nature of capitalism in those countries without an hereditary second chamber, as a step towards socialism But as usual the reformists were disappointed; when Labour was in office they did not get rid of the Lords but helped to keep it alive with regular infusions of new blood.

In fact, both the recent significant reform measures have been the work of Conservative governments. The Life Peerages Act of 1958 introduced life peers — and. for the first time, peeresses — so that the Lords became infested with retired trade unionists, business people, university dons and media personalities. A few years later, after a long campaign by Tony Benn, the Peerages Act of 1963 allowed hereditary peers to disclaim their title. It was never quite clear how Benn could represent this as a step towards socialism even if it was a step forward in his political ambitions. It also came in the nick of time to help two prominent Tories Lords Home and Hailsham — in their bid to win the party leadership and so to succeed Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister. Unlike Benn. these two were not opposed to the hereditary principle. When it suited them, they took their title again and now sit again in the Lords. Home inclined wearily beside the frail form of Lord Stockton and Hailsham slumped pompously on the Woolsack.

These two Acts also did a lot to avert the abolition of the House of Lords which was a great boost to their lordships' battered morale. Nowadays there is no certainty that the Lords will tamely fall in with the Conservative line. Instead, the House is populated with bodily testimonies to the impotence and confusion of the men and women who have tried to control and modify the capitalist system. There sit. or have sat. so called economic experts like Balogh and Kaldor, who bore so much responsibility for the economic policies of the first Wilson government — as well as Lord George Brown, who so enthusiastically and rashly took on the job of showing how futile those policies were. Who now, apart perhaps from someone writing their thesis on Great Confidence Tricks Of Our Time, remembers the Department of Economic Affairs and what it promised to do for us? There sits the centurion Lord Shinwell. who travelled politically from pacifism to being Minister of War. but whose opinions are nevertheless listened to with awe. There also can be seen Lord Thorneycroft, one of the monuments to the Age of Supermac, who resigned as Chancellor of the Exchequer because he thought we were having it too good and that government spending should be cut. Somewhere on the Labour benches rests ex-TUC chief Len Murray, exhausted by his adoption of something called the New Realism, which was actually no more than an appreciation of the fact that there is a slump on and that it will weaken the unions' bargaining power.

Exposing themselves to the TV cameras is likely to do the Lords no harm. Indeed, it has already given a lot of publicity to Stockton's patronising of the miners and to Scarman's call for a Bill of Rights (people who have already been denied their "rights" in police cells and prisons will wonder what difference another law will make). Parliament has always needed the media, whatever form it takes, but it has always tried to control how and when the media reported on it. The objections to live TV reporting were the same as those used against radio and. a long time before, against the presence of newspaper reporters. Such publicity, it was said, would encourage demagogic speeches aimed at a wider audience outside, it would lead to ministers taking up too much debating time, it would reduce spontaneity and emphasise the theatrical elements of parliament at the expense of the workaday. These objections were usually put most strongly by those members who feared that they would fail to get into the limelight; as far back as the 1950s slick parliamentary performers like Ian Macleod. Jo Grimond and Aneurin Bevan were in favour of allowing the TV cameras into the Commons.

Parliament's readiness to compromise with the media has been ensured by the Members' need to win votes for their party. It was in the late 19th century that the parliamentary timetable, which had hitherto been set by seedtime and the harvest, began to take account of the requirements of the press. This was encouraged by the rise of the popular newspapers (the Daily Mail was launched, as a halfpenny newspaper, in 1896) and the decline of the morning provincial papers (between 1900 and 1940 their numbers fell from 52 to 25). In 1850 a separate press gallery was first set aside. In 1902 Arthur Balfour, conceding that "We must arrange our proceedings. I presume, so that they may be reported in the newspapers that have currency all over the country", brought Question Time in the Commons forward so as to meet press deadlines.

The result of the publicity has to some extent been as predicted. The parliamentary exhibitionists, the specialists in newsworthy subjects and the headline-conscious Members have been encouraged at the expense of the heavy, soporific speechmakers. It has also, more crucially, given an opportunity to the listeners and the viewers, who have the power of the vote at their disposal, to see how the people they vote for do the job of running capitalism. The voters can now witness. as it happens, all the sound and fury of Neil Kinnock shadow boxing with Margaret Thatcher over some trivial difference in their policies for British capitalism. They can view the political cast-offs in the House of Lords reviewing the state of British capitalism as if their own failure to operate the system in the interests of the mass of people had never happened. They can watch mature people playing games in archaic dress, except that they should beware that behind this seeming tomfoolery lurks the awesome power of the state machine.

There can be no doubt that it is progressive and encouraging, that workers should be able to observe all of this. The important thing is how they absorb it — and how they interpret what they absorb. Will they conclude that titles and rituals are of little account; what matters is that it is by the overwhelming preference of the working class that the power to monopolise the means of life is given to a small parasitic elite? Will they see it as further evidence of the decadence of capitalism and of the urgent need to act on the issue of who controls the state machine and for what purpose? Or will they miss the whole point and regard it all as just another soap opera, even if it is one which they can't switch off when they've had enough?

Ivan

How many die of famine? (1985)

From the March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are two short answers to this question. One is that we don't know and the other that it depends what you mean by "die of starvation".

Obviously in those parts of the world affected by hunger the last thing doctors and government officials do is fill in death certificates setting out the cause of death, and even if they did there would be no guarantee that they would be using the same criteria from country to country. So we are dealing here not with accurate information but with informed guesses based on what statistical evidence there is.

The word "starve" in English has two meanings: it can either mean to die from lack of food or it can mean to suffer from lack of food. An ambiguity can easily arise here: when we say someone dies from lack of food, do we mean that they literally die from not eating (as Bobby Sands and other hunger strikers did) or that they died as a result of some disease from which they might not have died had they not been suffering from lack of food? Clearly the figures for the former are going to be much lower than those for the latter.

Some absurd figures

In the course of the 1981 presidential election campaign in France, Mitterrand went on record as saying that "50 million human beings die from hunger each year" (La Croix, 18 May 1981). It is not too clear how this figure got into circulation but it came to be widely quoted by charitable organisations in France. It was not until a year later that an expert in the field. Professor Joseph Klatzmann of the Institut National Agronomique in Paris, showed how absurd this figure was by pointing out that the total world deaths in 1981 were about 48 million (Le Monde, 24 March 1982)! This refutation of the claim of 50 million deaths from hunger was also incorporated in the second edition of his book Nourrir Dix Milliards d'Hommes? ("Can Ten Thousand Million People Be Fed?") published in 1983. in which he argued that using existing agricultural techniques world food production could be increased two or three times so as to be able adequately to feed every single man. woman and child on the planet and if necessary more, up to the 10.000 million mentioned in the title of his book. So Klatzmann is no defender of the existing capitalist status quo where millions suffer unnecessarily from hunger and malnutrition.

On 5 August 1981 the Guardian claimed in its Third World Review that:

  Every year 30 million people die of hunger, more than half of them children under five.

  Every year 780 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

  By the end of this decade these figures will have doubled.

At first sight this seems more reasonable since the number of deaths claimed to be due to hunger is at least less than the total number of deaths from all causes. But on closer examination it too turns out to be absurd.

If 30 million of the 50 million deaths in 1980 were due to hunger this would leave only 20 million for deaths from other causes. If this figure of 30 million deaths from hunger were true, it is logical to assume that all these deaths would have occurred among the 780 million suffering from hunger and malnutrition (the one figure quoted here by the Guardian not open to challenge, if anything it is probably on the low side). If we also assume that the death rate among the remaining 3,650 million of the then total world population of 4,430 million was the same as that in the developed countries — about 9 per 1,000 — this would mean that 33 million would have died in 1980 from causes other than hunger. But this is more than 20 million, so the figure of 30 million can't be right.

As to the claim that by 1990 the number of deaths from hunger will have doubled to 60 million, this is just as absurd as the 50 million figure mentioned earlier, since it too is higher than current estimates for all deaths in the world in 1990.

The basic figures

All estimates of the number of deaths in the world are derived from figures published regularly by the United Nations. These are prepared on the basis of national population statistics. The latest set of figures was published in 1982 under the title World Population Prospects as Assessed in 1980. The following Table has been prepared from the statistics given in this document :

This table shows:

1. That world population in 1980 was estimated at being 4,430 million.
2. That about a quarter of the world's population live in the developed countries, defined as being Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the USSR.
3. That the number of deaths in the world in 1980 was estimated as being 50.5 million, about 40 million of which occurred among the three-quarters of the world's population living in the underdeveloped countries.
4. That nearly 15 million children under ten years of age died in 1980, all but about 300,000 of them in the underdeveloped countries.

Interpreting the figures

The first point to notice is that the figures often quoted by UNICEF (UN Childrens Fund) of 40,000 young children dying a day in the world is correct (40,000 X 365 = 14.6 million). But it should be noted that the Executive Director of UNICEF. James P. Grant, when he first launched this figure in the early 1980s, did not attribute all these deaths to hunger alone. What he actually said was:

  every day of this last year more than 40,000 young children have died from malnutrition and infection (The State of the World's Children 1982-3. UNICEF, quoted in Hunger Project Handout "The "Other" UN", p.5).

So Grant was not saying that 40,000 children die a day from inanition, from not consuming enough food to keep them alive. Most of them died from parasitic or infectious diseases of one kind or another which is what you'd expect in fact, since children under ten don't die from natural causes — but he did strongly argue that the spread of these diseases and their effect were made easier and more devastating by the fact that nearly all the children were already suffering from malnutrition in one form or another.

Thus the claim is that 40,000 children a day die from the combined effects of malnutrition and disease. In this form, and only in this form, is the claim correct. If the "and disease" is omitted then it becomes misleading as this would suggest that 40,000 children die a day simply from lack of food — which, factually is just not the case. This clarification allows us to see how a claim such as the Guardian's "every year 30 million people die of hunger" could have got into circulation. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), most people in the underdeveloped countries die of diseases related to inadequate water and sanitation. Thus Susan George in her excellent How The Other Half Dies (first published in 1976) writes that

  in the Third World 70 per cent of the people die of parasitic or infectious disease for which hunger provides the favourable terrain (Penguin edition, p.32).

On the basis of estimated population and death trends in the mid-70s when George was writing her book, this would mean that there were then about 25 million deaths in the underdeveloped countries attributable to these diseases. It is easy to see how somebody eager to do something about world hunger, sincere but not too careful about statistics, could turn George's carefully-worded statement into a full-blown claim that 30 million people actually starve to death each year. George herself makes no such claim and is considerably more cautious. In her introduction (in a passage which is also quoted on the back cover of the book) she writes:

  If it takes you six hours to read this book, somewhere in the world 2.500 people will have died of starvation or of hunger-related illness by the time you finish.

This is equivalent to 10,000 deaths a day. or 3.65 million a year, from "starvation and hunger-related illness"; which is a much more defendable figure for the number of people who die because they literally do not have enough to eat, together with those who die from protein or vitamin deficiency diseases like kwashiorkor and beri-beri (as opposed to the parasitic and infectious diseases mentioned earlier).

People do die of starvation (inanition) in the world today (under capitalism there is always a famine somewhere in the world — last year it was North-East Brazil, this year it is Ethiopia) but nowhere near 30 million. To quote such a demonstrably exaggerated figure is to weaken the credibility of those who do so, and is quite unnecessary since the case against capitalism on this question is strong enough without exaggerating. The knowledge, resources and machines exist to provide enough food for every single human being on the planet yet capitalism, because of its property and profit basis, does not allow this to happen, so condemning millions to malnutrition and diseases and. as we shall now see, to preventable death.

Preventable deaths

The second point that emerges from the basic figures is that, if the same health standards (clean running water, vaccinations, regular medical care) applied in the underdeveloped countries as in the developed countries, then the number of world deaths would be considerably less than they are. Since, from a technological point of view, it is possible both to produce enough food to eliminate malnutrition in the world and to provide adequate water supplies and health care for every man. woman and child on the planet, these deaths can objectively be regarded as being "preventable". They are deaths that can be laid at the door of capitalism in the sense that if society were geared to catering for human needs (as it would be in socialism) they would not happen.

How many such "preventable" deaths can there be each year? A very simple calculation allows us to estimate a minimum figure. As the Table shows, the death rate in the developed countries is 9.4 per thousand while in the underdeveloped countries it is 12.1 per thousand. If the death rate were 9.4 per thousand throughout the world then only 41 million would have died in 1980 compared with the 50 million who are estimated to have died that year.

But this difference of nine million is, as we have said, only the minimum figure for preventable deaths. The death rate depends not only on health and sanitation standards but also on the age structure of the population. Since the population of the underdeveloped countries is on average younger than that of the developed countries the death rate, if the developed countries' health and sanitation standards prevailed throughout the world, would have been lower than 9.4 per thousand. Calculations based on the figures in the 1982 UN population report referred to above suggest that it would have been between six and seven per thousand. This would mean that world deaths in 1980 would have been as low as 32 million. In other words, that preventable deaths will be of the order of 17 or 18 million a year.

A closer examination of the figures show that most of these preventable deaths are those of young children. If the death rate for children under five and for children under ten had been the same in the underdeveloped countries as in the developed countries. then 10 million children under five and 13.5 million under ten (including the under fives) would not have died.

We can now estimate how many people died in 1980, not "from hunger", but from a combination of malnutrition and parasitic and infectious diseases caused by the conditions under which capitalism forces over half mankind to live: about 17 million, of which about 13 million were children under ten.

A final word of warning. This estimate refers to the year 1980 while the basic statistics on which it was based change as the years go by (for instance, the world population is going up and the world death rate going down). In time then these figures will need to be revised, upwards or downwards, in the light of new statistical evidence.

Adam Buick