Biodiversity loss and the capitalist economy (2021)

From the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

 

The Dasgupta review: 600 pages on how capitalism destroys nature, with no mention of capitalism.

In February a 600-page review commissioned by the Treasury titled ‘The Economics of Biodiversity’ was published. The author — Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Cambridge — set out to analyse the effect of the economy on nature, describing how, at current rates of consumption, the loss of biodiversity will soon be too expensive and may likely be catastrophic, and suggested that the way-out of the crisis is to give up GDP as the measure of economic progress.

Global warming enjoys a lot more attention than biodiversity loss but, as beneficial as slashing greenhouse gas emissions is, underestimating the likely impact of biodiversity loss could prove to be a deadly mistake. As the Dasgupta Review points out, many ecosystems, including tropical forests, wetlands and coral reefs, have already been degraded beyond repair, which, according to Dasgupta, ‘could have catastrophic consequences for our economies and wellbeing’.

Humanity’s impact

Humanity’s impact on the natural world is severe: animal populations have dropped by around 70 percent since 1970, and only 4 percent of the world’s mammals are wild; in effect, we are living during the sixth mass extinction of life on the planet. And it is not only about living beings: according to the Review, only in the last two decades, the stock of ‘natural capital’ per person fell by 40 percent. What Dasgupta means by ‘natural capital’ is not only the share of animals and plants per global citizen, but also their share of breathable air, drinkable water and soil in which to grow food; so the rapid reduction of these most basic prerequisites for life is truly alarming. Fringe high-tech solutions or short-term financial fixes that do not tackle this problem head-on would just squander the valuable resources we urgently need for our very survival.

The Review states:

  ‘Our economies and well-being depend on our most precious asset: Nature. Our demands far exceed Nature’s capacity to supply us with the goods and services we rely on, so that to keep the present rate of consumption, we would need 2 to 4 Earths by 2050 (depending on the speed of population growth). Once an extinction tipping point is reached, it is exceedingly expensive or impossible to reverse the damage, which fundamentally puts under question the prosperity of future generations.’

So far so good, and these are all valid and important points. But what does the Review say about what lies at the heart of the problem, and how to solve it? According to Dasgupta, 

the problem is two-fold: the first part is the market failure, as most natural assets are undervalued or even free, and so we do not invest in them; in addition, it is an institutional failure because governments subsidise the destruction of Nature (for example by supporting fossil fuel companies) at the rate of US$4 to 6 trillion per year, while giving only US$68 billion (or about 1 percent of the ‘destruction fund’) for its protection.

This formulation of the main problems, however, raises several questions. It assumes that the market is somehow unable to cope with this particular problem, so it needs to be regulated by governments, and that the governments in turn are not doing their jobs well — which is why we have this crisis on our hands. Calling this a market failure means assuming that the market normally takes into account real costs of materials and services. Yet in our globalised economy, where one person’s wages are hundreds of times higher than another’s; where you can get millions for making your computer perform incredibly complex calculations (like bitcoin mining) that help nothing or nobody at all and require enormous amounts of electrical power; where it is cheaper to ship ‘sustainable’ clothes from around the world, only to trash them into ‘recycling’ containers that will be shipped all the way back to never get recycled; where the price of oil went negative last year — in this economy, undervalued assets are not an error or an exception. In fact it is rather a common occurrence that we must acknowledge if we want to understand the forces influencing the current crisis.

Of course, government subsidies to fossil fuels facilitate exploitation of Nature, but Dasgupta fails to see that what drives this exploitation — the motivational principle at the very foundation of the economic system is making a profit. It is simply profitable to exploit Nature, and this is why it is being exploited. Yet somehow professors of economics and company CEOs go out of their way to make up excuses, thinking up complex theories and explanations — all this only to avoid facing up to the truth. As long as we have a monetary, for-profit economic system that makes growth and accumulation of capital the biggest impetus for productive activities, we will continue to be plagued by wastefulness, perverse luxury, inequality, dehumanisation, and yes, rapacious exploitation and loss of the very natural environment that gives us life and nurtures us.

Set up to fail

What should we do then in order to solve this “market and institutional failure”, according to the Review?

Dasgupta notes that ‘the very first step is to understand that our economies are embedded within Nature, not external to it.’ The almost exponential economic growth in the last 100 years, with all the resources it has been devouring, does not seem very likely to be sustainable for much longer, as we would run out of forests to burn and fish to catch. Dasgupta is aware that capitalist theory has been debating a way out of this conundrum by devising various schemes to reroute almost all economic growth from resource-intensive activities such as heavy industry into the virtual and services areas (like software development, entertainment, etc), so that it would get decoupled from resource use, and we would be able to happily continue to invest in the market and make more and more money, ad infinitum.

He takes a bold step in his Review when he explains, with some calculations and copious literature citations, that this is not likely to be possible. Simply put, increased profits inevitably lead to increased spending, and that almost always involves the use of raw materials. Even virtual activities are not ‘free’. For instance, data processing centres require increasingly large amounts of energy (for perspective, Bitcoin has a carbon footprint comparable to that of Argentina), and over 60 percent of the world energy still comes from burning fossil fuels. 

Dasgupta emphasises that the current path presents extreme risks, and that truly sustainable development would need a ‘different path, where our engagements with Nature are not only sustainable, but also enhance our collective wealth and well-being, and that of our descendants’. He offers three broad recommendations of solutions, not one of which, however, directly addresses the clear logic of capitalist, for-profit destruction of Nature.

Ineffective recommendations

The first recommendation is to reduce demands on Nature by increasing efficiency and utilising so-called ‘quantity restrictions’ rather than pricing mechanisms. In other words, Dasgupta advises against relying on the market, even with the usual interventions of price controls, as it is unlikely to work. What will work now, according to him, is to ban certain practices, for example to fence off more and more natural habitats and prohibit any kind of commercial activity there. While it is encouraging that the Review acknowledges that markets are not the key to solving this problem, government regulation — even though there are several examples of successful species recovery or habitat restoration — will not be able to reverse the effects of the overall economic system that is fundamentally based on the principle of resource consumption and growth. Such restriction measures are akin to attempts to stop the flow of a river with an obstacle — the water (or money) will inexorably find its way around, as we have seen happen time and time again.

The second recommendation is to ‘change our measures of economic success’ from GDP, which does not take into account things you don’t directly use for profit-making, like rare animal species or human happiness, to something Dasgupta calls ‘inclusive wealth’. This new measure of economic success would include natural assets, so if you gain a monetary profit while decreasing the pool of available natural resources, your overall measure of wealth would not grow. This new concept, however, is proposed as a means to improve national accounting systems. What happens when you eat into another country’s natural wealth? It is common practice nowadays that developed countries import raw materials for their technologically sophisticated exports from poorer countries that have little else to offer the globalised market (and trade agreements and IMF loans make sure it stays that way). To really work, this system would have to have all countries in the world agree to it, and so far even a seemingly straightforward worldwide tax agreement that would help alleviate the burden of tax evasion seems beyond reach. Maybe the reason it has been so elusive thus far is this very disconnect between the powers-that-be, on the one hand, demanding a fair distribution of wealth and, on the other hand, actively promoting and rewarding the accumulation of capital.

In his third recommendation, Dasgupta proposes the creation of supranational institutional arrangements to charge for the use of Nature and to then use this money to support these arrangements. He calls on businesses and financial institutions to integrate Nature-related considerations into their strategies. Finally, he suggests that the ultimate responsibility for sustainability lies with us as individuals.

Conclusion

All in all, there are definitely many valuable points in the Review, especially considering that they come from an established economist. At the same time, the proposed conclusions and recommendations show that, functioning for so long within the system, Dasgupta is unable to see beyond its borders, to think outside the box, and so is oblivious to the underlying imperative of capitalist logic that demands profits above all else, and at the expense of everything else, and which is leading us all on the march to devour the planet itself. That would explain why in the 600 pages of the Review the word capitalism is only mentioned once, and even that referred to a description of some academic economics theory that had nothing to do with our current biodiversity crisis or its underlying processes.

In his article ‘The Non-Monetary Economy’ Edgar S. Cahn estimated that, if valued in monetary terms, non-monetary components of the economy, such as household labour and civic activity, would be equivalent to almost 50 percent of GDP (Link). This shows that, as social and intelligent animals, we are happy to work for what we believe is necessary and will help our loved ones and our communities, even when we are not getting paid.

If we are serious about surviving and leaving our planet to our descendants in a liveable state, without a huge environmental debt impossible to settle, what we really need is not just to abandon GDP as the measure of economic success, but to urgently abandon altogether the monetary, for-profit economy itself and to embrace the socialist system of resource administration as the truly humane, sustainable and fair system of social and economic organisation that respects nature and the scientific principles of its management.

Roy Auss

Reformist essays (2021)

Book Review from the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard 

An Inheritance for Our Times. Principles and Politics of Democratic Socialism. Edited by Gregory Smulewicz-Zucker and Michael J. Thompson. OR Books, 2020. 412pp.

This book announces itself as ‘a reader that includes essays in the form of both personal accounts and intellectual arguments from activists and theorists advocating a democratic socialist outlook’. The essays, 30 in number, are written mainly by American academics, but the language used by most is not overly academic making it a fairly readable collection and with a political range far wider than just the USA.

The editors’ introduction sets the scene trenchantly: ‘The mass-consumption society erected over the course of the twentieth century for the purpose of generating never-ending surplus for the few and political quiescence for the many has metastasised into a global form of life’. The society they are talking about here of course is capitalism and most of the contributions that follow are directed at proposing ways in which capitalism can be improved on or replaced by something better, usually referred to as socialism.

The trouble is, as we all know, there are many ‘versions’ of socialism and most of the contributors, however well intentioned, propose ‘socialisms’ that most Socialist Standard readers would not recognise as the society of common ownership and democratic organisation that the Socialist Party has put forward over the 117 years of its existence. What the essays mainly argue for is a variety of more or less radical re-shapings of capitalism but not its abolition with the establishment of a moneyless, marketless system of production and distribution based on ‘from each according to ability to each according to need’. So though framed in terms of, for example, the replacement of ‘production for profit with production for social need’, when looked at closely what is usually envisioned is a ‘fairer’, more ‘equal’ form of the money system.

So while in his essay ‘Essential Socialism’, Fernando Gasparin argues correctly that struggles over reforms are, in Rosa Luxemburg’s words, ‘a labour of Sisyphus’ and that ‘each reform successfully rolled up the hill can roll back down again’, this does not prevent him arguing that ‘socialism needs a constitutional provision providing for public democratic control of banks and financial institutions’. Nor is it uncommon in the collection to find references to socialism coexisting with the market, as in the chapter by David Schweickart entitled ‘Marxist Market Socialism’. In another chapter, ‘Socialism and the Democratisation of Finance’ by Fred Block, there is reference to ‘a democratised financial system’ as part of the ‘regulatory apparatus of socialism’. Most of the contributors find it difficult to envision the stateless society that socialism must be. For Lester Spence, for example, in his essay entitled ‘The Democratic Socialist Imaginary’, ‘democratic socialism’ is defined as ‘a state form that combines public ownership of the means of production with a form of government based on popular elections and popular means of creating government policy and state institutions’. Elsewhere the currently popular concept of a guaranteed basic income figures strongly, as do other ‘socialist’ ideas such as ‘worker cooperatives’ and the ‘model’ of Scandinavian social democracy.

On the positive side, there seems at least to be general agreement among contributors that what happened in Russia in 1917 and developed from that was a bogus, or at least distorted, version of socialism (‘state domination, a hierarchically organised command economy, ruthless industrialization, antidemocratic political institutions’, as one writer puts it) and that those groups on the Left who still see some virtue in Lenin’s Bolshevik takeover and put the failure of the Soviet system down to Stalin prevailing over Trotsky are also barking up the wrong tree. And in a number of these essays, the modern-day supporters of Lenin and Trotsky who still insist on the need for a vanguard party to lead workers to overthrow capitalism are given short shrift. In his chapter, ‘What is Socialism?’, Stephen Bronner explains how Leninist ‘democratic centralism’ can only lead to authoritarian rule by a minority. Smulewicz-Jucker (‘Democratic Socialism contra Populism’) sees Leninism as calling for ‘an elite party leadership to determine the working class’s true interests’.

A number of writers too remind us that Marx, regardless of how his writing has been used and abused over the last 150 years, did not see socialism (or communism, and we are reminded that the words were used interchangeably by Marx) as state ownership but as common ownership, entailing the abolition of the wages system and free access to all goods and services. Rohini Hensman, in her ‘Marx and Engels on Socialism’, correctly points out that in Marx’s concept of socialism ‘all class divisions will have been abolished… Products will not be sold as commodities, and there will be no money. Labour time will be minimised and free time will be maximised. Since capitalism is global, it follows that socialism would be global too’, and ‘Marx and Engels repeatedly make it clear that there will be no state in a socialist society’.

Support for this vision seems to be present in some of the essays in this collection. For example, Barbara Epstein, in ‘What Socialism Means’, states: ‘Socialism refers to the goal of an economically egalitarian society based on cooperation rather than on competition and the exploitation by some of the labour of others.’ Peter Hudis (’Democratic Socialism and the Transition to Genuine Democracy’) reminds us of Rosa Luxemburg’s dictum that ‘there is no socialism without democracy and no democracy without socialism’ and makes it clear that socialism needs ‘a global transformation’. Yet that writer, like others who seem to express support for this view of socialism, tend in the end to fall back on ‘in the meantime’ or (as one writer puts it) ‘incremental progress’ reformist prescriptions of one kind or another. This ‘in the meantime’ mentality (which is in fact a prescription for never getting to socialism) is well encapsulated by Hudis himself when he states: ‘Democratic socialism requires involving masses of people in a political project that fights for and secures needed reforms while focusing on the long-term need to transcend capitalism.’

In the midst of all this, however, the book does contain some strikingly pithy insights into the pathology of capitalism and also into the essential features of socialism. Examples are: Lester Spence’s description of schools as ‘spaces designed to inculcate market behaviour in parents, students, staff and administration’; Wilson Sherwin’s (‘Less Work For All! Reclaiming a Forgotten Socialist Aspiration’) characterisation of an increasingly brutal workplace as ‘hustle culture’; Steve Fraser’s standout piece in the collection (‘Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy’) where he states: ‘No matter what its form, capitalist democracy commodifies its world and first of all its human inhabitants. They live as vessels of labour power and as empty receptacles of the goods and services and delusions of consumer culture’; and finally Smulewicz-Zucker quoting Kautsky’s description of socialism as ‘the abolition of every kind of exploitation and oppression, be it directed against a class, a party, a sex, or a race’.

Howard Moss

Material World: The ‘Polar Silk Road’ (2021)

The Material World Column from the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, and has a Gross Domestic Product of around $3 billion – similar to the Faroe Islands, another semi-autonomous Danish possession. That GDP is about to change if the multinational mining corporations have their way.

Various mining companies are vying for mining rights. Greenland’s royalties expect to be around 1.5 billion Danish crowns ($245 million) each year from a Chinese-linked corporation – equivalent to roughly 15 percent of Greenland’s public spending, and such revenues could give it leverage over politics in Greenland. Already disputes on policies towards mining have caused ructions within Greenland’s government.

Greenland possesses vast resources of metals known as ‘rare earths,’ the world’s biggest undeveloped deposits, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). They are crucial in modern technology manufacturing and the renewable energy industry. The prices of many rare earth elements have jumped in anticipation of rising demand for electric vehicles. China accounts for about 90 percent of global supply and back in 2010 China threatened to cut off its sale of rare earth metals to Japan so there exist concerns about the need to reduce reliance upon China. Other states require a counterbalance to any market control that could be exerted by a single large producer and Greenland’s huge deposits could secure a solution for many years to come. Always with an eye for valuable real estate, Trump in 2019 offered to buy the island (in 1946 Harry S. Truman offered Denmark $100 million for it.) A year after Trump’s failed bid, the United States announced a $12.1 million economic aid package for Greenland to increase its influence.

Apart from its potential assets another reason for American renewed interest is that China is expanding its interests in Greenland. China views Greenland as a part of what they call the ‘Polar Silk Road’ and one of the interested mining companies happens to be partly-Chinese owned. China may be a thousand miles away but as the second largest economy in the world, it has no intention of being left out in the cold. Klaus Dodds, professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London, explained ‘The Chinese have made no secret that they have their eyes on the Arctic’s fish and minerals.’

In 2016, Denmark reversed plans to sell a former naval command centre after a Hong Kong-based company, General Nice Group, emerged as a bidder. Later in 2018, the then US Defense Secretary James Mattis successfully pressured Denmark not to allow China to finance three commercial airports on Greenland, over fears they could give Beijing a military foothold.

‘China can access Arctic resources through foreign investment,’ Michael Byers, an Arctic expert at the University of British Columbia said. ‘And foreign investment is a lot cheaper than trying to conquer something.’

Whereas environmentalists fear large-scale mining could harm the remote island’s pristine eco-system, many of the 56,000 Greenlanders, while worried about pollution, see mining as the key to developing their economy which will end the economic dependence upon Denmark and set Greenland on the road to full sovereignty. Long before the UK’s Brexit, Greenland held a referendum and subsequently withdrew from the EU in 1985.

‘An independent Greenland could, for example, offer basing rights to either Russia or China or both,’ said Fen Hampson, head of the international security programme at the Canadian Centre for International Governance Innovation think tank, noting the desire by some to fully secede from Denmark. ‘I am not saying this would happen, but it is a scenario that would have major geo-strategic implications, especially if the Northwest Passage becomes a transit route for shipping, which is what is happening in the Russian Arctic.’

The melting ice means long-distance sea passages, such as the Northern Sea Route (NSR) from eastern Siberia to the North Atlantic, are increasingly navigable. Sailing a container ship from China to northern Europe via the NSR can substantially shorten the journey time via the Indian Ocean and Suez canal.

All this competition over territory, trade routes, resources and mining rights are disputes about the division of spoils between our masters. It is they and not us who exercise power. Our Greenland fellow-workers will eventually come to comprehend that their ‘independence’ will be in name only and should not be fooled by extravagant promises and lucrative pledges.

ALJO

Election Communications (2021)

Party News from the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

  In the elections on 6 May the Socialist Party is contesting the Cardiff Central seat in the Welsh Assembly and two wards in Folkestone in the Kent County Council elections. Some 43,000 election manifestos will be distributed in Cardiff by Royal Mail while in Kent about 26,500 electors will be offered the choice of voting Socialist.

Welsh Parliament Cardiff Central 6 May 2021

‘Great Resets’

The pandemic has led to much thrilling talk about Great Resets and rethinking the future. Wales’s 6th election since devolution is taking place on 6 May. Do you think that’s going to cause a Great Reset or even much change at all?

You know very well it won’t.

And why not?

Because most of the candidates don’t want change. Instead they will be wittering on about how they propose to fix the faulty system we live under – capitalism – so it’s maybe a tiny bit better for you and yours. But every politician says this. In every party. In every election. And they never really fix anything.

The reason they can’t fix capitalism’s problems is because capitalism IS the problem.

If you want to vote for these hopeless ‘fixers’ on 6 May, go right ahead. If you expect change, don’t hold your breath.

But one of the candidates isn’t saying any of this. Brian Johnson of the Socialist Party of Great Britain says you can’t fix capitalism, because it only works for the tiny minority who possess most of the wealth. And if you can’t fix it, you certainly shouldn’t vote for it.

Especially as there’s an alternative.

Capitalism has revolutionised our science and technology so that we can now produce a global sufficiency of the basics of life. That means we could abolish buying and selling, take the world back from the rich, and run it collectively as a communally owned resource.

It’s not ‘human nature’ that’s causing poverty, inequality, wars and global warming. It’s the fact that we have a 21st-century planet being trashed by an obsolete 19th-century economic system that gives all the power to the tiny minority.

Universal free access would be simpler, cheaper, faster, smarter, a genuine Great Reset.

Vote for Brian Johnson if you like the idea of real change.

Alternatively, there’s always your trusty ‘fixers’.

Further information and offers of help: botterillr@gmail.com Phone: 02920-615826.

 

Folkestone Council Elections 6 May 2021

We can do better than this!

The residents of Folkestone know all too well the powerlessness of life under capitalism. The system that demands that nothing is made, built or planted unless someone, somewhere can profit from it.

The construction of monstrous blocks of ‘high end’ apartments along Marine Parade – with the harbour next – have nothing to do with solving Folkestone’s housing crisis, and everything to do with raking in huge profits for developers. Developers are not paid to care about the homeless, those living in sub-standard accommodation or the young struggling to afford rocketing private rents at a time of rising unemployment and economic crisis.

But it’s easy to blame developers. They are as much at the mercy of the profit system as the rest of us – although their wealth cushions them from its worst effects. Doubtless they would much rather build beautiful homes that fit the scale of Folkestone and meet the needs of local people. But that’s not why houses are built under capitalism.

Now imagine a society where all of us, not just in Folkestone but across the world, actually own the resources of the world. Where we decide together what we build based on people’s needs, not just the demands of the profit system. Then what could Marine Parade, the harbour and Princes Parade look like?

In this election only the Socialist Party stands for the total abolition of the profit system and its replacement by a global society based on the common ownership and democratic control of all the resources of our amazing planet.

It’s time to consign capitalism to the dustbin of history.

Further information and offers of help: Email: spgb.ksrb@worldsocialism.org Mobile: 07971 71556

Giants Unslain (2021)

From the April 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1942 Sir William Beveridge published a report under the unexciting title Social Insurance and Allied Services. It has become famous as the founding document of the post-war welfare state, and has supposedly led to major improvements in the lives of most British citizens. In fact, it achieved very much less than this, as the report itself just referred to ‘a redistribution of income within the wage-earning classes’, and stated that its proposals for social insurance should merely ‘aim at guaranteeing the minimum income needed for subsistence’. The following year the Socialist Party published a pamphlet Beveridge Re-Organises Poverty, which concluded that the proposals would ‘level the workers’ position as a whole’ and so would indeed be ‘a redistribution of poverty’.

Beveridge identified ‘five giant evils’, which were capitalised as Want (i.e. poverty), Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness. How has the battle against these fared in the nearly eighty years since the report was produced? On its 75th anniversary, Stephen Armstrong wrote in The Guardian (10 October 2017) that, after the period of relative prosperity that lasted till the late 1970s, the giants were now ‘creeping back into the mainstream of our daily life’. Not very much has changed in the short period since then. Let’s look at each giant in turn, combining general points and statistics with specific examples.

At the end of last year it was reported that more than a million of the UK’s poorest people are regularly struggling to pay for food. Independent food banks reported a doubling of the number of emergency food parcels handed out in 2020 compared to the year before. The Trussell Trust stated that ‘half of all households visiting food banks struggled to afford essential goods such as food and clothes because they were repaying Universal Credit debts’ (Guardian 1 December). This is a welfare system which is supposed to keep people above the level of going without, ensuring that they do not have to choose between eating and heating. But it clearly fails to provide even ‘the minimum income needed for subsistence’, in Beveridge’s words.

Covid has increased the numbers in poverty, but it is not the underlying cause. According to one analysis, an extra 700,000 people had been thrust into poverty by the pandemic. In all, over 15 million people (nearly a quarter of the population) were living in poverty, and for the great majority of those the disruption caused by Covid was not responsible.

Turning to disease, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has stated that, among the poorest and second poorest fifth of the population, more than one in four children between ten and fifteen experienced moderate or severe mental health difficulties. The poorest fifth have at birth a healthy life expectancy around fifteen years less than the least deprived fifth. More generally, life expectancy is increasing in Western Europe, but in the UK the rise slowed dramatically between 2011 and 2015; austerity and reduced spending on health services are at least partly to blame for this, according to a 2017 article in the British Medical Journal. The same article noted that there were major disparities between health care in the north and south of England, with economic disadvantages being responsible for the north being left behind.

A 2019 report from the World Health Organization noted that five-year cancer survival rates are worse in the United Kingdom compared to other high-income countries in the EU. Over a million people experienced ‘catastrophic spending on health services’, primarily on over-the-counter medicines.

Last year the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health published a report State of Child Health 2020. This noted that there had been improvements in some areas, such as better health checks for those with diabetes, and improved oral health, but in other areas there were problems. The rate of infant mortality increased slightly in England in 2017, while over a third of children aged 10 or 11 in England were obese or overweight. And again it was the poorest areas that had the most problems. Further, it was recently reported that black women in the UK are four times more likely than white women to die in pregnancy or childbirth, with those in deprived areas more likely to die.

Ignorance was described by Beveridge as something that ‘no democracy can afford among its citizens’; after all, capitalism needs a reasonably educated workforce. In the 1930s the vast majority of children left school at age fourteen with no formal qualifications, and the proportion of the population attending university was well below that in other countries, such as Germany and the US.

Things have changed since then, of course, but many problems remain. The National Literacy Trust states that one adult in six is functionally illiterate, with ‘very poor literacy skills’, and so has difficulty reading on unfamiliar topics. In England in 2019, one in thirteen of those aged 16–64 had no qualifications. Many students from poorer backgrounds struggle with parts of the education system, especially the transition to university.

By squalor was meant primarily housing conditions. Shelter reported in 2019 that 280,000 people were recorded as being homeless in England, i.e. one in every two hundred people (and one in 52 in London). And 220,000 had been threatened with homelessness that year. It is generally accepted that these figures are an underestimate, as so much homelessness is undocumented. People are forced to sofa-surf or live in dire hostels or B&Bs. Living on the street has an appalling effect on a person’s mental and physical health, reducing their life expectancy by many years.

It is not just being without a home that causes problems. A recent article in The Guardian (12 January) dealt with a block of flats in Islington where residents went without water for four and a half days after the mains pipe exploded and the PFI consortium that managed it simply failed to carry out the necessary repairs. More widely, an estimated 8.4 million people in England are living in a home that is unaffordable, insecure or unsuitable, according to the National Housing Federation.

But squalor (or unsafe living conditions) need not just be a matter of housing, and the growth of large cities is another factor. It was recently ruled by a coroner that the death of a nine-year-old girl in London in 2013 was partly caused by air pollution, specifically nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter pollution in excess of WHO guidelines, mainly the result of traffic emissions.

Idleness, Beveridge said, ‘destroys wealth and corrupts men’. The depression that began in 1929 had led to mass unemployment, with one-fifth of the workforce being unemployed in 1930. Reducing this was widely seen as essential for the health of the economy.

Unemployment figures go up and down over time. In the three months to October 2020, the UK unemployment rate was 4.9 percent, 1.2 percentage points higher than a year earlier. The rise is partly due to coronavirus, of course, and there were a quarter of a million fewer vacancies than a year before. The annual decrease in employment was the largest annual reduction since 2010. In all, 8.6 million people were economically inactive, and a record number had been made redundant. Moreover, many jobs nowadays are zero-hours. So idleness has certainly not been overcome.

The point here is not to over-emphasise the dire conditions so many face now, or to understate the appalling situation in the 1930s. Rather, it is to show how little has been achieved in nearly eight decades despite the best efforts of reformers, and to point out how many problems remain. The giants of the 30s and 40s still haunt present-day society, and it will take a revolutionary change to do away with them completely.

Paul Bennett

Cooking the Books: Tories increase tax on profits (2021)

The Cooking the Books column from the April 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the surprising measures announced by Rishi Sunak in his budget on 3 March was the increase of corporation tax from its current level of 19 percent to 25 percent in 2023. Corporation tax is a direct tax on profits, so not something to be expected from the traditional party of Big Business.

Rumours that this might be on the cards completely wrong-footed the Labour Party. Keir Starmer had asked Johnston at PMQs on 24 February whether he would not ‘agree with me today that now is not the time for tax increases for families and businesses’. This led to an article in The Times the following day headed ‘Tory rebels and Labour ready to block corporation tax increase’. To be fair, this brought protests from some Labour MPs who remembered that in its manifesto for the 2019 general election the Labour Party had proposed to increase corporation tax to 26 percent.

Starmer backed down but the fact that he was prepared to present Labour as a defender of Big Business and its profits showed the extent to which the Labour Party is committed to maintaining capitalism more or less as it is (as well as assuring the capitalist class that their interests will be in a safe pair of hands if he becomes Prime Minister). Given this, Starmer’s position was not without logic: if you support capitalism, driven as it is by the pursuit of profits, and wish to take on the responsibility of administering it, you have to accept that profits have to be allowed.

Sunak’s defence to business for raising the tax on their profits from 2023 was that in the intervening two years they could get a generous tax break on new investment in equipment and machinery. According to another cabinet minister, Oliver Dowden, businesses ‘are sitting on very large amounts of cash’ (Times, 11 March); in other words, on profits that have not been re-invested. The aim of the so-called ‘super-deduction’ is to get business to invest these, a recognition that what in the end drives growth is business investment rather than consumer spending. With the lifting of the anti-covid restrictions, consumer spending will grow next year but, as Philip Aldrick, the economics editor of The Times, pointed out very pertinently:

  ‘The rescue should ensure that the consumer, who accounts for two thirds of national output, is able to start up the economic engine. The more difficult bit is keeping it going. That requires business investment. There, the chancellor unveiled a big new policy – a temporary two-year capital ‘super-deduction’. For every pound spent on machinery or equipment, a company will be able to get 25p back in lower corporation taxes. Unlike any previous recession, businesses, in aggregate, have built up a £100 billion cash buffer. The government wants them to spend it’ (Times, 4 March).

No doubt they will spend some of it, but this ‘big new policy’ is yet another measure to try to get a horse to drink. Just as horses won’t drink unless they are thirsty so businesses won’t invest unless there’s a prospect of profit. The super-deduction might not work, any more than low interest rates or quantitative easing have. Business will invest but will it be more than they would have done anyway? That depends on the prospect of profit which no government can control.

The constitution of the future. (1923)

 

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Among a variety of matters reviewed at the I.L.P. Conference in early April was a resolution which, as reported by the “Daily Herald” (4/4/23), “aimed at the abolition of the Cabinet system, and the substitution of Government by committees with Ministers as chairmen.” An indeterminate discussion took place, ending in the questions being referred to a Committee of the National Administrative Council for consideration. The question was raised at the Conference, of course, because the Labour Party, to which the I.L.P. is affiliated, hopes to become the Government Party within the next few years : and the fact that it was raised throws an interesting light upon what it will do when that time comes.

What is the Cabinet? It is the Committee of Ministers who preside over all the important state departments. How it is chosen? By the Prime Minister, whose selections require only the King’s approval. Who chooses the Premier? The King, usually on the advice of the retiring Prime Minister, and having regard to the predominating party in Parliament. The business of the Cabinet is to regulate foreign and colonial affairs, issue temporary decrees, re-appoint to vacant offices, introduce legislation into Parliament, and so on. Practically the whole initiative of Government is vested here : in fact, with the acquiescence of the majority in Parliament, the Cabinet is the Government.

The Cabinet system in its modern character was developed by the representatives of the merchants, bankers and landowners, after their political victory of 1688. They had robbed the monarchy of much of its power, but by no means wished to abolish it. Its presence at the head of their system sanctified their rule, by reason of the sentimental veneration with which wage-workers, shopkeepers, small manufacturers, etc., regarded, and still regard it. They took care, however, to keep it well in hand. The King no longer acted independently, but either “in Council” (in which case the counter-signature of the Privy Council was necessary), or “in Parliament” (in which case consent of the Commons and Lords was necessary). In practice, of course, sittings of the full Privy Council proved totally impracticable. There was never enough agreement amongst its members upon the policy to be pursued, or the legislation to be framed. Besides, in the matter of shaping bills, no matter what views might carry the day in Council, they were of no effect unless the legislation embodying them recommended itself to Parliament. Therefore, this clumsiness was overcome by that party undertaking the task which for the time being could command a majority in Parliament.

A body would be formed of five, seven, or more members of the Privy Council (nowadays the number has increased to round about twenty), all belonging to one party, to fill the ministerial posts. The holders of all the more important offices in the Government, says the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” are “generally selected as the influential politicians of the party, rather than for special aptitude in the work of the departments.” (Coalitions are rare, and formed for joint action in times of emergency, when opposing parties deem it expedient to sink their differences temporarily, as did the Liberal, Unionist and Labour Parties during the late War). This body, the Cabinet, discharged all the important functions nominally performed by the “King in Council.”

Meanwhile, what powers remained to the Sovereign were taken over by this or that State office, until the monarchy to-day remains nothing but a figure—”the mascot,” as it has been called, of the ruling class.

Now this was a good system for the Capitalist class. It provided, and still provides, the various sections of Capitalist interests with a convenient means of mobilising their votes in Parliament; and they have a check upon what is done “in Council” by the yearly financial votes. (The House of Commons exercised that power as recently as April 11th last by refusing to go into Committee of Supply on the Civil Service Department.) The Cabinet system, and indeed Parliament itself, which is of much earlier growth, are products of times when the State was very little concerned with the organisation of industry; and whenever the requirements of modern Capitalism make it necessary for the State to take control of some branch of industry, it simply becomes the responsibility of one of the ministries, and is developed with the direct assistance and advice of Capitalists, through the committees, commissions, boards, etc., that all converge on the Cabinet. Yes, the Cabinet system serves the Capitalists very well.

But how different will be the requirements of the working-class when it comes to power ! The business of production will then be the supreme concern of the Commonwealth : the co-ordination of the activities of workers in mines, fields and schools, on the roads, on the sea, in the laboratory, studio and theatre—with the purpose of furnishing the healthiest and most joyous life for all. Those who are to enjoy the fruits of labour will also be those who do the work; and from both points of view, public business will be the intimate concern of each one.

It follows that the problems with which it will be called upon to deal will be different also. For example, instead of devising ways to pacify the unemployed, it will have to decide how an over-plentiful supply of labour-power in one branch of production can be used to lighten work in another. Instead of protecting home Capitalists against foreign competition, it will determine, in consultation with workers of other lands, in what part of the world a given kind of goods can be most economically produced. And so on.

It is too early yet to pronounce in detail what form the administration of this business will take. That will be for the victorious workers to decide when the time comes. But its outlines are clear. It will not be, as heretofore, a Government, ordering affairs from the top, with merely the acquiescence of the mass of the people. It must have the character of an Executive, giving effect to the decisions of the workers themselves. Every public office must be elective, responsible, and revocable.

We do not share the fear of Mr. Charles Trevelyan, M.P., who at the I.L.P. Conference took part in the debate referred to. He said :

  “We do not want a pledge-bound or an oath-ridden party. When you comrades join us in the House of Commons, after the General Election, we want vital representatives and not merely delegates—men who are going to think and act for themselves.”

Why, the Socialist organisation of industry implies control by the workers. Anything else would be a bureaucratic State, a travesty of Socialism. We are convinced that when the workers are ready to take possession of the means of life they will be ready to begin to control them democratically. Moreover, a delegate can and should be a vital representative. On some matters it is possible to give detailed instructions, on others, general orders only, the particular execution of them being left to the intelligence of the delegate. But in all matters the will of those whose work he is doing, and not his own, should determine his actions. The contrast between Capitalist and Socialist democracy is sharply indicated—by a paragraph in the Manifesto of the International Working-men’s Association, issued in May, 1871, immediately after the crushing of the Commune of Paris. It refers to the Communards’ design for the new constitution :

  “Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to represent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. And it is well known that companies, like individuals, in matters of real business generally knows how to put the right man in the right place, and, if for once they make a mistake, to redress it promptly.”

The Cabinet system, therefore, in the Socialist Commonwealth, is as unthinkable as the private ownership of the means of life. If the I.L.P. questions for a moment whether a Labour Government would discard that system, it is because it knows a Labour Government could not and would not inaugurate Socialism, notwithstanding that it has placed it upon its programme. Only a party of revolutionary workers, organised for that purpose, and that alone, is equal to the task.

A.

The pessimists. (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are certain people who show that, to some extent, they are acquainted with the Socialist philosophy, and yet will be heard to utter the sentiment that it is useless talking about the principles of Socialism as the workers, from the point of view of intelligence, are hopeless.

This pessimistic view is often stated by many who have done next to nothing in furthering Socialist knowledge, and perhaps, when noticing the lack of knowledge displayed by the average worker in a discussion of a political and economic character, form the above opinion. But, of course, the workers are not hopeless from an intellectual point of view, whatever a superficial view of their mentality may disclose, for it should be obvious that as they are able to assimilate all the ideas connected with the details of the production and distribution of wealth in modern society, so will they in due course assimilate those ideas which will enable them to secure their freedom from capitalist domination.

To accomplish the establishment of a new-form of society by means of a social revolution, which means that there must first take place a revolution in thought, entails more than the work of a moment; it means a considerable amount of toil to those who carry cut the many functions associated with the organisation of the working class. As those who do the work can testify, it means long and laborious work, and those who shrink from the task because it involves “hard labour ” should realise that they are leaving a larger field to the enemies of Socialism.

In the advocacy of revolutionary ideas the revolutionist encounters many prejudices and preconceived notions, and one can hardly fail to notice when in discussion with members of the working class on the subject of Socialism, how the force of tradition affects their mental outlook. This point may be overlooked by many who lament the “slow” progress made by the workers in forming revolutionary conceptions.

“The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp upon the brain of the living,” says Marx, and those whose interest lies in the retention of the private property institutions use all the means at their disposal to preserve the traditional illusions, such as religion, and the abstract notions of justice, morality, etc.

Ideas drag on long after their falsity has been exposed. The workers, in the main, are not acquainted with the scientific method of analysing and classifying their conceptions. To overlook or underestimate the force of tradition is a sad mistake, and that this mistake is frequently made does, to some extent, explain the psychology of those who express the pessimistic view stated above. They appear to think that all that is needed is for one to postulate a logical proposition and its immediate acceptance is assured, thus disregarding the effect of the multifarious ideas that have been gathered in the past.

Leaving aside the part played by tradition, there are other factors in operation today which act in moulding the worker’s ideas. To take the case of the child as an example. From the moment when it begins to form ideas, it imbibes the superstitions of its parents, and later, when at the elementary school, it receives but the barest of “education,” which consists largely of an instruction in capitalist “virtues,” both religious and secular, from the “love of God” to the “love of country.” It has been said of certain of the Jesuits that they have expressed the opinion that, provided they had control of the child’s education until it reached a certain age, that early training would suffice as am effective check against any antagonistic influences that were encountered later in life. While it is well not to interpret this view too rigidly, nevertheless it is certainly true that the ideas assimilated when young have a considerable influence on the mental make-up of a great number of the workers, and the clergy do not fail to recognise the value of obtaining control of the education of the child. But what applies to the sycophantic priest with his means of saturating the minds of workers with superstition, applies with equal force to those who have control of the secular forms of “education.” While it is true that religion has, to a great extent, lost its hold over the minds of the workers, they have imbibed other notions from their masters equally fatal to their class interest. It does not follow that because the worker does not concern himself with religion, that he necessarily exercises his thoughts in the interest of his class, as may be seen in the fact that many who hold definitely anti-religious views are among the opponents of Socialism. Where the priest cannot secure a hold, those in control of the secular forms of “education” usually succeed. In the schools the children are not taught the main factors in the process of wealth production. In history the teaching mainly consists of the deeds and misdeeds of kings and queens, and the records of those who have displayed so much “gallantry” in making England a “land of hope and glory.” What passes under the name of education is little more than an instruction preparatory to entering the labour power market, where they are forced to sell their energy in order to live. It is small wonder that, when the young workers enter the productive area, they are handicapped against grasping ideas which are contrary to those inculcated into their minds in infancy. The ideas expressed in the workshop are generally of the orthodox form; it is unusual to meet with anybody who has the faintest inkling of the working class position, or has become acquainted with the line of action necessary to the establishment of Socialism, Even with those who are generally proclaimed the “rebels,” the confusion of thought is amazing.

Thus, when we take into consideration both the influence of tradition and the instruction given in childhood, there is little room for wonder that the advocacy of revolutionary ideas does not obtain “quick returns.” There is the further point that while the capitalists have control of the Press they are able to disseminate their views by means of the publication of numerous newspapers, books, magazines, etc., whilst Socialists can only at present publish their views in a journal that reaches but an infinitesimal portion of the working class. In comparing the number of meetings held, we have the same enormous difference, where the capitalists and their agents are able to hire the best and largest halls and hold many meetings, we can hold but few in consequence of our limited financial resources. So the dice are loaded heavily in favour of the capitalists, nearly all the channels of “education” being held by them. But the recognition of this does not make us pessimistic ; on the contrary, it acts as a spur to action. The work of enlightening the workers in the knowledge of their slave position and the way out from their slavery, is essential to the establishment of Socialism. The Socialist way out of capitalism is the only way ; consequently the very necessity of Socialist propaganda, as a prelude to the overthrow of capitalist society, and the establishment of Socialism, is sufficient to guard us against pessimism. But in carrying on the work of Socialist education, one qualification is necessary, and that is, we must be patient. It is recorded by Karl Kautsky that when in conversation with Frederick Engels, the latter said, “We have learned to wait, and you in turn must learn to wait your time.”

But, contrary to the sentiment of the poet, he who only waits does not serve the cause of Socialism, so let all those who can, put their shoulders to the wheel and help to break down those intellectual barriers that stand in our way in the struggle for the abolition of human slavery. Our way out of present misery is not only the correct road to travel, but it is the only road open.

Robert Reynolds

You’d be surprised. (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sir Oswald Stoll, writing in the Referee, April 15th, 1923, disputed the definition of value given by Karl Marx in Capital. He says that Adam Smith’s work, “The Wealth of Nations,” although it yields no support to Marx, nevertheless contains the fatal error on which the Socialism of Marx is founded, i.e., that “labour is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities.” Sir Oswald then says:—

  “It requires little wisdom to realise that the labour which is alleged to be the real measure of the exchangeable value of coal, for instance, must include the labour of nature. Human labour cannot begin where nature finishes, because nature never finishes. Nature made the coal by heating and compressing vegetable matter; nature made also the materials used by labour in mining the coal. The term ‘ labour ‘ is therefore too abstract and general for such specific application. Hence labour cannot be ‘the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities’.”

Sir Oswald is described by the Referee as a keen student of economics and socialism. His description of the part played by Nature in the production of wealth was clearly outlined in the early chapters of Capital, where it formed part of the careful analysis of a commodity. On page 10, “Swan and Sonnenschein” edition, Marx says :—

  “The bodies of commodities are combinations of two elements—matter and labour. If we take away, the useful labour expended upon them, a material substratum is always left, which is furnished by nature without the help of man. The latter can work only as nature does, that is, by changing the form of matter. Nay more, in the work of changing the form he is constantly helped by natural forces. We see, then, that labour is not the only source of material wealth, of use-values produced by labour. As William Petty puts it, labour is its father and the earth its mother.”

The work performed by Nature, however, goes on independent of the form of society under which men live, but Nature is neither capital nor the capitalist class; so the task still lies before Sir Oswald to prove where that class renders any assistance. Till now he has only accounted for the same factors as the Socialist : Man and Nature.

Of course no criticism of Marx would be complete that did not prove, or attempt to prove, a contradiction against him. Most of the critics claim that Marx contradicted himself in the later portion of his works, but Sir Oswald is so keen that he discovers a contradiction that everybody has apparently overlooked in the very first chapter.

He accuses Marx of “converting the abstraction of labour into a material body ; a congelation of labour, and calling it value.” Of course what Marx really did was to show that the labourer worked upon the Nature-given material and changed its form or place. His labour thus became congealed in the finished product, and is the only thing—material or social—possible of measurement for the purposes of exchange. 

Marx analysed the labour contained in commodities and found that it must be looked at from two points of view in order to obtain a clear idea of value. It must be looked at from the concrete side, i.e., as labour of a definite kind that produces a particular article; for example, tailoring that results in the production of a coat—a use-value. It must also be looked at from the abstract side, i.e., as labour in general without regard to the particular way in which it is expended. In viewing labour this way it is necessary to forget that it is employed to produce coats, boots or tables, and simply look at it as the using up of a portion of society’s human energy. It is this general energy, or simple human labour, that is at one time spent in producing coats at another in producing tables, that forms the basis of value. In other words, human energy, at the same time, as concrete labour, produces use-values, and as abstract labour produces values. It is the fact that all articles produced represent proportions of simple human energy that enables them to be exchanged for one another through the medium of money.

Sir Oswald, the amateur economist, like all the professionals that have tried to demolish the Marxian theory of value, is left stuttering when asked to show what else but labour-power can be the real measure of exchange value. His alleged contradiction is that Marx before stating that “a congelation of labour is value,” had already said “that utility is value.” What Marx really says is that use-value is the utility of a thing. He devoted several paragraphs to the task of showing that use-value, or usefulness, cannot possibly be the basis of exchange-value; though he states quite definitely that all commodities must possess use-value, otherwise they are unsaleable.

In his analysis of a commodity Marx discovered it to consist of: a material substratum supplied by Nature, use-value or usefulness and exchange value. In addition it was the product of labour. How is the exchange value of a given commodity measured? Not by its material body, nor yet by its usefulness. Sir Oswald’s contradiction is therefore piffle, and the result of his inability to understand ordinary economic terms.

The gem of Sir Oswald’s economic absurdities is contained in the following :—

  “The theory that human labour is either value or the measure of value was killed in a sentence by the late Archbishop Whately when he reinforced the truism that ‘Pearls are not valuable because men dive for them; men dive for them because they are valuable.'”

Both the parson and the stage manager were answered by Marx before they raised this objection. “Diamonds,” said the latter, “are of rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on the average, a great deal of labour-time. … If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks.” Similarly, if real pearls could be made as easily as beads, they could be bought for the same price as beads; but they cannot be so made; much diving has to be done for every one that is placed on the market and much labour of other kinds as well.

Sir Oswald winds up by saying : “It will be well to seek a real definition of value.” Those that seek shall find; let him search with all diligence, and then submit his results to those who do understand Marx.

F. Foan

Hunger! (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Mr. Jones-Brown, the senior partner of Messrs. Miller & Company, I knew myself, for after I wrote ‘The Wake of the Sun,’ it was read by Glass and sold to them for fifty pounds. When this bargain was finally struck, Mr. Jones-Brown said to me : “Now, Mr. H., as the business is all done, would you mind telling me quite frankly to what extent this book of yours is true?” I replied : “It is as true in every detail as it can possibly be.” “Then you mean to say,” he asked, “that you actually did starve as you relate?” I said : “Certainly, I did, and I might have made it a deal blacker if I had chosen.” He fell into a momentary silent reverie, and shaking his head, murmured : “Ah, hunger is a dreadful thing; I once went without dinner myself !”

Morley Roberts

The “benefits” of nationalisation. (1923)

Editorial from the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain were arguing their claims before the body known as the Sankey Commission, they put forward a strong plea for the Nationalisation of the Coal Industry. The representatives of the miners stated that such a measure would benefit industry and commerce as a whole, and enable a “fair” wage to be paid to the miners. How these two things were to be achieved was not made clear.

Indeed, a short examination would show that the two things were, in many respects, contradictory. Industry as a whole could only benefit if the price of coal was reduced. From the ordinary Capitalist point of view this can only be done by lowering the cost of production. In general, there are two methods by which such a result could be obtained—one by increased efficiency in the management and methods of production; the other by cutting down the amount paid in wages.

Nationalisation certainly could increase efficiency to a very large degree, by coordinating the business of the various mines, by abolishing competition, and by a better system of distribution whereby customers could be supplied from the nearest pits. Moreover the familiar sight of long trains of empty trucks passing each other on their way across the country to distant collieries, would disappear under any sensible scheme. But how would this affect the workers in both mining and transport ?

The more efficient the methods became, the fewer the number of workers required in the production and transport of each ton of coal. Unless trade and industry increased to such an extent that the larger demand for coal allowed of the re-employment of these redundant workers, the effect of the improved efficiency would be an increase in the number of workers unemployed—hardly a desirable result. Nor is the matter of wages in any better position.

If a margin existed from which better wages could be paid the Capitalists as a whole would object to the Government “pampering idle and lazy workers with extravagant wages.” This stunt is being pushed forward by the capitalist with great vigour at the present moment, and demands would be made upon the Government to bring those wages to what is sweetly termed “an economic level.” The increased number of unemployed would be used to enforce this demand in more ways than one. All this was pointed out at the time of the Sankey Commission in the pages of the Socialist Standard, but just now there is a very striking practical illustration of these truths.

In Belgium, in addition to post office and telephones, the railways are nationalised. The wages paid to the majority of the workers employed in these nationalised industries are so poor that :—

  “During 18 months efforts were made to increase wages by means of deputations to the Ministers of the Departments, but six months ago this method of discussion was summarily ended, and since then the discontent having no constitutional outlet, has steadily grown.”— (“Daily News,” 17/5/1923.)

The discontent has now reached the stage where thousands of these workers decided to strike for the purpose of trying to improve their conditions. Among other pleasures Belgium enjoys conscription. The answer of the Government to the strikers was to call up 6,000 of the army reserve from among these workers and to order them to carry on the work under military orders.

Here is a splendid example of the “benefits” of nationalisation, and of how well off the workers are in such cases. It shows how much more rapidly and effectively “discontent” can be dealt with when the workers take strike action to enforce their demands.

It may be said that as conscription is not in operation here, the Government could not use the same means against any of their employees in case of a dispute. This is a fallacy. The Government could declare the matter one of “National Emergency,” and would call upon soldiers, sailors, etc., to carry on the industry for the time being.

The Belgian State workers have one point in their favour. The holiday season to the Continent is now beginning, and the Capitalists in Belgium, who, apart from their own resorts, take a substantial toll from those travelling through the country to Switzerland, Italy, etc., may consider it more profitable to give way to a small degree rather than run the risk of losing on the stoppage of holiday traffic.

We hope the men will win in their action, but the position they occupy should be a complete lesson to those of the Miners’ Federation and the Labour Party here, who imagine that “Nationalisation” can cure any evil the workers surfer under to-day.

Correspondence: Why political organisation? (1923)

Letter to the Editors from the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editor,

I have read with interest the questions put forward re Comrade Littler and the answers thereto, that have appeared through the medium of the Standard.

To me those answers require further elucidation, as for instance, your answer to the second question, which states, “The workers’ organisation must be upon the basis of their class.” Do you infer by the above statement that one organisation only is requisite, and it must include a political and economic organisation?

I take it one organisation on the industrial field is “on the basis of its class.”

Again, one reads in answer to the same question, “As we have pointed out on various occasions, economic development has travelled beyond the limits of ‘Industry ‘ in numerous directions, and therefore, the workers’ organisations must cover a wider area than the ‘Industry’ even to keep pace.”

What directions has economic development taken beyond the limits of “Industry,” and what have the workers’ organisation to keep pace with apart from “Industry” ? In answer to the first question we find the following:—

“Conceivably Socialism could be established by the political party alone.” To me, conceivably is a relative concept, and the limit within which a concept is valid varies concomitantly with variations in the phases of social evolution. All Socialists agree that the coming social revolution will do away with the State, and all political institutions, which means all political institutions will lose their political character and become simple administrative institutions for the needs of society.

To bring the above social conditions into existence implies the removal of the existing social conditions which demands the existence of the political structure.

All political parties who are attempting to capture the powers of the State, for the purpose of converting those so-called means of oppression into agents of emancipation, fail to understand that the material conditions are responsible for the existence of all political institutions, and so long as political parties persist in grappling only with the effects of those material conditions, then so long will those effects remain in existence.

As we have social production, i.e., associated labour (under capitalism) that very fact implies organisation right where production takes place, namely, in the workshop, for the specific purpose of taking the economic power out of the hands of the master class and to wield that power for themselves, the working class.

At that very moment the political structure will fall to the ground—the mills, mines, factories, etc., are only waiting seizure at the hands of an organised proletariat.

Do you claim the political power of the capitalist class, or lack of class consciousness of the workers prevents that new social order, namely, Socialism, from making its birth.

Yours for Socialism,

H. Deakin.

Answer.

We do not pretend to prophesy as to the details of the future working class organisations, but reasoning from past and present experience, it would seem that the greatest efficiency would be attained by forming one organisation for political work and another for economic work. These two organisations would be affiliated under some form, and where necessary would work together, until Socialism was established.

One organisation on the industrial field would not be on the basis of its class, unless the members understood their slave position and were deliberately working for their own emancipation, by organising for control of political power, in addition to being organised on the economic field for immediate purposes.

An “Industry” is that portion of the means of production, devised to produce a particular unit of wealth, or the carrying on of a unit of social service. Thus there is a “Coal Industry,” a “Rubber Industry,” etc., on one side, and a “Railway Industry,” etc., on the other.

Modern capitalist control has spread far beyond these “Industrial” limits in many cases, and huge combines often control numerous “Industries.” Lever Brothers, Burmantofts, and Vickers, Ltd., are notorious examples of this development. A more subtle form of control is that carried through on the financial side. Multi-millionaires often hold controlling blocks of shares in numerous industries, and direct the activities of these industries on a policy determined by their interests as a whole.

To give one illustration. The American Meat Trust not only own ranches and packing factories, but control dairies and farms, producing milk, eggs, cheese, butter, and various provisions. They also own a fleet of ships. In the event of a dispute with their seamen the Meat Trust could smash a strike by the simple expedient of ordering the shopkeepers to refuse to serve the strikers with either meat, bread or other provisions. Against such an attack the Seamen’s Industrial Union would be utterly helpless. Hence, as the capitalist development has extended far beyond the “Industrial” basis, the workers’ organisation must follow suit.

Mr. Deakin’s statement that “All Socialists agree that the coming social revolution will do away with the State and all political institutions” is based upon the anarchist fallacy that the “State and all political institutions” are merely capitalist devices to enslave the workers. As every student of history knows, when a society becomes established, and particularly when it is settled in a particular territory, it is necessary to frame rules for the organisation and management of the general affairs of society. These methods of general management form the political machinery of any society, and however the forms may change, it is obvious that they will be necessary as long as society exists. When the political organisation is furnished with force for the purpose of compelling obedience to the rules of society, it becomes a “State.”

Socialism will be established when a majority of the working class use the franchise to wrest political power out of the hands of the capitalist class for that object. This will leave a minority either neutral or actively opposing the new order. Clearly, for a time at any rate, society will have to be prepared to use force, if necessary, to maintain the new system. As soon as the minority accept the system and work in co-operation with the majority, the need for any special force will have disappeared, and such force would be disbanded. Thus the “State” will “die out,” but political organisation—as shown above—will be necessary and will therefore remain.

Mr. Deakin has failed to grasp the essential fact that the material conditions “responsible for the existence of all political institutions” is the necessity of organisation for a society to exist at all.

Our correspondent is also in error when he defines social production as “associated Labour.” Production can only be termed social when the arrangements of society are formed for the purpose of assisting and carrying to a successful conclusion the interdependent and associated labour of masses of workers. It is interesting to note that while Mr. Deakin denies that the political powers can be used as “agents of emancipation,” he claims that the “economic power” of the masters could be wrested from them and used by the workers. Here he contradicts himself. What he imagines to be the “economic power” is just as much the result of “material conditions” as the political institutions, and if the latter cannot be converted to the workers’ use, neither, obviously, can the former.

But, as pointed out in various numbers of the Socialist Standard, this so-called “economic power” is another anarchist fallacy.

Without the backing of the political power, with its armed forces, the master class are bereft of any “power”—economic or other. To retain possession of the means of life, they are completely dependant upon the control of political power, which is placed in their hands by the working class who are ignorant of their own interests.

No organisation in the workshop can take possession of the means of production while the master class control political power and the armed forces. Any such attempt at control by the workers could be met, and completely crushed, by the machine gun, the explosive shell, and the aerial bomb. The mills, mines, factories, etc., can only be seized after the workers have gained political power with its control of the armed forces. Any other method merely leads the working class to the shambles.

Mr. Deakin’s last question is on the lines of the old arithmetical “puzzle,” i.e., if 3 × 2 equals 6, which is the more necessary, the 3 or the 2, to produce the result of 6 ? The common sense answer, of course, is that both are equally necessary.

And similarly with Mr. Deakin’s question. As the possession of political power by the master class is a result of the lack of class consciousness of the workers, it is clear that only with the growth of class consciousness—knowledge of their class position—will the political power be wrested from the hands of the masters.

Editorial Committee.

Be self-reliant! (1923)

From the June 1923 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is called “unrest” amongst our fellow-workers is widespread to-day. It is often indefinite in form ; it does not imply understanding of the roots of the trouble; but it is sufficiently in evidence to embarrass these in pulpit and press who would prefer to represent the nation as a united and happy family.

Workers are accustomed to toil; but now even the privilege of toiling is denied them for years at a time. They are familiar with the presence of people who are rich without working at all: they see nothing extraordinary in the fact of their masters enjoying different food, different clothes, different houses, a higher culture than their own. But now when they are losing even the slight improvements in their condition which they have from time to time secured, acquiescence tends to disappear. More and more they long for relief, from whatever quarter they look for it.

But ask a worker what he is doing about it, and watch his look of surprise. Usually he is still looking for something to be done for him; and that is why he is continually disappointed. Governments go in and out of power : he gives his vote now to one party, now to the other, as either seems to promise more, and remains as before, miserable. Some of those whose business it is to write or speak what the masters wish to hear, have concluded that our class will never move beyond this stage of waiting to be saved. Every day from the Bench, the House of Commons, or the Press, comes some new insolence. A paragraph written in the “Outlook” last summer is a good example of its kind :

  “Labour no longer even barks; it moans and bays the moon. It has lost faith in its programme, its ability and itself. . . . Direct action makes it shudder; the mere mention of political action reduces it to tears. It loves a phrase or a platitude, but it is too proud to fight, too tired to think, and too timid to speak.”— (Quoted by “Evening Standard,” 27/7/22.)

As regards the strike, which is what the writer appears to mean by direct action, the workers have used it, shudders notwithstanding, many times in the short space since those words were written. To mention only a few cases, we have had strikes of miners in Canada, U.S.A., and Belgium; a railway strike in Italy and one of rail shopmen in America; in France of metallurgical and textile workers, coalworkers, transport men, navvies and municipal workers of many grades; in Great Britain, juteworkers, woodworkers, furnishing tradesmen, miners, seamen and farm-workers, with the probability of several more big stoppages shortly, all bearing witness against the zealous journalist of the “Outlook.” But since strikes can do little more than safeguard an already poor standard of life, we need not say more about them now. As regards any substantial change for the better, is it true that the workers have lost faith in their ability to achieve it? Can that be lost which they never had? “Faith,” in our own powers, is only now growing strong amongst us. Numbers still prefer to trust the employers, believing that their distress is due to an exceptional trade depression, which once past will not be repeated. The only question to them appears to be, which Capitalist party is taking the best means to surmount exceptional difficulties? Only another disillusionment is in store for them. The trade revival when it comes must be short, and every succeeding; crisis more acute and protracted. Why? Because modern industry is so highly productive that it can meet and exceed the demand within a shorter time than ever before. The recurrence of crises could only be prevented by agreed restriction of production, which would be reflected in a monotonous condition of poverty for the workers in place of alternating periods of comparative comfort and acute distress.

To look then for help from any section of the masters is vain. They will only study ways and means to perpetuate production for sale. Do they not, moreover, deliberately use periods of unemployment to break the Trade Unions and strengthen their own position? Capitalist organisation of industry must be brought to an end.

With what purpose, then, will work be undertaken, if not for the manufacture of things for sale? It will be undertaken with one purpose—to supply us all with what we need. And who will make themselves responsible for doing it, since there will be no private profit when there is no sale? We, the workers, shall take it upon ourselves. We shall go to work as we do now, and every man and woman who wants to eat will do the same. Not quite willingly at first, perhaps. Not immediately will those who under Capitalism have known only joyless drudgery, nor yet those who have been parasites, find themselves able to cooperate freely and heartily with their fellows in useful work. These are results of centuries of social antagonisms. But they will gradually disappear. We shall decide for ourselves how the supply of the multitudinous necessary goods and services is to be carried out, how long it is necessary to work, who shall be our managers, and so on. And so long as any man discharges his part of the social work, he will be entitled to receive (by whatever means shall then seem convenient) what he requires from the common store. We shall carry through this revolution; but we shall have to do it together. It is not a job for a few men. A few could not conquer the masters, and a few could not work a Socialist system of industry. Too timid? Too tired? We Socialists do not think so. You fought, fellow-workers, in your masters’ war. You work (when you have the chance) as you never worked before. There is no lack of courage and industry. But you fight as you are told : you work as you are told. You spend your energy and pluck for the masters. When you realise what you have been doing so long, you will use them to set yourselves free.

The Socialist Party is the growing expression of the revolutionary purpose of the workers. Read its principles on the last page of this paper, and make them your principles.

A.