Voluntary service oversold (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every year VSO recruits and sends several thousand volunteers to work in countries economically less developed than Western nations. This has arisen for a variety of historical reasons, largely to do with the exploitation of people and resources during the colonial era.

I am nearly half-way through my VSO posting with the Malaysian education department, and something I have suspected for some time has become very clear: "volunteering" is in fact another name for cheap wage slavery. In a social system where men and women are forced to sell their labour power in order to gain access to goods and services, VSO is able to provide the less successful capitalist nations with highly skilled workers from the West at a low price — they call it “low cost technological assistance". The word "volunteer" misleadingly suggests that we work for nothing. In fact, we are paid a wage which is supposed to be roughly equivalent to what a local worker with similar qualifications, doing a similar job. would receive. How this works in practice varies from country to country. The wage is paid by the employer in the country to which we are posted, although VSO does negotiate our salary, terms and conditions.

Most volunteers here earn a good deal less than Malaysian colleagues with similar qualifications. Furthermore, those of us working in East Malaysia, a very expensive part of South East Asia, with a shortage of qualified workers, find ourselves alongside teachers, doctors and engineers from other parts of the country who receive large allowances to encourage them to come and work here. Many of us have also found that our terms and conditions of work are far from clear. Only some volunteers know exactly what their working hours are, what sickness benefits they are entitled to and how much leave they can take. The only written agreement VSO have with the Malaysian Economic Planning Unit, which approves and administers postings. concerns pay. Yet like our unfortunate local colleagues we are expected, for instance, to apply for leave in triplicate months in advance and clock in and out punctually. Because we are foreign workers our behaviour is carefully noted and any signs of "irresponsibility" or disrespect can be held against us.

And so we are encouraged to believe that "development" is about redressing social, economic and technological inequalities in the world and, where VSO is concerned, particularly at the grass roots level. In other words, it is about using our skills and expertise to help some of the world’s poorest workers achieve greater self-reliance. The VSO logo states that “VSO sends men and women overseas to share their skills with the people of the third world" and one of the VSO objectives is that ‘‘Emphasis should be given to work which benefits poor and disadvantaged people and to enhancing the status of women" (VSO Volunteers Handbook). It is claimed that by volunteering we are doing more than just sharing our skills; we are also helping to undo some of the racist myths and stereotypes about people from Africa and Asia, to repair some of the economic damage inflicted on them during the colonial period. We are, according to VSO, helping to promote greater understanding between workers in different parts of the world and educating the people in Britain about the causes of third world poverty and inequality

In fact, this is all a VSO confidence trick. These vague, idealistic visions of development obscure the fact that organisations like VSO, along with the governments of countries who request volunteers, are firmly committed to capitalism — the kind of economic Development which will not bring about a world in which everyone has equal access to resources and technology and where there is mutual co-operation between people. The governments of third world countries are committed to perpetuating and developing a system where most of the world's wealth is owned and controlled by a minority. Its driving force is profit and even basic human needs will not be met unless it pays.

Organisations like VSO are committed to try and reform the system in order to bring about a more equal distribution of the world s wealth, but their effect is to improve the prospects of a rising capitalist class in the world scramble for profits. They also promote cultural and technological institutions which accompany the development of capitalism. In Malaysia, for example, VSO has provided a large number of volunteers to work in government social service departments, in the belief that this will help to bring about some improvement in the lives of Malaysia’s poorest — the mentally ill, handicapped, schoolchildren. What is overlooked is that workers only have access to social, welfare and health provisions for as long as it is profitable or in the interests of the owning class. For instance, although many diseases could be prevented by providing communities with safe drinking water, children still die because it is not profitable to do so. In Singapore, a rapidly developing capitalist state, workers are noticeably healthier than those in the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia. Singapore water can be drunk straight from the tap and need not be boiled before drinking; there is no malaria and the medical facilities are probably better than in many Western countries. But then, as Singapore is extremely short of labour, it cannot afford to have a sickly workforce.

Capitalism, then, only provides workers with what is profitable: children who do not have a nourishing diet are still able to buy Coca Cola! They may lack adequate hospital facilities but are taught how to operate a submachine gun. Low paid volunteers are recruited from the West to develop a country’s health services, while millions are spent on arms and foreign experts to train the military in their use.

Another aspect of development is the emergence of an increasingly sophisticated education system. A developing nation needs workers whose minds are trained in new ways, and VSO provides many teachers for schools and training programmes. We do not usually teach young workers skills to enable them to articulate grievances and improve conditions, although this may sometimes be a side effect.

The process of urbanisation, the breakdown of communities into family units and the increasingly alienated lives of working men and women are all part of the development of an industrial capitalist nation. Mental illness, drug abuse, crime and child-battering become increasingly regular features of daily life and expertise is needed to deal with these problems. A VSO staff member suggested that the level of development attained by a country could be measured by the kind of volunteer workers it requests. A less developed country would ask for agricultural experts and primary health care workers; a more developed country like Malaysia will request social workers, mental health workers, probation officers and teachers. This is an interesting indication of what VSO understands by development. It certainly does not seem to be something in the interests of the people at grass root level.

But at least we do not suffer high-flown statements about promoting international understanding and racial harmony! It is made quite clear that we are here to assist Malaysia's social and economic development by filling gaps in expertise, until such time as qualified Malaysian workers take over. There are constant reminders from the VSO and the Economic Planning Unit that we must be sensitive to, and accept, the Malaysian way of doing things. This means that we should not question the racially divisive policies pursued by the Malaysian government, to keep workers separate and subjugated. If we are seen to be taking too close an interest in politics we will be deported very quickly. VSO, despite all that is said in their literature, is working closely with a government which locks up workers who attempt to take industrial action to better their lot.

At best, VSO volunteers are foreign workers filling expertise gaps at the same rate of pay as local workers. This can be a rewarding and educational experience for both the volunteers and the local people with whom they work. At worst, volunteers are directly supporting the anti-working class policies of oppressive governments Occasionally, volunteers are recruited for posts when qualified and experienced Malaysian workers are available but rejected because of their ethnic origins. This, of course, is in direct contradiction to the VSO's declared anti-racist position. . .

As volunteers we are learning another lesson in exploitation — our own and that of follow workers in other parts of the world. We are not putting an end to exploitation by promoting the development of a global community based on co-operation. That will only come about when a majority of politically conscious workers across the world challenge minority ownership and control resources. Socialists work to that end; we cannot leave it to organisations like VSO, who are in the "development business" merely to promote and perpetuate the profit system.

K.

Blogger's Note:

Understandably, because of the critical nature of the article, this article was signed off as the anonymous 'K'. I understand that 'K'. was the SPGB Bristol Branch member, George Marcelo. He wrote further articles in the Socialist Standard whilst based in South-East Asia which have yet to appear on the blog. They will do eventually.

Also worthy of note, another member of the Bristol Branch of the SPGB during the same period, Naomi Roberts, also undertook VSO work and wrote about her experiences in Ghana in the pages of the Socialist Standard:

• Letter from Ghana (1988)

The Meaning of Freedom (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is liberation? The words which need most careful use are, usually, those which are thought to be above it. In an essay on George Orwell published in 1948, George Woodcock remarks how Orwell continually talked of brotherhood, justice. decency and so on without ever giving specific meanings: they spoke for themselves. A minute's thought over the everyday corruptions of those terms will show that they do nothing of the kind. Freedom is another. Assumed to be self-explanatory, it is all things to all men: hope, delusion, inducement, trap. What became of "the Four Freedoms"? Freedom fighters, where are you now?

In fact, freedom by itself is an insignificant word. Its importance comes with its expansion — freedom from what, or to do which. Freedom from may be considerable: its range can cover merciful release from some private burden, to the abolition of a political restraint. Nevertheless, freedom in that sense remains negative and limited to shifting a particular evil. It is, of course, the most popular sense, and the argument is often made that to pile up these removals of restraint ("extending areas of freedom") must in the end lead to total and therefore positive social liberty.

The line drawn

However, the pursuit of the piecemeal does not work like that. The man who has obtained relief from a disability or restriction is simply released into the general slavery of his fellow-men. That is why rulers seldom mind, in the end, giving freedom from: liberation is a means of creating more slaves. The cracker-motto "freedoms" set out by Churchill and Roosevelt in the war were of this kind. Leaving aside that they were part of the sham currency of wartime promises and so unlikely to be taken seriously when the fever was over, it is worth observing that freedom from hunger and insecurity is had. more or less, by people in prison.

Nobody pretends that freedom from privation is worth having on such terms, but the terms accepted in ordinary life are often surprising. The usual paternalistic saying is that society can approve "liberty but not licence", and it is interesting that “licence" is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as excessive liberty". What is being said, therefore, is that you may have liberty but not too much. The line of excess is drawn, inevitably, by the ruling class: and the liberty thus prescribed is already restricted to the limits of freedom from. Thus, to suppose that slices of freedom can be gamed within capitalism and put together to make a free society is naive in the extreme.

Choice and responsibility

The context in which "freedom" takes on positive meaning is freedom to. Individually, innumerable extensions might be given: what they add up to socially is freedom to choose. This is the all—embracing denial made by the authoritarianism of a class-divided society. Under it, for the ruled, choice is directly refused or made impossible. One's station and way of life, loyalties, duties, means of expression are selected and hung on one. A free society is definable as such only in this way: in it. individual choice is sovereign.

All sovereignties have boundaries, however. The alternative point of view, the Stirnerite one which disfavours society itself for inhibiting the ego's absolute demands, is still practised by a number of anarchists whose cult it is never to answer letters or keep appointments as proof that they are free and spontaneous individuals not responsible to anyone. When the doctrine is stated like that, both its absurdity and its perniciousness are plainly visible: this is not freedom at all, because it depends on mutilating someone else's freedom. Freedom is relative always to the fact that we exist only as social creatures.

In simple everyday experience, every relationship or contract voluntarily made is a limitation on freedom. A person joining a political group or a recreational organization has "tied" him— or herself by the acceptance of obligations, including the recognition of rules and majority decisions.

The way to go

Freedom, then, means a state in which contracts are entered and obligations accepted, but by one's conscious choice not a predetermined one. The comparison to be made is between a free society and the authoritarian system where the obligations remain while somebody else imposes the choice. What must be recognized, however, is that the obligations are there in both cases. Indeed, freedom implies responsibility where servitude does not; having the choices imposed and the decisions made for one is tolerable to many people because it is easy. Part of the tyranny of capitalism is to make a virtue of that kind of mental laziness and extol bromides like "liberty not licence" to try and keep responsible thought in check.

Given comprehension of what freedom is, how is the free society obtained? The lack of freedom is not just a question of holding wrong outlooks. It derives from material conditions as much as from legal and moral restraint. The irony of the old saying that everyone is free to dine at the Savoy has innumerable applications. A poor or ill-educated person is not free to choose his work, or where he will live, or even whom he will mix with. Financial worries, insecurities, hostile circumstances of all kinds are obstructions to freedom.

But it does not follow that reforms of circumstances are the answer. That takes us back to the realm of freedom from, where capitalism's nature is to turn apparent gains into equivalent losses; at this, you can't win. The creation of a free society can be accomplished only by changing the structure of society. The disabilities and oppressions which are everywhere are aspects and consequences of the basic enslavement by capitalism, the class-ownership of the means of living. To replace them with freedom of choice and make responsibility instead of imposition the keystone of social life, common ownership is the prerequisite.

Freedom is the natural — and immediate — concomitant of the establishment of socialism. Nor is any abstract judicial freedom meant. The economic condition of socialism, production for use. means free access by everyone to the material wealth of society. That is emancipation. and from it arises the freedom to choose the sort of life one wants.

Revolution and resistance (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The socialist transformation of society entails the dispossession of the minority capitalist class of their ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution. All of their lands and factories, mines, media and transport will be taken away from them. The machinery of production will become the common property of society.

In order for the capitalists to be dispossessed — or "the expropriators to be expropriated", as Marx put it — there is one prerequisite. The working class, who produce all the wealth and constitute a majority of society, must be conscious of what they are doing. The dispossession of the capitalists cannot be carried out by a politically ignorant workers, and nor can the task be performed for them by enlightened leaders. As The Socialist Party's Principles make clear, the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers' themselves. If the social transformation is carried out in an organised fashion by people who know what they are up against and what they want to establish as an alternative, then what can stop us?

A majority of politically conscious workers must democratically gain control of the state machine, which in this country means the conquest of parliament and local councils. The revolutionary mandate for such political action will not be like any given to MPs or councillors in the past. Socialists will enter the state bodies as delegates, not representatives or political leaders. They will be accountable at every move to the socialist movement and their sole purpose in entering the state bodies will be to abolish ruling class power. They will formally enact the abolition of class ownership; and in doing so will express the wishes of millions who have voted for socialism and nothing less.

It is crucial that the state, which controls the means of coercion including the police and armed forces, is not left in the hands of the capitalists it represents. But unlike previous contestants for state power, the working class will not seek to establish its own state: a workers' state or a socialist state. These are absurd notions. As Engels pointed out, the workers' conquest of state power will be the last act of the state. The state will be dismantled. Government over people will be replaced by the administration of things. A classless society, which will exist the moment that the capitalists are dispossessed and the means of wealth production and distribution are commonly owned and democratically controlled, must be a stateless society The Socialist Party rejects the suicidal tactic of insurrection. The idea of a minority taking up arms and shooting their way to socialism is foolish and dangerous. Even if the insurrectionaries won, they would be forced to become dictators over those they will have “liberated" against their will. The sorry history of Leninist coup d'etats is sufficient proof of that. If insurrection is advocated by those who envisage majority support for the socialist revolution, then why fight it out when we have available to us the far simpler method of expressing our decision? After all, if a majority cannot be persuaded to vote for socialism it is going to take even longer to persuade them to join an army and fight for it.

But what if the minority does not accept the majority will? We know very well that it is in the capitalists' interest to preserve their privileges against what they see as the unreasonable demands of wage slaves who ought to know their place. In The Communist Manifesto Marx predicted that some enlightened capitalists will come over to the side of the socialist revolution. Indeed, some might. They may recognise that a classless society will be better than the jungle system in which they are forced to behave as king brutes. Other capitalists may come over out of cowardice, realising that if the game is up it is better to be on the side of change rather than make enemies of the workers when we take power. So, some capitalists might support socialism. Others, who hate and detest what is happening, will just face up to the fact that the workers are in a majority and it would be futile to do anything but surrender. In short, they will take it lying down. After all. they have been "taking it" in this position for most of the history of capitalism.

But what about those who resist? How would a socialist majority deal with a recalcitrant minority? This minority may not only comprise capitalists: there may well be workers too who will be conditioned enough to retain loyalty to their dispossessed masters. Of course, there will be immense social pressure by the millions who constitute the socialist majority for the non-socialists to give the new system a try. Production solely for use and free access to all goods and services will be very powerful temptations to those who oppose socialism. There may still be some non-socialists who cannot bear the thought of living in a society of human co-operation. Well, would it be beyond the realm of possibility for socialist society to set aside some areas for these perverse characters, in which they could continue to live as if capitalism were still existence. They could exploit each other, tell lies to one another, dominate, submit... It would be hard explaining such eccentricity to children born into a socialist society, but as long as the non-socialists kept to themselves and were free to join the rest of the community should they wish, what would be wrong with that?

A recalcitrant minority might wish to carry the capitalist ethic of "To Hell With The Majority" all the way. What if they tried to use force to defeat the will of the socialist majority? By doing this they would be declaring themselves enemies of society. Only those prepared to accept the democratic will would be entitled to the community’s support. Such recalcitrants would have to be denied the freedom to operate. If they tried to form a counter-revolutionary army it would be starved into impotence. The right of free access would be denied to violent anti-democrats who. without petrol for their transport, without a munitions industry to provide them with bullets or bombs, would be brought to their knees in next to no time. If — and we here go further into the realms of hypothesis — anti-socialists tried to use violence against the socialist community, then they would have to be forcibly restrained. Without doubt, a socialist majority could never stand by while the violent tactics of the abolished capitalist system ruined socialism. As a last resort, the undemocratic minority would have to meet the fate which it will have created for itself; it would either surrender or be eliminated. We stress, however, that it will be much easier for a recalcitrant minority to be defeated by denying it access to the means of struggle, and that it will find it extremely hard to operate in conditions where the majority of people consciously oppose all that it stands for.

Compare the position of such a minority with that of today's undemocratic terrorists. The latter find it very hard to exist because most workers do not want to know them; many are willing to shop them to the police and most would refuse to endorse their acts of violence. But modern terrorist groups operate in easier circumstances than a violent, recalcitrant minority in a socialist society would. Under capitalism most workers are discontented. While they may not support terrorism, they might not be disposed actively to oppose it. In a socialist society anti-democrats would be up against determined men and women who, after centuries of class struggle, have gained control of society. Is such a community of socialists likely to accept defeat by a gang of arrogant ex-capitalists and deluded ex-wage slaves?

Opponents of socialism will have every opportunity peacefully to advocate the case against the new social system. If they are crazy enough they can argue for the restoration of capitalism, reminding workers of the good old days when nuclear weapons abounded and the corpses of malnourished children scattered the earth. It will not be in the interest of socialist society to ban ideas; those which conflict with material reality will be rejected, just as socialism, being in line with material reality, is on the agenda to succeed.

In a socialist society those who used to be capitalists will be free to live as social equals. They will be members of the community, expected to give according to their abilities and to take according to their self-defined needs. Some of them have very few abilities at the moment, as a result of a lifetime of parasitism; but if you can train a parrot to say its name, you can show an ex-millionaire how to do some socially useful work. In a socialist society humans will, for the first time in hundreds of years, be brothers and sisters: members of a free and co-operative society. Such freedom and co-operation will be difficult to want to fight against, much as they are hard to comprehend now by those who can only conceive of society as a collection of warring factions. That stage of history will be transcended with the establishment of a stateless socialist community, and the age of gunfire will have passed.

Steve Coleman

Useful work, useless toil (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no point in work 

unless it absorbs you like 

an absorbing game.

If it doesn't absorb you 

if it's never any fun,

don't do it.

When a man goes out into his work 

he is alive like a tree in spring, he is 

living, not merely working.

                               (Work, D.H. Lawrence)

Work under capitalism is a drudge for the vast majority, an activity forced upon us rather than entered into voluntarily. Philip Larkin's poem, Toads describes more accurately the attitude of the majority towards their work;

Why should I let the toad work 

Squat on my life?

Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork 

And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils 

With its sickening poison —

Just for paying a few bills!

Ah, were I courageous enough 

To shout Stuff your Pension!

But I know, all too well, that's the stuff 

That dreams are made on.

The narrator of Three Men in a Boat, is fascinated by work. He says he can sit and look at it for hours. If Jerome K. Jerome had ever met a socialist he might very well be one of those people who object to a wageless, moneyless society on the grounds that no one would work at all if coercion were removed. This is of course a fallacious argument: when the clock-watching stops and people are free to do what they choose, nothing becomes too much trouble. When a majority of the working class understand and want socialism, it is hardly likely that everyone will sit on their backsides and do nothing.

Forty hours tied to work he hates.

Unable to undo his fate.

Locked inside those iron gates 

Stocking up his hate.

Blue skies, hot summer days 

Filter through the industrial haze.

The poor automaton can only gaze 

Perplexed by ultra violet rays.

Five days, eight hours.

The sentence is complete.

Alas, money is small recompense 

For labour so mis-spent.

                (Forty Hours in a Birmingham Factory, C. Mulchrone)

It is a misconception that only those engaged in manual or productive labour are "working class”. How many men could match the work-rate of a mother or housewife? We belong, the majority of us, to the working class because we are denied free access to the means of production and distribution. We produce, but we do not own; our whole life-style is conditioned by the need to sell our labour power to a minority class in order to live.

Work is an integral part of human existence, but only in socialism will it become part of the realisation of human potential. To achieve fulfilment, work for socialism.

Dave Coggan

Between the Lines: Primitive . . . (1989)

The Between the Lines column from the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Primitive . . .

Marx wrote about the increasing misery of the working class. By this he did not mean, as some who have tried to refute him have suggested, that wages would fall lower and lower, material conditions ever more harsh. Marx was right: the quality of living under capitalism becomes ever-more impoverished.

Country File (C4) provides a pleasant diversion on the bleakest of urban Sunday lunchtimes. It has features on farming and conservation and the world of animals: it reminds the viewer that, stuck with the noise and dirt of an artificial city, there is an environment beyond which is richer in what is natural and more in harmony with the senses. On 8 January it had a report about a growing social problem: rural violence committed by young frustrated workers in small country towns and villages — the children of the land whose daddies do not own the fields and whose futures are in the cities, where there is more chance of jobs. Others involved in recent acts of rural criminality are farm labourers whose jobs have been made more tedious by mechanisation and who are often paid below-poverty wages for making landowners rich. A police officer from Avon and Somerset spoke of how Saturday-night gangs were terrorising villages and vandalising beauty spots. There have even been reports in the press of the senseless slaughter of farm animals for fun.

No doubt there were irritated viewers in Devon or Yorkshire who switched on expecting to see how big turnips can be and how green fields can look in the right light. Such people would do well to ponder that life is becoming increasingly empty for vast numbers of young workers, squashed as they are between the obscenities of the bomb and the social mind of a world which is civilised only to degree that it offers hope when there is a likely profit attached.

The following evening World In Action (ITV, 8.30 pm) reported the results of a nationwide survey which revealed that women were more afraid of violent assault in the streets than death from cancer, being killed on the roads or nuclear war. Ninety per cent feared being attacked if they went out at night. Sixty-seven per cent said that they never go out at night alone. What an indictment of a so-called civilised society it is that the majority of women — the majority of the population — are too frightened to go out alone in the evening. This is the social-pay-off of the competitive society. The streets become a jungle where anyone with money, however old, frightened or disabled, is prey to the muggers. Women workers are right to be scared. Street assaults are frequent: more dangerous weapons are now used by the muggers (in imitation of our rulers who also like to sophisticate their murder instruments regularly); and most of us live in badly lit environments, which assist the fast-money attackers. The thief thieves because it is an easy way to make money. Ethics do not enter into it; he is a reflection of the economic motives of the more successful robbers in the City, whose activities are strictly legal.

It is not just that women are likely to be attacked, but that they feel threatened. Every walk in the dark streets feels like preparation for an attack. Young men are eight times more likely to be mugged than women, but this is a deceptive statistic: women are less likely to be mugged because so many are forced to seek refuge in their homes every night. They are under curfew. There is no way that a society which scares its inhabitants to that extent can ever be worthy of the description of “civilisation". The simple-minded blame the muggers, as if knife-carrying kids have chosen such a way of life as an alternative to the gentlemen's club. Socialists blame the profit system.

. . . and civilised

The same people that the profit system twists into muggers could, in different material circumstances, behave like the people of the Baka tribe, shown in three programmes by Channel Four called Baka — People Of The Rainforest. Modern society sneers at such primitive social relationships. The programmes allowed us to glimpse into the moneyless, wageless, stateless world of one of the few extant pre-property societies. Of course, the Baka are productively unsophisticated and have to work harder than they would need to do had they access to labour-saving technology. They are still innocently religious, regarding Nature as something above them and largely beyond control. It would be foolishly romantic — although very tempting — to depict primitive communism as The Way We Should Live. But what if we took all of the machinery of production which exists in modern Britain (where women are afraid to walk city streets and rural areas are echoing to the sound of furious working-class frustration) and combined it with the human relations of classless equality which characterise primitive communities? That is the prospect which world socialism holds before us now. We could have a society where people co-operate to produce the best that there can be to satisfy the needs of all; instead we have a society shown to us in a documentary by Clive James called Postcard From Chicago (11 January, BBC1, 9.30 pm) in which we were introduced to the gangs which inhabit the city's slum areas. These gangs — The People and The Folk — do not merely shout abuse at each other. They shoot — to kill.

Gang warfare, born of urban poverty, is a game that ends in murder. Often the killers and killed are in their mid-teens. Now. James is one of those "witty" types who likes to enchant the half-witted with empty aphorisms. It's seductive viewing, but a lot of tripe is squeezed into the maxims. For example, in watching workers making hamburgers in Chicago (note: you will always see James watching people work) he stated that “Marx had it all wrong”. There is no alienation; these descendants of Polish immigrants feel close to their work and are grateful to be close to food — unlike in Poland where they would have to queue for it. This self-evident rubbish is supposed to pass for serious social commentary. By the same reasoning. Rolls Royce car producers are not alienated from the luxury cars they produce — even though they may travel home from work in a second-hand Cortina. Clive James is, in fact, a virulent anti-socialist. That he is witty and entertaining makes him an all the more potent one.

Is Britain free?

Panorama (BBC1, 9.25 pm. 9 January) was all about the diminishing freedom which many of us perceive in Britain at the moment. The government, in the name of freedom, has made numerous moves to curtail trade union and civil freedoms which workers fought hard to win. But even without the much-discussed Thatcherite assault, a society without free access to goods and services can never be free. That conception of freedom was not once mentioned in the programme. It is as if the fullest extent of “freedom" can only ever mean a loosening of the chains. I fell asleep after ten minutes of the great debate about whether Britain is unfree, woke up to see Willie Whitelaw sounding silly and switched over to Minder (ITV), where one can see a far more vivid picture of phoney freedom and increasing misery under the capitalist social system.

Steve Coleman

Blogger's Note:

For some reason the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard misnamed 'Baka — People Of The Rainforest' as 'Baka — Children Of The Rain Forest'. I'm not sure what happened there. In 2012 the writer/director of the original documentary, Phil Agland, wrote and directed a follow up documentary entitled, 'Baka: A Cry from the Rainforest'. It can be viewed at the following link.

SPGB Meetings (1989)

 Party News from the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

50 Years Ago: The Cripps Popular Front for Democracy (1989)

The 50 Years Ago column from the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Labour Party puts forward a non-Socialist programme and labels it "Socialist Crusade", while Cripps writes glibly of an all-party aliance. in which nobody “would be expected to relinquish any part of their beliefs or programme except for the specific and limited purpose of the present emergency and for the creation of a temporary combination to fight the National Government."

Fine-sounding phrases, but what is the new Government going to do when it gets into office, except carry on the administration of capitalism? They could not introduce Socialism, even if they wished, because the electorate is opposed to such a course, and the openly capitalist elements have not the slightest intention of putting capitalism in cold storage as their part of the bargain. Nor do they even pretend to have that intention. Like the Duchess of Atholl. who wrote an article on "My Creed" in Reynolds (January 15th. 1939). they desire "to maintain private property as an institution.” The Socialist sheep is asked to join in a pact of mutual assistance with the capitalist wolf under the blessed guise of genuine friends of democracy, but while the sheep is to give up Socialism the wolf carries on in the accustomed way.

(From an editorial. “Cripps and the Labour Party", published in the Socialist Standard. February 1939.)

Fraternal assistance (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The London International Stock Exchange is to assist the development of a stock exchange in Hungary. The agreement was signed in Budapest on December 12 by Mr J. Knight, the managing director of the London Stock Exchange In an interview he said that a stock exchange in Hungary would encourage foreign investors as they regarded an exchange as a means of gathering information on the financial and economic standing of Hungarian enterprises.

First, however, several private enterprises would have to emerge and operate profitably. He called attention to the need for reliable statistics. He added that the exclusivity or predominance of state ownership in Hungary did not contradict the existence of a stock exchange. In recent decades socialist governments in several Western countries had nationalised mines and steelworks and issued shares and bonds on the exchange.

Hungarian Radio. December 13 (BBC Monitoring)

Russia's fate (1989)

From the February 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The March 1924 edition of the Socialist Standard had this to say on the death of Lenin:

So far was he from changing the course of history. . . that it was the course of history which changed him . . . Today Russia stands halfway on the road to capitalism. The communists in their ignorance may howl at this, but Russia cannot escape her destiny.

The Socialist Party stood alone at the time in rejecting claims that Russia had achieved anything more than this: it stood not on the threshold of socialism, but on its way to full integration into the capitalist world economy.

Today we can test the socialist argument against the historical record. Has Russia escaped the destiny predicted for it by us in 1924? President Gorbachev answered the question in his speech to the United Nations in December:

The world economy is becoming a single organism and no state, whatever its social system or economic status, can normally develop outside it.

Alan D'Arcy

Growing Unity of the Lab.-Cons. (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Listening to the Labour and Tory parties trying to explain the points of difference in their respective policies reminds one of that popular ditty of a few years back, “You say ‘neether' and I say ‘nighther.' " There is no basic idea now held by one of these parties which is not held by the other, though each may express it in different words. Whether or not this tendency, which is almost daily becoming more marked, is viewed by either as a sign of the correctness of its policy, it should certainly be of the greatest interest to those who imagine that any fundamental change would result with the advent of a Tory government.

Generally Labour politicians are inclined to adopt a rather smug attitude towards the inability of the Tories to advocate any radical change When referring to any of their doubtful achievements, such as the now legendary “free" teeth and specs, they chide their opponents for being unwilling to oppose them openly, at least to a degree greater than the Labour Government has since been forced to do so. They offer their supporters, in consolation for the hardships that Capitalism inevitably imposes on the working class, the comforting thought that anyway the Tories could do no better.

Under the title “Labour and Tories Draw Closer," Maurice Cranston writes:—

“The Tories talk of more freedom, but they have no real intention of denationalising what has once been nationalised. As for planning, the Tories have now accepted the principle of putting Britain on a war economy, and nobody pretends this could be done without planning.

"The important point is that a change of government will hardly make the slightest difference in British policy at home or abroad. The Opposition accepts the principle of the Welfare State, just as the Government accepts the principle of rearmament and collective security against Communism. There would be inflation under the Tories, but there is inflation now."

(Labour's Northern Voice,” June, 1951.)

Nationalisation, planning, Welfare State, rearmament, inflation—there is no real difference of policy on any of these issues, and the list could be added to. To complete this picture of two greyish parties, each eager to show its whiteness in comparison with the blackness of the other, we may turn to the comments of the newspapers supporting the Conservative point of view. For instance, the Daily Mail affects to be mildly shocked at the signs of political opportunism it detects in the Labour Party’s policy on nationalisation.

“ In January, 1951, Mr. Herbert Morrison said there must be 'national ownership and development of basic resources, with freedom of private enterprise in nonmonopoly industries.'

But in January, 1950, he had been hot for the national ownership of sugar, cement, insurance, and meat distribution. Only when he found the country was against these measures did he drop them. Wonderful, is it not, how the noble ideal of Socialism can be altered to suit the prevailing electoral winds? ”

(Daily Mail, 4.7.1951.)

Wonderful indeed, if it were Socialism that could be so altered. The truth is that the Labour Party, in common with all other parties undertaking to run Capitalism, alters its programme of reforms according to what is most likely to retain support, irrespective of past policies. What more damning indictment could be made against any Labour M.P. than to show that he is acquiescing in the very measures to which his party has long been traditionally, if only nominally opposed?

“He dislikes Defence, but is forced to provide it. He hates Imperialism, but is compelled to embrace it. He is against Free Enterprise, but he has been made to support it And he will vote for all, the things he detests in order to keep his job.”

(Daily Mail, 4.7.1951.) 

Just in case it may be thought that the so-called Left Wing of the Labour Party is less committed to present policies than its main body, then Aneurin Bevan's pamphlet, "One Way Only," should dispel this illusion. The Evening News takes Mr. Bevan to task on his attitude to the present policy of rearmament.

“Mr. Bevan, after fulminating against this rearmament, talks of a 'degree of rearmament necessary to deter the Russians from military adventures.’ When do we reach that degree, Mr. Bevan? Don’t look now, but it appears to us at this point that it is a rearmaments race you are actually advocating.”

(Evening News, 10.7.1951.)

No doubt Mr. Bevan would not agree that he is advocating a rearmaments race. Nevertheless whether he does so or not it is bound to occur, as a result of the capitalist system he supports, caused by rivalries between single or groups of nations over world markets, trade routes, mineral deposits, etc. A bullet in the head from one who “ didn’t mean to do it ” is no less fatal than one from a deliberate killer.

The best way of detecting the microscopic differences between Labour and Tory policies is to have them magnified in a discussion between a representative of each. Such a discussion was recently broadcast on the B.B.C. Third Programme under the title “Is Socialism Losing Its Appeal?” which would have been more accurately titled “Is the Labour Party's 1945 Programme Losing Its Appeal? "

Mr. J. Enoch Powell, M.P. (Cons.), remarked in this discussion that Labour Party propaganda, being essentially optimistic, invites disappointment when it led to Labour Government He claimed that a supposedly revolutionary party, on achieving political power, was required to produce the revolution, or to find excuses for not doing so. Mr. Donald Chapman, Secretary of the Fabian Society, sought to show that British “Socialism” (i.e., the Labour Party) was more practical than the Continental variety, and accepted much of the Liberal traditions in receiving suggestions from the opposition. Socialism, he went on, had something to contribute to the steady development of the British Way of Life; it had put forward a severely practical programme needed to correct the excesses of an earlier period. Mr. Powell preferred to say that Socialism had to cease to be Socialism in order to retain public appeal, which sounds good but means nothing. He asserted that the Conservative Party had accepted much of Socialism, but later claimed that Toryism was not a whit socialist. Both debaters supported the idea of Social Services, but Mr. Chapman saw a difference in the spirit which made them sponsored, not grudgingly accepted. The argument, if it could properly be called such, wandered on along these lines, ana the remark by Mr. Powell, “You talk of State, I talk of Nation,” was typical of the depth of the whole dispute.

What are the lessons to be learned from this growing unity of policy of the two main contestants for political power in this country? One is that any party that advocates reforms can command a big following by promising to solve the problems that Capitalism engenders, just so long as it is not called upon to form the government. Another is that at a time when it is a toss-up which party will win the next election each must offer the electorate all that is popular in the rival programme plus a little extra in order to tip the balance.

But the most important lesson for members of the working class is that if they want to express their dissatisfaction with the past results of Capitalism they are wasting their time voting for any party offering to make a better job of it in future. They must understand that it is Capitalism that determines the policies of the governments that undertake to run it, and not the other way round. In the light of this knowledge they will then organise with us for the establishment of Socialism, which alone can make a reality the dreams of a better life that Capitalism has made potentially possible, but can never actualize.

Stan Parker

The New Zealand docks dispute (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

For five months since the 17th of February, 1951, New Zealand was in the throes of one of the longest and bitterest Trade Union struggles in its history. The struggle commenced with the lock-out of the Waterside Workers (Dockers) and the imposing of the “Waterfront Strike Emergency Regulations” and their amendments, 1951.

The miners, the Wellington freezing workers, the New Zealand Federated Seamen’s Union struck as a protest against the Emergency Regulations. The miners, freezing workers and the federated seamen had no wage dispute and they ignored the advice of their Union National Officers to remain at work.

On February 8th the employers of waterfront labour offered 4½d. an hour wage rise following the Arbitration Court award of a 15 per cent increase. On February 10th watersiders at Wellington and at New Plymouth ceased working overtime as a protest against the employers’ offer. The workers claimed that 4½d an hour was only 9 per cent increase in a forty-hour week and that their ability to work overtime had been included when the wage rise was computed. The employers argued that the rise offered was exactly in line with the 15 per cent Arbitration Court award.

The employers began dismissing men on the 15th of February for refusing to work overtime. Workers alleged that they had been locked out and stated that they were willing to work the forty-hour week. Employers replied that refusal to work overtime was a breach of the agreement.

On February 19th the Government issued an ultimatum calling on the watersiders to resume normal work including overtime and to place their wage claim before the Waterfront Authority, failing that, the Waterfront Commission would be suspended. The same day, the waterside workers saw displayed on the engagement boards a notice to the effect that if they were not prepared to work overtime they were not to lift their discs (sign on for work). Meetings of watersiders at all ports on that day rejected the Government ultimatum.

The workers claimed that the position was an “open lock-out by the employers” and a “calculated attack” on Trade Unionism and the forty-hour week. The Prime Minister of New Zealand declared a state of emergency on February 22nd.

The Government issued sweeping emergency regulations on February 23rd, giving power to suspend all awards, use members of the armed forces on the waterfront, extend the powers of the police, deal with any person who incited or aided the continuance of the dispute, place all union funds in the hands of the receiver, etc. A Waterfront Strike Notice was issued ordering all watersiders back to work on Monday, February 26th, or to suffer a “declared strike” under the regulations.

On that Monday, meetings of watersiders in all ports rejected this ultimatum. The following day the Government ordered servicemen on to the waterfront at Wellington and Auckland, and the New Zealand coast seamen walked off all ships being worked by servicemen. Some Wellington Harbour Board employees were suspended for refusing to assist the servicemen, and meetings of seamen, drivers and others were held everywhere.

The Trade Union Congress called on the Government to resign. The Federation of Labour affiliations recommended the calling of a compulsory conference between the disputing parties. Over a thousand workers employed on hydro-electric plants at Waikato ceased work. All Waikato underground mines and some West coast mines were idle. The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants instructed all branches not to handle any material on the waterfront that was normally handled by the watersiders. Freezing workers at Ngahauranga, the Gear Meat Workers at Petone and at several other centres stopped work. The Golden Bay Cement Works closed down.

The Government de-registered the New Zealand Waterside Workers’ Union on February 28th, and the Parliamentary Labour Party called on the Government to arrange a compulsory conference between the parties.

On March 1st receivers moved into the Waterside Workers’ Union offices throughout the country. Bank accounts amounting to £20,000 were taken over. The Federation of Labour announced that it had done “everything that it could be expected to do within reason”, the Union could only blame itself for its position.

On March 5th all mines in the Greymouth district had come to a standstill. The Wellington Drivers’ Union took a ballot and decided not to work with the troops at the waterfront.

By April 10th the Government had used everything in the bag to force the watersiders back to work. Emergency Regulations, all the Anti-Trade Union legislation brought down by the Labour Government with a few embellishments by the present Nationalist Government. It was made an offence to discuss the Emergency Regulations at any meeting, even the leader of the opposition was refused permission to do so. But the watersiders, the miners, the freezing workers and the seamen stood firm.

On two occasions members of the Watersiders’ Union were sent cards to sign if they wished to return to work under the new conditions and as members of new Unions that had been registered, but very few took advantage of the offer. The majority showed remarkable determination to preserve their Union and to support their elected representatives. The Government refused to negotiate on any grounds that would enable the old Union to return on a National basis or to negotiate with any deputation that included the old Union’s president and secretary, H. Barnes and T. Hill. If the workers had been prepared to sacrifice these two, a settlement might have been brought about. These two men were branded as the trouble makers and the old Communist bogey was thrashed until it became a joke. It was a Communist plan, cried the Government, and the watersiders were dupes. Seventy-five per cent of the members of the old Union were ex-servicemen from the 1914-18 and 1939-45 wars and it is ironical that these men, who supposedly went away to destroy the Nazi monster in the last war, should return to face another one with similar earmarks as soon as they demanded a little more of the wealth that the working class produces, in order to maintain their already miserable living standard, or a little of the “new order” that they were promised whilst they were fighting their masters’ enemies. They have the new order, but it is worse than the old one. Socialists have maintained through both wars that the common enemy of the workers in every land is Capitalism and not their fellow workers of a different nationality.

Throughout the struggle the Parliamentary Labour Party in New Zealand sat on the fence, and the Labour politicians were subtle as usual.. At first they made no complaint against the Emergency Regulations or anti-Trade-Union regulations which their own party had used when it was the Government. Mr. Nash, the leader of the Opposition, said at a meeting in Hamilton that “he was in favour of applying regulations in any easy and not in a rigorous way as long as this did not tend to prolong the strike”, and that the Labour Party “would have had no hesitation in using its powers to ensure that essential supplies were delivered to hospitals and homes”. He said that he did not like to see freedom of speech curtailed or officials given the right to open private correspondence. Neither could he agree to the clause in the regulation which made it an offence to give food to assist watersiders’ wives and children. (Evening Post, Wellington, 30.3.1951.)

The Labour politicians claimed that they were neither for nor against the locked-out and striking Unions, but with the unflagging determination of these Unions to continue the struggle, the Labour men took the opportunity to get in and reap the spoils of the workers’ fight. The Import Supply Bill was debated in the House of Representatives, 26.6.1951, and the Labour Party politicians used the chance to debate the industrial situation generally. They expressed concern at the state of the country, urged a settlement of the strife and, with an eye to the future, they put in a good case for themselves.

The Government speaker, in reply, quoted from a pamphlet entitled “Statements concerning recent disputes affecting waterfront work” issued by the Minister of Labour in the past Labour Government. Therein the cause of the waterfront disputes was attributed to the attitude of “Barnes and Hill” on the various waterfront Commissions, and to the machinations of the Communists. This dispute gives the Labour Party a good weapon with which to fight the next election. It will be able to adopt the attitude of “we told you so” and to blame the Nationalist Government for all the workers’ problems.

The Federation of Labour played a vile part in the dispute, giving the Nationalist Government every aid to crush the watersiders and their allies. Even the Labour Party had to snub them. Thus is demonstrated the futility of compulsory unionism to the workers.

When the National Government brought in its Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Amendment Act, there was in it a threat to compulsory unionism. The officials of the Federation of Labour immediately dashed to the rescue and convinced Mr. Holland of the value of compulsory unionism, pointing out that “the Federation has yet to find any sections of the employers who object to its continuance” (Southern Cross, 3.11.1950). Without compulsory unionism the officials would lose their mainstay and the power they wield. They have now proved its value to the Government. Lack of knowledge and apathy of the members is of great assistance to these leaders of the Federation, as it is to all leaders.

The promise of support from the railwaymen seems to have been lost in transit and the strikers have rather a poor opinion of their brothers on the railways who failed to comply with the resolve “not to handle any material on the waterfront normally handled by watersiders”.

The Government precipitated this struggle at a bad time for the employing class in New Zealand. It was at the height of the exporting season, thereby costing them an immense sum. The determination of the men, the active part played by the young members who were getting their first taste of such a struggle, and the support of wives who went out to work to help their menfolk continue the fight, are deserving of the applause of workers everywhere.

On July 11th the seamen, cooks and stewards who had been on strike in sympathy with the watersiders, returned to work and the National Council of the Waterside Workers’ Union recommended branches in all ports to return to work. The New Zealand Government is to seek an early dissolution of Parliament to test public opinion on its handling of the dispute. The leader of the opposition has charged the Government with fascism, dictatorship, opening mails, tapping telephones, suppression of free speech and freedom of assembly and other actions foreign to democratic government. This is denied by the Prime Minister (Manchester Guardian, 12.7.1951).

The outstanding lesson to be learned from this working-class struggle in New Zealand is that working conditions bitterly fought for and won through struggle on the industrial battlefield over the years can be wiped out, comparatively speaking, in a few minutes by those who control the political machinery. The political weapon is the dominant one and whilst it remains in the hands of the capitalist class no amount of struggle will free the workers from the yoke of capital. The same determined and heroic effort as our New Zealand fellow workers have recently waged, if directed towards gaining control of the political machine with a view to ending the wages system would solve all their economic problems. If only they would raise the cry, “Abolish the wages system” instead of making a modest demand for a tiny wage increase, then they would be heading towards a system free from lock-outs, strikes, poverty, atomic wars, ill housing, dictatorship, over-work and the host of other evils which beset them.

(This account of the recent New Zealand struggle has been compiled from information and material supplied by Comrade R. Everson of the Socialist Party of New Zealand.)

Overseas Secretary, SPGB

"Some are more equal than others" (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Some are more equal than others"

("Animal Farm," by George Orwell)

The country is in trouble again. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced that the Government has decided to freeze dividends for the next three years, the duration of the Rearmament programme. Imports are to be limited, Prices controlled and Capital issues discouraged. Dividends are increasing too much and too quickly, says Mr. Gaitskell (about 10 per cent.); and are to be limited to the average of the last two years, or 5 per cent., whichever is greater.

Mr. Gaitskell does not exaggerate when he says that dividends have increased. Almost without exception, the Chairmen of the great companies, Dunlop, I.C.I., Aircraft Companies, Department Stores have congratulated the shareholders on an extremely successful year, and thanked the staff for their achievements.

Labour politicians profess that by this legislation limiting the amount of dividend payable they are limiting profits, and seeing “fair play” between the workers and the employers.

The General Council of the T.U.C. has made it a demand upon the Government, to ensure that if workers have “frozen” wages, capitalists should get “frozen” profits.

The first thing which Mr. Gaitskell has shown is that Labour Government is very good indeed for capitalist shareholders. They are drawing so much profit that steps are to be taken to limit it temporarily.

Many workers see in this a step in their interests. They are not clear that the wealthy investor loses absolutely nothing by this step. His shares still belong to him exclusively, their value eventually will probably increase because the sums which might have been paid in excess of the restricted amount for the next three years will automatically pass to reserve; to be ploughed back to make the company more wealthy. The capitalist is merely being compelled by law to be prudent.

In addition the Labour leaders claim that they are heavily taxing the capitalists to pay for social services and keep down the prices of necessities on which workers spend wages.

It is impossible to help the working class by taxing capitalists. Taxation, with the exception of Death Duties, is levied on income, and according to the economists it is an unsound principle of taxation to invade the taxpayer's actual property.

All monies levied by taxes are used to support the efficient running of capitalist production. Sound taxation requires large prosperous incomes for wealthy people to ensure a regular flow of satisfactory tax.

A moment's elementary arithmetic will show how absurd is the idea of the General Council of the T.U.C. that freezing wages in the same degree as dividends is of value to Trades Unionists.

Let us take a typical capitalist with an investment of £100,000. Mr. Gaitskell says he has been drawing 10 per cent. last year. That is, for every £100 worth of shares he draws £10 dividend. There are 1,000 (one thousand) £100's in £100,000, that is, £10,000 dividend. Income tax can reduce it by half—leaving £5,000. That is practically £100 a week. He may now be compelled to accept half of this for three years, £50 a week, the other £50 or more in excess of 5 per cent., is to remain in the company or be invested in Government funds.

How can this possibly be compared to a worker who found last year that, due to the Government's devaluation of the pound, and the shortages caused by war stockpiling, his £5 was worth, in real value, far less.

He then started frantically demanding that his Trade Union table a wage increase demand. In some cases, he took the serious step off unofficial strike action which usually, in the favourable conditions, produced the desired result in the shape of a 10 per cent. increase, with a homily on the necessity of tight belts, because of the country’s difficulties.

The fallacy consists in treating workers and capitalists as equals. In the one case, the working class is already at the border-line of the minimum of existence.

An increase of prices of workers' goods to, say, 40 per cent., means a corresponding reduction in wages, 28/6d. reduction in £5.

A limitation of dividends for the capitalist means drawing £50 a week less for the time being, but he starts with £100 a week and has at his disposal £100,000 worth of property, or shares which he can still spend as he pleases. It compares to putting a motor-car and a donkey-cart on the starting line, and "limiting" both equally by making them carry the same weight. The motor-car has fourteen horse-power, the cart one donkey.

In addition to this, the investor does not even have to drive his own car, this is done for him by the efficient staff of his factories. He has complete leisure, and no responsibility.

The worker still believes that it is to his interest that the Government of “his” country should be prosperous. He believes, though he cannot explain it, that its foreign trade benefits him. He shudders at the thought of being broke or down.

The confusion in many workers’ minds, especially Trade Unionists, has been increased by the Financial Policy of the Labour Party—its so-called “Socialist Finance." “Socialist Finance" is a complicated series of nonsense entitled Nationalisation of the Bank of England, Currency Management, Control of Bank Credit, Stable Price Level, Planned Development, the Capital Issues Committee, etc. Even delegates to the Labour Party Conference, before the war, protested that not one nor all of these financial reforms has the slightest connection with Socialism.

No member of the present administration has written about the “Control of Investment" and “Capital Issues Control" more trenchantly than Mr. John Strachey, who called Mr. Gaitskell (in his “Plan for Power”) “a capitalist economist" in 1939. He wrote:

“Some observers have identified Capitalism with free competition and Socialism with Governmental intervention in economic life . . . no matter on whose behalf it is undertaken. They suppose that because . . . the individual German capitalist employer or group of employers united in a joint stock company cannot now sell their product at whatever price they like, hire labour at a wage higher than the current one . . . refuse to re-invest the rent, interest and profit which they have made, or invest it in directions which would hamper the rearmament programme, they have been brought under a more or less socialistic regime. Such profound errors spring from equally profound misapprehensions. The essential basic characteristic of Capitalism is not competition, but the ownership of the means of production by a small class, so that the mass of the population must live by selling their ability to that class."

(John Strachey, “A Plan for Power,” p. 277.)

Finally, the testimony of a non-party economist regarding Labour Party financial reform should prove enlightening:

"The policies of the Labour and Social Democratic parties are largely influenced by monetary expansionist views.

"The essence of these views, which are sometimes described as socialist economic policy, is that they are not really socialist at all, since they do not involve the abolition of private property and capitalist enterprise.

". . . The real difficulty about these proposals (socialisation of banking, economic planning, controlled investment).... is that their ultimate scope is not clear.

"They do not appear to involve the abolition of private property and they must therefore be taken as proposals which are to be carried out within the framework of our economic system. They are, in principle, not different from the schemes which are at the moment being undertaken in the United States. And in their technique they are very similar to the system of control which was applied in all belligerent countries during the war. As such they suffer from a fundamental inconsistency. . . . So long as freedom of choice is allowed, so long as a free exchange exists, private property and a medium of exchange, as we know it, are essential.

“A really radical change in the monetary management such as is proposed is only possible if money ceases to be the economic instrument we know, because free exchange and private property are no longer possible. The fate of all past experiments at elaborate control has been the same, they cannot be confined to a particular sphere; they lead to a progressive restriction of the market until they finally come up against the fundamental institutions of private property and individual freedom.

"Liberal economic theory recognises this; so also does Marxism. Marxism considers money as the instrument of the market, the means by which individual labour is transformed into socially necessary labour. Where private property and production for the market exist, such an instrument is an essential corollary of it. It is only through it that the separation of consumption and production, or of individual labour and socially necessary labour can be overcome.

“Socialism, by abolishing private property, also abolishes the need for such an instrument. In the ultimate communist society of which Marx spoke, all labour would be directly socially-necessary labour, since private property and class distinction would have been abolished. There would be collective ownership of the means of production and this would have led to so great an increase of the available wealth that distribution would be on the basis of 'from everyone according to his ability, to everyone according to his needs.' ”

("About Money,” by Dr. Erich Roll.)

Horatio.

Who Led the Railwaymen Up the Garden? (1951)

From the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The railwaymen are sore about Nationalisation. They are saying that it has not done them any good. Some even say that conditions are worse than they would be if the railway companies were still in control. Our authority for this is the Editor of the “Railway Review,” the journal of the National Union of Railwaymen. In an editorial (27.7.1951) he contributes an article entitled “Let’s Get It Straight! ” We give below some extracts from it:

“Before the nationalisation of transport the workers anticipated certain favourable changes which they thought would be wrought almost immediately after the celebrations for nationalisation came to an end. After three and a-half years it seems to the man on the job that no favourable changes have taken place. Improvements in wages, working conditions and a relative responsibility in the running of the industry have just not materialised. On some counts there is a feeling that there has been a deterioration in standards instead of an improvement.

“Nationalised transport is being operated on capitalist patterns, with capitalist forms of accountancy, with capitalist conceptions of industrial organisation. Any changes which have been introduced could well have been made by the private owners of transport undertakings. In fact it is true to say, whether we like it or not, that a number of private enterprise firms provide better wages and conditions than those obtaining generally in nationalised transport.”

The extracts quoted above clearly establish that the railwaymen feel that nationalisation has been a swindle. They expected great things and three and a half years’ experience have been sufficient to prove the expectation baseless. The Editor of the “Railway Review” does not think them wrong; he agrees with their view and sets himself the task of discovering how the Nationalisation Act and the organisation it set up should be altered in order to make things better. He writes;

“We do not think that better wages and conditions and a real share in the running of the industry are objectives which can be expected from the present structure of nationalisation. That is not in the Act. The changes we desire, then, must be placed in the Act.”

His principal suggestion is that the railway workers “must be given the legal right to better wages and conditions and a share in management,” and that as this is barred by the obligation to make sufficient profit to pay the fixed rates of compensation to the railway shareholders, then the Government should cut down “this extravagant treatment of the former transport owners.”

As socialists we have quite a number of things to say about this. First of all what has the Editor of the “Railway Review” to say about his own responsibility and that of the officials of the National Union of Railwaymen? The railwaymen did not just happen to think that transport nationalisation might be a good thing for them; for years they were persuaded by their officials that nationalisation was the remedy they needed. And they were led to think by the same officials that the Act of 1947 was deserving of support. What excuse have these officials for coming along three and a half years later and saying that the clauses of the Act are at fault? Didn’t they read the Act when it was being discussed in Parliament? Didn’t they know what it contained and what it aimed to do?

As a matter of probability they doubtless did read it, but their approach was the same sloppy, muddle- headed one that has characterised the Labour Party’s nationalisation propaganda for forty years. They read it but had not sufficient grasp of the problem to realise what nationalisation is, or how it works and for whose benefit. Ignorant both of the workings of Capitalism and of the principles of Socialism they could not see that nationalisation is State Capitalism, its aim being to provide transport for capitalist industry and commerce as cheap and efficient as possible, and that it differs from private Capitalism mainly in the fact that management is centralised and the capitalist investors receive their return in the form of Government-guaranteed interest on State bonds instead of in the form of dividends on shares. Yet they had ample information under their noses if they had known how to assimilate it. They could have studied the State Capitalist Post Office, or the State railways in a dozen countries in the world, including the Australian State railways with their history of embittered strikes and lock-outs under Labour Governments.

But now, instead of coming forward frankly admitting that nationalisation is bound to be a fraud for the workers and that they were at fault ever to have peddled the nostrum of nationalisation, we see the “Railway Review’s” Editor as one of the railwaymen’s “leaders,” persuading them to waste still more years trying to solve their problems by tinkering about with the Act—as if the Government which introduced the Act as part of the business of administering Capitalism would or could alter it into something non-capitalist and useful to the working class. And Test anyone should fall into the equally crude error of supposing that a Communist Government would or could do anything better, let us emphasise that in capitalist Russia where, incidentally, the Government bond-holders receive a much larger return than the taxed 3 per cent, paid to holders of British Government Transport Stock, the State railways arc required by law to make a profit, and there are all the familiar problems of fat salaries for the top officials and the operation of the services on capitalist commercial lines.

In raising the question of the amount of compensation paid year by year to former railway shareholders in accordance with the Nationalisation Act, the Editor of the “Railway Review” is equally open to criticism. Did he not know this at the time the railway workers were being told to celebrate the passing of the Act? Did he never realise that the whole idea of compensation by Government securities, as proclaimed by the Labour Party, was to get rid of dividends which depended on the amount of profit the railway companies were making year by year, and to replace them by a fixed payment which would go on indefinitely? If a railway company made no profit the shareholders would go without their dividends, and for many years certain classes of railway shares did in fact receive no dividends at all. But now, under nationalisation, the ex-shareholders (even including those who were getting no dividends) do not have to worry. Generally speaking they receive less than they would have got in a year of high railway profits, but they still receive their compensation even if the nationalised railways make no profit at all. The Government meets the payment and requires British Transport (as provided in the Act) to make good the deficit in later years.

If it mattered to the railway workers how much compensation is paid (and the Editor imagines that it does) why did he and the Union officials not have the elementary foresight to see that if they had delayed nationalisation until the railways were hit, as they were bound to be, by the revival of road transport, railway profits and share values would have fallen and the Government would then have secured nationalisation at about half the price they actually paid through nationalising in 1947?

In fact, however, it does not make any real difference to the railway workers as can be seen by looking at the treatment of the workers in a nationalised industry that habitually makes high profits. For nearly forty years the Post Office has made a big surplus, rising during the recent war to nearly £40 millions a year. Is the Editor so simple as to imagine that the P.M.G. under Labour Government ceases to resist Post Office workers’ claims for an adequate wage because the profit is big? It is true that British Transport uses the fact that the industry did not make enough profit to pay the ex-shareholders as an excuse for resisting wage claims, but it would resist them anyway. When the P.M.G. resists Post Office wage claims one of the arguments he uses is that their pay is not below the pay of railway workers, and former P.M.G.’s did just the same before the railways were nationalised.

While we are on the question of the failure of the railway union officials to show foresight one wonders why they did not at least put up a fight at the time of nationalisation to secure that railway workers were made civil servants and made entitled to non-contributory pensions like other civil servants.

When the S.P.G.B. was formed in 1904 one of its earliest warnings to railwaymen and other workers was to beware of the delusion that nationalisation is Socialism or can solve working-class problems. The warning was not heeded and the penalty has been the waste of precious years campaigning for something worthless. Now the union officials, instead of at long last recognising the truth of the S.P.G.B. claim that only Socialism can emancipate the working class, are launching another campaign, this time to try to amend the Act that was the product of the first campaign. What the railwaymen should do is to stop being led up the garden. They should think for themselves—about Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Passing Comments: Mutual Admiration Society (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the September 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mutual Admiration Society

There was a warming scene in the House of Commons the other day when two capitalists, one on each side of the house, gave their views on one of the chief problems confronting both parties nowadays —how to get the arms drive going satisfactorily. Mr. Strauss, Minister of Supply, whose family fortunes are derived from metal-trading, said that "his department is working vigorously. It has recruited a number of industrialists, it has placed 51,000 contracts with industry, and he is confident that this year’s programme will be achieved.” (Daily Express, 24.7.1951.) And he graciously gave what William Barkley calls “an unusual tribute across the table for his services” to Col. Sir Ralph Glyn, the Tory member for Abingdon, who was the chairman of a select committee which has made a number of recommendations to the Government on the question of the switch of industries to rearmament. Sir Ralph holds down four jobs altogether—he is an M.P., he is a director of J. Samuel White & Co., Ltd., and of the British Match Corporation, and he is chairman of the Skefko Ball Bearing Co., Ltd. And he gallantly replied by praising “trade union leaders for their efforts at harmony in industry.” He also said that "this heavy rearmament programme must inevitably depress British standards of living for some years. This gave opportunities to mischief-makers who were what used to be called traitors.” So they are all comrades together, Tory capitalists, "labour” capitalists, trade union leaders; the only cads are the mischief- makers who object to having their standards of living depressed.

* * *

Enterprise and Vitality

Mr. Strauss had found time to sing the praises of some more of his fellow-capitalists four days before. Opening a new Austin plant, he said (Daily Herald, 20.7.1951): "This plant will make a great contribution to Britain's industrial resources. It is typical of the enterprise, imagination and vitality of the Austin company. Those responsible deserve our gratitude.” In return, Mr. Lord, Chairman of the Austin Company, drew attention to the difficulties the Government had to face, and said: “Some people seem to think that a change of government will put everything right, but it won't make bad workmen work any more, or get us more coal and steel, or deal with Communism as we know it in this country.” And it is certainly true that whether the Labour Party or the Conservative Party is administering Capitalism the problems they have to face will be much the same; one of the chief flies in the ointment will always be those workers who are too idle to bring a really sizeable profit in to their employers.

* * *

More and More

Mr. Lord is reported as having gone on to say: “We must all work together and realise that the days of more and more for less and less are over.” Come, come, Mr. Lord. Haven't you seen the latest figures for dividend increases? We admit that it would not be strictly true to say that now a shareholder is doing less and less to earn his dividends since one cannot do less than nothing, and the shareholder was already doing that. But the other part—”more and more”— certainly applies, since higher dividends have been reported all the year, culminating in an 18 per cent. increase in June. Now, of course, a schema of partial restriction—on dividends, not on profits—has been introduced to keep the trade unions quiet, and some of the extra dividends the shareholders hoped for will have to be salted away in companies' reserves for the three years during which the scheme will be in operation. But whereas the workers, persuaded of the benevolent intentions of the Government by this latest plan, will be expected to forego wage increases altogether, the dividend increases will not be foregone, merely postponed till the end of the scheme.

A confidence trick, in fact, of the highest order.

* * *

Vicious Circle

One of the main excuses brought forward by the heads of each state for rearming is that some other country has rearmed, and "we nave to do it as well to defend ourselves.” Thus Russia keeps large armies in being in order to defend herself against the threat presented by the fact that America has stocks of atomic bombs and numerous overseas bases. And America and Britain have to rearm to defend themselves against the large Russian armies (a Daly Herald headline on July 28th was “Why we must arm—Stalin has. five and a half million armed men”). The Daily Graphic, however, goes one better. Not only do we have to rearm because our future enemies are arming; we also have to rearm because our allies are arming. Commenting on President Truman's report to Congress that in twelve months twenty per cent. of America’s total industrial production will be devoted to “defence,” the Graphic says (24.7.1951): “America is bearing—and bearing willingly—the main burden. It is shameful for anyone in Britain to suggest that we should not do our share.”

Stripped of verbiage, the argument runs like this: The Russian workers have let themselves be deluded into accepting a lower standard of living so that the Russian state can have bigger armed forces; the American workers have let themselves be deluded into accepting a lower standard of living in order that the American state can have bigger armed forces; therefore we in Britain must also “do our share”!

* * *

Pax Vobiscum

At the opening of General Eisenhower's new headquarters near Versailles, the General is reported to have said that “it was the first time in history an allied headquarters had been set up in peacetime to preserve peace and not to encourage war” (Continental Daily Mail, 24.7.1951). “We strive to lift from the hearts of men the fear of the cell block of the slave-camp. We strive to establish Pax Atlantica under which all men may push forward to new heights to new levels of achievement”

If the General really wants to preserve peace, he chose an unfortunate comparison. For “Pax Romana,” although its literal translation is “the Roman peace,” had nothing to do with the preservation of peace. Pax Romana is the name given to a time when there were still wars. Why then was it called "pax”? Because whatever wars there were—against foreigners outside the Empire, against rebels within it—were won by the Roman rulers. It was the same with that other period of history to which the name “pax” is sometimes applied—the period 1815—1914, which some historians have called “Pax Britannica.” This didn’t mean that there were no wars in this period—it simply meant that whatever wars there were, within or without the British Empire, were won by the British rulers.

But perhaps that is the kind of thing the General had in mind.

* * *

Food and Famine

Here are some quotations from a missionary magazine (“The Kingdom Overseas,” July, 1951) taken from reports on the Mysore and Trichmopoly areas of India.

“We have seen little children crying for food, seen them snatch the food from each other’s hands, watched them eat with relish the husks of oil-cake from the oil mills, and search the fields for herbs and roots to eat.” 

“The shadows of death and the pale ghost of hunger have been present in countless homes. But many have had no homes—in which to live or die. These of our people were wandering from the west, eastward or to the hills; but in that search for work and food only some were successful.” 

“All of us in this Trichinopoly Diocese, and especially those on the western side, will remember 1950, above all, as a year when famine, the worst in living memory, stalked our countryside.”

1950? The News Chronicle (24.11.1950) had something to tell us about 1950. "A year’s supply of potatoes for twelve million people—26,700,000 bushels— has been destroyed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture this year, because it could not sell them abroad.” Let us not, however, put down our Western and democratic way of life as a complete failure. Some of us have enough food—enough of it for all purposes. If you are wealthy enough there is a shop in the Champs Elysees, in Paris, which will bathe your dog for you—in milk (Sunday Express, 15.7.1951). And from the same paper (1.7.1951) we learn that the beauty experts in New York have thought up a new facial to take the wrinkles out of rich women’s faces. Its ingredients? Eggs, milk and strawberries.

* * *

Sleight of Tongue

When we see an expert at work in any field it is difficult to withhold our admiration. Let us therefore give his due mead of praise to Mr. Churchill, who surely can have few peers in the work of improving on the facts for purposes of propaganda.

On July 14th, Mr. Horner, the national secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union, said in a speech at Morpeth that "if a Tory government is returned, it is certain that there will be a national strike of the miners, following the measures which such a Tory government propose to take to deal with the mining situation.” If the experience of the inter-war years counts for anything at all, this statement is so self-obvious as to border on being a truism. If a Tory government is returned, it is likely that ultimately the miners will be driven to resist mining measures by going on strike. Up to the present, indeed, one of the most valuable services performed by the Labour Government for the capitalist class has been to keep the strikes and disruption in this most important of industries down to a far lower level than after the first world war.

* * *

Masterstroke

Now Horner’s statement is a clear warning about the certainty of industrial disturbances in the coalmines under a Tory government Mr. Churchill, however, calls this warning "threats” and "shameful menaces.” More: he multiplies the scope of the warning by more than ten. He says (Sunday Express, 22.7.1951): “But now the Communist Horner has stepped outside the sphere of industrial disputes, and threatens the whole british democracy with a national strike to bring the country down if they dare express their opinion and wishes at the polls.” This is a masterstroke. By leaving three words out of the original phrase, “a national strike of the miners,” he extends the "threat” which he alleges has been uttered from one concerning fewer than 700,000 miners to one concerning more than ten times that number of organised workers.

A man of such abilities should be capable of retaining his place indefinitely at the head of the Conservative Party.

* * *

Free from Financial Worries

The Daily Express (20.7.1951) is calling for some wage increases. The subjects of its concern are the High Court judges, who only get £5,000 a year. When their salary was fixed, it says, it was “considered big enough to keep them free from financial worries which might impede their judgment.” Now, it seems, it no longer is.

No doubt it’s a good thing for judges to be free from financial worries. If this is the only criterion, however, what about, say, railway signalmen? An error in a judge’s judgment might mean a man being convicted wrongly; an error in a signalman’s judgment might mean dozens of people killed in a train smash. No doubt a judge can work better when free of financial worries; but isn't that true of all workers? The trouble is that there is only one way in which we can free all workers from financial worry; the establishment of Socialism. But that wouldn’t interest the Daily Express.

* * *

Help for the Democrats

From the Continental Daily Mail (24.7.1951): “Mr. Richard Casey, Australian External Affairs Minister, said to-day that 'solidarity among the democratic nations is necessary to cope with Communism’s onslaught.’” Mr. Casey was speaking in Indonesia, and he said that "Australia had offered any possible neighbourly assistance in technical, educational and other fields." Some more neighbourly assistance now reaching this particularly democratic nation from Hitler’s old finance minister, Dr. Schacht, who has been specially invited out by the Indonesian Government. It is not so long since our reformists were rejoicing over the replacement in Indonesia of a Dutch ruling class by a native one. But it seems that the Indonesian capitalists are also running up against problems, and they show no mote fastidiousness about the quarters from which they receive help than do their brother-capitalists elsewhere.

* * *

Simply and Informally

“Princess Elizabeth wants to travel ‘as simply and informally as possible’ when she sails for Canada with the Duke of Edinburgh on September 25th in the C.P.R. liner ‘Empress of France.’ Shipping officials have been told that this is her wish." (Sunday Express, 29.7.1951.) So there is going to be no fuss at all. Well, hardly any.

The royal apartments on board are to be four inter-communicating state-rooms “on the sun-trap port side of ‘A’ deck.” “Upper Pullman berths in the cabins are to be stripped out. New fitted carpets will be laid. Special bulkheads will be erected across a companion way to ensure greater privacy. One of the cabins will be converted into a private lounge-dining room.”

It looks as if the royal couple are going to have almost as ascetic a time on board as they do at home.

Alwyn Edgar