Cooking the Books: Pocket money (2024)

The Cooking the Books column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the end of August Starmer proclaimed that ‘things will get worse’ but that later they will ‘get better’. There is, he said, ‘a budget coming in October, and it’s going to be painful’, adding ‘we have no other choice’ (tinyurl.com/yc3tt3u3). By now we will know how painful and in what way.

Only as recently as May the Labour Party was promising to deliver ‘more money in people’s pockets [their emphasis in bold], improving living standards everywhere and helping working people keep more of the wealth that they create’ (tinyurl.com/2yz4j8se).

Some 40 percent or so of the adult population in the UK get a part of their money income from the government such as child benefit, state pension or universal credit. The government can also increase the minimum wage, and it can reduce income tax rates resulting in take-home pay going up. So it does have some power to literally put ‘more money in people’s pockets’.

It also has the power to take money out of people’s pockets. We already knew that the present government has the will to do this as one of the first things it did on entering office was to cut most pensioners’ income by £300. So when this government says it will make things get worse, that’s one politician’s pledge that we can be sure will be honoured.

This doesn’t necessarily have to take the form of reducing the nominal amount of money paid to people. It could also take the form of not increasing this more than the rise in the price level. Otherwise, how else could workers get to ‘keep more of the wealth that they create’?

What Starmer was implying was that the Labour government was going to inflict pain on people by reneging on its promise to put more money in their pockets. He is claiming that this is needed as a condition for things to get better later. ‘To accept short term pain for long term good’, as he put it. It’s a line that workers have often being sold — you’ll get jam tomorrow if you tighten your belts today.

The jam tomorrow is presented as a growing economy that will bring the government more in tax revenue and so enable it to ‘put more money in people’s pockets’ by increasing benefits or reducing income tax as well as to spend more to improve education, the health service and social amenities generally. But while the government does have the power to make things worse in the short term, it doesn’t have the power to create a growing economy. That, therefore, is essentially nothing more than a hope.

It is possible that the economy will grow a little faster but this would not be as a consequence of what the government may do. The capitalist economy moves through a never-ending series of boom-slump cycles and the Starmer government could be lucky and still be in office when it enters a boom phase. This won’t last of course since sooner or later the economic downturn phase will follow. And then workers will again be asked to tighten their belts in the hope of jam tomorrow.

Such good chaps (2024)

Book Review from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Good Chaps. By Simon Kuper. Profile Books. 2024. £9.99

This is effectively the sequel to Kuper’s excellent Chums, reviewed in the September 2022 Socialist Standard. The focus this time is the idea that English gentlemen (and it’s usually men) have always been trusted to follow the rules and ‘play the game’, this being an intrinsic tenet of a public school and Oxbridge upbringing. Kuper catalogues how in recent years this seems to have gone very badly awry.

In the 1960s and 70s, these types started to get rather pushed out of politics and the upper echelons of the civil service and other professions, though far from disappearing entirely. Under David Cameron (Eton and Oxford) they started to reassert their natural right to govern again, but with a twist – this being that the gentlemen’s code they had abided by in earlier eras had largely been eroded by the type of ruthless competition that capitalism promotes, and the narcissism and inflated egos that go with it. It found ultimate expression, of course, in the tawdry and shambolic government of Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford).

Of particular interest to Kuper is the financial base to this political superstructure – exemplified by the buccaneer capitalists that massaged Johnson’s ego so thoroughly and who have sought influence through the connections to which they can buy access. Many of these have been arriviste Mayfair hedge-fund managers and private equity tycoons – the same types of people behind the likes of Reform UK and GB News (often people bizarrely casting themselves as ‘outsiders’ to the traditional City of London and media establishments). And of even more interest still, many in these circles have been Russian oligarchs. As ever, Kuper sums up this type of development beautifully:

‘The moment Russians became British citizens, they were allowed to give to political parties. From about 2012 through 2022, they were the foreign nationality that topped the list of British political donations. Naturally, they gave to the ruling party rather than the powerless Opposition.

The Tories were delighted. It was as if extraterrestrials had stepped out of a spaceship on Parliament Square and inexplicably begun handing them money. The Russian you met over whiskies in 5 Hertford Street was charming. Of course he wasn’t working for the Kremlin! Don’t go all Le Carré on me. And if you did make the effort to perform the most basic due diligence on where his money came from, well that might get in the way of taking it’ (p.94).

Kuper details many instances of Russian donations and influence to the Tory Party. To cite just one example, these include Lubov Chernukhin, whose husband became – at the tender age of 32 – deputy finance minister under Putin and later chair of the Russian state development bank. By 2023, she had donated £2.4 million to the Tories and was a member of the Party’s secretive ‘Advisory Board’ which was restricted to mega-donors who were entitled to monthly meetings with the Prime Minister and Chancellor. This is just one of several instances of this type and in case you are wondering, the embarrassing connections with the father-and-son press magnates the Lebedevs are also described in all their glory.

As the Tories fell from grace in the last couple of years (and some of the Russian connections became embarrassing after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine) the money started to dry up. There’s an interesting chapter on how Labour started to hoover up significant donations before the General Election instead, including from David Sainsbury, Dale Vince and Gary Lubner (of the family that own Autoglass and who reportedly gave £5 million alone). Kuper says Labour’s donors tend to have more of an obvious ideological affinity with them (rather than being people who will simply cosy up to whoever is in power) though it will be fascinating to see whose interests ‘the government of service’ will effectively serve – even if rather more indirectly. We think we can guess.

Dave Perrin

50 Years Ago: ‘Vote for them but . . . ’ (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The publicity organizers of the International Socialists certainly know how to produce an election poster to catch everyone’s eyes. Their technique is so simple too, even the most politically apathetic passer-by cannot fail to notice a poster designed to produce a laugh. ‘Defeat the Tories’ it cries, ‘Vote Labour, but no to social contract’. ‘Vote Labour, but’ indeed! It’s a bit different from the usual IS rubbish of ‘Vote Labour, then . . .’ (and then kick them out and put us in their place.)

Unfortunately it has a slight flaw. No-one seems to have told the IS that there is no provision on a voting slips for ‘buts’. How convenient it would be if there was, but there is not, there are no if’s, and’s or but’s about it at all. If you vote Labour you get Labour, you get continued uncontrollable capitalism, you get futile reformism, you get nothing for the future of the working class, and you get nowhere towards Socialism. And whether you get social contract or not is totally irrelevant.

No matter how sincerely a Labour government wishes to protect the interests of the workers, no matter how benignly they impose their unwanted ‘leadership’ upon us, they can do nothing other than be puppets of the economic forces of capitalism. It makes no difference whether Tory or Labour govern, the real power is that of the capitalist system and only its replacement by a genuine Socialist society will do.

When will International Socialists realise the futility of ‘Vote Labour’, and when will they realise that Socialism will only be achieved when we have awakened the social consciousness of the working class throughout the world? Socialism will be won by struggling to free the minds of the workers from their capitalist bonds, and never by putting in a Labour government and then trying to overthrow it by violently accentuating the evils of capitalism.

[From the article, 'Vote For Them But . . . ', Socialist Standard, November 1974]

SPGB November Events (2024)

Party News from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

Editorial: Fireworks on November 5? (2024)

Editorial from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we go to press the US presidential election is approaching its conclusion amid a febrile atmosphere of fear and mutual loathing, with each side trolling the other during a punishing schedule of rallies in the decisive swing states, and Trump-backer Elon Musk offering to pay $1m a day to petition-signers in Pennsylvania.

‘What happens on 5 November could change the world we live in,’ pants the Guardian, reflecting the breathless fascination of the world’s media for an election which may in truth have a significant bearing on tariff-versus-free-trade tensions playing out across world markets, as well as on Israel and the Middle East war, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the growing power of China, and implications for US carbon commitments. Many fear the consequences of a Trump victory. Many others fear the fireworks Trump may unleash if he rallies his fanbase to reject a defeat.

According to Pew surveys, domestic US voters are not overly concerned with geopolitical questions or foreign trade, and even less with global warming. 81 percent of those polled say their main concern is the economy, which a barrage of Republican disinformation has represented as a failed basket-case under Biden. This isn’t so, objectively speaking. The economy is in fact very healthy, at least for wealth owners, but for many workers it’s a catastrophe of low wages and high prices. Both things can be true, of course. A healthy economy of desperate workers is capitalism’s ideal operating condition.

Many US voters probably grasp, at some deep level, that they don’t matter, their views don’t count, and their needs will go unmet. The Democrats make no apology for standing primarily for the urban, college-educated, white-collar ‘middle class’, by implication writing off the rural, non-college, blue-collar majority as a rabble and a lost cause. If capitalist democracy is a rigged circus anyway, some will think, why not elect the most outrageous clown, if only to wind up the establishment and the liberal woke opposition?

From an outside perspective, this vicious race to the bottom looks frankly surreal, framed as it is partly by America’s privately owned and heavily polarised news media, with Fox touting Trump and CNN touting Harris, and partly by their peculiar libel laws, disguised as ‘free speech’, in which anyone ‘has the right’ to slander and tell lies about anyone else without the legal obligation to substantiate or retract.

Unlike the recent UK general election, there is no foregone conclusion here, with polls showing Trump and Harris neck and neck. But we can certainly predict that, whoever wins, and failing a global environmental disaster or nuclear war, American workers will not see much if any difference. Governments can’t control markets anyway, regardless of ideologies. They are like rollercoaster riders, hanging on for dear life as capitalism hurtles through its booms and slumps, powered by its own insatiable frenzy. The main effect of capitalist elections is not to bring about real change but to promote the illusion of change while the runaway acceleration of exploitation remains unaddressed and undisturbed.

So, whichever way it goes, the working class won’t win. There is no way to win, except by abolishing capitalism in favour of truly democratic global common ownership. Otherwise, all the glamour and fireworks are merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The trade unions congress. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year’s Trades Union Congress has come and has passed to “that bourne from which no traveller returns.” At Bristol the galaxy of the Trade Union world sat in conference. They sat — and hatched nothing.

This year’s gathering was important and historic, in fact, the latter quality was so impressed upon us by the capitalist Press that one was almost inclined to think, from the point of view of posterity, that it ran a neckband-neck race with the Judgment Day. Leaving on one side that this was the largest congress yet held, no doubt the importance was augmented by the fact that no congress was held last year, owing to the war, and that this year’s gathering was held in time of war. “‘The time has come,’ the walrus said, ‘to talk of many things,'” but the war and the problems arising therefrom, for the most part, occupied the attention of the assembled delegates.

This Bristol “chinwag” can, however, be differentiated, from its predecessors on two distinct grounds. Firstly, there was no mayor of corpulent rotundity to welcome the delegates. This duty devolved upon Widdecombe, chairman of the Bristol Trades Council, and in the course of his introductory remarks he said (I quote from “Justice,” 9.9.15).

“The Trades Council felt that there would be no interest on the part of the Congress in being welcomed by a representative of the class they were incessantly fighting for their rights and their trade unionism.”

Thus another cherished tradition is consigned to the melting-pot, and one is inclined seriously to doubt the truth of Mathew Arnold’s dictum that the age of miracles is past. Secondly, there was no Congress sermon delivered with special reference to labour by one of those who toil not neither do they spin. This, perhaps, can be accounted for when one remembers the sermon delivered at the Manchester meeting of 1913, in in which it was said : “The German, the French, the British workmen have no quarrel with one another.” (Official Report, p. 411) This is so true that it almost seems out of place at a Trades Union Congress, and therefore the possibility of its repetition from an ecclesiastic was dispensed with this year.

The president’s (Mr. J. A. Seddon) address is felicitously described by the “Clarion” (9.9.15) as “an admirably restrained and statesmanlike performance”—a phrase one has heard in other connections from far more avowedly capitalistic sources. He demanded that the Government should lift the veil of secrecy and stated that democracy was on its trial. Yes, “democracy” is on its trial ; and it has been found guilty of wilful negligence of its own interests. But despite his “admirable performance,” which was chiefly notable owing to his unacknowledged quotation from J. R. Lowell, the attention of the “world” was focussed upon two resolutions, the one dealing with conscription, and the other with the war.

The conscription resolution read :

“That we, the delegates to this Congress, representing nearly three million organised workers, record our hearty appreciation of the magnificent response made to the call for volunteers to fight against the tyranny of militarism. We emphatically protest against the sinister efforts of a section of the reactionary Press in formulating newspaper policies for party purposes and attempting to foist on this country conscription, which always proves a burden to the workers, and will divide the nation at a time when absolute unanimity is essential. No reliable evidence has been produced to show that the voluntary system of enlistment is not adequate to meet all the Empire’s requirements. We believe that all the men necessary can, and will, be obtained through a voluntary system properly organised, and we heartily support and will give every aid to the Government in their present efforts to secure the men necessary to prosecute the war to a successful issue.” (“The Times,” 8.9.15.)

Of course, this resolution was carried unanimously. In the course of the discussion Mr. Ben Tillett, full of ambition and table d’hote, of “rotters” and music-hall fame, said that “he was not opposed to conscription as a theory. If there were anything in it and if he believed that it would help us to end the war sooner he would vote for it straight away.” (Times, 8.9.15.) One is strongly reminded by this attitude, of that adopted by several other well-meaning folk who are against all war in theory and in favour of all war in practice. He also suggested that “in matters so serious the Government ought to approach the Parliamentary Committee of the Congress … to have a heart to heart talk.” Now the Cabinet is composed of Cabinet Ministers, and the foregoing suggestion contrasts strangely with his sweeping assertion at previous congresses that “no Cabinet Minister could tell the truth.” (Official Report, 1913, p. 136.)

A large number of critics have regarded the carrying of this resolution as evidence of a wholehearted antagonism toward conscription on the part of the “three million organised workers.” It appears, however, that in consonance with the Liberal Press, their opposition is against “Lord Northcliffe’s conscription,” and that, were it asked for by Lord Kitchener, they would swallow the pill without the bulge of a cheek. In other words, their antagonism is not to conscription per se, but to those who are engineering the present movement.

This view is, to a certain extent, borne out by the passing with but seven dissentients of the war resolution, which reads :

“That this Congress, while expressing its opposition, in accordance with its previously expressed opinion, to all systems of militarism as a danger to human progress, considers the present action of Great Britain and her allies as completely justified, and expresses its horror at the atrocities which have been committed by the German and Austrian military authorities, and the callous, brutal and unnecessary sacrifice of the lives of non-combatants, including women and children ; and hereby pledges itself to support the Government as far as possible in the successful prosecution of the war.” (“The Times,” 9.9.15.)

Its pledge to assist the Government as far as possible in the successful prosecution of the war does not bode well for the “anti-conscription” resolution in the event of the Government deciding to raise men by conscript means. Sexton (Dockers) moved the resolution, and in the course of his speech stated that this was not a capitalist war and added : “I am convinced that the Trade Unions of this country will have to put up the biggest fight when the war is over that they have ever put up in their history.” (“Star,” 3.9.15.) This is, no doubt, in anticipation of the way in which the capitalists will express their gratitude to the workers, and here Mr. Dooley on Capital and Labour would not be out of place.

“At Chris’mas time Capital gathered his happy fam’ly round him an’ in th’ prisince iv th’ ladies iv th’neighbourhood give them a short oration. “Me brave la-ads,” said he, “we’ve had a good year (cheers). I have made a million dollars (sinsation). I atthribute this to me supeerior skill, aided by ve’r arnest efforts at th’bench an’ at th’ forge (sobs). We have done so well that we won’t need so maiiny iv ye as we did (long and continyous cheerin’). Those iv us who can do two men’s wurruk will remain, an’ if possible do four. Our faithfnl servants,” he says, “can come back in th’ spring,” he says, “if alive,” he says. An’ the bold artysans tossed their paper caps in th’ air an’ give three cheers for Capital. They wurruked till ol’ age crept on thim, an’ thin retired to live on th’ wish bones an’ kind wurruds they had accumylated.”

Tillett had his say characteristically : “This was not a fight of the capitalists. . . . Instead of yapping like terriers, we should join hands in this great conflict.” He then proceeded to yap. There are some men in this world who are loud in shouting their willingness to give their last drop of blood for their country, but who are always careful not to risk shedding the first drop. Tillett has been to the trenches–on a conducted tour.

Roberts, M.P., regretted the backwardness of Russia, but, he added, she had found her own soul. No such resolution as following was on this year’s agenda ; it is found in the Official Report for the 1912 Congress, p. 204.

“That this Trades Union Congress in Newport expresses its sympathy with the severe struggle of their comrades in Russia, and protests against the brutal means by which the Russian Government tries to crush the increasing solidarity of the workers, as shown in their organisations, and expresses the hope that at the forthcoming elections for the Fourth Duma the forces of reaction may be defeated, and a strong Labour representation returned to work for the overthrow of capitalism and autocracy.”

The Russian autocracy, whose name was formerly synonymous with rape and rapine and ruthless repression, has now joined the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Small Nations, which prevention, it might be added, does not, like charity, begin at home. So criticism of Russia is tantamount to treason.

The Trade unionists, as befits their political complexion, still regard the world and its affairs through the capitalist spectacles with which their masters have so kindly provided them.

The “Daily News and Leader” should rejoice at the passing of this war resolution, for in its issue of September 6th (before the discussion) it said:

“It may be well that Labour should affirm its support of the Government in the conduct of the War. But everyone not willingly blind to the fact knows that unless Labour supported the war, the war would be over in a fortnight.”

This powerful organ thereby recognises the truth of our claim that in the ultimate it is the working-class upon whom the successful prosecution or, indeed, any prosecution, of the war depends. The workers are patted on their backs now, because they are needed : when the war is over it will be their heads that will be punched.

The discussion of the war resolution brought forth an attack on the Government’s promise to limit profits. This, in its turn, resulted, we are led to believe in a visit from Mr. Lloyd George, with halo intact. (No doubt the visit was arranged before, but anything will do for the workers.) This prophet of the promised land frankly recognised the dependence on Labour when he said “With you victory is assured; without you our cause is lost. . . The Government can lose the war without you ; they cannot win it without you.” In a carefully phrased speech he sought to show that the Government had kept its “fair, straight forward, businesslike” bargain, whereas the workers had not. The workers’ representatives handed their men over to the Munitions Minister, and he sought to speed up the working class by flogging them with words. He vilified the working class much on the same lines as during his Spring campaign, when it was alleged (but, of course, not proved) that England was waging a righteous war with a “drink-sodden democracy” at home. As Mr. Lloyd George proceeded to unfold his tale of woe, one can imagine. Mr. William Thorne, M.P., mumbling beneath his breath in characteristic Canning Town phraseology, “Blimey ! ain’t ‘e ot!”

Although the war occupied the greater part of the attention of the Congress, it was not allowed to crowd out everything else. The old stager regarding the free access of cabs to Hyde Park appeared on the Agenda and “the delegates to a Postal Workers’ resolution expressing the opinion that the nationalisation of the public services—such as the Post Office—is not necessarily advantageous to employees unless accompanied by steadily increasing democratic control and pledging the congress to work to develop public opinion on this point.” This can be taken us an unsolicited testimonial on the truth of our position.

According to the “Daily News and Leader” Mr. J. Robertson (Lanarkshire Miners) stated :

“Official figures showed that during the fifteen years that have passed since the South African War, 20,000 men have been, killed in the mines of the country, while no fewer than 4,500,000 have been seriously injured.”

Verily, Peace hath her horrors much more profound than war.

The foregoing is not intended even as a brief resume of the Trades Union Congress, but merely as a few comments. One fact stands out clearly (even if it were not discernible from other evidence) : that the workers are apparently almost unanimous for the war, “the war to end war,” as it has been felicitously termed. As the “Clarion” (10.9.15) put it in a very tuneless note, “The workers, as a body, are all right.” And this cannot be wondered at when one considers the multitudinous agencies all working more or less in the direction of keeping the workers “right” and from their rights. Unmistakably, the bulk of the workers think in capitalist channels and the discussion of the Trades Union Congress was nothing more nor less than the opinions of a heterogeneous collection of economists and politicians who know not whither they are going and never get there.

Presently, in “the future that yet shall be,” they will shake off their lethargy and the hypnotic influence of capitalism and then they will see the war against war; a death-struggle between two classes ranged respectively under the banner of Socialism, symbolical of freedom, and the black flag of Capitalism, standing for death and destruction. In that war no quarter is asked, no mercy is given and no cry for peace is entertained or can be entertained until the smoke of battle has cleared away and the din has subsided ; until society has emerged from slavery for the first time in its history since primitive communism, wielding its power for its own well­-doing.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

L. R. C.

Blogger's Note:

The poetry at the end of this article is a passage from 'Say not the Struggle nought Availeth' by Arthur Hugh Clough.

Superstition at bay. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The word “God” as a general term has lost all definite meaning. To each individual it means something different. To a fanatic it may stand for a terrible personal power who chastises us for our neglect of his vanity. To a philosopher it may symbolise the universe as a whole moving inexorably according to natural law. To the charlatan, however, it is first and last a word to juggle with.

God is the favourite subject of a writer by the name of Harold Begbie. To the plain man his work appears unadulterated claptrap. High-sounding words are strung together in a meaningless but impressive way that is strongly reminiscent of some lady novelists when dealing with the sorrows of his Satanic majesty. There exists in his writing such an obvious striving after tinsel effect that his work conveys the strongest impression of insincerity. Here is a sample from his effort, in the “Daily Chronicle” of Sept. 23rd:

“Theism is the inescapable faith of rationalism. Use your reason, your reason only, and you must believe in Mind. Contemplate the universe as a rational being, and unless you say you cannot believe in anything at all, you must conclude that penetrating and interpenetrating all material phenomena is the Spirit of Eternal Life. Empiricism is as dead as Deism. Atheism is only possible to the fool. No living mind can rest in agnosticism. There is reason in the universe. Life is spiritual. The march of the human race is towards God.”

It is worth reading twice. As an example of turgid twaddle it would be hard to beat.

He says elsewhere in the same article:

“ . . . consider what would be the state of Europe if Christ had debated the possibility of the existence God, instead of asserting with a simplicity which makes a most instant appeal to every sort and condition of mind that God is our Father. Intuition is a part of psychology.”

Such a statement gives one furiously to think. What, indeed, one wonders, would really be the state of Europe if Christ had not simply asserted that God is Our Father ? Perhaps instead of the happy and harmonious communities that now unite in the worship of Christ, that do not grind the faces of the poor, and that give constant cause to the reverently minded to praise the abounding and wonderful goodness of God, we might have in its place–––. But enough ! The state of Europe is too horrible for levity. Even Begbie’s absurdity is revolting rather than amusing. The awful thing that exists, and which Begbie implies we should be thankful for as the result of Christ’s assertion, utterly defies description. An ounce of civet, good apothecary ! In our disgust we turn to old Omar the tent-maker, and repeat with him:

Ah, Love ! could you and I with Fate conspire

To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire.

Would not we shatter it to bits and then

Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire !

In the London “Daily News” of a few days before Harold Begbie had given us a two column interview with General Booth on the “Call for a Great National Religious Crusade.” Begbie says

“I asked him how the international character of the Salvation Army had been affected by the war. He replied, ‘War has strengthened the spirit of internationalism. Throughout the neutral nations there is a fresh enthusiasm for the Army ; and Germany itself the Salvation Army is expressing a renewed loyalty to the international idea.’ ”

The only comment that it is necessary to make on such a statement is supplied all unconsciously by the interviewer, who says :

“The son of William Booth finds just now his international religion buffeted by the winds of war. He of all religious leaders in this country is most concerned by the international character of the war. German Salvationists are shooting English Salva­tionists, and Russian Salvationists are shooting Austrian Salvationists.”

And what is the Salvation Army doing in this war to interpret the spirit of Jesus ? Its message in this crisis will surely show how pure and transcendental is the teaching of Christ, and how clear and unmistakeable is the call of Christian duty ? Here again the interview gives us some valuable information, for it says :

“There are something like 40,000 Salvationists in the British Army, 20,000 of them out-and-outers, and 20,000 adherents. Some of these, as yon may imagine, are troubled in their souls by having to kill. One of them mentioned this difficulty, and to him another Salvationist made answer: ‘Look here; what you’ve got to do is this : you’ve got to do your duty to God, and King, and country. If in the course of doing that you happen to kill your fellow-man, that’s no affair of yours.”

Surely nothing could be more fearless, nothing could be more truly Christian than this ! Such advice given to British, to German, to Austrian, Russian and French Salvationists must be admirably calculated to bring the Kingdom of God nearer realisation on earth !

There are not lacking signs, however, that indicate that General Booth is sensible of the difficulty of his position. And to those who have been awakened only by the present crisis to question the dogma of the goodness of God, he makes effective answer :

“People who accepted without murmur the atrocious suffering caused by those enemies of the human race [drink, prostitution, and sweating] suddenly wake up now and ask, How can you believe in a God with Christians killing Christians and Europe deluged with blood’ ? Has Christian never killed Christian till now ? What nonsense they talk ! This war is nothing—nothing compared with the murderous destruction of sin, God does not work like an autocrat in the moral sphere. God is omnipotent ; but omnipotence cannot make five of two and two, or make a lie a truth. Why does God permit this war ? Why does he permit sin ? God is not responsible for sin, and he is not responsible for war. Man is.”

While the above silences all those who accept the hellish conditions of capitalism as consistent with the goodness of God, it is quite futile against those who do not.

What evidence is there of the goodness of God ? What evidence is there of God at all ? Where, indeed, is God anything but an expression of man’s ignorance in face of the awful and ruthless immensity of nature ?

God, says General Booth in effect, is omnipotent, and is at the same time not omnipotent ! He is the essence of all goodness, but has created war and sweating and infinite misery.

He is omniscient, and knowing all things, including man, man’s sin and tendency to sin, war, anguish, destitution, wretchedness and sorrow incalculable. Yet He is not responsible. Man, his puppet, is responsible. To God is attributed all good : to man, whom God created, is attributed all evil. Such is really the meaning of General Booth’s assertions. Their nonsense is evident. It is also suggested in the interview that God’s plaything, man, is being punished because he has neglected the All Wise, All Powerful, and All Good God. Truly the absurdity of this cantankerous All-Goodness recalls the little girl’s natural history essay. “The elephant,” said the young lady, “is a noble animal, but when infuriated he will not do so.”

To all the Salvation Army chiefs’s points, however, the old tent-maker has made answer from the standpoint of a true believer :

Thou who man of baser earth didst make,

And who with Eden didst devise the snake ;

For all the sin wherewith the face of man

Is blackened, man’s forgiveness give and take !

The spectacle of the warring nations of Europe supplicating the same good and almighty God for armed victory over each other is ludicrous enough. Small wonder that it is subject for derision. Moreover, practically every religious sect has hastened to put its private brand of Almighty Power at the service of the capitalist interests which are responsible for the modern machine-made murder. Chaplains and priests of many denominations are helping to stiffen the men at the front. And at home the various churches continue as best they may to swell the patriotic chorus in aid of their paymasters the ruling class.

Nevertheless the power of religion to keep the workers servile is fast waning. Technical progress, the advance of knowledge, the march of events, drive it continually farther from real life. True it is that religion cannot entirely disappear until man’s relations with his fellows and with nature become clear, ordered, rational and un­ambiguous. True it is that man’s emancipation from wage slavery, from irrational poverty and ignorance will alone finally lay the ghost of superstition. Yet the present fading of religion is an unmixed good. The power of religion has ever been potent for evil. It has been throughout political history the abettor of oppression, the enemy of freedom, of science, and of humanity. It is still used as far as practicable as the hand-maiden of class domination.

As Socialists, indeed, our main, attack must be against the entrenched political power of capitalism, and to this all else must be subordinated; but the war on religion, which is the vis inertiae of human development, is part of the work that must be done in that great struggle.

The war on religion will break down the barrier that our enemies maintain against us. It will take the workers a step nearer their goal. It will open up fresh vistas to working-class intelligence and put men face to face with the bitter reality of modern social life and its trend ; and this can have but one result.

In so far, therefore, as the toilers escape from the paralysing embrace of religion their advance will be freer, their vision clearer, their knowledge more profound, and their determination to make the proletarian cause triumph more unshakeable. A word by the way, therefore, that helps disperse the fog of superstition, that unveils the absurdity of the claims of the priests, and that lets light in upon the indubitable fact that the workers of the world can rely on no Messiah, on no metaphysical cloud-pusher, but only on their own strong right arm, such a word by the way is not only a helpful thing, but it has an inevitable place in the greater struggle for human emancipation, in the greater battle for Socialism.

F. C. Watts

Remarkable evidence of working-class prosperity. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wage-Slaves are able for the first time to cover their nakedness with old rags!

The “Daily Chronicle” of September 24th. last, published the following startling piece of information regarding the overwhelming opulence of those who are getting unprecedented wages for drinking and shirking.

———-

Boom in "Old Clo'es."

One result of workers prosperity.

Not the least curious of the many unexpected consequences of the war (writes a “Daily Chronicle” correspondent) is an unprecedented boom in old and second-hand clothing.

Day by day one sees in the weekly and suburban Press an increasing number of wardrobe dealers’ advertisements offering good prices for all kinds of worn but still servicable clothing.

The reason is that the demand for cheap attire has grown, as a result of the industrial prosperity caused by the war, out of all proportion to the supply.

This is in spite of the fact that some three million men have temporarily discarded the ordinary dress of civil life for the more popular khaki. As may be observed any day in the East End and other industrial districts, there are hundreds of thousands and even millions of people who, formerly but casually employed, and, therefore, ill able to afford even complete second-hand suits of clothes, now find themselves earning regular and often good wages.

Such an advent of good fortune as has been experienced in many working-class homes during the war is generally celebrated by a rehabilitation en masse at the hands of the nearest wardrobe dealer.

———-

Well ! what do you think of it ?

F. C. Watts

The “Happy Warrior’s” munificent reward. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The two advertisements which follow were were culled from the “Daily Chronicle” recently, and show how “patriotic” the capitalists are, how truly “generous,” “noble,” and “truthful,” when offering jobs to their wage-slaves :

HANDY-MAN, used to controlling men ; ex-soldier minus limb preferred ; wages 25s. week. Write, stating age, Box C 7180, “Daily Chronicle,” Fleet-st

HOUSEKEEPER wanted for City offices ; must be hard worker ; ex-soldier with limb missing not objected to : wages 25s. week. Write, stating age, to Box C 7178, “Daily Chronicle,” Fleet-st.

After such an exhibition of generosity who will dare say that the employers did not speak the truth when they told their employees that their jobs would be kept open for them after the war. They knew that many would never come back, and that those who did, minus a limb, could then be had cheaply.

Of course, it is obvious that a man who has lost a limb cannot be as useful as one with all his members intact. The fact that he has lost a limb in “his” country’s service does not weigh with the master class when they are on the look-­out for cheap labour. But what a reward for fighting a whole TWENTY-FIVE BOB A WEEK. If the applicant happens to be a man with a family he must indeed be a grumbler who would not jump at such a chance of showing his appreciation by at once applying for one of the above-mentioned jobs.

T. W. Allen

When Parson Says Lie We All Lie. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

For generations parson has implored us to “let truth prevail.” After all these years parson has taken to showing us how to do it—as the following witnesseth. The occasion was a recent “patriotic meeting in the park” at Grays (Essex), and I quote that excellent local dish-cloth, the “Grays and Tilbury Gazette.”

“The Rev. Willis Bryars, who is a member of the Grays Volunteer Training Corps, also spoke urging his hearers to ask themselves were they worthy of the great sacrifices which men were making for them. Let the young men come forward and do their best. Even if they were but 17 he would forgive them, though he was a parson, if they told the recruiting officer that they were 19—(laughter) and he was quite sure the Lord would too. (Applause.)”

Ah ! that got ’em proper. People do like to know the Lord’s view of these little things that require parson’s forgiveness. But though every one can appreciate the terrible risk the Rev. Willis Bryars is taking in attaching himself to the Grays Volunteer Training Corps, and must feel how very fortunate it was that the devout man could feel such honest confidence regarding himself as enable him to implore his audience to ask themselves whether they were “worthy of the great sacrifices which men were making for them,” still it seems to my mind that what was needed was not so much parson’s telling us how to let truth prevail as showing us how to do it. Personal example goes such a long way ; and from my knowledge of the Lord I am sure he would freely forgive Mr. Bryars, though he is a parson, if he told the recruiting officer that he is only 40, even if he is  45, and for my part I would too.

Bill Bailey

The Reward of Charity. (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

The trite old adage, ”Charity covers a multitude of sins,” can be exemplified to-day in many ways. One can hardly look at a daily paper, for instance, without finding most pathetic appeals for contributions to the maintenance of hospitals, orphanages, homes, and the like.

Such institutions are a feature of modern society in the “piping times of peace,” when the hatchet is buried and the sword lies rusty in its sheath—and each worker has his hand at the throat of his fellow in the competition for jobs. Such institutions, indeed, are part of the masters’ insurance against the workers realising the extent to which they are robbed.

However, we are living in time of war. Yes, and that but makes the position worse; for the so-called charitable institutions of peace times find their struggle for existence more intensified through having to meet the rivalry of innumerable funds having some connection with the war, and all having, broadly speaking, the same object in view, yet all in deadly rivalry with each other.

Why this rivalry ? At the inception of the “National” War Relief Fund it was stated that the one fund would cover every case of distress caused by the war. Would it be uncharitable to mention the many salaries and pickings for officials which the funds provide ?

These “charitable” concerns, whether pro- or post-war organisations, have for their object the mopping up of the mess engendered by the capitalist system, notwithstanding that the ostensible reason for their existence is to relieve the “deah poah.” The organisers and others connected with them know full well that while they can keep the workers contented, and therefore docile, this, coupled with an abysmal ignorance of their class position, must mean the most efficacious safeguard of the exploiters’ position.

It looks very nice to see healthy specimens of the predatory class running about organising shows of all kinds for returning a little of the wealth they have stolen to those from whom they have stolen it —the workers. But we Socialists suggest the possibility of obviating the need for these degrading institutions. “Charity” being a necessary feature of capitalism, it will disappear only when the working class end the capitalist system. Let the workers, then, banish the hateful charity-mongers by overthrowing their social system and establishing the Socialist Commonwealth.

H.

[Be a man!] (1915)

From the October 1915 issue of the Socialist Standard

To be content with overwork, harsh treatment, and a starvation wage is to be — well, a working man. Be a man !

A plague on both their houses (2024)

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

This issue is published before the US presidential elections on 5 November so we are unable to comment on the result. But we can analyse the campaign and what is at stake.

Most elections under capitalism are simply about which band of professional politicians shall occupy executive and ministerial posts. In other words, about a change of personnel to continue with the same basic policies. This was the case in the recent UK elections. On some occasions, however, the capitalist class are split on some key economic issue and the only way this can be settled is via the ballot box.

In Britain, this was the case over whether or not the British state should remain part of the European Union. One section of the capitalist class wanted to withdraw to avoid EU regulation of their financial activities while another section, the majority, wanted to stay in.

In a capitalist political democracy the only way of settling such conflicts of interests within the capitalist class is to put the matter to the electorate to decide, an electorate overwhelmingly composed of workers. The rival sections of the capitalist class each spend millions in propaganda to try to get workers to vote for their candidates. The section that wins gets its way. The government is formed by their political representatives who have a mandate to implement that section’s policy. In Britain those in favour of leaving won a referendum and a subsequent general election, so Britain left. Had the vote gone the other way Britain would have remained in the EU.

In such elections there is something more than a mere change of personnel at stake — for the capitalist class, though not for the working class, whose interests are opposed to all sections of the capitalist class and who are not required to take sides.

The current presidential election in the United States is one such example. The basic split in the capitalist class there is the old one between those who favour free trade and those who favour protectionism, which has foreign policy implications. Harris represents that section which favours the status quo and support for existing international bodies set up to promote freer trade. Trump represents those who want to protect US manufacturing industry from outside competition by imposing a tariff on all imports. Harris wants to continue the war in Ukraine and bombing Gaza. Trump just wants to bomb Gaza.

If the election was a contest as to which candidate has the least unpleasant personality Harris would be the lesser evil. But that’s not the issue. It’s which section of the US capitalist class shall get its way, a matter of indifference to workers and of equal opposition to both by socialists.

Because it is the working class electorate that will decide, both sides have to spin their policy in a way that will dupe workers into supporting them. Thus Trump courts the Christian right and other social conservatives while Harris presents herself as a champion of liberal values. Trump’s appeal is mainly to whites, Harris’s mainly to voters of colour. Trump mainly to men. Harris mainly to women. But none of these is the real issue, even though how voters react to them will decide which section of the US capitalist class gets its way.

The US system for electing the president is peculiar. In other countries with elected presidents, the candidate who wins is the one who gets the most votes, whether in a first or second round. In the US this is not necessarily the case — it is the candidate who wins the most votes in an electoral college composed of members representing the states that make up the union, whose number broadly reflects the electorate of each state and who (except in a couple of small states) vote as a bloc. When Trump won in 2016 he got fewer votes than Hilary Clinton but more in the electoral college. This was because Clinton won easily in California and New York but this didn’t increase her representation in the Electoral College. Who wins here is decided by who wins in a number of key ‘swing’ states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia but also smaller ones like Arizona. This is not fully democratic but is the procedure that has evolved in the United States for deciding who shall chair the executive committee of its ruling class.

Under the US constitution, the president cannot get their way unless their party has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is elected on a normal democratic basis from constituencies of roughly equal size. Only one-third of the Senate is elected every two years, a constitutional arrangement put in place by the Founding Fathers to prevent a majority for any radical proposal (such as land reform) getting its way for at least six years.

The Democratic Party leaders got Biden to withdraw as they were afraid that, if he stayed as their candidate, they risked not winning a majority in the House of Representatives and Senate, and so not being in a position to block what Trump might do that would be against the interest of the US capitalist class as a whole. In fact, their strategy is just as much aimed at this as at electing Harris as President so that, if she loses, they will still be able to block Trump doing something the section of the US capitalist class they represent doesn’t want, such as abandoning Ukraine or starting a world tariff war.

Trump is portrayed by some of those who support Harris as a ‘fascist’ who wants to install himself as dictator. This is an exaggeration for vote-catching purposes. A more sober assessment is given by one of Trump’s economic advisers, Stephen Moore of the notorious right-wing think-tank The Heritage Foundation. When asked what Trump would do if elected President again, he said that ‘Trump would be pragmatic in office and focus on the needs of business to drive economic growth’ (tinyurl.com/2n4ftxp3). Perhaps not so different, then, than what the new Labour government here has said is its approach.

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Billionaire wealth has risen by more than 1,000 percent since 1989, with the number of billionaires tripling to 164 since 2010. Over the same period, the average worker lost £10,200 through wage suppression enforced through record-low strike activity policed by the trade union bureaucracy. One-fifth of people in the UK live in poverty, and 25 percent of all children. Nearly 3 million rely on food banks. For the poorest 10 percent of UK households, living standards have fallen by 20 percent compared with 2019–20—a drop in income of £4,600. 

(WSWS, tinyurl.com/mjajcj6m)

Pastor Mboro is a self-styled prophet with thousands of followers across South Africa. He has claimed to perform miracles such as healing people during sermons and delivering a fish from the womb of a pregnant woman. 

(BBC tinyurl.com/58t68xuj)

The book begins with a poignant reminder that we are all migrants: ‘Even if you are not a migrant, your ancestors were. If they had not migrated, you would not be alive’. 

(Impact Investor, tinyurl.com/4xuemy6c)

I meet Najwa Abdul Awa, holding an image of her dead son. I ask her if she’s scared about what might be around the corner. ‘Of course not’, she replies with a smile. ‘I sent my first son for martyrdom with pride. And I’m willing to send my second and my third son too. We will not stop, she says, until Israel vanishes’. 

(Sky News, tinyurl.com/mxx8rm33)

The pro-Palestinian organizers gathered for ‘coffee with comrades’ …The main speaker, a University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD candidate, took the stage. He donned a keffiyeh and a Cuban Communist Party cap emblazoned with a red star, and began discussing readings by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leila Khaled, a former Palestinian militant and first woman to hijack an airplane. ‘Our political system is falling apart’, William Chaney, the PhD candidate, said in an interview just before his lecture began. ‘If we want to leave the world better, we have to look back and learn lessons’.

 (Boston Globe, tinyurl.com/5ductrb3)

In America, 1 in 4 cancer patients go bankrupt or lose their homes because of the outrageously high cost of care and 68,000 die a year because they can’t afford healthcare. 

(Common Dreams, tinyurl.com/wptkejj2)

… the great lie of nationalism: the fact that there is no organic bond between an ethnic group and a specific terrain, that no stretch of soil belongs by divine or natural right to those who speak a particular language or have a certain skin-colour. The country was never yours to claim back. Immigrants haven’t robbed you of what was never your property in the first place. 

(UnHerd, tinyurl.com/2d8a9ah2)

In general, human beings are remarkably altruistic. Rather than feeling destructive impulses, most of us feel a natural impulse to help others, to nurture their development and alleviate suffering. 

(The Conversation, tinyurl.com/2u85xn4w)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Halo Halo! (2024)

The Halo Halo! column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russian priests have joined a long list of various clergymen of various nations in their channelling Bob Dylan’s With God On Our Side. Giving a blessing to a nuclear weapon is possible even though such arms ‘have tremendous destructive power’, Konstantin Tatarintsev, an archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church, and first deputy head of the Synodal Department for the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Services, told RIA Novosti (August). Sanctifying something that ‘sows death’ might normally be considered ‘unacceptable,’ [not normally, always], he said. Nuclear arms are also ‘the weapons of containment’, he explained. Their purpose is to ensure that no other nations that possess such weapons could use them against Russia, adding that ‘it is a guarantee of peace’. Mutually Assured Destruction.

According to Tatarintsev, the prayer used to bless a weapon goes back to the Middle Ages. It places a personal spiritual responsibility on its wielder not to misuse it for evil ends. He also said that pretty much any weapon, including the nuclear triad, can be considered ‘sacred’ when it is used to protect ‘our fatherland and the holy sites located on its territory’.

#    #    #    #

Worshippers in Ohio have been left stunned after a 75 year-old statue of the Virgin appeared to blink as they gazed upon her – with photos capturing the mysterious moment. The International Pilgrim Virgin Statue of Our Lady of Fatima was making its way across the region as part of a tour when it allegedly shut and open its eyes on 2 August while on display at the Basilica of St. John the Baptist. [Allegedly being the operative word.] The statue has visited more than 100 countries, including Russia and China, and is believed to be the closest likeness of a documented apparition of Mary in 1917 said to be ‘worthy of belief’ by the Catholic Church. Many who have visited the statue have since claimed they’ve witnessed medical miracles, including a young boy some believe was cured of malaria (Daily Mail, 10 August 2024).

This recalls a piece in the September 2023 Halo column which bears repeating:

Does anyone remember the Only Fools and Horses episode, The Miracle of Peckham, where Del Boy scams money from exploiting a weeping statue of Mary in the local church? The ‘miracle’ occurs because the lead of the church roof has been nicked and when it rains the water drips down and off the face of the statue. Has the Pope seen this episode and is it one of his favourites?

Miracles don’t happen! The pontiff has been berating his flock for believing in ‘miracles’ and weeping Madonnas in particular. ‘Apparitions of the Virgin Mary are “not always real”, he said, in what appears to be an indirect reference to a woman who drew thousands of pilgrims to pray before a statue that she claimed shed tears of blood.’ ‘The Madonna has never drawn [attention] to herself,’ he said (Guardian, 4 June 2023).

Who are the biggest charlatans? The Catholic church or those preying upon unthinking believers?

DC