Red light (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Really significant events often fail to elicit the comment they deserve, at any rate at the time of happening. Old Bailey, July 13th of this year, illustrates this fact. A soldier ”provoked by an insult to Royalty,” to quote the Evening News, struck the offender, who was killed as a result of the assault. Indicted for manslaughter, the accused was bound over for two years. The lightness of the punishment is irrelevant to the point at issue, except in so far as it throws a light on the sequel. Mr. Justice Macnaughton, sitting on a bench in probably the world’s most historic criminal tribunal, says: —

Although there was not sufficient provocation in law to justify what you did, there was provocation which, to a man in your position, might have made it difficult not to do something with your fist.

Read this pronouncement carefully. Taken in conjunction with the ”sentence,” what will it convey to the mind of unsophisticated wearers of the King’s uniform who look upon it as anything but a work of supererogation to condignly chastise all and sundry who fail to fall in with the goose step (British variety) after Royalty ?

The Socialist Party of Great Britain suffers from no illusions as to the limitations of Free Speech in this country; 1914, D.O.R.A., war-demented crowds offering violence to pacifist and Socialist speakers afforded ample evidence of the precarious footing upon which a hardly-won relative Freedom of Speech stood; it is becoming evident to many outside the Socialist movement that there has been of late years a sinister development in the direction of restriction of speech on the platform and in the Press; elastic libel laws, and sleeping, but by no means scotched ”blasphemy” laws are always at hand to serve the purpose of the governing class when necessary.

The Victorians were not so Mealy-Mouthed

Controversy (which is doing good service in keeping open column up to the present), in its May, 1937, issue, reproduced a cartoon (undated) of the ’40’s, lampooning Victoria the Great and her “prolific husband,” Albert the Good; outraged loyalty was not then given an opportunity to be gently censured by occupants of a Bench carrying the high ideals and noble traditions of Eton and Harrow. An article by Keir Hardie, dated 1897, is also reproduced. ”The King fraud will disappear when the Exploiting of the People draws to a close ” indicates its general intention and scope.

Thirteen years later, at Browning Settlement, Will Crooks was claiming in naive Poplarese for Edward VII what Compton Mackenzie is apparently driving at to-day on behalf of the exiled grandson. ”I feel, and I know, at the bottom of my heart, that he is the greatest statesman that the world possesses at this moment. He is above men, he is a father lo the lot of us, and smiles down upon us all.” ”Good old George” rather put his foot into it during the same week with, ”We all believe, rightly or wrongly, that he was a man, and that he loved and cared for his fellow men and women,” and to-day this Labour leader, who boasted he was prepared to use the Emergency Act against the working class if necessary, holds that “George V was as good a Socialist as Bernard Shaw.” (Quoted by New Leader, May 31st, 1935.) In short, Labour leadership wallows in the sty of ‘‘loyalty.” David Kirkwood (Daily Herald, May 27th, 1936), feeling “monarch of all I surveyed ” on the captain’s bridge of the “Queen Mary” when being launched, is moved to prayer: “And now, good ship, bearing the name of so good a Queen, sail on over the ocean . . . ” How long will Clydesider’s stand for this sort of thing?

Let there be no mistake. The Socialist Party makes no stand for Republicanism as such. Suppression of Free Speech in Republican Germany and Russia has made such suppression at the worst times of the Roman Empire or at the height of Tudor absolutism look mild in comparison, modern technique assisting; but the point here is that there is a relation between extravagant expressions of loyalty on the one hand and freedom of speech on the other. The two minutes' silence of November 11th is practically enforced; neglect of hats off and standing at attention within hearing of “God Save the King” is fraught with danger from the fist of uniformed indignation—to save a quibble it may be pointed out that non-conformity is silent, often a more eloquent expression of opinion than downright dissent.

Disorder at Public Meetings

There is one aspect of this subject that calls for very serious consideration. In the E. Willesden bye-election the Conservative candidate at one meeting was greeted with “cat-calls,” and, according to the Daily Herald, the meeting was practically broken up. Not a word of deprecation from the Daily Herald on these blackguardly tactics—infiltration of Communist methods is obviously affecting the Labour movement. History should warn Labour leaders that being hoist with your own petard is still a fatal possibility.

Another point is important, that is the practical impossibility of using the Press for expression of opinion. Even in quarters where some approach to decency is maintained, and sheer gutter journalism is eschewed, there is difficulty in getting a hearing.

Clause 6 of the Party’s “Declaration of Principles” states : “The working class must organise consciously and politically for the conquest of the powers of Government.” This conscious effort can only be based upon adequate knowledge, and for such knowledge an atmosphere of the freest discussion is essential. All “Left” and a big proportion of “Right” politicians give formal acquiescence to the principle of free and open discussion. Readers of THE SOCIALIST STANDARD have been given from time to time ample evidence of how this works out in actual practice. That the Socialist Party of Great Britain is almost the only political party which allows opposition on the platform and in its organ is, at the same time, indicative of its healthy democratic outlook and political soundness.

There is good material in the rank and file of the Labour Party; let the average member who has no axe to grind give careful consideration of the points adduced against his Party in the direction indicated in this article. What chance has he himself of criticism in “his” organ (owned by a rich syndicate), the Daily Herald ? Are all Labourites enamoured of the lick-spittling loyalty and fluffy religionism of a Hannen Swaffer? Do you all agree with “Good old George,” that “History will record Herr Hitler as one of the great men of our time”? (“My Quest for Peace.”) If not, try a letter to your official organ.

“Mass” enthusiasm, rooted in unthinking and hysterical devotion to leaders, whether to Pollit’s “giant” Stalin (he modestly refrains from naming himself in his “Call to All Workers,” p. 45) or the not extravagantly giantesque good-boy nominee of Canterbury & Co. (frozen mutts!) is an imminent danger holding appalling near possibilities for this country; it behoves all who give even an academic assent to Free Speech to think very hard.

Next article on this topic will glance at some historical events which throw light on the subject— including movements for religious (and irreligious) toleration.

Augustus Snellgrove

Some interesting quotations (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Lloyd George on Germany and German Colonies

The following passage is from a memorandum written by Mr. Lloyd George in 1919. It is quoted by The Times (October 17th, 1938) from Vol. I of Lloyd George’s “Truth about the Peace Treaties.”

You may strip Germany of her colonies, reduce her armaments to a mere police force and her navy to that of a fifth-rate Power; all the same in the end if she feels that she has been unjustly treated in the Peace of 1919 she will find means of exacting retribution from her conquerors. . . . I cannot conceive any greater cause for future war than that the German people, who have certainly proved themselves one of the most vigorous and powerful races in the world, should be surrounded by a number of small States, many of them consisting of people who have never previously set up a stable Government for themselves but each of them containing large masses of Germans clamouring for reunion with their native land. . . . To my mind it is idle to endeavour to impose a permanent limitation of armaments upon Germany unless we are prepared similarly to impose a limitation upon ourselves.

Mr. Lloyd George now insists that the sooner Germany’s demand for colonies as a source of raw materials “is met by some equitable and practicable adjustment, the better it will be for the peace and well-being of the world.”

The Germans in Samoa

Up to 1914, however, the Samoans had a pretty good time on the whole. The Germans didn’t bother them much. When the Governor was hauled over the coals in Berlin for not making the islands pay, he said that the money that could be got out of them was negligible, and that they ought to be preserved as one of the few remaining natural beauty spots in the world.

That was the right attitude, German or not. We must be fair, even to former enemies. There is no doubt that the Germans took the proper view.—(From the People, September 4th, 1938.)

What Our Masters Think of Us.

According to Mr. Frank Owen (Daily Express, July 19th, 1938) the following was said “privately but quite openly . . . at a dinner, by one of His Majesty's Ministers” : —

When you shout for work for the unemployed you make two big mistakes. First, the unemployed don’t want work, they would rather be on the dole. Next, it’s cheaper for the State to keep them there.

Treatment of the Minority in Ulster.

The following is from a letter written to the Manchester Guardian by Mrs. Maud Gonne MacBride, about the treatment of the Catholic minority in Ulster: —

Under this Coercion Act any policeman can arrest anyone without warrant on suspicion and detain him in a police barracks long enough to lose him his job, if he has one. He can secure long sentences for those whom he arrests if he objects to any book or paper found in their house, whether it is banned or not. Mary MacSweeney’s “The Republic of Ireland” was not banned, but a man is doing a year’s hard labour for having it in his possession. The policeman in court said he “found passages most objectionable” and objected to the whole tone of the book.

I know a young boy who got a six-month sentence for having the manuscript of a play in which he hoped to act, and to which the policeman who arrested him took exception and described it as “disrespectful to B. Specials.” I could give countless examples of people sentenced in this way; numbers of those for whose families Mr. McGuirk, secretary of the Belfast Branch of the National Aid Society, appealed are in prison for possession of such documents.—(Manchester Guardian, September 19th, 1938.)

Lord Castlerosse on the Fraud of 1914.

In 1914 we were told that we were fighting to make the world safe for democracy and to kill Kaiserism. We won: that is to say, we beat the Germans, but all we succeeded in doing was to make the world safe for autocracy, and substitute Heil Hitler for Hoch der Kaiser, the Duce for parliamentary rule, and Stalin for a mildish Czar.

When I review the last war I now realise that nearly all my friends and some 8,000,000 people died and nobody benefited one jot, and the world is not better but worse than it was before, and yet the promises that were made to us were wonderful.—(Daily Express, September 22nd, 1938.)

Mr. George Lansbury on Tyranny Abroad and at Home.

From an anti-war speech at Derby, on October 15th, 1938: —

It is a strange commentary on the almost universal denunciation of the regimentation of people in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere, that we should in this country, where the denunciation is loudest, be steadily marching towards the same conditions. If this proposal goes through and we are all regimented and ticketed and docketed, I don’t see that that is any different from living in a totalitarian State. You will have the facade of democracy, but really you will be all under arms. — (Manchester Guardian, October 17th, 1938.)

Blunt words about peace (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Amid all the welter of words and phrases about “Peace” there comes the still, small voice of the Socialist.

Parsons, politicians and the Press all prattle of peace with all the dogmatism so characteristic of a superficial outlook.

But it is left, as usual, to Socialists to base what they have to say on the solid bedrock of the facts of working-class existence under capitalism.

From no other standpoint can we deal with this question of strife and peace. Why ? Because strife—the antithesis of peace—must be studied from its economic and political causes. Understanding these will give the answer to the question: “How is peace in the industrial and political spheres to be obtained ?” 

Knowing the causes, the Socialist is able, definitely, to point to the remedy.

Let us deal with strife in the industrial sphere first of all, and, later, in that of politics.

Socialists say that the sole cause of industrial strife is produced by a conflict of interests between the possessing class and the dispossessed—that is, between the capitalist class and the workers.

They call this never-ending conflict (so characteristic of capitalism) the class struggle or the class war. It is inherent in the system itself, and arises out of the root cause: the private ownership of the means of life. So long as we have capitalism, so long must this struggle continue.

The very existence of the trades unions is a proof of these conflicting interests. Wages, hours of labour, and the conditions under which the wage-slaves work are the chief points of discussion and dispute between the employers and the employed.

The working class are compelled by economic pressure to work in order to live. They are “employed” for no other purpose than to produce a “profit” for their masters. The wealth they produce, being far greater than what they receive in wages and salaries, they, obviously, produce a “surplus-value." And it is this surplus-value that our thievish exploiters appropriate. It is shared out, ultimately, amongst their own non-producing class under the titles of “Rent,” “Interest” and “Profit.” The capitalists are always endeavouring to wring more, and ever more, surplus-value out of their exploited workers.

The working class have to keep up their efforts continually to maintain their standard of living, and prevent a worsening of their conditions. To do so they have to exercise an eternal vigilance. But the result of all this exploitation is that, as a class, the exploiters get comparatively ever more wealthy.

It is obvious that, so long as the system of production for profit continues, so long will the class-conflict continue.

The only remedy is the Socialization of the means of wealth production and distribution. That will automatically abolish wage-slavery and all the strife produced by a clash of interests in a class-divided society.

Strikes, lock-outs, sabotage and conflicts with the forces of “law-and-order” would disappear. Wealth being produced then for human needs and enjoyment, there would at last disappear every trace of industrial strife.

Capitalism is the menace to peace in every way. It is the cause of an eternal warfare—

THE WAR OF THE CLASSES.

To talk of peace while capitalism continues is sheer foolishness. Yet there are those who speak of “peace in industry’’ and “harmony of interests between employers and employed.” Such vapid utterances only show a complete misunderstanding of the realities of the situation.

Until we make a revolutionary change and establish Socialism it is inevitable that the present system must continue to create strife and discord, and a hundred other evils.

Until the working class fulfil their historic mission and make Socialism a reality, they will continue to suffer, as the wage-slaves they are, under a capitalist regime.

We have considered the question of strife and peace in the industrial arena. Now let us, briefly, consider it as it presents itself in the political sphere.

The employing class of social parasites has one sole object—to continually increase its own great wealth. It exploits the labour-power of myriads of workers for this purpose. Almost every part of the globe is ransacked for its potential riches. No effort is spared, or cunning device neglected when wealth and profit are at stake. And the lives of many workers are risked—and sacrificed—for capitalist interests. Groups of capitalists compete with other groups for the possession of territories where there exists potential wealth. Trade routes, spheres of influence, and markets are collared and exploited. Potential wealth becomes, through the work of the wage-slaves, a real wealth to the possessing class.

The things the workers produce are “commodities." They are for sale in the market, and belong to the class that owns “the means whereby we live," and who exploit the workers and rob them of the greater part of the value created by working class efforts alone.

Commodities being produced for profit— which is realized through sale in the market—an actual market must be found, somewhere., somehow.

The competition amongst the wealth-owners being intense, all sorts of devices are resorted to sell their commodities in the world’s markets. Undercutting, discounts and rebates are in turn tried; but the capitalists, or groups of them, score when they can cut down the actual cost of production—so as to make a bigger surplus-value for themselves and their class. Machinery, ever more and more, is used to increase productivity; with a minimum of cost.

Wage-labour is eliminated more and more as the mechanical means displaces the human. Production grows greater and speedier; and all the time commodities are being turned out in huge amounts. Some market must be found for it in order to realize “profit" for

“THE LORDS OF WEALTH."

In their centres of political discussion—be they Parliament or Senate—they discuss their political and economic questions. The differences between the various capitalist groups in the nations of the world are discussed; the clash of their economic interests are made the basis of their negotiations. Diplomats, ambassadors and representatives of each country voice the desires and demands of their respective countries. The clash of economic interests increases. “Notes" of a veiled kind, and “demands" of a much more definite character, pass from one capitalist centre to another. A quarrel over trade routes, territory and administration, markets and spheres of influence, gets fiercer. Ultimately it is decided to settle the matter by force.

“ Negotiations are broken off.”

SO WAR IS DECLARED, 

and the fighting forces are despatched on their sanguinary task.

We saw capitalism at work in the Boer War. Then the warfare was really over the possession and exploitation of the diamond mines of Kimberley and the gold mines of Johannesburg. We saw capitalism at work causing the gigantic war of 1914-1918. And we shall see it again while capitalism continues.

Modern wars are not fought for "honour," “freedom," or over “scraps of paper"—or for “democracy."

They are fought for sordid gain—commercial, financial and industrial “interests."

Hitler, on behalf of the German capitalist class, desires to capture and control the wheat-producing Hungary and the oil-yielding wells of Rumania.

The capitalist class stop at nothing in their ruthless desire for gain. “No sacrifice," said Asquith in 1914, “is too great when honour and liberty are at stake."

The “honour" and “liberty" of capitalist thieves!

And millions of lives were thrown away, and endless suffering caused through the quarrels of the exploiting and possessing class.

Capitalism always causes, and must cause, strife in some form or other. There can be no real, lasting peace in the world so long as the present system continues. Its conflicts, of one kind or other, are always in evidence. The peace of mankind is always menaced by its existence.

Socialism alone can bring about the all-desirable peace. Then when the means and instruments of wealth production and distribution are owned and controlled democratically by the whole of mankind, for use and enjoyment of all, we shall see 

THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION.

No longer then will the workers in their myriads be compelled to toil to enrich a small but very wealthy class of parasites. No longer will chronic poverty, misery, and ever-recurring wars be rampant as they are to-day.

The Socialist Commonwealth, world-wide, will automatically abolish all those evils, and every other which the present system inevitably creates.

Strife, in every sphere, will give way at last to peace.

Study Socialism, and it must become apparent that it, and it alone, can achieve world-wide peace.

Study Socialism, and you will see that only by the capture of Political Power by an organized class-conscious working class, who understand and desire Socialism, can they achieve the grandest purpose of mankind.

It is the mission of the working class of the world, their historic mission, to abolish the present system, with all the wage-slavery and suffering it creates.

To attain to freedom, peace, and the prosperity of mankind, they must overthrow the capitalist system, and in its place establish “ the Socialist Commonwealth of the World.” 

Graham May.

A timely lesson from Gateshead (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A strong force of police was called to the offices of the Unemployment Assistance Board in Gateshead yesterday, when 200 men demonstrated against “cuts ” in their relief.

The men have been working on A.R.P. trench digging and, although they have been paid by the local authority, claimed that no “cuts” should be made in their normal relief.

After police had cleared the building of shouting demonstrators the men were admitted in four batches to receive relief, “cut” in proportion to the amount they had earned by trench digging. — (Sunday Dispatch, October 9th, 1938.)

Though given little space in the Sunday Dispatch, this incident contains a world of meaning for those able to interpret it.

It typifies the whole attitude of the capitalist class towards the workers.

The workers are always to be at the beck and call of their masters, willing to do any task demanded of them.

In time of war, they are expected to do the donkey-work, lose limbs and life.

Then, when peace comes, and the excitement is over, they are expected to carry on as usual and accept any pittance thrown to them.

If, however, the workers think that what they receive is not enough, and decide to do something about it, the forces of the State are at hand, and, if need be, will be set in motion against them.

This incident at Gateshead should have taught those 200 what their position is under capitalism, and what they are called upon to defend in time of war.

Clifford Allen

A colliery accident—and profits (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The News Chronicle of September 30th contains an informative little paragraph regarding the explosion which took place last May in the Markham Colliery, near Chesterfield.

At this explosion seventy-nine miners lost their lives, and many of their bodies were unrecognizable when recovered.

The colliery is now about to be opened again, and the News Chronicle states that the Staveley Coal & Iron Company, who own it, made a gross profit of nearly three-quarters of a million pounds (£723,725 to be precise) for the year 1937-8, and that from this amount a sum of £225,156 has been deducted for depreciation and directors’ fees. A tax-free dividend of 11 per cent. for the year has been declared.

In the light of these figures, it seems curious that it should have been necessary to have opened a “public fund” for the relief of the dependents of the victims—with all the sanctimonious hypocrisy that usually accompanies such funds—the capitalist his cheque, and the poor widow “her last ten shillings.” It is, however, merely symptomatic of the callous selfishness with which the capitalist class generally treat those who make their profits for them.

R. M.

On Leadership (1938)

From the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is often argued that the traitorous conduct of leaders in the working-class movement makes the ultimate achievement of Socialism difficult, and, some almost say, impossible.

To many sincere workers this question presents itself as one of great and vital importance. They argue that leaders will betray their followers once the leader, by virtue of his leadership, is lifted out of his class. And it must be admitted that a superficial glance at modern political history would appear to lend colour to the view. Let us consider, for example, certain relatively-recent events in the Labour and Trade Union movements.

For many years past, organised workers have aspired to solve their economic and social problems by giving their support to the Labour Party. Until the first Labour Government in 1924, few of them seriously believed that the experience of that Government would have resulted in disappointment and disillusionment.

Thousands of workers believed that a Labour Government would at once have taken effective steps to remove any working-class burdens: that a Labour Government was the first real move forward to the establishment of Socialism. What happened ? During the first Labour Government, members of the Cabinet openly condemned and aided the defeat of the locomotive men on strike for higher wages. A demand by the miners for higher wages was met with the plea: ‘‘Do not embarrass the Government.” The dockers’ strike was met with naval ratings unloading mails and mobilised ready to unload foodstuffs, etc., had the strike continued. The unemployed were told by MacDonald that industrial capital was not going to be touched to provide relief, the Government wanted the confidence of financial groups. Well-known opponents of the working class were appointed to the Admiralty and Air Ministry.

It was this Labour Government that was fully prepared to use the Emergency Powers Act in the event of the tramway strike spreading to the ‘‘Underground” workers. In the outposts of “our” Empire, it bombed tribesmen in Mesopotamia and murdered strikers in India.

In brief, once taking on the rôle of the administrators of capitalism, the Labour Government was compelled to run the system in the interests of those who own the means of production : the only way it can be run. The threats (via strikes) to ‘‘public order,” “embarrassing” demands of starving unemployed, at home and within the Empire, were met with evasions, excuses and, where necessary, bloody suppression.

However, to put the question into correct perspective, did the Labour Government of 1924 (or, for that matter, of 1929) betray Socialism? The answer, quite simply, is that it did not. It did not for the very reason that that Government was not Socialist. That is to say, that it was not a Government supported and elected by class-conscious Socialist votes for the purpose of establishing Socialism. It was a Government devoid of any understanding of Socialism, elected by workers lacking Socialist knowledge. But this does not answer the contention of many workers who would describe themselves as Socialist and who argue that, even if Socialists were elected to Parliament and were supported by class-conscious workers, the question of the traitorous leader would in no way be altered: in short, that Socialists will go the way of the Labour leader. As one worker put it to the present writer : ‘‘There are traitors in every party.” This, of course, within limits, is quite true; or, should we say, could quite easily be true. But the admission of this possibility does not affect the logic of the Socialist Party’s case.

The question should be asked: What is it that a working-class political leader betrays—and why? Would Socialist delegates in Parliament, elected by class-conscious workers, act in a similar way?

Ramsay MacDonald (and others) were accused of betraying the Labour Government when they deserted it for the National Government in 1931. Let us, for the sake of argument, accept the accusation of “betrayal” as being a description of the facts.

How did it come about that the renegade leaders were able to betray their Party and sell millions of Labour votes to the National Government? The answer again is quite simple, though it may be unpalatable to Labour Party supporters. The fact is that workers who transferred their allegiance to the National Government in 1931 did so because they were not in a position to understand the issues involved. They were led to believe that the continuance of a Labour Government meant the loss of their paltry savings, etc. (It is reasonably possible that Ramsay MacDonald and his colleagues understood the issues even less than the voters who followed them like sheep.) The real position was that Ramsay MacDonald and Company were able to transfer working-class votes to an openly capitalist party because they were the votes of the politically uninformed. Those votes were the votes of people who had placed their faith in leaders to solve their problems. The leaders failed, as was inevitable, and the conditions were favourable for stampeding millions of workers behind the banners of new leaders—the National Government. The inability to decide for themselves the merits of the issues then involved, plus MacDonald’s prestige among large numbers of confused Labourites, resulted in millions of additional votes for the National Government. Those votes measured MacDonald’s value to the Government.

The lesson does not need great powers of observation to appreciate. The value to the capitalist of a traitorous working-class leader depends upon the extent of his uninformed flock. The greater following a leader has, the more value that leader has to the capitalist; the more ignorant that following, greater are the chances of its betrayal. In short, when a leader “sells out” he is able to do so because of his influence over them.

But what would be the position in the event of Socialist workers returning Socialist delegates to Parliament ? The position would be entirely reversed. Socialist workers would not be betrayed, not because Socialists are immune to temptation or are to be trusted the more for being Socialists, but because the Socialist members would never be in a position of leadership. They would not be able to transfer the allegiance of Socialist voters to a capitalist political party. The reason being that Socialist workers know what they want and how to get it. A Socialist electorate would understand as clearly as the delegates in Parliament the essentials of the mandate the delegates were sent there to represent. A Socialist delegate in Parliament would not be able to sell his influence over his electorate for the simple reason that that influence would be of no value to the capitalist political parties. The position of the Socialist delegate in Parliament, therefore, would be quite different to that of a Labour leader. The first would have no influence over his electorate, and this would make him not worth tuppence to the enemies of Socialism. He would merely be in the position of fulfilling the wishes and instructions of class-conscious Socialists. The second is always in the position of trying to carry out promises made to workers who have not reached the point where they understand that only the abolition of private ownership in the means and instruments of production provides the solution of their problems. Hence their dependence on leaders.

The difference between leaders and delegates is the difference between political ignorance and enlightenment.

A. G.

Party Funds (1938)

Party News from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Donations to General Account

          (to October 19th).

Hyde Park Symp., 2s. 6d.; E. H., 2s.; W. H., 2s. K. F., 1s.; W. M., 2s. 6d.; G. A. J., 3s.; J. C., 4s.; H. R. 2s. 6d.; W. R., 3s. 6d.; E. P., 6s. 6d.; A. C., 10s.; Manchester Branch, £1 11s.- W. T. H., £1 2s. ; C. E. B. 3s. 6d.; F., 5s.; O., 5s.; H. G. H., 10s.; C. P., 2s.; Chiswick Branch, £2 1s.; A. S., 5s.; P., 2s. 6d. ; S. W. T., 2s. D. F. S., 5s.: F. & R. T., 7s. 6d.; P. H., 1s.; J. W. S. 10s.; Chiswick Branch, £1 10s.; A. S., 5s.; L. J., 2s. ; D. H., 2s. 6d. ; J. J., 2s. 6d. ; G. S. S., 2s.; E. K., £1 H. C. G., 10s. j J. B., 7s.; Quartet, 5s.; Mrs. H., 18s. 3d. M., 2s.; Paddington Branch, 10s.

Donations to Parliamentary Fund.

The following donations to the Parliamentary Fund have been received : Previously acknowledged, .£470 6s. 4d. Donations to October 15th, 1938: Dagenham & Romford, 1s.; J. R. B., 6d.; H. B., 1s.; J. M. 12s.; B., 2s. 6d.; West Ham, 10s.; East Ham, 10s.; Eccles, 2s. 6d.; P. H., 1s.; Stepney, 8s. 9d.; 'E. C., 1s.; Birmingham, 3s.; S.W. London, 10s.; R. E. T., Tottenham, 10s.; Clifford, 1s.; Thurmud, 5s.; W. G., 2s. 9d.; S. H. & Co., 6s. 6d.; Socialist Party of New Zealand, £6 10s.; M.P. Workers, £1 11s. 8d.; Manchester, £1 3s. 6d.; Hutch, 1s. 0d.; S. H. & Co., 6s. 6d.; P. H., 1s.: W. M., 2s. 2d.; East Ham, 10s.; W. P. S.. 2s. 6d.; E. C., 1s.; J. R. B., 4s. 6d.: G. S. S., 2s. 6d. Total: £485 11s. 8d.

Bazaar (1938)

 Party News from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Bazaar will be held in December in aid of Party funds. We are to-day spending more money on propaganda and the distribution of literature than ever before and in order to meet the demands on Party funds we aim at increasing the sum raised last year.

Start sending in your gifts immediately. Having seen last year’s bazaar you know the kind of thing that is needed. If you cannot send in goods, money is an acceptable gift. Branches are asked to co-operate by appointing a member (or members) to organise the collection of suitable articles from members and sympathisers.

Time is short, but with the right effort we can surpass the sum raised last year.

Bazaar Committee.

SPGB Meetings (1938)

Party News from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Answers to Correspondents: Trade Union Action and Political Action (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

TradeUnion Action and Political Action

A correspondent (R. J., Spalding) asks the following question: —

When the Trade Unions approach employers with demands for, say, increased pay, longer holidays, shorter hours, improved pension arrangements, you support their efforts. When, to supplement that approach, they take parliamentary action, either by trying to influence M.P.s of all parties, or through their representatives (invariably in the Labour Party) I gather that it is your policy to oppose them.

Please define the point at which your support for working-class efforts at improved conditions under capitalism ceases, and say how I, as a Trade Union secretary, can justify this attitude to my own members if I accept your point of view.

The Railway Clerks’ Association has done quite a lot for its members at one time or another by parliamentary means. For instance, only during February this year action was taken through Labour members . . . . .  who, by threatening to block the L.N E. Railway’s General Powers Bill, to draw attention to the lack of a proper Superannuation Fund on the L.N.E., were successful in forcing the Company to begin negotiations, that have every appearance of being satisfactory. Again, through action in Parliament, a schedule was included in the Railway Grouping Bill, which had the effect of preventing wholesale dismissals. This action was definitely of benefit to the workers, including myself, concerned.

Reply.

In order to clear the way for our reply it is necessary to correct one statement in our correspondent’s question. He says that when trade unions support the candidature of Members of Parliament they are “invariably in the Labour Party.” Though generally true of Great Britain, it is not invariably so. The National Union of Teachers, for example, has candidates in the other parties also. Going outside this country we see the American unions openly bargaining to support candidates, irrespective of their party.

The next point to notice is, that until Socialists become a majority of the electorates, a man can only become a Member of Parliament by standing for capitalism; while promising at the same time to press for certain reforms. If, therefore, a miners’ union or railwaymen’s union finances a successful Parliamentary candidature, it means helping to delude the workers into the belief that it is in their interest to reform capitalism instead of abolishing it. Similarly, what our correspondent calls “trying to influence M.P.s of all parties” means, in fact, striking a bargain with them. M.P.s want votes, and that is the only kind of “influence” they are interested in. The union, therefore, goes to the M.P. and offers—even if it is not put so bluntly as this, both parties know what is meant—to provide votes in the constituency in exchange for support in the House of Commons. In America the bargaining is quite openly admitted and defended by the unions.

What is the attitude of the Socialist to these practices? What attitude can it be except opposition? The Socialist holds, and preaches to the workers, that capitalism must be abolished, not reformed, and that the abolition can only be achieved by the conscious action of the workers organised together on a Socialist basis. How could a Socialist at one and the same time teach these elementary Socialist truths and make nonsense of them by helping to return to Parliament men whose mandate is to retain capitalism and reform it? ;

There are other aspects also to be considered, The achievement of Socialism requires that the workers should organise together on the basis of recognising that they have a common class interest against the capitalists. On no account can Socialists foster sectional rivalries among the workers. But when the Railwaymen try to get the support of M.P.s of all parties in the House of Commons, it frequently means, in fact, helping the Railway Companies to resist the encroachment of the road transport industry, and hoping, in return, to get some concessions from the M.P.s who represent Railway Company interests. Thus it divides the working class instead of uniting them. In the long run the class interest of the workers is more important, even to the sections which hope to gain small concessions by taking action on their own.

Also it should be remembered that when the capitalists feel that something vital to them as a class is at stake, all the Parliamentary lobbying and Labour candidatures count for nothing at all. A case in point was the 1927 Trade Union Act. The Baldwin Government wanted the Act and got it without paying the slightest attention to the opposition demands. In other words, if the united trade union movement cannot get something out of the employing class it is an illusion to think that political "influence” in the House of Commons will make any difference.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten that the final aim of the Labour Party is to get into office. When it does, that is when it takes on the administration of capitalism, the trade unions find themselves face to face with a Government of the people it had been supporting, only to discover, as did the miners in 1924, that the Labour Government tells them not to make “embarrassing” demands. Or it finds, as did the railwaymen, that the Labour Government is prepared to use Emergency Powers against strikers.

Workers should not forget, too, that after giving their support to the Labour Party in order to get petty concessions they found that Party in 1914 urging them into the trenches in capitalism’s war.

The outcome of it all is that many workers in their disappointment jump to the conclusion that a Labour Government is even worse than a Tory Government, and this enables Tories or Fascists, or some other supporters of capitalism, to gain adherents.

The time to avoid these evils is right at the start, and the way is to stick to Socialist political action, even if it appears to involve occasionally some loss of a minor advantage to some section of the workers.

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: The Trade Union Political Levy (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Trade Union Political Levy

A correspondent (R. J., Spalding), who is a trade union branch secretary, says that he “strongly criticises the Labour Party from the Socialist point of view,” and is in doubt whether or not he ought to go on paying the political levy to his union. The money, he says, “ is at present utilised mainly to support such of our colleagues as have entered Parliament as Labour Members, in general parliamentary action and to provide loans to local parties in accordance with the decisions of local branch members; again almost exclusively the Labour Party benefits.”

He goes on to suggest two alternative courses of action, either not to pay the levy, or, alternatively, pay it but oppose its use to support the Labour Party.

The S.P.G.B.’s view is that the levy should not be paid, because only in that way can the Socialist’s opposition to reformist political parties be made clear and unambiguous. 

Ed. Comm.

Answers to Correspondents: The Busmen’s Problem : A Correction (1938)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Busmen’s Problem : A Correction

Our attention has been drawn by Mr. F. Snelling, National Officer of the National Passenger Workers’ Union, to a misstatement in the article which appeared in the August The Socialist Standard under the title “The Busmen’s Problem.” The statement referred to was as follows : — 

“Following the strike, an enquiry was held by the union into the activities of certain of the more prominent members of the section, with the consequence that a number of the leading rank and file members were suspended from office and others expelled from the union. The suspensions and expulsions were subsequently endorsed by the 1937 Biennial Conference of the T. & G.W.U.”

Mr. Snelling informs us that the decision to suspend and expel members was not taken until after the 1937 Biennial Conference, and although the enquiry was held and completed before the end of the Conference, no statement was before the Conference on the result of the enquiry.

The Committee of Inquiry which was set up issued an interim report which made no reference to the suspensions and expulsions. This was the report that was accepted by the Conference.

W. E. W. & F. W. J.

The Prison Riots (1972)

From the November 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a world full of desperately eager advertising men, the prisons are notable for their desire to avoid publicity. In the limelight, they are positively uncomfortable; the recent demonstrations by the prisoners, attracting all the news media, have caused them a lot of embarrassment.

Responsibility for the demonstrations was claimed by an organisation going under the ambitious name of Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP). The first protests came in the form of sit-downs by men on remand. The Home Office advised the prisons to play this one cool; the demonstrations never got out of hand and it was deemed safe enough to allow some minor improvements in the remand men’s conditions. The next stage was the demonstrations by convicted prisoners. It seemed the same cool policy might have been applied, except that the prison officers reacted against the official “soft” line. They too got their publicity and Home Secretary Carr could hardly refuse to back them. Anyone who now breaks prison rules (in other words anyone who takes part in a demonstration inside) will be punished. PROP huffed and puffed and threatened to step up their campaign but the punishments went ahead with some men losing as much as a year’s remission, which amounts to being sentenced to another year in gaol. As PROP contemplates its next move and tries to deal with its own internal revolt, the prisons are very likely praying that for a while they will be out of the headlines.

Crisis

The demonstrations were a stage in the long-standing state of crisis in British prisons. To begin with they are desperately overcrowded, in spite of all the official attempts to reduce their population. Overcrowding can mean three men locked up in a room designed for only one, for twenty-three hours a day. The tensions built up among prisoners in an overcrowded prison are also felt by the warders — and under tension they are unlikely to handle a demonstration with much delicacy or sympathy.

In 1969 the government announced a big programme of building new prisons and renovating the old ones. Holloway, for example, is now slowly being replaced by a new prison which is being built on its existing site. The plans for this new prison impressed, not to say excited, many penal reformers but disappointed many others who think that most of the tragic women who get sent to prison should really be in hospital. In many ways the building plans have been overtaken by the rise in prison population and by the increased emphasis on security—on stopping the prisoners escaping—which came after the Mountbatten Report of 1968.

Mountbatten, one of the blue-blooded war heroes and dirty-work performers of British capitalism, was put to investigating prison security after George Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs. This was only the latest in a series of escapes by men like train-robber Charles Wilson and gunman John McVicar, who had earned himself a number of dramatic titles like the Most Wanted Crook in England. As a result of Mountbatten great cliffs of wire were erected within the outer brick walls, backed up with more sophisticated devices like closed circuit TV and geophonic zones.

The report recommended that prisoners should be graded according to the necessity of preventing their escape and that those in the top Category A—men like Blake, Wilson, McVicar—should be concentrated in a single, fortress-like prison on the Isle of Wight. Such a prison would have been a place of tremendous tensions, which was the main reason for the government rejecting the idea in favour of dispersing some of the Category A men among those of a lower category.

Empires

Dispersal has produced tensions of its own, with the warders complaining that some of the “hard nuts” have terrorised other prisoners into supporting their empires of prison rackets. In fact this has nothing to do with the dispersal policy; the prisons have always had their underworld and the barons are well-established figures who operate although their identity is well known to the prison authorities. It is very often only by such compromises and “blind-eye” tactics that prisons are able to be run.

As the demonstrations spread and grew, with men sitting it out on the roof at Parkhurst and other places, and as the warders’ anger mounted, the government were heard to regret that the prisoners were fomenting an emergency which was delaying the “rehabilitation” which is the prisons’ proper work. Leaving aside for the moment what they mean by “rehabilitation”, it should be said that the official picture of a prison, where work to rehabilitate the prisoners is busily going on all the time, is one which would not be recognised by anyone who had spent any time inside the places. In prison people who are sick—physically, mentally, socially—are left to while away long stretches of their life until early one morning they are pushed out of the gate (it is officially known as “release”) into the unwelcoming world outside.

PROP burst onto the tense, overcrowded prison scene a few months ago, with a Charter of Prisoners’ Rights running to several sheets of foolscap. At first the organisation declared itself to be exclusively in the hands of ex-prisoners (anyone who has not been inside can be at best an associate member) but after recent events it would be no surprise to see PROP subjected to the familiar process of being infiltrated, then taken over, by elements whose interest in prisoners’ rights is at best passing.

Most of the “rights” demanded by PROP would need too large an adjustment in the assumptions of the prison institution to have much of a chance of being realised. This is illustrated by the example of one of the demands which has in fact in some cases been granted — the “right” to have a prisoners’ representative on the managing board of the prison. In quite a few places this has happened but with little effect apart from allowing the authorities to claim that the inmates have a say in running the prison.

Rules

The important fact which PROP is trying to ignore is that capitalism is a system which gives few rights even to its “free” people, so that prisoners have even fewer. Those they do have often exist more in theory than in reality; the Prison Rules exist to define and protect certain rights but the particular nature of the prison institution can ensure that they are not applied. One rule says that food should be varied, well cooked, nutritious and so on, as if the prison were a swell hotel. People who have been inside know the truth about that.

Prison is a complete, restrictive institution, with all that implies. When a person is gaoled he can be said to lose his self-awareness; he is stripped of most of the identity symbols which even life as a worker under capitalism allows him and he is degraded to the level of a surname and a number. His life is entirely organised to meet the demands of the institution and he is under great pressure not to disrupt the institution by resisting those demands. Ironically, some of the most hardened prisoners surrender most completely; they are “model prisoners” who serve their time without causing any trouble. One of the warders at Albany prison was reported as describing a Kray as one of these prisoners—”a proper toff” he called him and from such lips there can be no higher praise.

But prisons exist for punishment (indeed the official line is that the confinement is itself punishment enough and that once through the gates there should be no more) which means that there must be continual conflict between the punished and the punishers. The punished—the prisoners—react defensively to the demands of the institution. Notably, they fashion their own code of conduct, what is sometimes called their own culture, by which they can unite to ease the problems of their confinement. Many of them see themselves as being outcasts and the unity of their code helps them to cling to some self-esteem by rejecting their rejecters. Together they can regard the rest with an aggressive cynicism.

Rehabilitation

Since the overwhelming majority of what are called offences are committed against property, it follows that most of the people in prison are there because in some way or another they have broken the property laws of capitalism by stealing something. Prisons developed almost by accident, as places where convicts were held before being transported, but then the theory was that they could be places where behaviour and attitudes might be changed, where people could be “rehabilitated” to lives in keeping with the inequalities of capitalism.

Pentonville, which was opened in 1842, was one of the first to be run on this theory. The prisoners were confined to their cells for their entire sentence; association with other prisoners was kept to the irreducible minimum and talking absolutely forbidden. In the solicitude of their cells, it was presumed, the inmates would reflect upon their past life and emerge determined to change. It is hardly necessary to add that this experiment was religiously inspired, on the theory enforced meditation would bring the prisoner to religion. What it frequently did was to drive them mad.

Nevertheless, in spite of all its setbacks, mainly due to all current theories being overwhelmed by facts, the idea of reform and rehabilitation has hung on, sprouting anew in a variety of forms. Coldingley prison is one of the latest examples, the pride of the Home Office. This is a prison run like a modern factory, with the overriding object of teaching the prisoners the disciplines and repressions of getting up and going to work, which are accepted and absorbed by most of the workers on the other side of the walls. Prison Rule No. 1 says that “the purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life” and it is a fact that few of the prisoners would ask for more than that. They too want to conform to the ambitions of the prison system, to be drawn in at one end as a criminal and spat out at the other as a docile, conforming, wage-earning, mortgage-paying, member of the working class. That is what is really meant by “rehabilitation”.

Warders

The people who are supposed to be actively engaged in this process are the prison officers, whose protests have been in the news. Here again, theory does not match with reality. The warders are not able to immunise themselves against the effects of the institution and many of them bear as many of its marks as do the prisoners. It is not so long ago that a new prison officer, on asking for instructions in his job, was likely to be told with a snarl “Do as I did, mister—find out for yourself”. Many of them take the job after a long time in the Forces, which as institutions bear many similarities to prisons; it is not overstating the case to say that they are often lost without the comfort  of  an  institution,  with  its  rigidity, its rules, its security. If “rehabilitation” were a possibility inside prison, men as committed to the institution as the warders are most unlikely to be able to do it.

In reality prisons, like so many of capitalism’s prized organisations, fail because they are based upon an ignorance of facts. Many prisoners are in gaol as simply another episode in a lifetime of social and personal crisis. They are victims of slumdom, of grinding poverty, of a human inability to cope with inhuman social pressures. People are interdependent to a great extent—they need each other for support, for security, for self-esteem, for simple existence. But capitalism’s demands at best distort human contact, at worst deny it altogether. In a social system based upon property rights, we do not relate to one another as human beings but as other cogs in the machinery of profit production, as fellow rats in the mindless, destructive race.

Most workers cope with these demands by dint of absorbing a lot of punishment and adapting to some crippling personality damage. After a lifetime of repressed misery they go unfulfilled to their graves. A minority deal with the pressures by reacting; however unconsciously, they protest—take drugs, commit crimes, go mad. Somewhere along this line the discipline machinery of capitalism is liable to pick them up and give them “treatment”, which as like as not will be a spell in prison.

The basic point is that capitalism cannot deal with its problem of crime any more than it can with bad housing, mental sickness, war, destitution. These are all part of one great problem, which can be solved only by a conscious action to end the society which imprisons us all.

Ivan

Unemployment – profits first! (1972)

From the November 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The first thing to note about unemployment is that it is a working class problem. A problem which only afflicts those who normally function as wage workers or employees.

The permanent non-producing existence of the capitalist class is not regarded as unemployment. They are a class which either privately, or through the State, function as an exploiting class. Their dominance over the means of production gives them a privileged position as wealth controllers, they have access to surplus value, and since as a class they are employers they never suffer from unemployment.

For unemployment to arise and be regarded as a dire social problem, a class must exist in society whose condition of life is mean and degrading. To be able to sell their working abilities for wages, to find an employer who will harness them like beasts of burden to his machinery of production, so that their lives may be spent producing wealth they do not own, is far preferable to being unused in a state of forced idleness.

Further, this alienated and dehumanised mode of existence must be their only means of gaining a livelihood. Such a class must depend on its income from wages or salaries, must have no property that would relieve them of the need to toil—no means of living save through prostituting their physical and mental energies on the labour market as employees.

Such a class exists all over the world. They are the working class.

Ideally they should be so conditioned to their slave position in life as to aspire only to demanding “the right to work”. To deny the slave his toil and his pittance is the last straw, the final insult. Capitalism for all its ills and woes can be tolerated with the occasional groan so long as there is work. Deny him his humanity. Deny him his personality. Deny him his freedom. This he can accept. But to deny him work is to affront him. He will produce all the wonders of modern science and technology. He will fashion and erect the most lavish hotels and luxury mansions, design and produce the most expensive jewellery and beautiful yachts, fine clothing and costly furs, wonderful ocean liners and a vast variety of delicate foods, and he will be content to live in squalid slums, wear inferior clothing, and eat adulterated food while “bargaining” only over the price at which he sells himself.

He will make do with the sham, the shoddy and the make-believe, so long as he is permitted to work. Work itself comes to equate with employment. And employment comes to equate with life.

This is the background against which unemployment must be understood. If unemployment means hardship, misery and deprivation, it is because poverty and insecurity are always with the worker.

Work is vital to the class of employees, not because they are docile, but because they depend upon wages to live. Their behaviour is determined by their position in the private property relationships of capitalism. They accept this position from want of an understanding of any alternative.

With this in mind, let us look at the current situation.

Shaking Out

Just a year ago the Sunday Times Business News published a report from Nicholas Faith. Unemployment was then 929,000 and it was thought “the gloom is not a temporary one”. It was pointed out that the present decline started in the mid-1960s, under the Labour government. The present government hoped for another upward turn, but it was feared that the investments boom of the 1960s was not sufficient to produce a big enough growth rate, i.e. more than 3 per cent, to take up the slack. The report blamed decades of neglect of capital stock for the low productivity rise, not (be it noted) the laziness of the workers. Capitalism is a system full of contradictions. Not least of its absurdities is the fact that those who run this system are forever screaming about insufficient growth rate, while at the same time nearly a million workers (in Britain alone) are thrown on the scrap heap and industrial resources grossly underused. All this while millions live in slums and many more millions in other countries starve.

In September 1971 Coventry had over 4 per cent unemployed; the figure still stood at 4.4 per cent in July 1972. For forty years Coventry was a boom town, with unemployment below the national average. The average for Great Britain in July was 3.6 per cent. The actual figure for the whole of Britain (early September 1972) was 930,123. Over a thousand more than a year ago, and the highest August figure for 33 years.

In Faith’s report the great “shake out” of 1966/67 is referred to. It is stated that the whole geography of post-war unemployment altered from that period and that “the whole of England outside the South East is now, by historic standards, a depressed area”. The Labour government was of course in power when the “shake out” began. It was in fact Wilson as Prime Minister who coined the phrase “shake out” in arguing that 400,000 was an “acceptable level” of unemployment.

The nationalised industries have been among the worst casualties. It will be recalled that the Labour Party sold nationalisation to the working class as a cure for various social problems, among them profiteering and unemployment.

Now, those mines and rail services which are unprofitable are ruthlessly closed. The process of “shaking out” many tens of thousands of miners and railway workers was at full tilt during Wilson’s Labour government. In Durham for example, miners have been redundant for ten years or more and “retired” whilst still unemployed, and therefore no longer figure in the unemployment statistics.

The changing pattern seems to indicate, according to the Sunday Times, a long-term change in the actual number employed, with unskilled workers over 40 years of age remaining virtually unemployable until they retire. There are 120,000 in this category.

Hopes Deferred

The National Institute for Economic and Social Research was said to be vaguely looking to 1973 and entry into the Common Market, for an investment boom. How vaguely might be seen from the fact that all the major European countries have unemployment problems of their own, with figures up on last year. They too could do with an “investment boom”. Unemployment is also up in the United States over last year, standing at 4,697,000 in April 1972, an increase of 203,000. Russia discreetly refrains from publishing any figures.

Those workers who trusted capitalism and thought they had secure jobs for life, among them the Upper Clyde shipworkers, those at Rolls Royce and in the mining and railway industries, not to mention the docks and many others, have been sadly disillusioned. Capitalism defies all attempts to control it. The Keyensian disciples of the Labour and Tory parties have had to stand powerlessly aside while the tidal wave of depression rises. All they are able to do is advocate more of the same futile policies and hope for the best.

Ramsey MacDonald in 1929/31 had his “economic blizzard”. Attlee did not plan the half-million unemployed of 1947. Wilson was “blown off course” with unemployment averaging over 600,000 during his last year of power.

The so called extreme “left” can demand nothing better than more work, better leadership, reforms and nationalisation. All the same old fallacies they were trotting out forty years ago. The Trotskyists and the “Communist” Party have helped spread the lie that the Labour Party is better for the workers than the Tories, and fostered the illusion that State capitalism can solve unemployment and other working-class problems.

Unemployment has always been a feature of capitalism. An industrial reserve army is the capitalists’ ultimate weapon against wage demands.

When wages reach a level where machinery becomes a better investment, the composition of capital will tend to favour the machine over the worker. Also, intensified world competition for markets produces the same result, namely relatively fewer workers to increasing technology. No major capitalist country can afford to lag too far behind the techniques employed by the fastest. This is the significance of what the Sunday Times calls “decades of neglect” of capital stock.

That’s What it’s All About

Capitalism inevitably creates situations where it chokes on its own surplus products, simply because of its market economy. Expanding industry means that ever wider markets must be found as profitable outlets for the sale of goods. As the whole world is drawn more and more into the orbit of capitalism, so the number of rivals grows and a stage is reached where it is no longer profitable to maintain production of goods which cannot be sold. The costly plant of modern industry demands the mass market. When markets begin to contract or fall to rivals, then unemployment starts to reappear.

The Daily Telegraph (1 October 1971) put it in a nutshell:

“Industry does not function, as some seem to think, to provide jobs. It functions to make profits. And if profits are unduly low as they have been now for at least five years the inevitable result is low investment. New finance becomes hard to get, adaptation and renewal slow down and the decline of jobs in the old industries remains unmatched by a growth of jobs in new industries. No priority, therefore, should rank higher than the restoration of British industry to a proper level of profitability.”

Capitalism can have no higher priority than profits.

The recurring cycle of boom and depression, at ever higher levels of technology, demonstrates more than anything the total inability of capitalism to harness its productive resources to the satisfaction of human needs. It further proves the complete obsolescence of the market economy.

What is really redundant, in terms of social welfare and human happiness, is the private and state ownership of the means of production.

Harry Baldwin

How much do strikes achieve? (1972)

From the November 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The view is held by some trade unionists and by so-called militant organisations that militancy is the key that opens all doors for the working class. The argument is deceptively simple: as strikes can gain wage increases more and larger strikes will gain more increases, seemingly without limit. How far is this true? There is plenty of past and current evidence though, as will be seen, some of it is open to misinterpretation. When Marx wrote about this more than a century ago he did not share the “militant” view about the extent to which trade-union pressure could raise wages. In his Value, Price and Profit for example (Chapters IV and XIV) and in Wage-Labour and Capital (p. 35 in the Whitehead edition) he took a somewhat pessimistic line based on his understanding of how capitalism works. While urging resistance to the efforts of employers to depress wages he thought it was largely a defensive struggle, with only occasional opportunities for the workers to secure “temporary improvement”. His view was that the times when the workers can hope to gain an improvement were when the capitalists were doing well, expanding production and accumulating capital. In the reverse phase of the “trade cycle”, with sales and profits falling and unemployment rising, he thought the workers could do little.

“The relations between the supply and demand of labour-power undergo perpetual change, and with them the market price of labour-power. If the supply overshoots the demand wages sink, although it might in such circumstances be necessary to test the real state of demand and supply by a strike, for example, or any other method.”

(To bring this into harmony with the present period of fast-rising prices it has to be remembered that though money wages do not now sink, a pay increase which does not keep up with the cost of living represents a fall of “real” wages, i.e. purchasing power.)

Nothing Gained

It will be noticed that Marx talked of “testing” the situation when trade is bad. The militants reject this. They think that if enough workers strike they can make big gains in spite of adverse conditions. As regards past experience the evidence is all against the militants’ case. Apart from 1921 and 1926, the record number of days lost through strikes in any year was in 1893, when the total was over 30 million. This included Lancashire cotton workers who were out for five months, and 400,000 miners. Both strikes failed and wages generally did not rise.

Another outstanding example was the ten years 1921-1930. Unemployment was high, trade was bad and prices were falling—in all by 30 per cent. In those years, which included the General Strike of 1926, the number of days lost by strikes and lockouts averaged 31 million a year, but the strikes completely failed to prevent wages also falling by about 30 per cent.

Discontent & Resistance

The question arises to what extent recent experience differs from the past. Various changes have taken place. There are many more trade unionists, though still only a minority of the workers, and workers on strike instead of depending entirely on their own resources and trade-union and benefit-society funds can now get Social Security payments for their families. British capitalism in the past six years has been in depression with unemployment at one point topping the million mark. And strikes have been building up, from 2,400,000 days lost in 1966 to 13,600,000 days in 1971 and a likely total of 20 or 21 million in 1972. The fact that strikes have become more numerous and last longer is not simply a reflection of workers’ discontent but is also a reflection of stronger and better-organised resistance by employers. It is a truism that the most successful strike is the one that never happens because when trade is brisk employers may yield to the mere threat of a strike interrupting production.

In recent years, with sales falling off, employers have taken a tougher line because they stand to lose less when trade is slack than when they have full order-books and are hard pressed to meet delivery dates. Also, as in engineering and the building industry where the recent strikes were not general, employers with strikes on their hands received financial help from the other employers.

Keeping Pace

What then has been the outcome of the big increase in strikes? On the basis of the rise of the cost of living and the estimated increase of wage rates (not including overtime and bonuses etc.) and of average earnings (including overtime and bonuses) it would seem that real wages have been rising at about 2 per cent a year since 1966; but some complications have to be taken into account. The first is that what matters is not gross pay but “take-home pay” after deduction of tax, and owing to the way this operates take-home pay increases by a smaller percentage than gross pay. If for example a single man on pay of about £25 obtained an increase of £5 a week (20 per cent) his increase of take-home pay would be just under 19 per cent (£4.10).

And owing to the rules governing family income supplements and free school meals it can happen that some workers can be worse off through a pay increase. For a married man with two children a pay increase of £2 from £28 to £30 a week would leave him 95p. a week worse off. (The Times, 8 September 1972).

It is obvious that the past six years, in spite of more strikes, has left the mass of workers in Britain doing little more than keep pace with prices.

Some Do Not

An enquiry by the Economic Research Council (Financial Times, 18 August 1972) indicated that between 1962 and 1970 average take-home pay did not even keep up with the cost of living, though some improvement may have been made since 1970. Another factor that should be borne in mind is that the past few years have seen a widespread tightening-up of jobs through labour-displacing productivity schemes linked with pay increases. Take-home pay in terms of purchasing power has certainly not fully reflected increased output.

Some confirmation of Marx’s general argument is given by a comparison of Germany and some other continental countries with Britain. While British capitalism has been in depression, production has been expanding fast in Germany—the condition in which Marx expected the workers to be able to increase wages. Though strikes in Germany have been much fewer than in Britain, in recent years real wages have risen much more in Germany. Indeed, according to a document submitted to the TUC (The Times, 5 October 1972): “In recent years Britain’s wage increases have been the lowest in Europe.”

Edgar Hardcastle