World View: Global inequality is getting worse (1996)

From the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

News that 358 people own as much wealth as half the world's population will come as no surprise to regular readers of this journal. Neither will socialists be alarmed at similar findings published in the 1996 Human Development Report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

What is at first remarkable, however, is that the report's findings come during the International Year of Poverty. Yes, this is the year—a year set aside by those who set years aside for special problems—in which we are supposed to be solving the problem of global inequality and, yes, you’ll be forgiven for thinking that socialism is the panacea recommended by the report.

“There was plenty for the pessimist," wrote Martin Jacques of the report (Observer, 21 July)—though we would have preferred the term "realist”—having pointed out that since 1980 over 100 countries have had stagnant or declining incomes that have reduced living standards for 1.6 billion people.

Presumably we are supposed to feel "optimistic" about the 15 countries that have experienced economic growth during this period, even if, like Singapore, freedom of speech has been outlawed.

The report also reveals that whereas the world’s richest 20 percent were 30 times as wealthy as their poorer counterparts then, they are now 61 times as wealthy.

What the Observer found "encouraging” was the report’s use of a human development index, whereby not only GDP per capita, but also illiteracy, enrolment in education and life expectancy are also taken into consideration. By which measure “virtually every country in the world has improved its lot since 1980. In sub-Saharan Africa life expectancy rose from 46-51 ’’. But the downside is that, if followed to its logical conclusion, your average sub-Saharan African was enabled to be exploited for a further five years by the master class, enduring, en route, poverty, starvation, disease, civil war and the certainty that at death their dependants would fair no better.

Interestingly, the UNDP administrator, James Speth, believes "the world has become more economically polarised" and that "if present trends continue, economic disparities between industrial and developing nations will move from inequitable to inhuman" (Observer, ibid.).

In spite of this assertion, in spite of the simple fact that global inequality is so inextricably linked to the present insane profit system. Richard Jolly, the compiler of the report, and special adviser to Mr Speth, reasons that the problem can be tackled within the context of capitalism and has put forward a three-pronged strategy to reverse the trend: ". . . a target of 3 per cent capita growth in the poorest countries, an emphasis on making expansion sustainable and more equitable, and action to avoid the five forms of undesirable growth”. Which the UN describes as:

"jobless growth, ruthless growth where only the rich benefit, anti-democratic voiceless growth, unsustainable futureless growth, and rootless growth, which tramples on cultural identities" (Guardian, 16 July).

Of course, there is about as much hindsight and foresight here as an IMF structural adjustment programme. Growth is dependent, for instance, on investment and the building up of the industrial, private and public sectors in poor countries—all of which becomes impossible because of debt repayment schemes and because any country wishing to speed up development will become competitive and import less, which runs counter to the interests of the larger and wealthier capitalist nations who can easily out-compete and consequently halt the ambitions of their poorer counterparts.

Neither can expansion be really sustainable. Sooner or later a point is reached that capitalism cannot accommodate. “Too much” is produced and profits fall. Hence global booms and recessions.

In truth, the only way capitalism can be run is as it is now. This is the raison d'etre of capitalism, profit at any cost, in the interest of the minority and at the expense of the majority. And just as it is an unavoidable fact that capitalism creates the exploiter and the exploited in any given country, so it is the case that if some countries are to thrive, others must face ruin at their expense.

There can be no strategy or plan or panacea to remedy what is, after all, the logic of capitalism, within the context of capitalism. The only solution remains to abolish the system entirely and to establish socialism. The abolition of the profit system, money, wages, frontiers and borders, social classes and leaders, and the establishment of a global system based on community ownership and democratic control of productive wealth is the only way to end a system where one Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, can purchase six of the world’s poorest countries.

Commenting on the UNDP report, Victor Keegan, writing in the Guardian (22 July), said: “Never in the history of the world have they [the rich] been present in such quantities and in such flamboyant contrast with the poor as now." We might add: “and never has the case for world socialism been so pressing". 

John Bissett

World View: Slaves and wage slaves (1996)

From the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earlier this year, the writer and TV broadcaster John Pilger visited Burma and talked with the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi. He also managed to secretly visit a vast labour camp and construction site in Mon State, between the towns of Yeand Tavoy and the Andaman Sea.

“Scores of people were building embankments and a bridge across a dry river bed." says Pilger. "The skilled were paid 60 cents a day. The majority were slave labourers, of whom many were children . . . The children carried heavy loads of mud mixed with straw in baskets and dishes on their heads and clearly agonised under the weight of it."

Every village in the area must give labour "voluntarily" regardless of the age or state of health of the villagers. When Pilger asked one villager why she was being forced to work in this way, she replied that they had heard that they were having to build a railway so that a French oil company could run a pipeline through.

The oil company, according to John Pilger, is Total, “which is part-owned by the French Government. In partnership with the American Unocal company, Total is building a $1.3 billion pipeline that will carry Burma’s natural gas into Thailand.

The deal will give the Rangoon generals $400 million a year over 30 years. Since they put an end to democracy in 1990, it is estimated that the Slorc have received 65 per cent of their financial backing from foreign oil companies" (West Australian, 8 June).

Also six years ago, 6,000 people who lived in the city of Pagan, "one of the last wonders of the ancient world”, were forced, at between two weeks and a few days, from their homes which were subsequently bulldozed, and they were marched at gunpoint to a shadeless area out of sight of tour buses.

And for why? “The city was being opened to mass tourism and only guides and the staff of a planned strip of hotels were permitted to stay" (West Australian, 8 June).

As always, profits and the lure of profits for the few come before the many. And the military rulers of Burma and Indonesia, like the ruling class elsewhere, have been learning fast.

Peter E. Newell

Knowledge is mostly potential (1996)

Book Review from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

We Can Change the World: the Real Meaning of Everyday Life. David G. Stratman, New Democracy Books. £7.

From a socialist point of view, this book has much to commend it. However, it does have a few features which make us less happy. First the positive points. David Stratman’s main thesis is a critical opposition to both capitalism and Communism (the system he sees as having operated in the USSR) and their replacement by what he calls revolutionary democracy. In Part I he seeks to show the links between class struggle and people’s everyday lives. He discusses the bussing in Boston of black children into white neighbourhoods, the British miners’ strike of 1984-5, a meat packers’ strike, and working-class opposition to an élite educational programme. The common theme he sees running through these episodes is that “class struggle is a struggle over different conceptions of what it means to be human”.

In Part II Stratman backs his claim that “the history of the past two decades is driven not by competition among rival business economies, but by a struggle between the world élite and most people over the future of human society”. One chapter is devoted to “revolutionary” activity in the USSR. The author’s general conclusion is that “the problem of capitalists is not each other; their problem is their inability to subdue the working population. Capitalism is in crisis because it cannot win the class war”.

Part III is intended to show that “Communism” has been consistently counter-revolutionary and that trade unions function as instruments of capitalist control. In a chapter on the current US political scene Stratman attacks “the left” for not really believing in the possibility of revolution and hence restricting themselves to aiming at a reformed capitalism as the best possible system.

Finally, Part IV discusses the nature of the revolutionary movement, and the rôle of the revolutionary party which follows from “a new model of social change and a new view of people”. Socialists would not dispute his contention that “the role of a revolutionary party is not to bring to the working class a consciousness from outside, but to uncover and bring together the fragments of consciousness that are already there, rooted in workers’ experience and their values and social relations”.

Stratman writes well and with conviction. He says many things with which we agree. However, here are some differences and disagreements.

We recognise that Stratman and his associates are living in a country where, perhaps even more than in Britain, “communism” is insistently and deeply identified with what went on in the USSR and elsewhere, and even “socialism” is grossly distorted. But do we get over this problem by calling our object the attainment of “revolutionary democracy”? Stratman admits that both “democracy” and “revolution” have been distorted in meaning, but he doesn’t make a convincing case that a doubly distorted label for the kind of world we are working for is any better than a singly distorted one.

His major failure to recognise the positive theoretical insights to be drawn from Marxist thinking is made worse by his unsustainable claim that “Leninism is a consistent development of the internal logic of Marxism, adapting it for practical use … The Soviet Union and other Communist societies represent not a betrayal of Marxism but its fulfilment.” There are also some worryingly approving comments on the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s China.

Stratman talks about a “revolutionary party”, yet he is very vague about what a revolutionary democratic world will actually be like, other than that it won’t be capitalism. Will it be a world in which the means of wealth production and distribution will be commonly owned and democratically controlled? Will it be a world in which there are no nation states, no armies and police forces, no buying and selling, no money? In the absence of a solid and widely understood basis for fundamental change, and democratic action to achieve that change, some form of capitalism will surely go on.

Stratman believes that “people collectively know enough now to crush capitalism and to create a new world”. If they do know enough, what’s stopping them? The answer must be that the knowledge is mostly potential, and that it needs to be converted into actual knowledge and then appropriate revolutionary action.

Stan Parker

Socialist Party to stand five candidates (1996)

Party News from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the coming General Election the Socialist Party will be putting up five candidates, the highest number yet in a parliamentary election. Two will be standing in Scotland, two in the North East and one in London.

The seats and candidates are

Glasgow Kelvin:      Vic Vanni.

Livingston:               Matt Culbert.

Jarrow:                     John Bissett.

Easington:                Steve Colborn.

London Vauxhall:    Richard Headicar.

Around 40,000 election addresses will be distributed by the Post Office in each of the five constituencies, but this will only be during the election which must take place sometime before May next year.

In the meantime preparatory work has started, with meetings, literature stalls and leaflet distribution in the constituencies. If you want to help with this, or want further information about the socialist campaign, the contact persons for the constituencies are:

• Glasgow: Vic Vanni, Flat A, 26 Baker Street, Glasgow G41 3YE. Phone:0141-xxx xxxx.
• Livingston: Matt Culbert, 53 Falcon Brae, Ladywell, West Lothian, EH54 6UW. Phone: 01506-xxx xxx.
• Jarrow and Easington: John Bissett, 10 Scarborough Parade, Hebbum, Tyne & Wear NE31 2AL. Phone: 0191-xxx xxxx, or Harland Wear, Telephone 0191 xxx xxxx 
• London: Gareth Thomas, 185c Northcote Road, London SW11 6QF. Phone: 0171-xxx xxxx.

If you are not living in any of these areas but still want to help the Socialist election campaign one way to do so is to make a contribution to the Election Fund. The amount in the fund at the moment is £4,656, not much compared to what the pro-capitalist parties will have to spend. The more money we have the more effectively can we make the voice of socialism heard.

Cheques (made payable to “The Socialist Party of Great Britain”) should be sent to: Election Fund, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN.

Tolpuddle Rally 1996 (1996)

Party News from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

This year's Tolpuddle Rally, to remember six Dorset agricultural workers who in 1834 were transported to Australia for attempting to form a union in order to defend themselves against their bosses, was held on 21 July.

Whilst the number of socialists who attended the event this year was disappointing, several members from the Bournemouth group made an early start in order to reserve a space for our literature stall.

Events such as Tolpuddle are good for meeting fellow workers who have at least seen the need to organise to defend themselves against the effects of capitalism. Members of the Labour Party were there in, as usual, considerable numbers. Those who stopped at our stall had one thing in common, anger at what was going on the Labour Party. Democracy and New Labour seem to be incompatible. No debate on policy, cut down as much as possible on internal elections. Such things are seen as a threat to the only thing that matters to Blair and his shadow bandits, power to run British capitalism. Labour members seem to have little or no hope that a Blair government will do anything to let us know there has been a change of government.

From our point of view we had a good day. Discussed with many interested workers the case for socialism, sold socialist literature and distributed leaflets.

The main impression we came away with was that many workers were angry and disillusioned at the complete lack of alternative seemingly on offer at the forthcoming general election. We hope that the many workers who came into contact with socialist ideas at Tolpuddle this year will come to the conclusion that a viable alternative exists in the form of the socialist movement.

Ray Carr

50 Years Ago: The Waning Status of the "Intellectual" (1996)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Not many years ago the "intellectual," with his "middle class" delusion, was convinced that he had a fundamental identity of interest with the capitalist, but experience began to raise doubts; some sections, including bank clerks, commenced to form defensive organisations. That was a step forward. Lately there has been a giant stride forward.. For the first time bank clerks have engaged in a strike on a large scale. The Irish bank officials have been on strike for five weeks, coming at last into the main stream of the class struggle and taking a belated step towards recognising the fundamental identity of interest of all those who depend for their livelihood upon the sale of their mental and physical energies. In the not far distant future the other grades of workers afflicted with the "middle class" obsession will be forced to accept a similar outlook and the halo surrounding the "intellectual" will finally disappear.

Gilmac.

[From the article, The Waning Status of the "Intellectual", by Gilbert McClatchie, Socialist Standard September 1946.]

This Month's Quotation: Karl Marx (1933)

The Front Page quote from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The great duty of the proletariat is to conquer political power."

Karl Marx

Let Brotherly Love and Tithes Continue. (1933)

From the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Up and down the English countryside a tithe-war is in progress. Farmers, and other holders of land subject to tithe, say they cannot and will not pay. They have organised a national association to defend their interests. Against them stands the Church, with its back to the wall, demanding its money. The Church invokes the law-courts and the police, and at its behest bailiffs seize the land, stock and crops, of the debtors. The answer of the farmers to forced sales of goods is an aggressive boycott of the auction. Massed picketing and veiled threats of violence are usually sufficient to dissuade intending buyers from making bids.

The history of tithes is long and complicated. They go back for many hundreds of years, and it is disputed whether in England they began as the voluntary gifts of pious churchmen or as a compulsory levy. In any event there is no dispute as to their form. The landholder subject to tithe had to donate each year one-tenth of the produce of his land, one-tenth of his calves, lambs, wool, milk, eggs, grain, and so on. At first this stream of wealth was divided into four parts; one part each for the bishop and the parish priest, one part for the upkeep of the church building, and one part for the poor. Subsequently the bishops were otherwise provided for. The tithes were then divided into three parts; one-third for the parson and two-thirds for the monks, to be used by them for their own upkeep, for the entertainment of strangers, and for the relief of the poor. There is no doubt that by this time at least the relief of the poor was not a voluntary act on the part of the monastic houses but was a duty imposed on them by the Crown. In receiving tithe and using part of it to relieve the poor, the monks were acting as agents for the King, as is shown by a statute passed in the early years of the fourteenth century, during the reign of Edward I.

When the monasteries were suppressed at the time of the Reformation about one-third of their tithes were seized by the Crown and handed over to laymen.

The whole of the remaining two-thirds came to be payable to the clergy.

Until 1836 tithes were, for the most part, paid not in money but “in kind." In that year the Tithe Commutation Act substituted a money rent-charge, varying with the price of corn, for the payment in kind. In 1891, owing to the difficulty experienced in the collection of tithe, the obligation was transferred from the tenant to the land-owner.

Both in 1836 and under various later Acts the clergy were given the benefit of relief from part of their liability for rates payable on the tithes received by them.

Under the Tithe Act, 1925, the tithe payment, instead of varying with the price of corn, was for the first time stabilised on the basis of £105 for each £100 of tithe-rent charge; with an additional payment of 4½ per cent. a year to provide a fund for the extinction of tithes over a period of 85 years.

The annual cost is now £3,300,000, of which about two-thirds is payable to the clergy and the remaining third to other receivers of tithe whose rights were acquired from the monasteries at the Reformation. It is this £3,300,000 which is the grievance behind the present dispute.

The Church—A Declining Industry

The Tithe-payers' Association makes the claim that the burden of tithes is ruining the farmers. While it is true that some farmers cannot pay their tithe, it is obvious that we must look further than this for an explanation of the dispute between the tithe-payers and the Church, for the total amount of tithe represents only a very small percentage of the annual income of the farmers. On the other hand, a sum of over £2 million a year is of the utmost importance to the Church. It represents the livelihood of thousands of the clergy.

The fact is, that during recent years changes have been taking place affecting both the farmers and the Church. Many of the former have been badly hit by the post-war slump in the prices of agricultural products. They receive a declining income from the sale of their products but have to pay a fixed charge to the clergy and other recipients of tithe. Their position is doubly difficult in the many cases of farms having been bought on borrowed money at the high prices of the War years. On the other hand, the farmer’s inclination to withhold tithes has been strengthened by the loss of prestige and popularity on the part of the Church and its ministers. The Church is a great commercial concern which, so to speak, has its capital sunk in a declining industry. As Dean Inge puts it, the Church used to be a monopoly undertaking and is now trying to exist under conditions which have deprived it of its monopoly.

It sells an article which has not kept up with the changing demand of the twentieth century. “Spiritual consolations” and the kind of social activities provided by the Church are as definitely out-of-date as horse-’buses, lantern lectures and tallow candles. The hold of the parson is relaxing. The torments of hell and the delights of heaven alike pass over the heads of a generation brought up on war and war-novels, on the cinemas and wireless. Cinemas and wireless have captured the field, hence the interesting results of most of the votes on Sunday opening. In one town after another we see the Councils—composed of elderly persons, often active Church workers—voting against Sunday cinemas, only to have their decision heavily reversed when it goes to a poll. The clergy try to hold back the tide, but what can they do against new needs and 'the cinema combines? They are like the little shopkeepers trying to fight Woolworths, Boots, Selfridges, and the other giant concerns which are fast devouring them.

In a variety of ways the influence and the income of the clergy have been diminished. Now comes the final blow of the campaign against tithes. In reply, the Church militant shows what it is made of, and fights for cash, as it never fought for anything else. As Marx so cruelly said, ”the Anglican Church will more readily pardon attacks upon 38 of its 39 articles than upon one thirty-ninth of its income.”

It is Written in the Bond

The tithe-war is rich in incident. There is the Rector who assented to a farmer sacking one of his unfortunate labourers in order to be able to afford to pay tithe. The Rector said that he could not afford to let the farmer off what he owed, “and that it was a just debt.” The Church authorities, as a whole, have taken up the same legalistic attitude, standing strictly on the letter of the law. Shall not Shylock have his pound of flesh ?  Is it not written in the bond?

Where they do allow some remission it is only on the ordinary commercial principle of taking 75 per cent., because there is no possibility of getting the whole. Yet prominent Churchmen, including Lord Parmoor, state that the burden of tithes is unduly heavy in view of the unforeseen fall in prices.

One case has, however, come to light of a tithe claim being abandoned entirely by the parson to whom it was owed. An old shoe-maker was a tithe-payer to the extent of 3s. 6d. a year. It was the custom to hold an annual ”Tithe Feast," presided over by the Vicar and held at the village “pub," which all tithe-payers were entitled to attend. The old shoe-maker was relieved of his obligation to pay tithe because, as he explained, “they lost money over him" at the annual spread.

Attempts to seize farmers' property have been resisted, with the consequence of numerous cases of assault, some of which reach the courts. In one case of distraint it was disclosed that an original debt of £20 for tithe was increased to £700 through legal costs charged against the debtor in a series of actions to enforce payment.

The attitude of the Daily Herald, official organ of the Labour Party, has been amusing. Its desire to sympathise with the farmers, whose votes it wants, is equalled by its anxiety not to antagonise the supporters of the Church. So it presents the delicate problem of how to give the farmers more without giving the Church less; and as that problem is truly baffling, it demands that the Government shall instantly do its duty—and appoint a Commission! Happy memories of the late Labour Government, with its dozens and dozens of Commissions and Committees of Inquiry, probing into this question and the other.

Why do the Christians so Furiously Rage Together?

It is an entertainment to see how the followers of Jesus fight for filthy lucre as bitterly as any poor benighted heathen. Where is that otherworldliness, that spirit of self-denial that the clergy never fail to recommend to workers who come out on strike?

Christians, were you not commanded to love one another? And do you now send your message of love by the bailiff’s men ? O, ye of little faith! Do you not know that strife can be avoided by the exercise of Christian charity and forbearance? Why, yes, of course you know, for did you not, with the Archbishop of Canterbury at your head, found the Industrial Christian Fellowship for no other purpose than to show the cantankerous workers how to avoid industrial strife, and how to live at peace with the employers?

Lastly, there is the case of Mr. George Middleton. As First Church Estates Commissioner and Chairman of the Tithe Committee of Queen Anne’s Bounty, it falls to Mr. Middleton to defend the Church. This he does in letters to the Press urging the farmers to respect the sanctity of contracts and the rights of private property. What makes his case interesting is that he was a Labour M.P. and an official of a postal workers’ union until he had the good luck to slip into his present position at £1,200 to £1,400 a year, plus cost of living bonus; a job which literally lasts for life. There is no modern nonsense about needing young blood or being too old at 70 or 80 for the First Church Estates Commissioner’s job.

Mr. Middleton is a supporter of the Industrial Christian Fellowship referred to above, and an advocate of peace between employers and employed, but as Chairman of the Tithe Committee of Queen Anne’s Bounty he wages fierce war on tithe defaulters.

Idle talk among ex-soldiers often strays over the question which of the Monarchs, Ministers and Generalissimos won the real prizes of the War in which their loyal followers perished. By common consent it was the defeated ex-Kaiser, with his fortune of millions serenely ending his days in retreat at Doorn. If a similar question were to be put about the fruits of the great Labour Party victory which put them into office in 1929, it can hardly be doubted that Mr. Middleton, wafted into this placid backwater at the Ecclesiastical Commission, was one of fortune’s special favourites.

However, let it not be supposed that we are filled with bitterness towards the clergy or towards the Mr. Middletons. They are only trying to make the most of the opportunities capitalism offers them in the particular circumstances in which they happen to be placed. They are responding to the pressure of material conditions. It does not matter in the least, either to us as Socialists or to the condition of the workers, whether this individual or that secures what plums of office there happen to be. The Church, like any other concern run on business lines, has its highly paid bishoprics and its minority of pleasant livings for the influential few. It also has its rank and file, who live under conditions very much akin to those of the rest of the black-coated workers; with a large minority whose pay is so small that they have great difficulty in making ends meet and “keeping up appearances.” Capitalism being what it is, what can the parson do but try to hold on to his livelihood and demand payment of tithe? And what can the farmer do but try to help himself by whittling it down?

Our quarrel is not with the men, but with the system. Our message is directed to the working class, who alone can alter things. To them we say that it is useless, and worse than useless, to denounce the man who takes the opportunity which capitalism offers while at the same time at the elections upholding the system itself. Capitalism compels us all to struggle for survival and teaches us to kick each other down in the fight for greater security and a better livelihood. The only way to end the wolfish struggle is to end capitalism.

If we dwell on the weak and illogical position of the Church, it is in order to show that the solution does not lie there, but only in Socialism.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Tales Told by the Lady's Maid. (1933)

Editorial from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those whose knowledge of the domestic servants of the rich is coloured by their reading of the luscious disclosures published from time to time in Sunday newspapers, will suppose that the normal first step taken by a valet or lady’s maid on being dismissed is to rush round to the nearest journalist to arrange for a series of articles headed, “Through the Keyhole,” “Our Dissolute Peerage,” or “Disgusting Orgies in Mayfair.” It is much more likely that these thrilling stories are written by the newspaper staffs or by professional writers, and that domestic servants are a much-maligned body of people. They may be far too scrupulous to make use of their knowledge of the weaknesses and foolishness of their employers. If, indeed, it is scruples only which hold them back they can easily get rid of these by modelling themselves on some of the politicians, for example, the former colleagues of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald.

It was inevitable when the split occurred in the Labour Cabinet in 1931 that the two groups should tell each other a few home-truths, with some venom and the maximum of publicity. Lord Snowden, Mr. Thomas and Mr. MacDonald hastened to disclose that most of the Henderson group had been willing to agree to almost all of the economy “cuts.” As this was a really devastating blow, to which no adequate answer has been found, or is ever likely to be found, many of the big and little Labour men, peeved by loss of office and (in many cases) loss of parliamentary seats, fell back on the device of ”telling the real truth” about their former leaders.

It would not be true to say that all of them did this, but the offenders have been fairly well distributed among the various sections of the Labour Party. Some of the worst offenders are Mr. Hamilton Fyfe in Reynolds' Illustrated News, and Mr. MacNeil Weir in Forward, Mr. Weir was Parliamentary Private Secretary to MacDonald, and, therefore, had access to many of the inner secrets. Professor Laski made his contribution also.

From these disgruntled people we have now learned the most surprising things. If they are to be believed they knew all along that MacDonald was childishly ignorant and credulous, extremely vain, a word-spinner to the point of incoherence, unduly fond of the company and flattery of the Peerage, a mere tool of big business and the bankers, obstinate yet easily turned from his path by hints from his political opponents, arrogant and unapproachable, always indifferent to the hardships of the workers, always dishonest in his political enthusiasms, a worshipper of applause and a seeker for limelight, and altogether a most unattractive, uninformed and useless person. Similar things were said of Thomas and Snowden.

Now there may be some, even a lot of truth in all these statements. Not being personally acquainted with Mr. MacDonald we are not in a position to say. What we can say has to do with the ex-valets rather than the masters. If these things are true how comes it that the whole band, from Maxton to Henderson, and from Bevin to Clynes, went on year in and year out following MacDonald, re-electing him leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, praising him extravagantly and vowing that never before was there a man so deserving of trust and confidence? How did the stupid and incompetent MacDonald so easily bamboozle all these clever fellows? They say that they always saw through him, yet he, apparently, twisted them round his little finger! What were they?—innocent victims or criminal fellow-conspirators? Did MacDonald take them in—in which case they are plainly unfitted for the hurly-burly of politics—or were they consciously helping MacDonald to take the workers in?

In short, when they told the workers all those years to have faith in the tried and trusty Socialist MacDonald, were they ignorant dupes or deliberate liars ? This, includes the Communist Party, which supported MacDonald for several years. It also includes Mr. Maxton, of, whom Hannen Swaffer writes in the Daily Herald (July 31st) that when the National Government was formed, Maxton told MacDonald in a private conversation, “I always knew you were not a Socialist, Mac. I can’t think worse of you now that you admit it.”

Will Mr. Maxton tell us why—knowing that MacDonald was not a Socialist—he told the workers at election after election that MacDonald was a Socialist, and was deserving of working-class support? Was it because MacDonald's name at the head of l.L.P. appeals for funds enabled them to tap his rich friends ?

All this spate of disclosures intended to discredit MacDonald, Snowden and Thomas has at the same time shown up the rottenness of many of their former colleagues.

Unemployed Workers on the Continent. (1933)

From the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

The apologists of capitalism in this country often aver that the workers here are better off than in other countries. A correspondent of The Times has recently been making a tour of France and Italy investigating the conditions of the workless there. In Italy most of the 1,200,000 unemployed belong to the Fascist party on account of the rations given to their unemployed members, and the correspondent remarks: “You will realise that the unemployed single men probably get more in actual relief than our own unemployed." In France, the official figures show that more than half the unemployment is in Paris and the surrounding Department of the Seine. “In Paris, the unemployed single man gets from 10 to 12 francs minimum a day as dole, and if he is living in lodgings, the keeper of his house gets another four francs a day for his room. Multiplied by seven days each week, this makes, even with the exchange, an allowance considerably above our own." But apart from such slight differences, capitalism is everywhere the same. It weeps at the large number of idle workers whom it cannot employ at a profit, while it grudgingly doles out the barest necessities of existence.

R. M.

Letter: Russia's Future. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia’s Future.

Why not a development towards Socialism? 

A group of workers in New York have put the following interesting questions about Russia: —

A group of workers—20 all told—are interested in your viewpoint on the following questions :—

1. Can the Soviet Union ever become economically self-sufficient ?

2. Can Socialism be built in Russia alone ?

The argument we were presented with recently was that—starting out with its present enormous resources and labour power, and the money it may borrow abroad, the Russian State will sell Russian products abroad, turn the part of the surplus value that is left after the payment of interest, State expenses, etc., back into its industrial enterprises, developing its industries to the point of satisfying all national needs till in time there is attained the nearly total economic independence of the country from the rest of the world. This will offer the basis for Socialism in Russia.

Please answer in detail and in simple language why, for economic reasons, or any other, (1) and (2) are impossible. Have your explanation appear in the Socialist Standard if possible.

Reply.

If the question of self-sufficiency in Russia could be considered simply as a technical question of adjusting the living habits of the population so that they ate, and wore, and used up in other, ways, only articles which could be produced inside Russia, then self-sufficiency would be quite practicable, as indeed it would also in India, China, the U.S.A. or the British Empire.

The question, however, cannot very usefully be considered in that form because in no country is the production and distribution of wealth simply a technical question. In all countries it is as well a political question, involving the wealth and position of separate classes.

Before going further into that aspect, let us put another question. Is Russia becoming more self-sufficient or less ? The answer is that the development of Russia is away from self-sufficiency—not towards it.

Back in the eighties of last century, Russian imports and exports together amounted to only about £100,000,000 a year. For a country of that size it was negligible, as can be seen from a comparison with England’s foreign trade, which was seven times as great, although Russia’s population was several times as large as England’s. Russia then, particularly as regards the great mass of the population, was all but self-supporting.

By 1914 her trade had nearly trebled, showing clearly that Russia, like the other countries, was giving up self-sufficiency. During the six years after the war, Russia’s foreign trade was ruined, and again Russia was practically self-sufficient. Since 1924 her foreign trade-has rapidly grown again, and by 1930 and 1931 had reached a level not very far short of the pre-war level.

The present world crisis has, of course, adversely affected Russia, as was pointed out at the World Economic Conference by M. Litvinoff, who represented the Russian Government. (See Report of his address published in the Monthly Review of the Moscow Narodny Bank, Ltd., London, June.) The crisis compelled the Russian Government to curtail its imports because, owing to the fall in the prices of the articles Russia was exporting, the Russian Government was unable to obtain sufficient foreign currency to pay for the imports it had planned.

This does not, however, mean a permanent increase in Russia’s self-sufficiency. On the contrary, M. Litvinoff held out to the Conference delegates the attractive offer that the Russian Government “might agree to place orders abroad in the near future to the sum of about one billion dollars” (about £200,000,000), which, he said, “would have no small influence in the alleviation of the crisis.” To do this the Russian Government would need easier trading conditions from foreign, manufacturers.

Now that we have shown that Russia is moving away from self-sufficiency, let us ask why. Why does Russia or any other country import some articles and export others? Usually, it is because it is cheaper to produce an article in one country, and in particular areas of the same country, than in other areas or other countries. The cheapness may be due to climate and soil, cheaper labour-power, the presence of coal, iron or other mineral deposits, lower rates and taxes, lower tariffs, etc. (There are, of course, other complicating factors, such as restrictions or subsidies resulting from the military needs of the Governments.) The net effect of these differences is that it is more profitable to the English capitalist to invest his money in, say, machine manufacture and shipbuilding, than it is to invest it in cattle raising in England. The consequence is that certain industries survive in one country and are able to undersell and ruin their competitors in other countries and we get world trade and a large measure of interdependence. Governments often try to impede this development, either in order to help their friends in certain industries by means of tariffs, or for military reasons; and in times of acute depression almost all Governments try to restrict imports as a means of protecting their gold reserves, which they fear may be drained away to pay for the imports, and thus destroy confidence in the financial stability of the Government. If the difference in the cost of producing certain articles in different countries is sufficiently great, the import and export of these articles will surmount all obstacles.

For example, Russia at present is able to produce cheaply oil, timber and various foodstuffs, but cannot yet produce equally cheaply much-needed ores, metals and machinery. Therefore it “pays” Russia to concentrate on the production of certain' articles for export and use the money to pay for imports. On balance this is more profitable than trying to be self-sufficient. The world crisis and consequent slump in prices of oil and grain and timber has hit Russia’s export industries, but even a slight recovery in the world prices of these articles will restore the position of the years before the crisis, when it will again be profitable for Russia to maintain and expand her industries producing for export.

Our correspondents envisage the possibility of Russia “developing its industries to the point of satisfying all national needs.” This assumes that the conditions favouring the development of Russia’s foreign trade are disappearing or will disappear, but is there any reason to suppose that this will occur ? The mere growth of Russian production due to an all-round increase of productivity in all branches of industry and agriculture, mining, etc., will not make foreign trade any less profitable, for it will be accompanied by a parallel increase of productivity in industry all over the world. If it pays Russia to import machinery paid for by the export of oil or timber, any increase in the productivity of the Russian timber or oil industries will lead to a growth of foreign trade, as also will any increase in the productivity of the machine manufacturing industries outside Russia. On the other hand, Russia’s foreign trade would decline in volume if her machine manufacturing industries became more productive (that is cheaper) than the foreign machine manufacturing industries, or if the Russian oil and timber industries become less productive than their foreign competitors.

From what we know of the way in which agricultural and industrial technique advances all over the world, we can say with some certainty that for many years to come no changes are likely to occur of so revolutionary a nature that they will destroy the factors militating against self-sufficiency in Russia or any other comparable area.

The second question relates to building Socialism in Russia alone. Here again we can say that if Socialism depended only on the technical possibility of maintaining the life of the population on products within a given area like Russia or U.S.A., there would be no impossibility about Socialism in Russia alone. In fact, however, Socialism pre-supposes a whole range of conditions which are wholly or mainly lacking in Russia. It pre-supposes a population which has exhausted, and knows that it has exhausted, all the main possibilities inherent in capitalism, and knows and wants Socialism.

Russia, owing to the relatively backward condition of its industry and agriculture and to the fact that the overwhelming mass of its population has not spent its lifetime under conditions of highly developed industrial capitalism, has not exhausted the possibilities of capitalism. So far, therefore, from welcoming Socialism, the mass of the Russian population wants nothing better than to be left alone to enjoy the fruits of expanding capitalism. The efforts of the Government, carried on for sixteen years, to crush, placate, or remould the peasants, are evidence of the magnitude of the force against which Socialism in Russia would have to struggle. The attempt of the Bolsheviks to force an unwanted social system on an unready population, by means of its control of the State machine and the armed forces, will fail, as Marx said it would.

Our correspondents can perhaps grasp this best by considering the impossible task of forcing Socialism on the population of the U.S.A., a country far better equipped in every way than Russia for such an experiment.

Edgar Hardcastle

Answers to a Correspondent: How Should Socialists Vote? (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

How Should Socialists Vote?

Several questions have been put to us by two readers at Brighouse, Yorks. The first concerns the use of the vote.

Must a Socialist refrain from voting at the Parliamentary and Municipal Elections until such times as the S.P.G.B. membership warrants its own candidates’ standing ?

If so (and we gather from your paper that such is the case), do you not thus help establish a permanent Imperialistic Tory rule? In advising your readers and members not to vote, surely this has the effect of strengthening the anti-Labour parties.

Reply.

If the S.P.G.B. case is sound then the Socialist must vote for Socialist candidates only, and if there are no Socialist candidates then not vote for any of the non-Socialists, whether Liberal, Tory, Labour, Fascist or Communist. The only object of the Socialist Party of Great Britain is to achieve Socialism, which necessitates first gaining a majority of convinced Socialists and then gaining control of the machinery of government. To win over the workers to Socialism involves convincing them that capitalism and all the parties which take part in administering capitalism are undeserving of working-class support, and that Socialism is literally the only thing worth fighting for. How could we do this if at the same time we were telling the workers that the difference between Liberal and Tory, or between Tory and Labour, is worth fighting for? Our certainty that in the long run the workers will come over to Socialism is based on the impossibility of any party making capitalism run smoothly and in a way satisfactory to the workers. But if it is in fact an impossibility to make capitalism satisfactory to the workers, then it inevitably follows that any party which associates itself with the administration of capitalism must sooner or later find itself an object of working-class hatred and discontent. In other words, every party which becomes the Government under capitalism is bound to fall into disrepute with the workers. The only possible and logical course for the S.P.G.B. is, therefore, the one it adopts of dissociating itself from the Labour Party and every party which is prepared to administer capitalism. Our strength is bound up with our independence and with the fact that we have never misled the workers by telling them that capitalism can be made to work to their advantage.

Our correspondents draw the unwarranted conclusion that the attitude of the S.P.G.B. helps the Tories. Actually our membership is drawn from men and women who were formerly in all the capitalist parties, or in no party at all. The Socialist Party grows at the expense of Liberals and Tories, Fascists, I.L.P. and Communist, as well as at the expense of the Labour Party and the unorganised. The possibility of Socialists voting for any non-Socialist candidate does not and cannot arise. If those who proclaim themselves Socialists were to vote later on for non-Socialist candidates, it would be because they had ceased to be Socialists—or had never understood Socialism—and in that event, having lost their political bearings, they are just as likely to vote Tory as to vote Labour. Take, for example, those so- called Socialists who voted for the National Government.

Finally, we would remind our correspondents that all over the world there are Governments of the kind they describe as “Imperialistic-Tory.” Who was it made those Governments possible? Obviously not the small minority of Socialists, whose votes are so few that they could not make any difference to the result of elections. No, what made those Governments possible was, among other things, the disgust and disillusionment created among the workers, by the attempts of Labour Governments to administer the capitalist system.

Is the Labour Party the lesser evil? 

Now, agreeing that some economic system must operate until the establishment of Socialism, and that system is capitalism, is not the Labour reformism type (with all its faults) preferable to the shade that extends beyond to the Hitler extreme?

For International policy alone, is it not worth our while to support the Labour Party?

Reply.

This question, like the first one, takes no account of the impossibility of making the workers satisfied with capitalism. Because of that every party which comes into office on a wave of discontent and temporary popularity, is fated to be kicked out of office after a brief term—discredited, disliked, disheartened and disunited; to give way to another party rising on a new wave of discontent. To say that the Labour reformism type of party is preferable to other parties, up to Hitler's party, is to overlook the fact that all of these parties are reformist parties of the same general type. No political party can nowadays gain power unless it appeals successfully with a programme of reforms to the mass of the electors. Hitler is playing this game strictly according to the rules. Indeed, his promises of drastic reforms and Socialism in a few months, and his pretence of bustling energy show that he has beaten the Hendersons and Webbs and Maxtons, and the other reformist leaders at their own game.

The reference to the international policy of the Labour Party is somewhat staggering. The party which entered the war-time coalition Governments, and shares responsibility for every action of those Governments at home and abroad, is not in a position to boast that it is in any respect more enlightened than the Liberals and Tories. The international scene is not to be changed by fair words and humanitarian sentiments uttered from behind the ramparts of the British armed forces. International discord exists because of capitalism, and the two Labour Governments in Great Britain, with their five new cruisers, their bomb-dropping on native villages in Iraq, and their “continuity" of suppression in India and elsewhere, were quite unable to remove the discord or materially alter international relationships. They were regarded abroad simply as the mouthpiece for British capitalism.

Trade Unions and Politics.

We note the S.P.G.B. agrees with Trade Unionism and such protective activity for the proletariate under the present conditions.

Can you, then, deny the view that those unions, to be most effective, must send representatives (at present Labour) to Parliament?

Reply.

We do most emphatically deny that the trade unions have become more effective through sending Labour M.P.s to Parliament.

The majority of the men and women workers are not supporters of the Labour Party, but are sympathetic to the Liberals, the Tories, or to no party at all. The way to get the workers to come together most effectively in trade unions is to emphasise their common interest as workers. This cannot be done if the unions are affiliated to one party—the Labour Party—and supporters of other parties are made to appear almost unfit for trade union membership. A great deal of harm is done to the trade unions through their support of the Labour Party. (A few unions have tried to get over this difficulty by running candidates as Liberals and Tories, as well as Labour.) The dangers of the position become most obvious when a Labour Government is in office. When that happens the influence of the Labour Party is at once used to prevent the unions from embarrassing “their" Government, that is, to prevent them pressing demands for higher wages.

It is not denied that against these big disadvantages the presence of trade union representatives in Parliament has certain advantages, but the disadvantages are far weightier. From the Socialist point of view one of the most serious is that the trade union M.P. almost invariably comes to regard himself as speaking for the “industry," so that we see so-called non-party groups in Parliament, representing the railways, the mines, agriculture, road transport, etc. Periodically this brings its natural consequence in the shape of trade union M.P.s in one group backing the employers against a similar group in a rival industry. This has happened, for example, in connection with the rivalry of railways and road transport.

Such a position cuts right across the lesson the Socialist is trying to teach, that the interest of the working-class is opposed to that of the capitalist class.

Socialism in one country. 

Can one country, having elected a Socialist Power, and the rest of the world remaining capitalistic, operate Socialism within its own borders? 

If not, what would that Socialist Government do?

Reply.

The possibility of one country having a Socialist majority long before other countries need not be seriously considered, and certainly it is idle to consider it now when the number of Socialists in all the countries together is almost negligible.

The factors which govern the growth of the Socialist movement (the contradictions of capitalism, the more and more glaring evidences of wealth and poverty, the inability to plan production and distribution or to abolish unemployment, and the carrying on of Socialist propaganda) operate everywhere under capitalism. There is no sign that the Socialist movement will grow more quickly in one than in another of the more developed capitalist countries. If it should happen then it will not be a question of a Socialist Government deciding what it will do about the matter, but a question of the whole international Socialist movement deciding what it will do about it. They will have to decide in the light of all the conditions then existing. As we do not know the conditions we cannot prophesy what decision the Socialist movement will arrive at.

Ed. Comm.

Answer to a Correspondent: Some questions about Socialism. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some questions about Socialism.

(Reply to E. S, Dorset.)

(1) Under Socialism there would be no persons living on incomes derived from the private ownership of property, whether in the form of rent, interest or profit. The landlord, like the owner of shares, derives his income from the wealth produced by the working class.

(2) You ask whether there would be taxation under Socialism, and if not, how would “social services” be carried on. Taxation is only necessary in a social system in which there is a privileged class and a subject class. Taxation in a modern capitalist country exists in order to enable the Government to maintain armed and civil forces, pay interest on money borrowed from investors, and meet the cost of so-called “social services," i.e., old-age pensions, health and unemployment insurance, etc. The latter would, of course, be unnecessary under Socialism, for each person would have free access to the necessaries of life, and the old and infirm would, therefore, not need private or State charity. Under Socialism all services would, in the real sense, be “social services,” for all able-bodied persons would co-operate in the production of wealth, to be consumed by the whole population, without distinction of class. There would be no investors.

(3) When goods are produced for the purpose of being freely available to all the members of society, there would be no place for a money system. A money system can exist only where there is private ownership of the means of production and of the products.

(4) The danger of war can only be removed by abolishing the underlying causes. The underlying cause of war in the modern world is capitalist economic rivalry. When goods are produced for use and not for sale at a profit, the incentive to seek foreign markets or areas of foreign investment will disappear, and with it the danger of war between rival groups of capitalist nations. Those who misunderstand the nature of modern wars, and regard war as if it were a method of preventing individuals from creating disorder, doubt the possibility of abolishing war by abolishing private ownership. Society would, under any system, have to take steps, if necessary, to prevent individuals or minorities from acting contrary to the basic needs of society, but action of that kind, when private ownership is abolished, would not bear any resemblance to modern war. Modern war is not a process of suppressing law-breakers, but a clash of interests between rival capitalist groups. Neither in its objects nor in its methods can it be compared with such suppression of anti-social conduct by individuals.

(5) Workers would not be “graded as regards wages," for there will be no wages. Wages are the price paid by the capitalist when he buys the labour-power of the workers. Under Socialism there will be neither a capitalist class nor a working class, but all will be simply members of society.

You ask if a man with a technical training will be paid more than a man without such training. Under capitalism the employer has to pay wages according to the requirements of each particular kind of worker. This is based ultimately on the cost of producing each kind of labour, i.e., the food, clothing, shelter, etc., of the workers and the cost of training. Under Socialism, if society needs a certain number of men and women trained for particular kinds of work it will see to it that the desired number are trained to meet the needs of society. No question of paying higher or lower wages, or any wages, can arise.

(6) You ask if the owners of industrial concerns will be compensated. Once you grasp clearly what Socialism is you will see that it is not a question of whether compensation is, or is not, desirable. Compensation is impossible.

Under capitalism the one basic feature which distinguishes capitalists from workers is that the capitalists possess the privilege of living without working, that is, of living on the wealth produced by the workers.

Socialism is impossible until that privilege is taken away, and having taken it away there remains no conceivable method by which the former capitalists could be compensated. They must either retain their privilege—which means capitalism, or they must lose it in order to make Socialism possible.

On the other hand, the loss of capitalist privilege will usher in a system of society in which all members of society—including the ex-capitalists—will have a degree of comfort and security, and possibilities of leading a full life. The ex-capitalists will possess the same opportunities as everybody else, more that that they cannot have.

Ed. Comm.

Answer to a Correspondent: Parliament and Local Government. (1933)

Letter to the Editors from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parliament and Local Government.

Our correspondent, "Precision," writes again, but adds nothing to his former criticisms of the attitude of the S.P.G.B. We have nothing to add to our previous replies.

Ed. Comm.

 

 

Blogger's Note:

"Precision" had letters (and replies) in the June and the August 1933 issues of the Socialist Standard.

SPGB Bloomsbury Branch (1933)

Party News from the September 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard