Labour Leaders and Their Prey At the Portsmouth Conference. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Riddle Answered.

“Why does Russell Smart ?” asks our contributor, WILFRED, in the February issue of this journal. We may answer “because he is not smart enough to obtain a place with the “smart set” who are so successfully running the rank and file of the Labour Party into the Morass of Liberalism. And at no period of their career have they been so successful as at the last conference of their Party, held at Portsmouth.

The first smart move was to hold a “preliminary” conference on Unemployment and the Incidence of Taxation. This was so thin a swindle that one is surprised that some of the opposition office-hunters did not protest against it. But perhaps they thought the precedent might be useful—to themselves—in the future. By having a preliminary, and academic, discussion on the principle of unemployment, the “smart set” were able to completely closure any discussion of their policy on the matter when it arose at the conference proper. This was certainly a score for them. Moreover, while throwing a sop to certain sections of their Party by declaring that “Free Trade does not solve the unemployed problem,” they were so assiduous in backing up their Liberal political masters that the Daily News (30.1.09) could say that the conference “gave a good deal of its time to a defence of Free Trade and an assault upon Tariff Reform.” Mr. Fred Knee wanted the reference to Free Trade deleted and was supported by Mr. W. Thorne, M.P., who, however, said that “a Free Trade country was better for Labour than a Protectionist country!” The obvious and crushing retort to this “facing both ways” statement came from a fellow Gas-worker, Mr. Clynes, who asked “Why take the words out, then?” Even Mr. Thorne might have noticed the beautiful “possibilist” position he was occupying, but running with the hare and hunting with the hounds requires smart men, and Thorne is hardly among the smartest.

This Abode of Purity.

Mr. Keir Hardie made the brilliant statement that “we have mischief enough to contend with already, without introducing that element of corruption into our political system which Protection never fails to bring.”

Oh ! shades of Warren Hastings and the South African War, hide your ugly heads ! In this time of purity and innocence there is no place for you. What if the apostle of Free Trade, John Bright, did say “adulteration is a legitimate form of competition”? are we not as white as the driven snow compared with those foul countries where Protection—and corruption—reign supreme ?

For instance, the following resolution was passed by the conference :

“That there shall be created a National Department of Labour, presided over by a Minister of State, who shall have a seat in the Cabinet.”

For what purpose? Even the promoters of this resolution do not pretend that the creation of such an office can increase the amount of work or employment at present existing. Of itself it can do nothing for the workless toiler vainly seeking employment. Then why such an office? The answer is plain—to provide one of the “smart set” with a well-paid job. And note, not only well paid, but with Cabinet rank, so as to provide, almost with certainty, a pension when retiring from the toils of office.

This is not corruption. Oh no! it is the purest of purity, and all for the benefit of the workers. It is almost marvellous that, with so many ardent persons striving might and main for the workers’ benefit, not only is their position unimproved, but is even worse, as Mr. Keir Hardie himself showed when giving the figures of wealth and wages. He said, “Compared with 1901 wages in 1908 were down £26,000 a week or £1,300,000 a year. While working-class wages had fallen to this extent, the earnings (!) of those who paid income tax had, during the same period, increased by £147,000,000.” Yet Mr. Keir Hardie is never tired of denouncing the “dogmatic Marxists” when they state facts exactly paralleled by his statement quoted above. Certainly people of a particular character require good memories such as this may be tabulated against them.

Little Steps in Treachery.

The support of Liberalism was carried a step further in the discussion on the Incidence of Taxation. As Frederick Engels said, this is a matter of absorbing interest to the bourgeoisie, but of little moment to the proletariat. Therefore the “Labour Leaders” discussed it at length. Mr. Snowden said “Four-fifths of the duties raised from Customs and Excise were paid by the wage-earning classes.” The wage-earning “classes” were quite ignorant of. ever being in possession of such vast wealth, or they would have gone yachting in the Mediterranean or otherwise have “seen a bit of life,” instead of squandering their substance in taxes. Then the good Liberal stalking-horse, “Taxation of Land Values” was trotted out, giving Mr G. Barnes an opportunity to air his profound knowledge and statesmanship. “We get to the bottom of all monopolies by taxing the land,” he said. This hoary old chestnut has so alluring an appearance to most working men that a detailed treatment of the point may well form the subject of a future article. All we need say here is that no shifting of the incidence of taxation, has the slightest material effect against the fact that the workers are wage-slaves, and while deprived of every means of living, except by the sale of their energies and abilities on the labour market, are completely at the mercy and control of the capitalist class. But the value of such agitation by the leaders of the Labour Party is shown by the articles in the Daily News referred to above, where it is stated that “the opinions of the conference differ little, if at all, upon practical politics from those of the vast mass of progressives in these islands.” Exactly what we have always stated in reference to these proposals.

The Tyranny of “Seats.”

Then the “regular” business of the conference began. The chairman’s speech is not of sufficient importance for specific treatment, so we may take up the other points.

One of the first troubles to arise was on the action of the Executive Committee at the Dundee bye-election, where the said Executive had refused to support Mr. Stuart, of the Postmen’s Federation, against Mr. Winston Churchill. Even the most “thick and thin” of the Labour Party’s supporters would never dream of calling Mr. Stuart “extreme,” or “dangerous.” On the contrary, he is one of the “sanest” and “safest” men in their ranks. Then why this refusal of support ? Let the prophets speak. Mr. Stuart said “The Executive were accused of selling the Party to the Liberals. He would prefer to say that the Executive had not sense enough to sell them: it gave them away.”

To say that the Executive “had not sense enough to sell” the Party was more than any self-respecting Executive could stand. Mr. J. R. MacDonald and Mr. Alex Wilkie stepped into the deadly breach and proved that the Executive had sense enough to sell the Party. “The Executive,” said the former, “had never decided that the second seats in double-membered constituencies should not be fought, but they recognised that to try for both seats might result in losing the one held ” (italics ours). And why ? For the simple reason that the single seat is held by the support and permission of the Liberals, who would not allow the second seat to be contested by a “Labour” candidate. What better example than Leicester—Mr. MacDonald’s own constituency—need be given ?

Mr Wilkie Indulges in Prophecy.

Mr. Wilkie declared that “nothing short of an earthquake could win both these seats for Labour.” Of course, he meant the political earthquake that will occur just as soon as the rank and file grasp the main principles of Socialism and apply that knowledge to their actions. Then indeed Mr. Wilkie and his clique will be thrown off their political pins, and be buried beneath the debris of fallen capitalism. But for the present they are safe in their bargain, for to confirm the free hand they have always given themselves in this matter, the Executive had resolved that “it would be no violation of our Constitution if our members were to take part in Free Trade League meetings,” and this was approved by the conference. The rule of not identifying themselves with Tory or Liberal party is therefore thrown overboard in favour of Liberal Free Traders, and the “smart set” are triumphant.

Then interest centred around the resolution moved by Ben Tillett that “no member or candidate run under the auspices of the Labour Party shall appear or support any measure upon the same platform as members of the capitalist political parties.” This had reference to the Licensing Bill, and to the canting, snuffling hypocrisies of the slimy nonconformist Labour M.P.s of the Henderson type. To anyone acquainted with Tillett’s career it was easy to see that he laid himself open to a crushing rejoinder. His own dirty work in advocating emigration to Australia as a cure for unemployment, on behalf and in the pay of the New South Wales capitalists, should be sufficient to expose his double-dealing. Instead, however, of attacking him from this stand-point—no doubt because it was a case of pot and kettle—they preferred to fall back upon the old dodge of personalities. Quoting from Tillett’s pamphlet Mr. Henderson said “Is it helping the Party when Mr. Shackleton, Mr. Snowden and myself are described as ‘ toadies,’ ‘ sheer hypocrites,’ ‘ cruel hoaxers,’ ‘ Press flunkeys to Asquith,’ ‘ blackleg priests’, and so on ? . . . We will respect our manhood rather than be dictated to by men like Mr. Tillett.”

Evidently the sting of Tillett’s remarks lay in their truth, or surely, in respect for their manhood they would have demanded the substantiation or withdrawal of the statements. They did neither—knowing substantiation was easy. Mr. Shackleton said “No member of the Party to his knowledge had ever appeared on a Tory or Liberal platform except Mr. Tillett himself.” The exception is badly taken. Numerous instances are given in past issues of the SOCIALIST STANDARD, and on p. 13, 3rd edition of our Party Manifesto is given proof of Mr. Shackleton—along with Crooks arid Henderson —appearing on the Liberal platform in support of Mr. Benn at Devonport. Some people should have long memories, but no doubt Mr. Shackleton felt just as capable of bluffing his way out of this difficulty as he had done over the question of his opposition to the abolition of the half-time system for children in the mills and factories.

Some mild amusement furnished by G. B. Shaw completed the performance given once more by these capitalist agents, which may well be entitled “Leading the Workers into the Liberal Trap.” Never was our opposition to and exposure of these unblushing frauds more fully justified than by the shameless effrontery of the old gang of axe-grinders and Labour exploiting politicians at the Portsmouth conference. Only by the propaganda of Socialism among the rank and file of the trade unions will they be made capable of understanding their position as wage slaves, and the consequent necessity for the abolition of capitalism, and not of patching it up, as advocated with monotonous persistence by the misleaders we have been dealing with. Having arrived at this understanding, the workers will recognise that their political power must be put to an infinitely better use than that of providing fat jobs for nimble-tongued tricksters, shepherds put over them by their wily masters—the achievement of their own emancipation, to wit. Then the workers will at once wrench themselves free from the strangle-hold of these Labour garroters, and hurl them to perdition together with that system of labour-exploitation of which they are part and parcel.

Jack Fitzgerald

The Armed Nation. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The jingo spirit—commonly known as patriotism—always latent in the bosom of the unthinking worker, ready to be fanned to flame by the wiles of the pressman or orator, the strains of a brass band or sight of a bright uniform, the verse of the poet or the doggerel song of the music-hall artiste, is being aroused for the purpose of saving Secretary Haldane’s “Territorial Forces” scheme.

The beatific unanimity with which all sections of the capitalist platform and Press, from the belted earl to the sainted layman, from the Daily News to the Daily Mail, unite in the good work of persuading the propertyless that their interest, is to defend the propertied and their property—”on the cheap”—is touching in the extreme.

There is one spot of green in the wilderness, however, one oasis in the desert, and that is—the S.D.P. Through the mouths of Harry Quelch, H. M. Hyndman, Will Thorne, Sergt.-Mjr. R. Edmonson, and the columns of our “revolutionary” contemporary, Justice, we are given to understand that there is one alternative between Haldane and conscription, and that is the citizen army, as embodied in a Bill to be promoted by that sole result of 26 years of S.D.P. wirepulling, intrigue and compromise—Will Thorne, M.P.

Between the downright Tory idea of conscription, and the Liberal idea of voluntarism, there is now this difference—the first stands for open coercion, the second for insidious compulsion, as witness Haldane’s high appreciation of the “patriotic spirit” displayed by Rothschild in connection with the Alliance Assurance Company, which has adopted a rule requiring all clerks entering the service to join the Territorial Forces. But when this Bill of Bill’s is examined it is difficult to determine which it approaches the nearer.

There is a pamphlet written by the latest star turn of the S.D.P., Sergt.-Mjr. Edmonson, entitled “The National Citizen Force Bill of Mr. Will Thorue, M.P. : An Appreciation and Explanation.” The writer’s knowledge of army matters is assuredly greater than his knowledge of economics, or his service in the army was, even from a military point of view, a lamentable waste. From amidst a fanfare of trumpets and a dazzling array of ”credentials” at the beginning we gather that a standing army is “an expensive toy for the ruling class.” From the working-class point of view this is a matter of no concern, but no doubt the capitalist class are grateful for the information, and will act upon it. Well, the Sergt.-Mjr. has examined Will Thorne’s Bill, and has failed to put his finger “on any bad or doubtful points it may contain.” That’s unequivocal ! But maybe others can succeed where the gallant soldier fails.

The first clause, which proposes that, subject to certain exemptions, every man “shall be liable to military training” appears to leave room for revision—out of existence. The worker has no property to defend, therefore military training to fit him for defending that which he has not is rather superfluous—but where would Bill’s Bill be then ? This same clause “gives Ireland a chance of proving its patriotism,” and “enables Irish youth to take up arms in defence of the United Kingdom.” The Irish working man who thinks enough of the United Kingdom to put himself out to defend it must be a psychological phenomenon.

The information regarding the composition of the Administrative Council, in clause 2, is interesting, but as borough councillors and the like will not necessarily be altered to suit, this does not carry far.

We now “come to the more serious parts of the Bill,” but don’t be alarmed, ye braves ! as long as “we succeed in viewing it in an intelligent, patriotic light,” and make up our minds that “if a foreign foe attack us,” every male worthy the name of man would do all in his power to drive that foe “back from where he came,” our glorious Empire, of which we workers hold so large a share, will be safe.

And now for the call to the “aristocracy of labour.” “Trades-Unionist, you have something to defend and you know it.” So let your bosoms swell with pride, ye proud Britons, for ye have something to defend—the Sergeant says so.

The 6th clause is illuminating. “One of the duties of the National Citizen Force will be the protection of railways and rolling stock,” the other “chief duties,” presumably, will be the protection of the rest of the property of the capitalist class. That amongst other conditions should, according to the writer, “meet with universal approval.” Surely so ! Millions of working men and women have held railway stocks—or tickets—therefore every man must approve of a condition which gives him scope for the defence of his seat—or standing-room —in a third-class cattle truck.

After further elucidations the information is to hand that the labourer is worthy of his hire. That is a truism ; but when the Sergt. Mjr. informs his reader that “the soldier is very much a labourer,” that is a statement needing a great deal of qualification. The soldier performing no function necessary in an organised system of production and distribution, living, as he does, on the labour of others to whom he renders no compensating service, is to be numbered amongst the parasitic section of the community, however true it may be that he is recruited from the ranks of the working class.

There is apparently so much difference between the “free services of free men” and the “servile obedience” accorded by the rank and file to officers under the old regime, that under the proposed scheme, refusal to accord “free service” on the part of the “free men” is to be rewarded by as much as one year’s hard labour. The method of appointing officers under the Bill is by a ballot of the men, but no one shall be appointed who has not the approval of the Central Administrative Board. Consequently, the men may choose their officer, and the Board may exclude him by the conditions they impose. Staff officers shall be appointed by officers. These two rules strike our friend as democratic, and he opines that they will abolish “distinctions of class.” Proof as to how that or any other clause in the Bill can accomplish any such result is not forthcoming.

Will Thorne is thanked for his endeavours in the following terms. “Thank you, Mr. Thorne, for your brave and patriotic attempt to knock the present military law on the head in time of peace.” As to whether it would have been more or less patriotic in time of war we are not informed.

Clause 23 (and last) deals with the saving to be effected by the reduction of permanent expenses, and this is stated by the writer to be “a most important clause for the taxpayer . . . as well as from the democratic point of view.”

Now it is easy to understand the confusion of thought which has characterised the whole pamphlet. The “General” has tried to square the Bill with the interests of the working class and those of the capitalist class, seemingly in utter ignorance of the diametric opposition of those two class interests, and, naturally, he has fallen between the two stools.

The concluding paragraphs painfully accentuate this confusion, as the working class is alluded to as the “working classes” and “the masses,” and the capitalist class as “the classes” and the “dominant class,” all within one paragraph.

The tit-bit of all is the affirmation that “the National Citizen Force is the only salvation of labour.” This, coupled with a remark in an article in Justice, of February 6th, entitled “War Inevitable” by the same writer, to the following effect, is immense. “However, we are of opinion that he (the working man) would not be adverse to training under civil law, . . . but this would be too democratic for a capitalist Government to try.” If the leaders of the S.D.P. have any sense of the ridiculous they will retire, and thus remove a factor which is potent for the production of confusion in the working-class mind.

It is evident that if the citizen army is the only “salvation of labour,” Socialism cannot be so as well, therefore the S.D.P. can dispense with its affected object. Also, if it is “too democratic for a capitalist Government to try,” why does the S.D.P. accord its support to Will Thorne, and sanction the appearance of articles on the subject in Justice ?

The “War Inevitable” lucubration did not, as might have been supposed, consist of exclusive information in the possession of the T.C.P. or the writer. It was the heading of a full-page criticism of a sensational novel by one Alan H. Burgoyne, entitled “The War Inevitable,” which title, minus the article, figured in large type on the contents bills of that issue of Justice, for the obvious purpose of stimulating sales, in the typical catchpenny style of “yellow” journalism. Such enterprise should cause the Clarion and the Daily Mail to look to their laurels.

There are some curious examples of erudition in the article, amongst them being a statement that wars are sometimes set on foot for the purpose of diverting the workers from the real issue, and incidentally, of “killing off a few thousands.” This cannot be described as anything but balderdash ! The capitalist class have no need to resort to such catastrophic measures for diverting the workers : old age pensions are cheaper and more convenient, and as to ”killing off a few thousands,” from the point of view of that section of the community, the more the merrier. Besides, wars are expensive, and must imply, for a time, an excess of wages to the wage-earning class. This is not the policy of the wage-paying class—elimination of waste, not the opposite, is recognised as more to the point, as witness the growth of trusts.

Thus may one occupy the anomalous position of having as an objective, the extinction of waste, and yet of recognising that in society as at present constituted, the more waste the less want. War is instigated through the economic interests of the capitalist class of one nation or group of nations clashing with those of another. It may be engineered, partly, by a group of financiers interested in the production of stores and munitions of war,—instance, Boer War—but this alone would not be sufficient.

The working class has to clearly understand that the taking up of arms against other nations means the straining of the bond between the workers of the respective countries. The foundation of Socialism, which must rest upon the international solidarity of Labour, cannot be built up on citizen armies, neither can it have part or parcel with any scheme of armed nations.

Let there be no misapprehension on the subject of the “Armed Nation,” be it called by that or any other name. Armed forces are maintained for the purpose of holding the property and position of the robber against the robbed.

When the workers are able to dictate to the master class as to whether, or upon what terms, they shall serve in the army, then will the Social Revolution be at hand ; until that day Socialists must concentrate upon Socialism, and leave soup-kitchens and army reforms to those who, no matter what their protestations, are in the enemy’s camp.

D.W.F.

Jottings. (1909)

The Jottings Column from the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Twenty-eight years ago the S.D.F. advocated national afforestation, not only as possessing great national advantages in preventing what capitalism was and is forcing on the world, namely, a timber famine, but also as a means whereby the labour of men otherwise unemployed could be utilised, and they in turn benefited. And now the members of the Royal Commission (including an ex-member of the S.D.F., who apparently has not forgotten all he learnt while with us) unite not only in blessing the idea of afforestation as many have done before, but produce definite statistics and estimates on the subject.”— Justice, 23.1.09.

There’s progress for you ! Only 28 years of hard, honest, unremitting toil and then a Royal Commission blesses the idea you have been advocating. Surely this is a complete answer to those “young men in a hurry” who sneer at those who devote so much energy to obtaining these “much needed reforms.” Here is a success sufficient to confound all the “unpractical,” “impossibilist” hustlers.

* * *

True, the “unpractical” persons may retort that had the same energy and enthusiasm been devoted to propagating Socialism and making Socialists these “reforms”—for whatever they may be worth—would have been handed out by the capitalist class, not only in a much shorter time, but in far greater quantity ; that the confusion engendered in the minds of the working class by associating these tinkerings with the name of Socialism would have been avoided, and a far more solid—because clearer-minded—organisation of the working class effected, while some of the more extreme might even suggest that the reform, when obtained, was hardly worth spending a day, let alone 28 years, upon. As witnesseth the following :

“Afforestation appears late in the race, and even if undertaken to the fullest extent suggested by the Royal Commission (which they themselves do not appear to expect) it can only absorb some small fraction of the unemployed, and the wave of unemployment will soon overtake the difference caused even by wholesale afforestation.”

No one, of course, but an “unpractical impossibilist” could have written that. Any self-respecting “reformer” would at once denounce it as mere jealousy. But, alas ! it is from the same page of the same paper that was just previously chortling over its success in obtaining so valuable a concession for the workers.

* * *

Surely the rank and file of the S.D.P. might compare such statements as those given above and realise the futility of following the example of the horse purchaser in the ancient story where the horse dealer admitted after the sale that the animal he had sold had two faults. “What are they?” asked the purchaser. “Well,” was the reply, “the first is that he is very difficult to catch.” “Oh, I’ll manage that all right !” confidently asserted the purchaser. “The second little drawback is,” the dealer went on, ” he is no good when you’ve caught him.”

* * *

The moral is obvious.

* * *

The New Age for 14.1.09 contained an article in support of municipal bakeries for the supply of “free bread for everybody.” The point which seemed to appeal most strongly to the writer was that “It would positively pay the State in the long run to provide free bread.”

The “State,” to whom the appeal to municipalise anything must be made, consists of the representatives of the capitalist class. This will continue to be the case until such time as the working class, educated to a consciousness of their class position and organised for their own emancipation, possess power to use the machinery of government to their own advantage. When that time arrives the necessity for the working class to appeal to capitalism for anything will be gone.

The power to pass a Free Bread Bill would be sufficient to “socialise” everything. That such a state of affairs is not contemplated by the “New Age” writer (A. O. Orage) is shown by his having written “Private artists would provide it (i.e., fancy bread, cakes, etc.) for the people who choose to pay.”

* * *

A member of the S.D.P. alluding to the “impossibilists” recently, said, “they were like certain early Christians who went about asking people to kill them, so sure were they of going to heaven.” The fact that certain persons hold opinions strongly enough to suffer death rather than give them up, is no proof of the truth or falsity of those opinions. For example, if five or five hundred people die to prove that 2 plus 2 equals 5 it will not affect the fact that 2 plus 2 equals 4.

Both the professing Christian and the so-called Socialist of to-day stand on different planes to those early Christians alluded to above. The Christian of to-day looks forward to a life hereafter, but if he gets a chance to visit the realms of bliss by passing through the Gate of Death, he will call in the best medical aid obtainable in order that he may continue his penal servitude on earth.

So likewise is it with that contradiction in terms, the “revolutionary reformer” of the S.D.P. He knows, or should know, that Socialism can only be achieved by the complete overthrow of the present system of wealth production, yet he works for this, that and the other reform in order to patch up the very system he is out to abolish.

* * *

Here is an example. After stating that waste was desirable in order that work should be found for persons who would be otherwise unemployed, Mr. H. Quelch (at Eccles, 17.1.09.) in answer to a question, said in effect that, organisation of various concerns under municipal and national management tended towards the elimination of waste and consequently to the more speedy overthrow of the capitalist system.

Whilst he does not hold with one capitalist spending money wastefully upon a “coming out” dinner that found work for some persons,, he, as a member of the Right to Work Executive Council, would approach the capitalist class banded together as “the State,” to find useful work for the unemployed, knowing full well that the problem of production has already been solved, and that anything produced by the present unemployed would only mean the consequent slackness or loss of work to those employed. In the one case “elimination of waste” means the more speedy overthrow of capitalism, and in the other he would advocate waste to overthrow the system sooner than if nothing were granted to the unemployed, by advocating relief works, etc. It would be interesting to know whether he is really of the opinion that waste or the elimination of waste is better for the workers under capitalism.

* * *

Seeing Mr. Quelch admits that the organisation of production under municipal and national control is used to the detriment of the workers whilst the capitalist class are in power, perhaps he can explain how “greater material and moral facilities for the working class to organise itself and carry on the class war” (S.D.P. programme) will be obtained by advocating measures whereby the workers will come more under the sway of capital. When explaining this point he might also prove the following words to be false. “The higher the productiveness of labour the greater is the pressure of the labourers on the means of employment, the more precarious, therefore, becomes their condition of existence, viz, the sale of their own labour-power for the increasing of another’s wealth, or for the expansion of capital.”—”Capital,” Karl Marx, Vol. I p. 660. Should he admit the truth of the above passage, then the reforms advocated by his colleagues of the S.D.P. are not palliations of the system from the working-class point of view at all, and support for the movement gained by their advocacy is falsely gained, because these supporters are led to believe that the lot of the mass of the workers would be bettered while it would not.

* * *

Mr. R. Blatchford as good as says there is no Socialist Party because the posters for a recent issue of the “Clarion” said, “Wanted, a Socialist Party.” If the S.P.G.B. had said the S.D.P., I.L.P., Fabian Society and Clarion Scouts were not Socialist Parties it would have been high treason. Still those persons who were about to join the Clarion Scouts under the impression that it was a Socialist body will reconsider their position, doubtless. Of course, it applies equally to the S.P.G.B., but then we are used to being told that we are “Tories in disguise,” except when we want the platform in opposition, when it is refused to us on the plea that they take opposition only from non-Socialists.

* * *

Mr. J. Hunter Watts has been lecturing on “The Need for a Revision of the S.D.P. Programme.” After 25 years too! We would suggest as his next subject “The S.D.P. : Where is it ?”

* * *

In our January issue it was mentioned that the capitalist class would always out-bid, in the field of charity-doles, such efforts as the “Clarion Bread Fund.” Here is proof. Sir Peter Carlow Walker (of brewery fame) has placed at the disposal of the Liverpool Food and Betterment Association, funds to any amount necessary for the alleviation of dire necessity. Two offices have also been furnished at Sir P. C. Walker’s expense.

Irish stew, currant bread, cocoa and coffee are to be distributed to single, respectable, unemployed women and men, and provisions and probably clothes are to be given to widows having young families. Higher grade artisans and clerks out of employment are to be the chief beneficiares of the fund, those who are hard pressed and have to keep up appearances will, most likely, have clothing supplied them so that they may go respectably dressed to look for the work that does not exist.

Fitz Brough

A cutting cutting. (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

“When found make a note of !” Thus our old and esteemed friend, Cap’n Cuttle. Here is something we found and made a note of. It was discovered in the financial column of London Opinion for November 21st last. You all remember the great cotton “lock-out” of last year? The capitalist Press was never tired of reminding you of the awful loss the workers sustained in working days, wages, and what not, whilst the loss to “your country’s trade” was incalculable, irreparable, and altogether deplorable. The inference is, of course, that you were a very stupid, short-sighted lot, to grumble at, and actually go so far as to resist, attempts at slicing your wages. A shilling in the pound off £2 10 per week only meant 2s. 6d. per week short, and £2 7s. 6d. was not such a bad wage, after all. Why will you be so unreasonable ?

Perhaps it is accounted for by the fact that many of you were only getting 18s. or £1 per week, and 5% off that meant all the difference-between at best a hand-to-mouth existence and positive privation. Many of you, no doubt, took the view that “if we accept a 5% reduction, what is to prevent the imposition of a 10 or 20% reduction” ? Perhaps the cutting will help us.

“TEXTILES.—The termination o£ the strike amongst the Cotton operatives should have a good effect on prices in this section of the Industrial Market. That little harm will have been done appears apparent, and that the masters will be benefited to no small extent seems probable, for they have been able to get rid of the large surplus stocks which had accumulated during the depression which is now passing away, in addition to saving an enormous aggregate in wages and working expenses.” London Opinion.

The italics are ours.

Need we say more? Do you want it any plainer than that ? They have given you the sack for several months and made a profit on the business. Sounds like a joke, doesn’t it ?

In our unregenerate days we used to wonder what the Socialists meant by affirming that the average trade union was the best friend the employers ever had. Is anyone in doubt after perusing a statement like the foregoing ? Five or six months without employment and consequent lack of the wherewithal to live, would, if occurring upon so large a scale as in the instance under notice, speedily settle the hash of the workers. How fortunate, then, that when the cotton operatives have produced more fabric than the market can absorb, and the employers “find themselves compelled to announce a reduction in wages” in the sure and certain knowledge that the men will “jib,” how fortunate, we say, that the men are able through their trade union, to scrape along on bread and margarine until the “large surplus stocks” have been got rid of.

Nothing remains to be done now but to create some more surplus stocks, and then the same tragi-comedy will be enacted over again. You pay the piper, fellow-workers, how do you like the tune ? Don’t you think a change of melody might be advantageous ? Or do you prefer to shuffle along until the fast approaching day when you will be “scrapped”—too old at forty—and die in the cheerful knowledge that your children will do the same ?

On our back page you will find a Declaration of Principles. Read it through carefully and think it over. There is not a difficult word or sentence in it. It was thought out, written and put together by working men ; it should not be difficult for any working man in possession of ordinary common sense to understand it. If you should be doubtful upon any point, let us have your difficulty. It will only cost you a penny stamp. Or if you care to drop in at any of our meetings (they are all open) we will do our best to help you there. But, above all, do something definite. Don’t become a “half-and-halfer.” Don’t become a parti-coloured nonentity—a Socialist “er, to a certain extent” to the Socialist; a Liberal to the Liberal; a Tory to the Tory and nothing to the nobody.

If you see no flaws in our position, let us have your name and, above everything, your help. Socialism will come in your time—if you want it—and work for it. Our Secretary waits.

Wilfred.

The Capitalist Class. By Karl Kautsky. (continued) (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

[Continued from January issue]

Specially translated for the Socialist Party of Great Britain and approved by the Author.

8.—The Economic Crisis.

Although the general insecurity of both classes is under ordinary conditions already great, it is enormously aggravated by crises, which the production of commodities from a certain point of development necessarily calls forth from time to time.

Considering the importance which crises have in the last few decades assumed in relation to our economic conditions, and in view of the want of understanding of the causes of crises on the part of a great many persons, we feel justified in entering further into the question.

The great modern crises, which now rule the world market, arise from over-production, and are the consequence of the anarchy necessarily connected with the production of commodities.

Over-production in the sense that more is produced than is required can take place under any system of production. But, of course, it can do no harm if the producers produce for their own use. If, for instance, a primitive peasant-family harvest more corn than they require, they store up the surplus for times of bad harvest, or in the case of their barns being full, they feed their cattle with it, or at the worst leave it on the field.

It is different in the case of the production of commodities. This production (in its developed form) presupposes that nobody produces for himself, but everybody for others. Everybody has to buy what he requires. But the entire production is by no means organised according to a plan; on the contrary, it is left to each producer to guess the extent of the demand for the goods he produces. On the other hand no one under commodity production (so soon as it has gone beyond the first stage of exchange) can purchase until he has sold. These are the two causes from which crises arise.

Let us for the purpose of amplification take tie simplest case. On one market there meet together a possessor of money—say a gold-digger with a pound’s worth of gold—a wine-grower with a little barrel of wine, a linen-weaver with a piece of linen, and a miller with a sack of flour. Let each of these commodities be of the value of one pound—a different supposition would make the case only more complicated without in any way affecting the result. Let those four commodity-owners he. the only ones on the market. Let us now suppose that each has calculated the requirements of the others correctly: the wine-grower sells his wine to the gold-digger, and buys with the pound which he receives for it, the piece of linen from the linen-weaver. Finally, the latter uses the proceeds of his linen for acquiring the sack of flour, and each one returns contented from the market.

In a year’s time the four again came together, each one expecting. to dispose of his commodity as before, and while the possessor of money does not despise the wine of the wine-grower, the wine-grower, unfortunately, has no need for linen, or perhaps requires the money for the payment of a debt, and therefore prefers to go about in a torn shirt rather than purchase linen. The wine-grower keeps the pound in his pocket and goes home. The linen-weaver now waits in vain for a buyer, and the miller waits likewise. The family of the weaver may be hungry and covet the sack of flour, but the weaver has produced linen for which there was no demand, and as the linen was not required, there is no call for the flour. Weaver and miller have no money, and hence cannot buy what they want; and what they have produced is now “over-produced,” as is also what has been produced for them, for instance—in order to continue with the example—the table which the cabinet-maker expected would be purchased by the miller.

The most significant phenomena of an economic crisis are already given in the foregoing illustration. Of course, it does not take place under such simple conditions. At the beginning of commodity production each establishment still produces more or less for its own consumption: commodity production with each family forms merely part of its entire production. The linen-weaver and the miller we referred to for example possess each a piece of land and some cattle, and are both in a position to complacently wait until a buyer for their commodities puts in an appearance. If it comes to a pinch they can live without him. But in the beginning of commodity production the market is still small and easily surveyed, and production and consumption, and the entire social life, move, year in and year out, in the same rut. In the small communities of olden times one knew the other, his needs and his purchasing power, quite well. The economic fabric scarce changed the number of producers : the productivity of labour, the amount of products, the number of consumers, their needs, the sum of money at they; disposal, all changed but slowly, and each change was immediately discovered and taken into account.

But things take a different form with the advent of commerce. Under its influence production for self-consumption decreases continually, the individual producers of commodities, and still more the dealers in commodities, are getting ever more exclusively dependent upon the sale of their commodities, and particularly upon the quickest possible sale. Delay in or prevention of the sale of a commodity becomes ever more fatal to its owner, and may in certain circumstances lead to his economic ruin. At the same time the possibilities for depressions in commerce increase.

Through commerce the many different markets lying apart from each other are brought into communication; the entire market is thereby greatly extended, but also made less accessible to survey. And that development is furthered still more by the appearance of one or several intermediaries between producer and consumer, commerce making this necessary. At the same time it becomes easier to move commodities because of commerce and the development of the system of transit, and a small incentive suffices to concentrate them on one spot in large quantities.

An estimation of the demand for, and the existing supply of, commodities now becomes ever more uncertain. The development of statistics does not remove this uncertainty : it only makes it possible to estimate at all, which, from a certain stage of commodity production, would be impossible without statistics. The entire economic life becomes more and more dependent upon commercial speculation, which becomes ever more venturesome.

The merchant is a speculator from the start: speculation has not been invented on the Exchange. And speculating is a necessary function of the capitalist. By speculating, that is to say, by estimating the prospective demand; by buying his commodities where they are cheap (that is, where they are plentiful) and selling them where they are dear (that is, where they are scarce), the merchant helps to bring order into the chaos of the planless production of the private concerns which are independent of each other. But in his speculation he may also make mistakes, the more so as he has not much time for reflection, not being the only merchant in the world. Hundreds of thousands of competitors are waiting, like him, to make use of every favourable opportunity : whoever gets the first glimpse of it reaps the greatest advantage. That means one has to be quick, not to ponder long, not to make many enquiries, but to venture—nothing venture nothing have! But he may also lose. If on any market there is a great demand for a commodity, large quantities of it scon accumulate there, until there is more of it than the market can digest. Then the prices fall, the merchant has to sell cheap, and often with a loss, or to find another and better market for his goods. His losses at that game may be so great that they may ruin him.

Under the domination of developed commodity production on a market there are always either too many or too few commodities about. The bourgeois economists declare that to be a very wise and admirable ordinance, but we think differently : anyhow, it is inevitable,so long as commodity-production, from a certain stage onwards, exists. But this wise ordinance may in certain circumstances, and in the event of an exceptionally strong incentive, mean that the overloading of a market with commodities becomes so uncommonly great, that consequent losses of the merchants assume large proportions, and a great many of their number cannot meet their liabilities and become bankrupt. That means already a commercial crisis in its best form.

The development of the system of transit on the one hand, and of the system of credit on the other, facilitates the sudden flooding of a market with commodities, but in doing so it also furthers crises, and enhances their devastating effect Commercial crises had always to be limited in extent so long as petty enterprise was the prevalent form of production. It was not possible that under the influence of any incentive the amount of products produced for the entire market rapidly increased. Production under the domination of handicraft, like petty enterprise, is not capable of rapid extension. It cannot be enlarged by an increase in the number of workers, as at ordinary periods it already employs all the efficient members of the grade of population devoted to it. It can only be extended by adding to the labour-burden of the individual by prolonging the hours of labour, encroaching on Sunday rest, etc. But in the good old times the handicraftsman or peasant working on his own account, when he had not yet to contend with the competition of the large concern, showed no liking for such extension. Even if he consented to work overtime that was of little use, as the productivity of labour was not considerable.

That productivity changes with the advent of capitalist large concerns. As a means of enabling commerce to rapidly flood the market with commodities, it develops a hitherto unthought of capacity, not only extending the market to a world market, embracing the entire globe and increasing the number of intermediaries between producer and consumer, but also enabling production to follow every incentive of commerce and to expand by leaps and bounds.

Already the circumstance that the workers are now completely at the mercy of the capitalist; that he can increase their hours of labour, and interfere with their Sunday (and night) rest, enables the capitalist to extend production more quickly than was possible before. But one hour of surplus labour signifies to-day, with the great productivity of labour, quite a different extension of production to that at the time of handicraft. And the capitalists are also able to extend their concerns rapidly. Capital is a very elastic, pliable quantity, especially owing to the credit system. Flourishing conditions of business increase confidence, induce investments, shorten the period of circulation of a part of capital, and thus increase its scope and power. But the most important fact remains that there is always an industrial reserve army of workers at the disposal of capitalism. In that way the capitalist is in a position to extend his concern at any time, to engage new workmen, to increase production rapidly, and to make thoroughly good use of a favourable state of the market.

[To be continued]

The Forum. (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some Open Discussions

Statements of difficulties, criticisms of our position, contributions upon any question of working-class interest, are invited. Members and non-members of the Party are alike welcome. Correspondents must, however, be as brief as possible, as bright as possible, and as direct as possible to the point.

______0______

ENQUIRER (Manchester) submits the following queries, to which replies are appended :

(1) In “Capital” we read, “along with the surplus-population, pauperism forms a condition of capitalist production, and of the capitalist development of wealth. It enters into the faux frais of capitalist production ; but capitalism knows how to throw these for the most part, from its own shoulders to those of the working class and the lower middle class.” (p. 65 Vol I.)

This statement, and one to the effect that high or low rates do not affect the condition of the workers as rates are paid by the capitalist class, would appear to be contradictory.

____________

It only appears contradictory. The statement quoted from Marx amounts to, in effect, asserting that the capitalist class retain as much of the wealth produced as possible, making real wages keep as close to the subsistence level as is economical. The maintenance of the non-producers—whether they be “unemployed,” children, aged persons,or what not—enters into the “dead expenses” of capitalism, and while not entering into the factors determining real wages, except in the case of children, is, so far as possible, shouldered onto the workers, and largely borne by them, as witness the extent of Friendly and Benefit Societies, and Trade Unions. Even the maintenance of official paupers is, if at all manageable, transferred to a son, daughter, or other relation in the case of parents, while now the endeavour is being made to fix upon the individual the responsibility of maintaining a pauperised grandparent. Where these items are shouldered on to the workers it assists in keeping those expenses down to as low a level as possible, and incidentally, by swelling the quantity of money wages, further cloaks the extent of exploitation.

____________

(2) If it is cheaper for the capitalist class, as the payers of rates, to give old age pensions to worn-out veterans of industry rather than have them go into the poor law institutions, why have the recipients of poor law relief within a certain period prior to Jan. 1st, 1908 been debarred from receiving the old age pensions ?

____________

The present Government has the whole question of the Poor Law in the melting pot. To empty the Poor Houses would be to dislocate the Poor Law system before the alternative machinery is laid down and perfected and possibly precipitate trouble. At present there are the two systems working side by side, and the relationships are largely at the disposal of the Poor Law authorities. We cannot explain their motives. Perhaps they consider a twelve month’s course of training in soliciting charity a necessary preliminary to attempting to eke out an existance on 5s. per week.

The fact, however, that the Poor Rate is levied locally while Old Age Pensions are a national charge, is one reason why the transposition could not be made so suddenly as to complicate the question, and risk alienating the political support of any section which might be affected by the change.

____________

(3) If the capitalist class pay the rates why do they not take the credit unto themselves for so doing, instead of telling the workers that they are as much interested in the rates being kept low as the capitalists themselves ?

____________

The answer to the first question meets this, at any rate in part. By interesting the working class in the maintenance of the non-producers, their support is enlisted in keeping the necessary expenses as low as possible, although the fact remains that as an item over and above the bare maintenance of the individual it must encroach upon the difference between the minimum on which the individual can live plus the raw material he obtained, and the total production, and so reduce the ideal degree of exploitation towards which the capitalist class strive.

Answers to correspondents. (1909)

Letter to the Editors from the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

J.Smith, Ilford.—The statement which appeared in the December ’08 issue to the effect that no trade union can act even as a brake to steady the downward rush is not correct. The Manifesto, p. 15, explains the attitude of the Party towards the unions and recognises their necessity under capitalism. The matter, however, will be discussed at the next Conference ; while meanwhile, a careful study of “Value, Price and Profit” would be extremely useful.

Important. (1909)

Party News from the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Will all whom it may concern note that the Head Office of the Socialist Party of Great Britain has been removed to —

10, Sandland Street,

    Bedford Row,

      London, W.C.

where all communications should be addressed.

Blogger's Note:

The September 1954 commemorative issue of the Socialist Standard carried an article by 'Gilmac' (Gilbert McClatchie) on the party's many premises. Contained within that article was 'Gilmac's' description of the party offices at Sandland Street:

"In 1909 we began really to move upward. We got two rooms on the first floor of a house in 10, Sandland Street, Bedford Row (a little behind the north side of Holborn). This was the first Head Office visited by the present writer. When he went there as a youth he felt he had really reached the heart of deep red revolution. The ground floor was an old dilapidated junk shop. The side  door led up two flights of dark rickety stairs to a couple of bare rooms. The floor was bare boards. One room contained an old desk for the use of the General Secretary and anyone else who had writing to do. Beside was piled the stock of unsold Standards. As time passed the pile grew far beyond the height of the desk until it was in danger of being knocked down by anyone passing. The other room contained a long table and some chairs. This room was used for economics classes on Thursday evenings and for folding Standards on Saturdays. On Tuesday evenings the table was moved into the secretarial room for the E.C. meetings. When the E.C. was sitting it was almost impossible to get anyone else into the room, in spite of the fact that we advertised and boasted that our E.C. meetings were open to the public—so they were, if you could get in!

While we were at Sandland Street the General Secretary, Sammy Quelch, had a coffee shop nearby, and he had a habit of pinning a note on the door asking any members who called to go round to the coffee shop. Robert Blatchford had a humorous dig at the Party in his paper The Clarion (the most popular Labour paper of its day) at the time. He said he "called at the Headquarters of the Socialist Party of Great Britain but found that the Party had gone to get a cup of coffee." Later this was changed to "The Secretary, the Treasurer, and the member had gone to get a cup of coffee." "

Indeed ! (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., gave an account of his Parliamentary work last session to a small gathering of his constituents on Monday afternoon. About a dozen Nonconformist ministers were present, several leading Liberals, some members of Mr. Thorne’s committee, and a number of ladies from the Women’s Settlement and missions. Mr. S. Curwen presided, and after Mr. Thorne’s speech there was a spirited discussion. Much unanimity was shown; indeed, the general agreement on Parliamentary matters between this middle-class company and the Labour representative was remarkable.—”Stratford Express,” 30.1.09.

What do you think? (1909)

From the March 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The class of person to whom the Anti-Socialist is expected to appeal may be very accurately gauged by the character of its advertisements. Business men do not spend money for publicity through the media that will not get them into touch with the persons they want. The Anti-Socialist is, therefore, expected to circulate amongst owners of motor-cars, those able to buy gold and silver plate, trees and shrubs, and the like. It contains also an “ad” of a big firm of photo engravers, another of a wholesale stationer, and yet another of a legal publisher. From which may be deduced the fact that, whatever our optimistic contemporary may say it expects to do amongst the working class, its advertisers know fairly well that it is not the working class that will read it.

Life and Times: Scumbag or not? (2026)

The Life and Times column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘He’s just a scumbag.’ That’s what my neighbour said to me about a local landlord who’s bought up literally dozens of properties in the areas and is letting them to students room by room. The neighbour doesn’t like to be surrounded by students since she sees them as potentially rowdy and trouble-makers. But she’s also indignant that, whenever this landlord purchases a property, he puts up one of his ‘To Let’ boards at the front. In our street there are currently seven houses in succession with those signs on them. In her estimation it makes the place look untidy – ‘like a slum’, as she puts it. And even when a property is let and people are living there, the board stays up – presumably for publicity purposes.

As for myself, though I don’t mind the students and don’t find them troublesome, like my neighbour I’m not particularly happy about all those boards up there permanently. I contacted the landlord’s letting company and actually spoke with him. He’s a young chap called Nick who I’ve known since he was little when his father ran the now defunct shop at the corner of the street. We had an entirely friendly conversation in which he said that it was ‘letting season’ at the moment but assured me that the boards would come down at the end of the month when that period was over. But the boards stayed up and, when I tried to contact him again, I couldn’t get hold of him personally and was told by people in his office that they’d pass on the message. Nothing happened and I’ve sort of given up on that.

Since his boards are not just in my street but on properties all over the area (there are literally dozens and dozens), I asked one of the local councillors whether landlords were entitled to keep their boards up long-term like that. He told me they weren’t and that local regulations state they should be taken down once properties have been let. But the rub, he told me, was that, since it would take too much in the way of time and resources for the council to go round checking and enforcing, all it would do was to inform landlords of their legal duty but with no follow up.

So is Nick a scumbag for what he’s doing? In fact, are all landlords scumbags, as a friend of mind once suggested, since what they’re doing is exploiting the very basic need people have for shelter and, if they (be they students or anyone else) don’t have the money to pay for it, then tough? But there again isn’t that how the money and buying and selling system works more widely, ie, if you can’t pay, you can’t have? In a conversation I once had with a different landlord about this very thing, he expressed the view that someone who grasps opportunities to make money is doing nothing wrong but simply being enterprising and deserves to be rewarded for, as he put it, ‘showing good judgement’.

Actually, looking around my area there’s a whole range of types of landlords. Some of them own just a single property or maybe two and use the income from that to supplement what they earn from working for an employer or from small-scale self-employed activity. Others, like Nick, make it their living, become small-scale capitalists, and are always looking to expand. Other properties still are bought by large private equity companies who spend significant time and expense improving them before letting them out and don’t need to get back the money they’ve spent on them in the short term, since they’re regarded as long-term investments which will ultimately turn a profit for the companies’ shareholders. Of course, there are also landlords (or would-be landlords) who come a cropper in all this in not being able to find tenants at all. The property or properties they own, and on which they may have taken out mortgages, become an albatross around their neck rather than a source of profit and they end up having to sell, so incurring a loss rather than any kind of profit.

But then that’s the way the dog-eat-dog, anarchic system we live in works at so many different levels. It creates winners and losers even among would-be capitalists. Of course, being a winner or loser in quite that way doesn’t apply to the majority of people, those who are members of what we would call ‘the working class’ and who have to sell their energies to an employer day by day in order to provide for themselves and their families. Some do it fairly comfortably, others a lot less so, but there are very few who don’t live with insecurity about whether their wage or salary will be enough to satisfy their material aspirations and indeed, in many cases, whether the employment that brings in that wage or salary will itself continue to be secure.

But coming back to Nick, is it fair to call him a scumbag? What he’s done is to inherit the couple of properties his father owned and taken things, as another neighbour put it, ‘to a new level’. He’s seen opportunities and grabbed them. Can we blame him for that? Probably not, after all making money is what capitalism invites us all to do if we can. And that will carry on until the majority of us collectively decide to get rid of it and bring in a new society of free access to all goods and services where we’re not constantly pitted against one another but follow the more natural human path of cooperation. Then we’ll truly be able to satisfy all our needs, for shelter as well as for life’s other necessities. In the meantime, no one would object if Nick took down those boards.

Howard Moss

Pathfinders: Big Red Button (2026)

The Pathfinders Column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year Hollywood director Kathryn Bigelow caused a minor stir with A House of Dynamite, an earnest and compelling warning against nuclear war in the tradition of Fail Safe (1964), or its comedy twin Dr Strangelove (1964). Unlike her other films it probably won’t win any gongs though, because it annoyed a lot of people.

Note, this paragraph contains spoilers. Critics complained that the film wasn’t a ‘proper’ story, with a beginning, middle and end, but instead was a looping repeat of the same chain of events from different character viewpoints. Nor did it have an ending. The viewer is just left hanging. Does the missile blow up the city? Does the US launch a retaliatory strike, and against whom? We don’t find out. But that’s ok, because the ending wasn’t the point.

The point of Dynamite is how we got ourselves into this situation in the first place. ‘We all built a house filled with dynamite… and then we just kept on livin’ in it,’ says one character. Jacobin magazine sniffily objected that the film doesn’t really say anything, and is essentially an ‘impotent and unserious exercise in handwringing’. We might sniffily object in turn that anyone who doesn’t advocate the immediate abolition of capitalism is also merely handwringing. Which would include all of the left including Jacobin magazine.

Because while capitalism has done a lot of good things for humanity, it’s also an out-of-control profit-making machine that comes with some catastrophic downsides. Runaway global warming isn’t even the worst of these. We can probably survive that, as a species. But who would survive nuclear Armageddon? Who would even want to?

For all the Boomer generation’s supposed privileges, like free higher education, affordable houses, job security and career advancement, they still had to grow up in the Cold War under the shadow of the Bomb, not knowing whether each day would be their last. Now Gen Z and Gen Alpha, on top of their other problems, may come to know what that feels like. ‘On January 27, 2026, the Doomsday Clock was set at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the Clock has ever been to midnight in its history’.

Who’s got nukes?

Nine countries today have a total of around 13,000 weapons, down from the Cold War’s 60,000, but arsenals are increasing again. You can see the distribution at a glance at armscontrol.org. Most belong to Russia and the US, but China is fast playing catch-up. These are not just nukes, but BIG nukes. ‘For example, the warheads on just one US nuclear-armed submarine have seven times the destructive power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan. And the United States usually has ten of those submarines at sea’ (ucs.org).

Who wants nukes?

Basically, every country’s ruling elite, following the National Rifle Association’s argument that in an armed society, you’re safer if you’re packing heat too. Ukraine gave up its nukes in 1994 and what happened? It got invaded. Iran keeps being bombed by Israel, but who dares bomb nuclear North Korea? The lesson is obvious and unavoidable. Disarmament is for losers. To paraphrase Mark Carney at Davos, if you’re not at the nuclear table, you’re on the menu.

There are fewer total nukes than in the Cold War era, so why is the threat worse today? Because treaties are easier when there are only two sides to negotiate. After the panic of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War finally settled into stasis with arms control treaties. Now there are three major nuclear powers, and more on the way. In February this year the 2010 START nuclear non-proliferation treaty expired, and no nuclear power shows any interest in reviving or replacing it. Instead, with Russia fighting in Ukraine, China threatening Taiwan, India and Pakistan having cross-border skirmishes, and the US under Trump threatening to remove the ‘extended deterrence’ umbrella from its own NATO allies, the gloves are off. Any country that can get its hands on nukes and more nukes is going gangbusters to do just that, and never mind other internal costs like health and social welfare.

The upshot is proliferation. Now even America worries that, despite its gigantic arsenal, it won’t have enough to go round if adversaries like Russia and China decide to join forces. There is a terrifying escalatory logic at play, as the Economist points out. A country may opt for ‘minimal deterrence’, having just enough nukes to survive a first strike and still deliver unconscionable devastation on enemy cities. But beyond minimal deterrence, military planners aim for ‘damage limitation’, which means having enough missiles to take out all the other side’s nuclear silos, submarines and mobile launchers. If this capacity is achieved, it only drives the other side to acquire further weapons, and so on indefinitely (‘Nukes of Hazard‘).

Even if war is not the immediate result, this multi-sided arms race makes the prospects of any binding arms treaty look more remote, and the chances of a Fail Safe-like accidental launch greater than ever. But we, the vast majority of the world’s people, didn’t do this. We are merely the grunts who do all the work of maintaining what we like to call civilisation. It’s the rich who have built a world of dynamite and are sitting on top of it, smoking fat cigars. Our only mistake is continuing to support and vote for the market system which created the rich, and their nukes, in the first place.

J Robert Oppenheimer, the self-styled ‘destroyer of worlds’, was along with Einstein a founder of the Doomsday Clock that now ticks perilously close to midnight. There’s still time for humanity to claw its way back from the brink, and use its miraculous science and technology purely for the collective benefit, but only if it stops deluding itself. Capitalism is not sustainable, nor our best option. It’s a death cult with a Big Red Button.

Paddy Shannon

Zackonomics — how green can you be? (2026)

From the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

In their party political broadcast on 22 January, the Greens’ new eco-populist leader Zack Polanski ran through the various problems people face and pointed out that a lot of the wealth they create ends up in the pockets of the super-rich. But went on: ‘This isn’t just an economic failure. It’s a failure of leadership. The people we elected choose to serve the wealthy. And, yes, that is obscene. Good leaders put people before profit’.

Self-styled good leaders

So what does Polanski, as a ‘good leader’, propose that a Green Party government would do? Its manifesto for the 2024 general election promised ‘the public ownership of public services’ and talked about ‘taxing wealth fairly and borrowing to invest’, in particular ‘a Wealth Tax of 1% annually on assets above £10 million and of 2% on assets above £1bn’. This is the sort of thing the Labour Party used to advocate and will be one reason why the Greens have had some success in winning over people disillusioned with the Labour Party after Starmer (with a little help from Peter Mandelson) axed its leftwing.

In this sense, the Green Party is reviving the illusion that the Labour Party once entertained that capitalism could gradually be changed, through ‘public’ ownership, tax changes and social reforms, into a less unequal society. The only difference is that the Greens think that ‘good leaders’ should put the environment as well as people before profit (and sometimes before people). All the arguments that socialists have made against Labour Party reformism apply equally against the Greens. Capitalism is an economic system driven by firms, whether private or state (or cooperatives), seeking to make a profit and to accumulate this as more capital to be reinvested for more profit. Putting profit-making first is imposed on those making economic decisions, including governments, as an external coercive force that they ignore at their peril.

Polanski and the Greens, if ever they got to form the government and tried to put people before profit, would be ‘bad leaders’ as far as capitalism was concerned. They would put a spanner in the way capitalism works and provoke an economic downturn, forcing them into a U-turn, as has happened many times to Labour and similar governments in other parts of the world — punished for refusing to put profits before people.

What this means is that, contrary to what Polanski claims, a ‘good leader’, for capitalism, is someone who does put profits before people, someone who applies rather than challenges the economic laws of capitalism. Those individuals who workers elect to govern have no alternative. The nature of capitalism, as a profit-making system that can only work for the profit-takers, obliges them to do this on pain of provoking an economic slow-down.

Replacing them with self-styled ‘good leaders’, like he imagines himself to be, won’t change things despite good intentions. They, too, would end up having to serve the wealthy as that’s the only way that the system can work. What is needed is not a change of leaders, but a change of system. But that’s not what the Greens want.

Cranky economics

The Green Party accepts capitalism. It doesn’t challenge the ownership of the means of life by a minority nor that goods and services are produced primarily for sale on a market with a view to profit. At most, it seems to want to go back to an earlier stage of capitalism in which production was in the hands of small and medium-sized enterprises.

To tell the truth, the Green Party is all over the place when it comes to economics which, anyway, is not the primary interest of most of its members. That — and it’s a perfectly legitimate concern — is to protect and save the environment, which they imagine can be done by pursuing policies and passing laws without changing the basics of the present, capitalist economic system.

The Greens’ relative lack of interest in economics has left them open to all sorts of cranky theories. For instance, their manifesto for the 2015 general election declared that ‘the power to create money must be taken out of the hands of private banks’ and that ‘commercial banks should be no more than the custodians of publicly created money in current accounts’. This reflected a resolution on ‘monetary and financial reform’ carried at their 2013 Conference:

‘97% of the money circulating in the economy takes the form of credit that is created electronically by private banks through the accounting processes they follow when they make loans … The 1844 Bank Charter Act will be updated to prohibit banks from creating national currency in the form of electronic credit. To finance their lending, investment or proprietary trading activities, banks will have to borrow or raise the necessary national currency from savers and investors’.

This would considerably limit what banks would be able to lend, even to individuals let alone to business. But loans to profit-seeking firms are essential to the workings of capitalism as it means that capitalist entrepreneurs do not have to have accumulated all their own money before they can start a business. The role of banks is to make available money for investment that would otherwise lie idle or be scattered in small amounts.

To make up for the fall in bank lending that their scheme would bring about, the 2013 resolution proposed that ‘all national currency (both in cash and electronic form) will be created, free of any associated debt, by a National Monetary Authority (NMA) that is accountable to Parliament’ and that ‘any new money created by the NMA will be credited to the account of the Government as additional revenue, to be spent into circulation in the economy in accordance with the budget approved by Parliament’.

Imagining that banks create money out of thin air and wanting to devise a debt-free money is classic currency crankism. Banks don’t create new money when they make a loan; they lend out money that they have (from deposits and loans) or can quickly acquire (from the money market or the Bank of England) and the interest they receive comes from the future profits of loans to business and from the future wages of those to individuals. The 2013 Green Party resolution and 2015 Green Party general election manifesto were proposing an imagined solution to a false problem, a solution which if applied would lead to financial chaos and roaring inflation.

These days the Green Party does not push this policy much. It wasn’t in their 2019 or 2024 general election manifestos. However, it remains part of their official policy and is included in their Policies for a Sustainable Society. Polanski, who knows a thing or two about selling false remedies and so about what sells and what doesn’t, doesn’t mention the banking reform part and talks only about some National Monetary Authority providing the government with whatever money it needs to pay for a Green Deal and social services.

Magic Money Theory

This has led some, such as Jonathan Prynn, business editor of The Standard (formerly Evening Standard), to accuse Polanski of embracing another mistaken monetary theory  — self-styled ‘Modern Monetary Theory’, or MMT (which also, appropriately enough, stands for Magic Money Tree). This teaches that the government doesn’t need to borrow money but can simply create the money it needs and spend it; this will stimulate the economy and the government will eventually recover the money as increased tax receipts.

It is not clear that Polanski has embraced MMT. He may just be using the naive (and therefore good populist) argument that if the resources are there to save the environment or eliminate poverty (as they are) and the government has the power to create as much money as it wants (as it does), why does the government not simply create the money to use the resources? If it did this, it wouldn’t need to worry about borrowing money and so wouldn’t be in thrall to international speculators. Which is essentially what Polanski and the Greens are saying.

The trouble is that this ignores the way the capitalist economic system works. Wealth is produced in the profit-seeking sector of the economy in response to the prospects of making a profit. Governments as such produce no wealth; to get the money to buy what they need to carry out their activities they have to resort either to taxation of the profit-producing sector or borrow from those who have acquired money from that sector. When the government creates money it is not creating any new wealth, only claims on existing wealth. It can create as much of these claims as it likes but, if it creates more than the economy needs for its buying and selling and other monetary transactions, then the result will be a fall in the purchasing power of the claims and so a rise in the general prices level, or inflation.

If a Green government were to simply create and spend the money to protect the environment or to eliminate poverty or to improve living conditions generally, the most likely result is that there would be a one-time spurt in economic activity but in time there would be an inflation which could get of hand. Apologists for capitalism, such as Prynn, happen to be right when they point this out.

The conclusion to be drawn is not to accept that profits have to come before people, but that it is futile, and even counter-productive, to try to prevent this under capitalism. What is needed is to get rid of the profit system altogether and to use resources to simply and directly produce what people need. But this is only possible on the basis of the common ownership of the world’s productive resources. It would then no longer be a question of what should come first — profits or people? — because profits wouldn’t enter into it at all.

Adam Buick

Material World: Right, left and fake communism (2026)

The Material World column from the March 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Modern politics is often presented as a battlefield between two irreconcilable forces: the right and the left. However, this opposition is more apparent than real.

Both currents are internal factions of the capitalist mode of production. The right defends the market, private initiative and competition as the engine of the economy; the left, for its part, advocates nationalisation, a regulated economy and state control. Two different paths, yes, but both leading to the same destination: the perpetuation of capitalist relations of production.

Many people, out of ignorance or historical unawareness, believe that nationalisation is equivalent to socialism. They confuse the presence of the state in the economy with the abolition of class struggle. But authentic socialism is not reduced to the state administering companies or nationalising strategic sectors. Socialism implies that workers directly control the means of production, that exploitation disappears and that society is organised consciously and collectively.

In countries that proclaimed themselves socialist — the USSR, China, Cuba, Venezuela — what was actually established was state capitalism. There was no disappearance of property or wage labour. Individual private property was replaced by collective ownership by the state bureaucracy, not by direct management by the workers.

The worker continued to sell his labour power in exchange for a wage, while the surplus value was appropriated by the state. The fundamental difference is that, in private capitalism, exploitation is exercised by one individual over another; in state capitalism, exploitation is exercised by the state over the individual.

Lenin himself acknowledged in his pamphlet The State and Revolution that the USSR had not achieved communism, but was in a phase of state capitalism. What was established there was a system where the state absorbed the economy, centralised production and organised exploitation more efficiently, but without abolishing fundamental capitalist relations.

China repeated the same pattern. Under the slogan of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics,’ it merged private and state capital. Today it is a capitalist power that competes in the world market with the same rules of value, competition, and exploitation as any other country.

In Cuba, massive nationalisations created the appearance of a society without a bourgeoisie, but state bureaucrats enjoyed privileges far superior to those of any worker. Centralised planning did not eliminate exploitation, it simply reorganised it under an omnipresent state apparatus.

Venezuela, for its part, used socialist rhetoric as a political banner, while keeping capitalist relations of production intact. Oil, the engine of its economy, was administered by the state as national capital, not as the collective heritage of the workers. Inequality, corruption and dependence on the world market are proof that communism was not built there, but rather a variant of state capitalism.

Authentic communism, understood as the abolition of social classes and the direct management of production by workers, has never existed in these countries. What has reigned is a hypertrophied, cold and bureaucratic state that devours civil society and presents itself as a saviour while perpetuating exploitation. State intervention is not a rationalisation of capitalism, but a manifestation of its decadence. It is a desperate attempt to sustain a system that can no longer spontaneously organise human relations and needs violence and bureaucracy to stay afloat.

In conclusion, the right and the left are two sides of the same coin: one defends the market, the other defends nationalisation. Both reproduce the same exploitative relationships. Countries that proclaimed themselves socialist have never been so; they are examples of how state capitalism can disguise itself as revolution, appropriate symbols and words, and construct one of the greatest mystifications in history. True socialism remains a pending task, yet to be realised in any corner of the planet.

(Translation of an article by Juan Morel Perez published in El Neuvo Diario in the Dominican Republic.)