No Equality Under Capitalism (1946)

From the December 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a speech to the Society of Individualists, at Birmingham, Mr. J. Gibson Jarvie, Chairman of the United Dominions Trust, and Deputy Chairman of the Austin Motor Co., delivered himself of the following mixture of admission and conundrum.

  “Socialism, which is totalitarianism and the antithesis of democracy, is already out of date. Italy, Japan and Germany lie beaten in the dust, and the whole world bears the scars which preceded their defeat.
  “Russia still stands. But, ironically enough, in Russia there is no equality; there is capitalism. Russia is breeding a new aristocracy and, given time, will emerge as a wholly capitalist State ”

(Daily Graphic, 15/11/46).

Our thanks to Mr. Jarvie for the admission that capitalism and equality are not found together. In effect he says there is no equality in Russia, because Russia is capitalist. We leave him to explain how Russia can be capitalist now, and yet “emerge as a wholly capitalist State” some time in the future.

Surely capitalism is capitalism, whatever the form. Whether it exists as one-man concerns, companies, rings, cartels or State monopolies—called nationalisation—it is still capitalism with the same parasitic nature: Private or class ownership of the means of life and enslavement of the working class.

F. Foan