Circuses and "bread" (1986)

'See you, suckers . . .'

From the July 1986 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as the cheers from steamy-hot Mexico fade away, and you've just about succeeded in shaking the dronings of the World Cup commentators out of your dreams at night, it is time for another little bit of "entertainment". Once again, there will be a fair measure of patriotism in the air, in fact quite a strong whiff of British nationalism. A chance for the Royals to speed up their breeding patterns. But they would have to work pretty hard at it if they were hoping to become as numerous as the non-Royals. The Royal Wedding is a chance for millions of workers who are deprived of real lives to sit back and gaze at the dazzling spectacle of something even less real. Like the actors in Dallas, the characters in the Royal Wedding spectacular soap are basically ordinary, boring, fairly soppy, very wealthy people. "Andy" and "Fergie" happen to be members of a rather special club. A club for social parasites, who are quite prepared to use the most violent and murderous forces of the state to defend their inherited wealth, power and privilege.

Since the happy young couple have been the subject of such a cruelly penetrating limelight, let us instead focus on some of their fellow members of that club, otherwise known as the British section of the world's capitalist class, who between them own and control the world's productive resources. In its June issue, the Illustrated London News featured an article on Britain's Richest Men which serves as an excellent guide and profile. By way of introduction, we are reminded of Paul Getty's famous (alleged) statement that if you can count your money, you are not rich. The richest individual in Britain is, in fact, almost certainly the Queen, with personal wealth of between £2 billion and £3 billion. The article referred to contrasts some of the older established capitalist families with the newer dynasties based on high-street retail companies. In this context. Terence Conran of Habitat is quoted as "designing" this pearl of artistic wisdom: "Retailing is about making people want things". Then there are the Sainsburys. Tim. with shares worth over £200 million, is a Tory MP and government whip. His cousin David, with shares worth £719,680,000 and a dividend income of over £30,000 per day. supports the SDP.

Land is still an important starting point in considering the class division of capitalism. Research by D. Massey and A. Catelano. published in 1977. estimated that 1,500 families own nearly one third of the country. This would include people like the Duke of Westminster, with over £2 billion, much of it in land, or the Duke of Buccleuch. who owns more than 300,000 acres of Scotland.

Other capitalists featured, with their respective fortunes, include the following: Edmund Vestey with £1,500 million. James Goldsmith with £500 million, Lord Cayzer £500 million, Gerald Ronson £300 million, Robert Maxwell £235 million, Paul McCartney £250 million, "Tiny” Rowland £135 million, and so on. Against some of these, the £25 million made by Andrew Lloyd Webber from shows like Cats and Evita seems a paltry little sum. And yet even that amount will generate an automatic weekly interest income of about £50,000!

Socialists do not have any bitter personal hatred for these few bloated individuals, who cannot even control their own system. We have a far more ambitious and stimulating aim to work for: the world's resources for the people of the world. But it is worth bearing in mind these staggering financial sums as you watch the crowds of workers who have been conned into rushing towards the gates of Buckingham Palace on the day of the parasitic nuptials. Just one of the capitalists listed above would own far more than the collective property of the entire crowd of people outside those gates and right down The Mall. The Royal Family, with all its militaristic pomp and ceremony, is just a florid figurehead for the British section of the international capitalist class. And the economic needs of the capitalist class stand at loggerheads with the needs of the working class, which the rest of us belong to, and at loggerheads with the interests of humanity itself. It is their wars we fight, their pollution we breathe, their nationalism, divide-and-rule.

Today, the trumpets might be blaring to announce a Royal Wedding. Tomorrow, the same trumpets might be calling the same workers to extend their blind loyalty to the “nation" on to the battlefield. That is where such loyalty starts and finishes. And the next battlefield may not be like the Falkland Islands, just a few hundred innocent young men neatly butchered and drowned thousands of miles away. The next battlefield may be the last. And yet these conflicts do all have the same common cause, at root. The world-wide capitalist system itself is a daily battle, in which the economic conflict between rival national groups of owners can easily pass from economic to military warfare. And today, capitalism is becoming increasingly one universal battlefield as the distinction between "civilian" and "military" targets continues to be blurred.

To remove the cause of this conflict in the world is to get rid of the capitalist system of class division between owners and non-owners. Then we can get on with living our lives freely and comfortably, without being driven mad with the love life of Andy and Fergie. So let us turn our backs on these insulting circuses for the workers. Let the "Royals" stand and wave at each other; we have a world to win.

Clifford Slapper