Maggie's moral crusade (1988)

From the July 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

Margaret Thatcher is the personification of a system which is uncaring, callous and hypocritical, but it does not follow that socialists are primarily concerned to win a moral battle. As human beings in an inhumane world which exploits and oppresses our class we are, to be sure, motivated by a profound indignation about the iniquities around us. Many workers, along the way to becoming socialist, express moral outrage at the system of capitalism — they see it as unfair, unjust and immoral. But. as historical materialists, we can see that capitalism is, indeed, '‘fair", 'just” and "moral" because the class which rules determines what is meant by fairness, justice and morality. The moral standards of any society are a reflection of the selfish class interests of those who control it. Not much more than a century ago in America slavery was considered morally acceptable. Only when economic forces made slave ownership an obsolete way of organising production did the new capitalist morality view the ownership of man by man as offensive.

On 21 May Margaret Thatcher addressed the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. It was an opportunity to outline her morality. And in doing so, she was able to express the moral outlook of the class of thieves and manipulators which she defends with such vigour. It is worth taking a look at what this message amounted to.

Responsibility

What is certain . . . is that any set of social and economic arrangements which is not founded on the acceptance of individual responsibility will do nothing but harm. We are all responsible for our own actions.

Are we? Is it the case that we individually determine whether we shall be born into circumstances of affluence and comfort or poverty and deprivation? Of course not. Is it the case that we are individually responsible for deciding how much access we shall have to goods and services? If so, then we must conclude that the tens of thousands of homeless families in Britain are without shelter, not because they are too poor but because they are too irresponsible to be housed. We must assume that the fifteen million children (world wide) under the age of five who die of starvation each year do so as a consequence of their own. individual lack of responsibility. Such reasoning is a distortion of reality. The geriatric workers who endure lives of impoverished semi-existence, threatened with death from hypothermia or because NHS cuts mean that there is no district nurse to attend to them, are not in such a position through irresponsibility. The wage slave whose life is one endless misery of trying to make ends meet is not in a self-created rut but one caused by capitalism, a social system which excludes the majority of people — the workers — from power over society and its resources.

It would be a mistake for socialists to blame the existence of working-class misery, which is a consequence of workers not establishing socialism, on individual irresponsibility. We must ask why it is that workers have not brought about a change which is in their interest. And in asking, we will not help ourselves to formulate a serious answer if we attempt to explain the continuation of the profit system in terms of the moral shortcomings of its victims.

Work

We are told [in the Bible] we must work and use our talents to create wealth. “If a man will not work he shall not eat", wrote St Paul to the Thessalonians.

Here we have a representative of a class which is free to be idle — which defines success in terms of the freedom to live without working — telling us that if you do not work you should not be allowed to eat. If this moral maxim is to be taken seriously, then it follows that those who are too old. weak, ill or young to work should be allowed to starve. In that sense at least, the moral would reflect life as it is, for under world capitalism it is precisely those who are unable to find a job who are most likely to be moneyless and hungry.

In the gentlemen's clubs of London various idlers and ponces of Thatcher's own political party — not to mention others who support the other capitalist parties or none at all — spend their days doing virtually nothing. They get drunk, they sniff cocaine, they purchase prostitutes (both male and female), and they sleep a lot. These people eat very well indeed. What they leave on their plates at banquets would do very nicely for those who have to squeeze enough money out of a wage or a dole cheque in order to feed the kids. They eat with great energy; they work not at all. Perhaps St Paul should call in on the parasites whose interests Thatcher so ardently defends next time he is having a word with the Thessalonians. whoever they may be.

If it is our moral duty to "work and use our talents", then is Thatcher saying that those who prevent willing people from doing just that are immoral? Of course not; for remember. humble brethren, if you don't do what you "must" do it is because you are irresponsible. Millions are unemployed because of a shortage of personal responsibility.

Money

. . . it is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, but love of money for its own sake.

Clearly the Prime Minister is not the prime reasoner. It is as clear as can be that she has made one statement using two different terms as if they mean the same thing. Wealth is the product of human labour on natural resources. Factories are wealth, what is produced in them are wealth, the produce of the land is wealth, coal and steel and textiles are wealth. Money is a means of exchanging wealth. It is an economic artificiality of property society. The working class produces the wealth of society. The capitalist class accumulates money because it legally steals the fruits of the workers' toil. Of course, there is nothing wrong with creating wealth; if we stopped we would all die after a certain time. But why create money? Because those who own and control the wealth require a buying and selling system which is totally outdated, and which socialists want to replace with a system where all people have free access to wealth. As we are not living in a free access society, the love of money becomes a way of life for many people — capitalists and workers. Thatcher should approve of such behaviour; indeed, she is hypocritical in pretending not to do so. It is only by allowing money to dominate the lives of men and women that she can have her so-called enterprise culture — a culture of total obedience to the laws of monetary gain.

The Bible

. . . we are a nation whose ideals are founded on the Bible.

One: "we" are not a nation. The nation belongs to "them", not "us". Two: their nation is characterised by a distinct lack of ideals. People do not go to the Stock Exchange to philosophise about "ideals" their objective is to make money. The best way of doing that is to exploit workers for profits. No ideals, just plain thieving. Three: Thatcher has a very selective vision of the Bible. Does it not include the commandment "Thou shalt not kill"? Did Thatcher not urge us to rejoice when Argentine workers in uniform were being killed? Does the Bible not speak of the rich giving up all their money? We have not observed any passion on the part of Thatcher's class to dispose of their money in preparation for entry into Heaven. Does the Bible not inform us that the meek will inherit the earth? Unless this is a reference to the meek in mind — in which case the Prime Minister's husband and son are assured of their inheritances — we are under the impression that Thatcher views the prospect of the powerless taking over the earth as a dangerous, Marxist threat.

Socialists have no interest in arguing with our class enemies over rights to the Bible. They have spilled enough workers' blood in wars which have been justified by men holding Bibles — let them keep the bloody book. The truth is that Thatcher does not really believe all this theological tripe; we give her credit for being wiser than her ancestors of old, who actually believed the Biblical nonsense. The current moral crusade of the Tories is clearly a political crusade for workers' minds, an attempt to persuade us to look at the world through the eyes of the ruling class. But every time they come before workers with their stinking class morality we shall be there too, demonstrating in clear terms that there is a better society which we could have.

Steve Coleman