Your Share in the Wonders of the Age (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard 

What Is and What Could Be

At school and in the books and papers that we read we are always being told of the wonderful technical developments of the age we live in. The politicians who oppose Socialism give the theme a propaganda twist by arguing that it is capitalism that gives us these things and we would be foolish to give up the social system that does so much for us. The worker of a century ago, they say, did not have the benefit of all the marvels that the worker in 1956 is free to enjoy. But this is the heart of the matter: is the worker of today free to enjoy them? Let us examine two of the fields in which invention has been most spectacular—transport and communications.

Certain facts are beyond dispute. A hundred years ago there were no motor cars, no high-speed luxury liners, no supersonic air-travel; no telegraphs, no telephones or wireless, no radio or television. Messages can now be flashed round the globe in a few seconds, you can travel far and fast in comfort, news and opinions can be radioed anywhere and picked up by all who have sets, though this means only a smallish minority of the world’s population.

What then is wrong with the argument of defenders of Capitalism? They leave two things out of account. One is that under Capitalism you can only have what you can afford to pay for. The other is that the savage class struggles and international conflicts that Capitalism incites prevent most of these freedoms from being used for the good of mankind. Under Socialism the use of all these technical developments would be freely available to all; under Capitalism they are used, for the most part, as appendages to profit-making industry and commerce, and subject all the time—even for the rich who could afford them—to the demands and restrictions imposed by the greatest of all industries, preparation for war.

Is this an overstatement? Let us see. Let us take first the postal, telegraph, telephone and cable networks. The great bulk of all their traffic is for business and State purposes not for the enjoyment of the private lives of the mass of the population; it is mostly business traffic and would disappear under Socialism. This is even true of the least expensive of them, the postal services. Apart from Pool entries and Xmas cards workers rarely use the posts, and more rarely still the telegraph and cable services. Most of the telephones are business lines or the residential lines of the well to do. A small minority of working class homes have unshared lines but for most workers, using the telephone for personal calls means using the “communal" telephone in apartment houses or the street kiosk, with of course a considerable volume of calls made on the firm’s lines in office hours. Even in U.S.A., where telephone development has gone farthest, large numbers of subscribers put up with the inconveniences of shared lines because they are cheaper. In Russia, telephonically most backward of the Powers, the number of workers who have their own lines is a tiny minority of the working class.

And the chief cause of this everywhere is that the workers' wages do not extend to meeting the cost of an unshared telephone except at the expense of some other comfort or convenience.

The Workers’ Choice

It is the same with motor cars, television sets and travel. Workers are free to choose from all the rich variety spread before them but only within the narrow limits of their wage packets. For many it is only by living in a slum or cramped and dilapidated houses that they can afford their television set, or their old crock of a car that endangers their own and other people's lives on the roads. Why are there 1,500,000 pre-war cars still in use except chiefly because of cheapness? Have a car and a T.V. set and cut down on holidays, clothes and other expenditure: that is the common choice. A News Chronicle reporter, inquiring of five London dealers about people buying new cars found the dealers surprised that money was forthcoming in spite of the raising of the deposit to 50 per cent. He asked some of the purchasers how they did it. “I spoke to four who had, between them, cut smoking, sold the T.V.. sold furniture and economised on food. Two of their wives had gone out to work.” (News Chronicle 2/4/56).

The brewers even complain of falling sales of beer that have accompanied the buying of T.V. sets and travel abroad. Go away on holiday and take the rest of the year to save the money by going to work on cheap early morning tickets packed like half-alive sardines.

You can travel by luxury air-liner all over the world if you have the money: but most workers have never travelled by air, and most of those who have do so only in the Armed Forces when Capitalism is at war. You can holiday abroad, if you have long enough holidays, and if, as a worker, you resign yourself for the rest of the year to going without other things in order to save up the money. The great majority of British workers have never been abroad except for war, and have no passports.

And what of the freedom of movement and communication as progressively narrowed by governments for military and other reasons? Freedom to settle in other countries is more restricted now than for many decades. Trains, cars, ships and planes can easily carry you across frontiers, subject, however, to the restrictions and immigration quotas and entry permits imposed by governments. Hence the widespread and often cosily activities to secure illegal entry, and the dangerous traffic of human beings fleeing across barbed and mined and guarded frontiers of the iron curtain and other countries.

The Marvels of Communication

You can communicate with people living all over the world, provided that, for many countries, you pass the censorship on foreign mails and telegraph calls. The air is free to broadcast—except that a very large port of the world’s radio equipment is now devoted solely to the jamming of foreign broadcasts.

After a century of technical development of communications the flow of information and propaganda over many frontiers is now limited to balloons! (It will probably rise to still higher efficiency and employ the pigeon post).

It may be objected that at least “free" Britain does not engage in these retrograde practices. This objection overlooks the restrictions of entry to this country and the censorship in some colonies; and the new development of British jamming of broadcasts in Cyprus and the Middle East

And here at home the S.P.G.B. has for 20 years been steadfastly refused any opportunity to put the Socialist case on the air by the B.B.C.

This is how Capitalism works in all fields. Under Capitalism the working class have invented, discovered, and produced, all the technical marvels, but Capitalism fetters and distorts them all for the profit-making and military needs of the Capitalist groups of the world.

Edgar Hardcastle

Letter: A Reader Who Does Not Read Very Well (1956)

Letter to the Editors from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

[We have received from a reader the following letter. For some reason he also sent it to Forward, but added a covering note that he was willing, if we liked, to type it out again as being addressed to us. His references are to two articles in the April Socialist Standard, "What Holds us Back?" and “The Complex Loaf of Bread."— Editorial Committee]

Confound Their Politics

To the Editor of the Forward.

Sir,—It is now some time since I abandoned all politics. But I still read the Forward and the Daily Herald, and I subscribe to both the Socialist Standard and the Freedom. I gave up all politics because of the prejudices, prevarications, misrepresentations and downright lies disseminated by all Parties alike, and in the current number of the Standard I find ample justification for all my aversions from politics. In this issue of the organ of the Socialist Party of Great Britain it is admitted that they have made little progress, but, in the true Party manner, the blame for this lack of headway is laid on others. We are told, “If all those who have fallen out had remained in the movement what a strong movement for Socialism we would have now." This is Joshua and the sun again. Truth can no more be commanded to stand still than can the sun. Christianity was in existence a long time before the S.P.G.B. was heard of, and Christianity has crumbled to what is left now for the sole reason that it is not true, and has made no real attempts at correcting its untruth. Members have left and will continue to leave the S.P.G.B. because—they do not believe in it A bitter pill, but it has to be swallowed or the patient will perish.

But the prize in this precious number goes to the contributor who, writing about bread, quotes an “unknown author" who, after enumerating the many triumphs of mankind, goes on to say. “Man is indeed an ingenious animal. But when confronted with one problem he retires defeated. Show him six men without money and six loaves of bread, and ask him how the six men can obtain the six loaves?" Our contributor comments cockily on this, “It is possible that you, the reader, can provide the answer. The Capitalist system cannot." This is how politics can dope and hypnotise ordinary intelligence. The circumstances posed by the “unknown author" have not existed for at least 50 years. For at least 50 years it has been possible for six hungry men without money to get six loaves of bread. And this under Capitalism. Due in some measure to Labour Party influence it is easier to-day than ever before, but the Labour Party is not a Socialist Party and we are still under Capitalism. The Labour Party has made Capitalism work better. This is a jibe the S.P.G.B. is fond of flinging at the Labour Party. But, when political expediency calls for it, the S.P.G.B. can forget the Labour Party has done even that. Thus faithfully does the politician worship truth!!

Yours sincerely,

David MacConnell.

Reply:

Our critic attacks us on two counts. One is that we are alleged to want to avoid admitting what, according to him, is the real reason the Socialist movement makes only slow progress. He says it would be a bitter pill for us to have to admit that members have left the S.P.G.B. because they they do not believe in it. We can only say that our critic, who claims he is a reader of the Socialist Standard, must be a very careless or inattentive reader. In the first place the article he criticises did not seek to explain the slow progress of the Socialist movement wholly or mainly by the dropping out of disheartened members. What it did say was that the Socialist movement has made slow progress because the great majority of the workers have not been won over to Socialism. As this is what the S.P.G.B. has always said our critic ought to be familiar with it, and ought to know that we have always ridiculed the silly notion held by some reformist organisations that the mass of the workers are already Socialists. The reference in our April issue to those who have dropped out because of disheartenment emphatically did not say that all who have dropped out have done so for that reason. It was prompted by the fact that the letter to which we were replying was written by an ex-member who indicated that he still agrees with the S.P.G.B. case. (In a subsequent letter he wrote applying for re-admission to the S.P.G.B.)

So much for our critic’s first mare’s nest.

His second is even more illusory. He tears out of its context a passage about Capitalism’s inability to provide articles to those who need them except on the condition that they have the money to pay. He reads a short quoted illustration about six loaves of bread and six hungry men and falls to see the very obvious fact that this was an illustration of the general nature of Capitalist distribution. It was a correct illustration. Under Capitalism you do not have free access to loaves of bread, or to unsaleable motor cars, or to anything else simply by taking them without price and without having to get somebody’s permission. Free access would be the condition under Socialism; it is not the condition under Capitalism. If our critic is so naive as to believe that it is, he has only to try it by walking into a shop and taking what he wants. He will be able to tell us how he got on some time later—when they let him out.

Of course he has in mind that under Capitalism in this country, as “improved” by the Labour Party and others, the hungry man, subject to certain conditions and after going through the degrading process of applying for Public Assistance, can get niggardly financial aid, as indeed he could long before the Labour Party was thought of. In the Middle Ages such charity was dispensed by the Church and Monasteries.

But what a petty point anyway, when measured against the gigantic evils and hardships of Capitalism’s peace and war to-day! And what a purblind attitude, to approach the problem as if it concerned only the workers in this country! Actually, as the article “The Complex Loaf of Bread” pointed out, it is a fact that at the present time America has fantastic stocks of unsaleable wheat while large numbers of the world’s population go hungry. United Nations inquiries have indicated that a third or more of the world’s population are undernourished.

Let our critic deny this if he can and let him tell us what solution there is apart from Socialism. As he tells us that he has long since “abandoned all politics” he must believe he knows a non-political solution unless, perhaps, he believes that the social problems of the human race have already been solved.

Editorial Committee.

To a New Reader (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard 

There are many parties, both large and small, appealing for your support to-day. Some of them do so with the claim that they are Socialist parties, but you have no touch-stone to guide your judgment. You are bewildered by the multitude of parties who all claim that their object is to help you. In fact, there is only one way out of your dilemma—to help yourself by gaining a little knowledge of the society you are living in; its basis, its capacities, and its contradictions.

In a story of the life of King Edward VII., that is printed in the Evening Standard (4/4/1956), we are told that he lived in a "glittering world of wealth and privilege, from one end of Europe to the other." That referred to the first ten years of the present century, when the majority of the people, the workers, worked for wages that only gave them a precarious existence and a large proportion lived in slums. While the glitter was still there the world was plunged into devastating war that brought misery to minions of people.

In the issue of the Evening Standard that prints the above there is also a reference to the recent death of F. Jay Gould, the American multi-millionaire, from which we learn that, according to his second wife, “Those were fabulous days. He built a villa for us at Maison-Raffite." Later they took a chateau with 100 rooms, where they lived throughout the 1914-1918 war. The hunger matches of the twenties and the crisis at the beginning of the thirties permitted him to wallow in his millions. Now his relatives are fighting over the division of the spoils he has left behind him.

Thus, throughout the present century, a relatively small number of people have lived in a glittering world of wealth and privilege whilst the vast majority have lived in a world of toil and penury. Why are there these two worlds? Must it always be so?

Man is spoken of as being a social animal. He associates with others of his kind—forms part of a society. A society is a group of individuals bound together by a common principle. The larger sense in which the word society is generally used refers to the common principle of obtaining a living. Whatever is referred to as “social" concerns man in his connection with other men. Thus when we say a thing is socially produced we mean that a number of men produce different parts of an article and their combined efforts produce the finished article. That is the way almost all we eat, drink and wear, is produced to-day, and workers from all over the world produce different parts of the final product. No Capitalist need spend an hour in this work, and very rarely does. But by reason of their ownership of the means of production the Capitalists, as a class, own the products. Thus the products are socially produced but privately owned.

You are living in a society to-day in which the things produced, and the tools by means of which they are produced, are privately owned: that is, owned by one individual or by a relatively small group of individuals—either a single Capitalist a small group of Capitalists, or the Capitalist investors in a State concern. The aim of the Socialist is to make these things social property; to convert these privately owned goods and tools into goods and tools commonly owned by the whole of society. He who acts in such a way as to bring this state of affairs into being is a Socialist: he who acts in a way that hinders progress to this end is evidently not a Socialist, no matter what he may call himself.

Owing to the private ownership of the means of production the majority of the people of this country are unable to obtain the things they need except by working for those that own them; the Capitalist class. These two types, owners and non-owners, masters and workers, broadly speaking make up modern society. They form two distinct classes, one of whom depends for a living upon working, and the other upon owning what is produced.

You, to whom we address these lines, belong to the working class. Whether you are paid wages or a salary, you depend for your living upon selling your mental and physical energies to an employer. Between you and your employers there exists a constant struggle over the destination of the wealth you produce. By wage-claims, strikes, or threatened strikes, you struggle to obtain as large a share of the wealth you produce as possible. It is a share you think of, you don*t think of obtaining the whole, because you think of and argue about a “high” or a “low" wage. Your thoughts are bound up with the wages system. The employers on their side resist your wage claims and try to pay you as low wages as possible. This struggle over the division of the wealth you produce is an expression of what the Socialist calls the class war. In spite of the so-called full employment it has been carried on unceasingly since the end of the second Great War. All the time wages were chasing rising prices, and the process looks like continuing indefinitely.

As long as you accept the present class ownership basis of society there is no hope of a fundamental improvement in your conditions. Wars, slumps, bad housings and the other evils that are a permanent feature of your lives will continue, no matter what political party is in power. There is only one road to salvation—the establishment of Socialism. When the wealth produced, and the tools by which it has been produced, have been made into the common property of society there will be no more war, nor will anyone lack either food or shelter. Each will give to society of his best and receive in return the best society can give, regardless of age, sex or occupation.

We are members of the working class, and we want you to join us and help us to carry on the struggle for Socialism. Why are we anxious for your aid? We are in the same mess as you are, and we cannot get out of the mess except by the same way as you. We want Socialism because it offers us the only means of leading secure, healthy and comfortable lives; but we cannot get Socialism until you want it. Therefore we want you to want Socialism and to join with us in the struggle to obtain it: then we will all have an equal opportunity of enjoying the best that life can offer.

Gilmac.

"Old Men Forget" (1956)

Cartoon by Robert Barltrop.

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard 

Lord Russell's Misconceptions

For many years Bertrand Russell was what is known as a progressive thinker. He had ideas on sex, education, morals, etc., which startled, even shocked, many of his contemporaries. In the first World War he was a Pacifist and went to prison. In some circles he underwent a period of social ostracism. By 1931 the honeymoon delight of being wedded to progress was not only over but disillusion had set in. In “Living Philosophies” (Simon and Schuster, New York), Russell said " he wrote on the firm foundation of unyielding despair . . . brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark." Such was the mature judgment of this progressive thinker. He has never so far as one can gather categorically renounced this view, although from time to time he has offered variations on the theme.

One such variation appeared in an article in the News Chronicle (26.3.56) called the "Fraud of Marxism." Here we are informed that the safety of the world, is precariously balanced between totalitarian Russia, which he makes synonymous with Communism, and the Western powers. Russell seems to view this as symbolical of the struggle between die powers of light and darkness. A war between these rival groups, via the hydrogen bomb, could lead, he thinks, to something near the virtual destruction of the world. This, of course, might mean the fulfilment of his 1931, prophecy. It is a conclusion which Russell himself does not apparently want to accept. Now there might be ways of avoiding the holocaust. Communism, he says, thrives on poverty and hatred, therefore let us diminish those areas. One way, it seems, is to renounce the relics of white domination in Asia.

Russell ignores the fact that it is Capitalism, whether East or West, which produces and perpetuates poverty and hatred. Just as he ignores the fact that Capitalism is not only the domination of white over coloured people but also domination by White over White, Wherever capital rules it constitutes an instrument of domination over the vast majority of the population. Given the development of Capitalism in Asia it will result in the domination of the vast majority by a handful of people, who live in the same country instead of some other country.

Russell plans to kill Communism by kindness, not that the ex-Pacifist who once believed war to be an evil thing and Capitalism an evil system, is opposed to killing Russians on principle. He is merely opposed to killing them on expediency. With the advent of the H. Bomb it appears we can no longer serve the ends of justice by exterminating “our enemies," without exterminating ourselves. Perhaps Communism and with it the Russian people, could have been eliminated on principle. Russell believes that war against Russia might have once been possible. Such a war could have been atomically waged by the Western powers before Russia possessed atomic weapons. Indeed, there were reports from Adelaide that our 'progressive thinker' had mooted such proposals while he was there.

Nevertheless Russell has, at least, been consistent in his inconsistency. Posing as a sceptic he liked to feel that he asserted nothing; no not even that he asserted nothing. This has not prevented him from dogmatically making up his mind on oft occasions and then just as dogmatically unmaking it. While everyone is privileged to change their views, Russell has tended to abuse that privilege.

Not only has Russell at times flatly contradicted former views he held but be has never offered any evidence for his change of front. In his book, “In Praise of Idleness" (p. 145) he held that "the causes of war were mainly economic.” Again on p. 147, he averred that "the causes of enmity between nations are mainly to be found in the economic interests of certain sections and can only be abolished by a fundamental economic reconstruction." Now it seems the enmity between nations is between the free Democratic West and the Totalitarian East. The stark fact remains that the ideological battle between the Western powers and Russia has its origin in imperial and economic rivalry.

Given a realignment of economic rivalries there would be corresponding shifts in ideological differences. Russian totalitarianism might then be acceptable to some Western Democracies in the future as it has been in the past. Russell, by concealing these differences under idealistic trappings, helps to increase misunderstanding of the real nature of power politics. It is thus a heavy contribution which the one-time Pacifist makes towards increasing the enmity of nations and with it the continuance of the possibility of war.

Russell once believed that "Capitalism was doomed. Its injustices were so glaring that only ignorance and tradition would lead wage earners to tolerate it." ("Theory and Practise of Bolshevism" p. 19). He even believed that "the present holders of power were evil men and that there was no perfidy or brutality from which they would shrink when they feel themselves threatened ” (same book, p. 10). Now this role is assigned exclusively to the rulers of Russia.

He also likes to assert from time to time that he was unique in knowing the real significance of the Russian Revolution. In actual fact he was in many respects confused and muddleheaded. Even in 1920 he still believed the Bolsheviks aimed to establish Socialism in Russia, when in fact, as we pointed out at the time, they were building up State Capitalism. Actually Russell's notions of Capitalism and Socialism have been so foggy that he has never been able to distinguish one from the other.

His only real quarrel with the Bolsheviks was not that they were not Socialists, but that they were using the wrong methods for establishing it. He also thought that “Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind" (“Theory and Practise of Bolshevism” p. 7). Russell, it seems thought Socialism could have come to Russia had it been done the Russell way. And this from someone who has always claimed that he was one of the prescient few who really knew what was taking place.

It is ironic to reflect that Russell then attributed to the Western powers the same evil intent against Russia that he now attributes to Russia against the Western powers (“Theory and Practise of Bolshevism", p. 10).

His criticism of Marx in the same article is the usual mixture of childishness and spite. According to Russell Marx believed in something called dialectical materialism which governs the human history independent of human volition. This says Russell is mythology. He is right, but the myth is one perpetrated by Russell not by Marx. He cannot show where Marx ever held or stated such a view.

He also contends that Marx's doctrine of surplus value was merely surreptiously introducing the malthusian theory of population. This is nonsense. Malthus believed that the meagre resources of the earth would be insufficient for the needs of an ever-increasing population. As a result the vast majority of mankind would always be condemned to exist at the lowest level. Marx utterly repudiated this notion and showed that the evils of Capitalism flowed from the way it produced and distributed wealth. Marx denied that there was some abstract law of population. Different societies he contended would have different laws. Over-population, said Marx, was intimately connected with the growth of capital accumulation and took the form of relative over population i.e. an industrial reserve army.

Neither did Marx, vide Russell, believe in an iron law of wages which maintains wages at a mere physical subsistence level. In fact he devoted much time against Lassalle and others to show the falsity of such views. If Russell had even read a simple pamphlet like “ Value, Price and Profit,” he could have gleaned the information that Marx not only believed that the workers could by Trade Union action raise their standards of living but further the gains from these struggles helped to mould the traditional standards of life for the future. That Capitalism did regulate levels of wages, Marx did not deny; wages could not, he thought, proceed to levels which seriously threatened surplus value, or eliminated it, but this had nothing to do with the Malthusian doctrine of an iron law of wages.

As for historical materialism, which Russell repudiates, Russell has never understood it. He has, like many others, seen it as merely an economic interpretation. This has, nevertheless, not prevented him from largely agreeing with what he has largely misunderstood. Thus in “Freedom and Social Organisation” (p.220), he says “with regard to the economic interpretation of history it seems very largely true and a most important contribution to sociology-.”. He has also informed us that “in the main he agrees with Marx that economic causes are at the bottom of the great movements in history, not only in political movements, but also those departments such as religion, art. morals.”

Russell, who fancies himself as an historian, has not been above surreptiously attempting to apply the theory he now repudiates which turned out to be the crassest economic determinism. Thus his views on American history are formulated in economic terms. According to him the 1929 crisis which occurred in America was the result of the absence of cheap labour and cheap land. The open frontier and slavery are put forward as the crucial factors in America during the 19th century. While not once but many times he has pronounced that Capitalism is doomed and that a new system will emerge because of an unavoidable economic development. Russell may no longer believe in all this, but he is not, as he imagines, repudiating Marx, but himself. Like most of the intellectuals he has been so busy trying to teach others that he has had little time to learn himself.

Russell once wrote in a playful mood his own obituary. It also modestly assessed his own contribution to society. It is sad to reflect that in his declining years he has also provided his own pathetic epitaph.

Ted Wilmott

A Socialist (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard 

A Socialist is a person who desires a new social system. That is to say, Socialism; a world-wide social order equalitarian in character, where the means of living are the common possession of all, and freedom of access to all that society can produce, and where full participation in all that society does is the norm: Of necessity it will be a society where free co-operation and organisation has been taken to its logical conclusion, and where coercion has died a natural death. For obviously in a world where one can help oneself freely to the needs of life there can be no economic domination of man over man, and all organisation must be of the free kind.

As Socialism will be a world-wide affair; it can only be brought about by Socialists throughout the world organising on a world-wide scale. In other words, a Socialist is not only a person who desires Socialism, but also a person who understands Capitalism in a general sense, and sees the need for working in an organised fashion to get rid of it, to replace the system with a Socialist one. What is even more to the point, is that a Socialist is one who not only works in an organised fashion to bring about Socialism, but who expects to work in an organised fashion within Socialist society.

Spivs, and layabouts, whether of the Capitalist variety or otherwise, can have no part in a Socialist society. Too often has the writer heard it said at meetings by a member of the audience; “ I am all for a world where I can help myself freely to whatever is produced, as I would be able to lie around all day.” Apart from the fact that no human being is naturally lazy, if a majority of people wanted Socialism and were in the above category it could not be established. For Socialism being a society where all people's needs will be satisfied; this can only take place if there is a majority of people throughout the world who understand that they must co-operate together to produce enough to satisfy all people’s needs. In other words FREE ACCESS. This state of affairs could not be brought about by a bunch of people who only want to laze around.

To recapitulate, Socialism can only be brought about throughout the world by a majority of people who understand the system under which they live. Understand what it is they are going to put in its place; desire it and are prepared to co-operate in an organised fashion to establish such a system, and work within it, once it is established.

Anyone who agrees with what has been briefly outlined above should contact the nearest branch, for only Socialists who are organised can bring about Socialism.

Jon Keys.

The Passing Show: Success . . . . (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Success . . . .

State Capitalism marches on from triumph to triumph. British European Airways last year turned 1954’s loss of £400,000 into a profit of £862,000 (The Star, 28-2-56). And hard on the heels of this announcement comes the news that the British Overseas Airways Corporation almost doubled its net profit in the financial year 1955-56. It made a gross profit of about £1,750,000 on the year, and a net profit of about £500,000. This compared with last year’s net profit of £260,000 (The Observer, 1-4-56). These successes will no doubt make those staunch Labourites, who for years devoted themselves to bringing about the nationalization of the country's basis industries, feel very proud. Or will they?

. . . .  for the Capitalists

The Socialist Party has consistently pointed out for more than half a century that nationalization is no more than Capitalism run by the State or its nominees. It has nothing to do with Socialism. And the more experience the country has of the actual running of nationalization, the more it becomes obvious that what the Socialist Party has always said about it is true. Now even social anthropologists, quietly pursuing their studies far removed from the hurly-burly of political conflict, arrive at the same conclusion. Norman Dennis, Fernando Henriques and Clifford Slaughter, have written a book embodying the results of their researches into the life of a Yorkshire mining town. “They found that"—to quote a review in The Times (54-56)—“they found that, in the mines, the old fundamental conflict between management and men has continued, and that the system of piece-work payments gives occasions every day for conflict between worker and management.” Of course it does. It is merely one aspect of the class struggle. The review of the book (“Coal is our Life”) goes on:

  "The miner remains an employee, and whether or no he works is still dependent on the capacity of owners of capital to cater for him.”

The Socialist case could hardly be put more clearly than that. The worker is propertyless; therefore he is forced to sell his ability to work to the “owners of capital": and if the owners of capital cannot make a profit out of his work, they will not employ him, and so he is not allowed to work at all. Instead he goes on the dole, and his physical energies and mental faculties rot together. And this is the case whether he works in an industry run by private or by State capitalism.

And yet—probably on the very day you buy this paper—the left-wing political parties hold May-Day demonstrations to demand further doses of nationalization! Will they never learn?

Sales Manager

The barnstorming tour of Mr. Malenkov through Britain has been providing journalists with a lot of copy during the past week or two. Patting children on the head, switching on a wide grin for the photographers, scattering “peace-medals” like confetti at a wedding, he has been arousing the ire of some political commentators who fear he may make Russia too popular. This situation is not without its humour. For the reports of Mr. Malenkov's doings—not forgetting his occasional gaucheries, such as asking an Ayr workman what he thought of Burns—are highly reminiscent of election-time, when the candidates of the big parties go cap in hand to the electors to solicit their votes. And the aforementioned commentators, none of whom complain about the activities of Parliamentary candidates who support the British ruling class, are now hoarsely indignant that Mr. Malenkov may win backing for the Russian ruling class by using the same dubious tactics. But what is sauce for Sir Anthony Eden and Mr. Gaitskell is also sauce for Mr. Malenkov—as well as for Messrs. Bulganin and Khrushchev, when they follow in Malenkov's footsteps; and only those who have criticised the electioneering tactics of the British political leaders have any right to criticise the same tactics now being employed by the Russians.

I see it all now

Mr. Malenkov has come to Britain at a crisis in the fortunes of the world's Communist Parties. The present leaders of the Soviet Communist Party have severely attacked the Stalin legend, and have boldly said about their late master what nearly everyone else has been saying about him for the last 30 years. And the Communist Party of Great Britain has. naturally, followed suit. The poor old British Bolsheviks have had to perform the about turn so often that, in revolutions per minute, they must now be challenging the internal combustion engine. Mr. Pollitt is reported to have fobbed off questions with the remark that, if Stalin hadn’t made any mistakes, he wouldn’t have been human. The accuracy of this remark is unchallengeable; but what a pity Mr. Pollitt didn’t have the guts to say so ten years ago, instead of spending his time kissing the ground in front of the great Stalin myth.

It may be that, for some time at any rate, Russia will be ruled by a committee of men instead of by one man. Developing Russian Capitalism seems to require—like developing English and French Capitalism required—a totalitarian regime at a certain stage; and it appears that the Russian ruling class has now decided that the “leadership” cult has been overdone. But committee-rule would not make Russia any more democratic. The powers of a police state like Russia may be exercised, just as effectively by ten men as by one. It is easy enough, for Communists inside and outside Russia, to criticise a fallen idol; but Russians will not have freedom of speech until they are at liberty to challenge the false theories of social development to which Communists have committed themselves, and to discuss publicly whether the Russian system is Socialism, or whether— as is in fact the case—it is merely State Capitalism.

Seconds out of the ring

So the British Royal Family has declined invitations to attend the forthcoming Royal Wedding of the Year (on my right, Prince Rainier, title-holder of Monaco; on my left, Grace Kelly, star attraction from Philadelphia and Hollywood). Which is curious. One would have thought the few remaining royalties would try to consolidate the ranks. But there may be an explanation. For when the crowds cheered at the Philip-Elizabeth wedding, and subsequently at the Coronation, the commentators rushed forward to tell us why. It was (we were told) Loyalty, the great throbbing Loyalty of the British people to its monarch. But now the same British people is showing just as much interest in the wedding of Rainier and Kelly—the representatives respectively of the Monte Carlo gaming-tables and the Californian arc-lights. Can it be that life within Capitalism is so drab that the British people would enthuse over anything which offered a little glamour, gaiety and colour, and that this much-vaunted Loyalty doesn't come into it?

Exit Ceylon

While we’re on the subject of loyalty, a word about Ceylon. When the Queen undertook the round-the- Empire tour after the Coronation, nowhere was she more enthusiastically received than in Ceylon. Ah! said the experts—loyal Ceylon! But the results of Ceylon’s general election now show a landslide in favour of Mr. Bandaraniake's Party, which promised to make Ceylon a Republic outside the Commonwealth. In other words, the Ceylon ruling class, having freed itself from the control of the British ruling class after the war, is in no mood to retain the trappings of the British monarchy.

And once again the experts are proved wrong.

Chip that Buddha

When a ten-foot high Buddha was being moved by cane into a new temple in Bangkok recently it fell, and the plaster casing was chipped; beneath the casing the Buddha was seen to be made of gold (Sunday Express, 8-4-56). Now, it seems, the Buddhist temples of Siam are full of hurrying priests and laymen carrying hammer and chisel, purposefully bent on seeing whether their own Buddhas conceal the same treasure-trove. Mingled with the prayers of the worshippers comes the sound of the gold-hungry faithful attacking their hitherto inviolate idols. Meanwhile, the original monks are finding that they struck a gusher; offerings to the golden Buddha are pouring in like a pools-entrant’s dream, and already amount to nearly £20,000.

It is easy to sneer at these remarkable events; but surely there is here a message for us all. Beneath the outward show, and doctrinal differences, we can find here a text on which both Christians and Buddhists obviously agree. What text?

To him that hath shall be given,

How revolutionary can you get ?

It was suggested by a delegate at the Co-operative Party conference that no person should inherit more than £20,000 from any source (Sunday Express, 1-4-56). So instead of comparatively few big Capitalists, we should have a greater number of medium-sized Capitalists. What a suggestion with which to arouse the revolutionary fervour of the working class on the approach of May-Day!

Alwyn Edgar

The Matter with Marriage (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Forty-five years ago, only one marriage in 500 ended in divorce in this country. In 1954, 6.7 per cent.—nearly one in 15—went that way. The figure has risen inexorably, and the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, which has just published its report, was set up in 1951 to enquire into the situation "having in mine the need to promote and maintain healthy and happy married life.”

The trend is, in fact, world-wide. Britain’s divorce rate is lower than those of France. Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. Highest of all is the U.S.A.. and the lowest figures, as would be expected, are for countries with large Catholic populations to whom divorce is forbidden: Canada. Belgium and Scotland. In addition, there is a steady smaller number of decrees of nullity and judicial separation. Most divorce petitions are granted: of 28,347, which were filed in Britain in 1954. only 1,094 failed to obtain decrees nisi.

Divorce had no legal existence a century ago. Before and after the Reformation, ecclesiastical courts dealt with matrimonial affairs and granted separations in exceptional cases, but there was no means of dissolving a marriage. In the 18th and early 19th centuries it could be done by Private Act of Parliament; a procedure referred to by the Royal Commission of 1850 as “ open . . . to anyone who was rich enough to pay for it.” The first legislation allowing for the dissolution of marriage was the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1857. It permitted a husband to apply for divorce because of his wife’s adultery; women were given no such facilities until 1923. And—despite another Royal Commission’s recommendations—adultery remained virtually the sole ground for divorce until 1937, when desertion, insanity and cruelty were added.

The principle on which the current divorce law is founded is termed by the Commission “the doctrine of the matrimonial offence”; that is, the viewing of certain acts as being wholly incompatible with the accepted basis of a marriage. The alternative principle, urged by a number of people, is that of “breakdown of marriage,” and any substantial alteration to the divorce law would mean introducing this. The Commission was not in favour of it, and its report is therefore disappointing to would-be reformers; apart from some minor recommendations, it provides simply a survey.

The Commission's explanations of the spread of divorce are familiar ones. They include housing difficulties, the emancipation of women, the loss of moral standards, the complexity of modern life and, most strongly emphasized of all, failure to take the responsibilities of marriage seriously. The remedies, in their view, are educating and encouraging the individual “to do his duty by the community” and increasing the facilities for “marriage guidance.” In the entire Report, which is longer than most books, there is not a word concerning the real place of the family as an economic unit of society, and the real reasons why its disintegration has become a social problem.

The Commission says: 

“The Western world has recognized that it is in the best interests of all concerned —the community, the parties to a marriage and their children—that marriage should be monogamous and that it should last for life. That may be so (though the fact that nearly half a million people in the Western world are obtaining divorces every year suggests that some of the Western world does not recognize it); in any case, it is not saying much. Society never recognized that marriage should be monogamous and life-lasting until it was monogamous. The fundamental, important point is that monogamy is one form of marriage; there have been others, each in accord with a different stage of human development, each with its own moral code showing clearly that it, too, has been “ in the best interests of all concerned.”

The monogamous family as it is ideally conceived belongs really to the Middle Ages, bound by tenure and tradition to its land or occupation. It was economically indissoluble—the reason why, on the surface, it was legally so. As an institution, it was carried op into industrialism. The status of the worker here was different, however: instead of being bound to his land, his village or his craft, he was now a "free” labourer. Thus, the family had remained but without its former economic ties: it had become dissoluble.

In fact, relatively few divorces were obtained by working people in the 19th century. For one thing, they were expensive! for another, the severely localized character of 19th-century industry made masses of workers dependent upon one town and one factory almost as feudal serfs had been on their land. Even until quite recent times, entire families worked in particular mills—“their own”—in the cotton and woollen towns. Men grew up, met their wives and later sent their children to work in the same mill, and when that mill closed down they were unemployed until it was opened again.

The family has disintegrated simply because its economic function has changed; so, consequently, has traditional sexual morality. Morality is the code of behaviour which a society produces to safeguard its institutions, and when the institutions decline, so does the morality. Sexual morality has always aimed at keeping the family intact, and its lack of observance today is effect, not cause. The people to whom it remains vital are those whose status requires the careful maintenance of family life.

It is easy to quote figures and overlook that each one represents a person. Thirty thousand divorces (a year’s yield in England) means 30,000 histories of unhappiness, and that is a horrifying thought. The Royal Commission speaks of “the complexity of modern life” which “multiplies the potential causes of disagreement and the possibilities of friction between husband and wife.” It is not a Commission’s, nor this article’s function to give “human stories”; nevertheless, it is worth reflecting a moment on the things which society can do (that is what “the complexity of modern life” means) to two people who started full of fondness and desperately good intentions.

The individual failings and misfortunes which, in the Commission’s view, cause unsuccessful marriages, are in reality facets of larger problems. The lack of adequate housing, the search for financial security at all costs, the refusal to have children—all are aspects of poverty. Harmony has a hard time in two rooms; equally, it lacks scope in a house with a high rent, instalments to pay, and a host of demands made by a society which “recognizes that marriage should be monogamous and that it should last for life.” The Commission considers that much of the increase in divorce is because “many people can now get a divorce who could not get one before.” That does not really improve the picture: it suggests, in fact, that there are many more unhappy marriages among people who, because of pride, respectability or religious belief (among many more reasons) still can’t get one.

One other aspect of present-day marriage needs to be mentioned: the commercialism which pervades it as everything else in our world. The Royal Commission would have been nearer the point if they had mentioned the sale of canned illusions about marriage instead of complaining that people are too light-hearted about it. The modern young woman has been taught she hasn't a hope without the right perfume and the right foundation; the modern young man knows he must express himself in endearments from the film card-indexes; they both know that they need a contemporary bedroom suite, and they may not have the lolly of Miss Kelly and the Prince but they love each other just as much.

The problems involved are not ones which can be solved by amendments to existing legislation; the important thing is the social condition which leads to 30,000 divorces a year. Once, the monogamous family was a secure, unquestioned institution; changing economic conditions have taken its stability away and commercialized what is left, and the result is a lot of unhappiness for ordinary people who mostly never know what went wrong. The answer to this, as to all the other problems of the present day, is to establish a social basis on. which neither the misery of poverty-stricken or ill-suited marriages nor the purposeless muck-raking of divorce suits can be founded.

The Royal Commission’s function has been to consider what may be done to keep marriage going as an institution of property. Their assumptions about it were, as they say, “implicit in our terms of reference" that is, they did the work they were told to do, and thus are unable to suggest a solution to the problems raised. See marriage as one institution among the property relationships of present-day society, and it becomes a different matter. The obvious and rational solution then is to do away with all those relationships—that is, with the Capitalist system itself—so that human happiness and not gain will be the sole motive of social organization.

What can be said about relations between men and women in such a society is, as Engels says in “The Origin of the Family" (read it), “ limited for the most part to what will disappear.” Not much needs to be said, in any case: only that they will want each other as men and women, and not as housekeepers (which is only too true) or as dream-substitutes (which turns out disappointingly) or as highly-paid employees (which is what some of the better-to-do make of their wives and then are astonished when they behave as such).

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: No Socialism in Russia (1956)

Editorial from the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is very important to the Socialist Party of Great Britain that there should be no confusion about the state of affairs in Russia. The aim of the S.P.G.B. is to see Socialism established everywhere but our propaganda for Socialism is hampered by the belief, held by some people, that Socialism means the kind of social arrangements that existed in Russia under Stalin and exist still. There is no truth in this whatsoever. There is no Socialism (or Communism) in Russia, nor has there ever been.

What Russia has is a regime of dictatorship, administering what can best be described as a largely State Capitalist social system. The State apparatus is controlled by the Communist Party of Russia, the only political party that is allowed to exist in that country. Farcical so-called elections are held, but, as the workers of Russia are not allowed to form political parties of their own choice, only members of the Communist Party and those approved by them are permitted to stand at election and be elected. This is an issue by which to assess the recent talk of changed conditions in Russia. Stalin is dead and some of his actions have been repudiated but it is still the case that no political party is allowed to exist in Russia except the Communist Party. It was over 20 years ago that Stalin had to admit to some visiting Americans that in Russia “only one party, the party of the workers, the Communist Party, enjoys legality." (“Interviews with Foreign Workers’ Delegates". Published in Moscow 1934, p. 13).

The same idea had been pithily put still earlier by Bukharin, who declared that in Russia there is room for any number of political parties, as long as one is in power and the others in prison.

The British Communist Party has just reaffirmed its confidence in the Communist Party of Russia. Let it clearly be understood that this is a renewed declaration of support by the British Communist Party for a regime that suppresses all independent working class political activity. While this condition remains it is idle to pretend that the new rulers of Russia are showing evidence of a changeover from dictatorship to more democratic arrangements.

In asserting that there never has been Socialism in Russia the S.P.G.B. is not making a late discovery. Right from 1917 when the Communists were able to get power in Russia it has been emphasised by the S.P.G.B. that Socialism had not been established in that country. Our declaration on this point and our explanation of the reasons were placed on record in the columns of the Socialist Standard and a selection of the articles was reproduced, unchanged, in the pamphlet “Russia Since 1917" (114 pages, 1/-, post free l/½).

The reader who wishes to know what has been the attitude of the Socialist Party towards events in Russia under the Communist Party dictatorship is referred to that collection of articles. He will see there that the Socialist Party in aim and in method has nothing in common with the Communist Parties of Russia and other countries.

Which are the biggest? (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Do you know the name of the biggest company in Great Britain? Or the names of the first three? Or of the first ten?

On page 78 are listed the names of the top 25 companies, as given in a recent survey. How many of them can you place?

To be quite fair, we must mention that the survey confines itself to public companies, i.e., those with shares quoted on the Stock Exchange, and to companies trading mainly in the United Kingdom. This means, for example, that big companies like Shell and the British American Tobacco Company are excluded.

Love and Marriage (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “Look closely into the homes of those who struggle to keep and educate two children, those whose job depends upon their appearance of affluence. Behind the scenes you will find financial strain, real poverty, self-denial, and at an early age, contraception and all its mental stresses and physical disappointments. It is the spirit of home life and parenthood which suffers. Love itself is starved and often blamed for its own decline. When love goes, anything may go, but worst of all, the most glorious gift of womanhood remains inhibited and immature. The spirit of motherhood is never fully developed; our social system is gradually crushing the most powerful force for real goodness that is known to the human race.”

(From Childhood Without Fear, page 216, by Dr. Grantly Dick Read, M.A., M.D. Heineraann Medical Books.)

Voice From The Back: The realities of war (2011)

The Voice From The Back Column from the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The realities of war

 

War is often depicted in films, books and TV as a heroic endeavour, that brings out the best in human beings. We are taught to believe that war produces heroic bravery and sacrifice, but the realities of war are far from noble. When President Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan the cost of that conflict – $2 billion (£1.2 billion) a week must have figured large in his decision. “Much less discussed are the invisible costs such as the psychological strain on soldiers who have served repeatedly in Iraq and Afghanistan. One in five returning troops is diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Suicides in the US military are at unprecedented level – an average of five troops attempt suicide every day, says the PTSD Foundation of America, based in Houston. Last year a record 301 soldiers committed suicide” (Sunday Times, 3 July). War is not heroic it is just another tragedy of capitalism. 

 

War propaganda 

 

One of the illusions that capitalist governments like to foster is the notion that although war may be awful and inhumane at least their side always behave impeccably. A recently published book Scorched Earth, Black Snow: Britain and Australia in the Korean War, 1950 by Andrew Salmon seems to explode that myth. “British and Commonwealth soldiers fighting in the Korean War looted and burnt villages, shot dead wounded enemy soldiers, and killed Korean civilians and prisoners of war in cold blood according to new accounts by veterans of the conflict” (Times, 17 June). The war which took place from June 1950 until July 1953 was a particularly bloody affair. It is estimated that 1,078 British, 40,000 American, 46,000 South Koreans, 215,000 North Koreans and 400,000 Chinese were killed. The idea that capitalism’s conflicts can be carried out in a humane, decent fashion is of course a fallacy. 

 

The wasteful society 

 

One of the illusions beloved of supporters of capitalism is that while it may have problems it is the most efficient way to run society. So what do those lovers of capitalism make of the following news item? The Indian government fearing a potential shortage of grain banned its export in 2007 and this combined with a bumper crop this year has left them with a bizarre problem. “Millions of tons of grain – enough to feed more than 100 million for a year – are at risk of rotting because India’s stockpile is too big to be held in government warehouses. …Prakash Michael, who works for Spandan, a non-governmental organisation in Madhya Pradesh, said: ‘On the one hand, they have grain rotting in stockpiles and, on the other, people are still dying of starvation in India’” (Times, 30 June). That is capitalism’s efficiency in action for you.

 

Some chilling facts

 

Politicians are fond of painting a picture of social improvement. They love to tell us how lucky we are to live in a modern progressive Britain. The latest figures about the plight of the old and poor show what a piece of fiction this will prove to be this winter. “One in five households in fuel poverty as energy prices soar. 5.5m homes spend over 10% of income on fuel, and bills will rise further to fund new power networks. Figures show a huge rise in UK households in fuel poverty, even before expected rises in the price of gas and electricity, and charities predicted that this winter would see millions more people struggling to keep warm at home. The Department of Energy and Climate Change statistics show 700,000 more UK families fell into fuel poverty in 2009, bringing the total to 5.5 million – one in five of all households” (Guardian, 15 July).  

 

Same page, different worlds

 

That we live in an ugly class-divided society was well summed up on one page of a recent issue of the Times. There on page 41 was an advert for Medicins Sans Frontieres begging for funds to deal with the awful threat of millions dying on the frontiers of Somalia and Kenya of malnutrition and lack of clean water. On the same page we could read of the lavish preparations for the 40th birthday party of Nat Rothschild that is taking place in Porto Negro and is expected to cost £1 million pounds. “Set to inherit £500 million, Mr Rothschild has already notched up a fortune of $1 billion (£620 million) on his own account” (Times, 9 July).

Letter: An Anarchist Replies (2011)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have received the following criticism from Iain McKay, the editor of the collection of articles by Proudhon that we reviewed last month. Our reply follows.

I was under the impression that a reviewer should actually read the book that they claim to be reviewing. Apparently ALB (Socialist Standard, July 2011) does not think so – how else to explain his demonstrably wrong comments on my Proudhon anthology Property is Theft!? 

 

You proclaim that Proudhon’s argument in What is Property? “wasn’t as radical as it might seem since what he was criticising was the private ownership of land”. True, it states the land is a “common thing, consequently unsusceptible of appropriation” but it also proclaims that “all accumulated capital” is “social property” and so “no one can be its exclusive proprietor” and that “all property becomes…collective and undivided” (Property is Theft!, 118, 105, 137). Positions he subsequently repeated: “under universal association, ownership of the land and of the instruments of labour is social ownership” (377). 

 

Your use of “currency crank” shows that you simply do not understand Proudhon’s ideas, likewise when Proudhon is proclaimed “a free marketeer, bitterly opposed to ‘communism’ in the same terms and language as other free marketeers”. Strangely, I’ve yet to find a “free marketeer” who would acknowledge your admission of Proudhon’s “insight that under the wages system the producers were exploited” or argue for “the abolition of property” (254) as well as a federation of workers associations to end capitalist exploitation (712) and for “disciplining the market” (743). Still, you proclaim in your best ex cathedra tones that market socialism “is the economic equivalent of a square circle” which is something they would agree with…

 

The “communism” Proudhon was attacking was that of the Utopian Socialists and Louis Blanc – highly regulated, centralised systems in which liberty was not the prime aim. I was under the impression Marxists shared Proudhon’s opposition to that kind of “communism”. Anarchists who, like myself, are libertarian communists need not “plough through his rambling writings” to discover that Proudhon “was a life-long and bitter opponent of ‘communism’” as I discuss this in my introduction and explain why subsequent anarchists rejected his position. I also discuss that “he was a gradualist” and why later anarchists rejected this. 

 

Similarly, you completely ignore Proudhon’s critique of statist democracy in favour of proclaiming he “was opposed to government, even a democratically-constituted one, making rules about the production and distribution of wealth”. As Property is Theft! shows, his actual position was that a democracy reduced to electing a few representatives in a centralised system would not be a genuine one. Instead, he advocated a decentralised federal self-managed system – precisely what the Paris Commune introduced and Marx praised in 1871. But the Paris Commune, like so much, does not warrant a mention by you.

 

Was Proudhon “on the wrong track”? Partly, as my introduction suggests. But did I suggest he was completely right? No: “While we should not slavishly copy Proudhon’s ideas, we can take what is useful and…develop them further in order to inspire social change in the 21st century” (51). Marx did precisely that in terms of economic analysis and the Paris Commune.

 

Needless to say, Marx’s followers seem keen to deny that. Hence your statement that I am “on to a loser here” as Proudhon cannot be “compared with Marx” particularly as “most anarchists accept Marx’s analysis of capitalism”. Yet as I proved much of what passes as “Marxist” economic analysis was first expounded by Proudhon. Still, I can understand why you fail to mention that awkward fact…

 

You may proclaim Proudhon “an anti-socialist” but that will only convince those who think communism equals socialism. For those interested in the evolution of socialist ideas in the 19th century, Proudhon cannot be ignored nor dismissed given his contributions to both anarchism and Marxism. That is why Marx spent so much time attacking him, often dishonestly, while appropriating his ideas. 

 

So I do find it appropriate that you uncritically mention Marx’s The Poverty of Philosophy given that your “review” follows it in distorting Proudhon’s ideas (as I show). It is sad to see Socialist Standard continuing that shameful legacy. Suffice to say, you can disagree with Proudhon’s ideas (as I do for some of them), but at least do so accurately. I had expected better.

Iain McKay 

www.property-is-theft.org

 

Reply:

Proudhon’s arguments against property are mainly against property in land but he does also mention, as you point out, “accumulated capital” as not being entitled to a property income as it’s the product of labour. But he no more objects to private “possession” of capital (i.e. the right to use it but without the right to a property income from it) than he does to the private possession and use of land. He later developed this into his key theory that interest as well as rent should be abolished. In fact his book could well have been entitled “Property Income is Theft”.

 

We imagine that his view that rent, interest and profit derive from the unpaid labour of the producers is one of those you claim Marx copied from him. But Marx never made any claim to have originated this view himself. In fact in The Poverty of Philosophy he says that Proudhon didn’t either but that it was first put forward by English writers in the 1820s and 1830s such as Thomas Hodgskin, William Thompson and John Bray.

 

We are surprised that you object to Proudhon being described as a “free marketeer” since he clearly stated that, once his interest-free credit scheme had been implemented, there should be no government interference in the workings of the economy. This is openly admitted by present-day “Mutualists” (as he called his scheme). See http://mutualist.blogspot.com/ which proclaims that it stands for “free market anti-capitalism”.

 

As to his views on communism, we’ll let him speak for himself:

 “Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is the exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the … In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence. This damaging equation is repellent to the conscience, and causes merit to complain … [C]ommunism violates…equality…by placing labour and laziness, skill and stupidity, even vice and virtue on an equality in point of comfort” (McKay’s book, p. 132).

“Communism shunned, that is the real meaning of the 1848 election. We no more want community of labour than we do community of women or community of children!” (p. 317).

“The proprietor, by interest on capital, demands more than equality; communism, by the formula, to each according to his needs, allows less than equality: always inequality; and that is why we are neither a communist nor a proprietor” (p. 491).

“From each according to his capacity, To each according to his needs. Equality demands this, according to Louis Blanc […] Who then shall determine the capacity? Who shall be the judge of the needs? You say that my capacity is 100: I maintain it is only 90. You add that my needs are 90: I affirm that they are 100. There is a difference between us of twenty upon needs and capacity. It is, in other words, the well-known debate between demand and supply” (p 557).

This is not just a criticism of the utopian communist schemes of his day but of the very principle of communism and “from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs”. – Editors

Material World: Do They Know It’s Capitalism? (2011)

The Material World column from the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Everybody knows that, despite the best efforts of scientists, nobody can predict the next natural disaster with any confidence. That’s one reason why planners and decision-makers don’t take better precautions, a fact which gives critics good reason after the event to mount their telescopic hindsights and take aim. Given the same science, socialism would obviously be no better at prediction. The question is whether it would be more careful in taking precautions.

The United Nations currently tries to take a formal Health & Safety approach to the subject, with risk assessments, control measures and all the other tedious but important policies workers know from the workplace (UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction at http://www.unisdr.org/who-we-are/what-is-drr). But, as workers will know from their own workplaces, the devil is in the enforcement. In a private property society one simply does not have the option of moving a population from a high-risk area to an adjacent low-risk one. Nor is the UN able to force national governments to comply where spending money is involved, despite the financial costs of ignoring the problems. According to the UNISDR, the year 2011 was already, by July, the highest ever loss-year on record, largely thanks to the Sendai earthquake, but the general trend is worsening: ‘the risk of economic loss is now rising faster than wealth creation’. According to an Oxfam report last year, 250 million people a year are affected by natural disasters of which around 98 percent are weather-related. And they are getting worse. The rate of weather disasters in poor countries has tripled since 1980, one suspected cause being climate change (http://www.350resources.org.uk/ 2011/05/23/).

But how ‘natural’ are these natural disasters? The report’s author is scathing on the matter: 

‘There is nothing natural about poor people being on climate’s front line. Poverty, poor governance, patchy investment in the preparation and prevention of disasters all stack the odds against the most vulnerable. The future is going to be very bleak for millions of poor people without a shake-up of the ways we prepare and respond to disasters, and without real progress on reducing poverty and addressing climate change.’

In its obsessive attention to individual bank balances, capitalism cannot even respond properly when a ‘natural’ disaster threatens not thousands but millions, when the imminence is well established, and when the cause is known and the solutions are straightforward.

People older than 40 will clearly remember the Ethiopia famine of 1984-5, the iconic, tragic pictures, the gut-wrenched reports from seasoned reporters fighting down tears, the gradual, dawning realisation by the whole world of a disaster of biblical proportions, the Live Aid concerts, Feed the World and Do They Know It’s Christmas? The UN estimated that eight million people were affected in that famine and that one million died. It seems almost beyond comprehension that, in spite of the songs and the sentiments and the coins in the tin, the world could allow the same thing to happen to the children and grandchildren of those survivors.

At the time of writing the developing crisis in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan and Djibouti is not on any front pages yet already is being described as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. With up to twelve million people affected it threatens to dwarf the 1984-5 famine. Nature, in one of its typically mercurial moods, decided to prolong its dry La Niña cycle so that the rains have failed for the last three successive rainy seasons, making it the worst regional drought in 60 years. As famine takes hold, local food prices have rocketed, exacerbating the problem. Regional fighting in Eritrea and Somalia has complicated matters further, while the Ethiopian government response has been poor and Somalia’s government response has of course been non-existent.

Yet the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has been predicting this crisis for months: ‘The FAO repeatedly issued warnings about the effects of La Niña, but few contingency plans were put in place. That is why there is a shortfall of about 40 percent in the money needed to tackle the crisis’ (New Scientist, 9 July).

It surely can’t only be socialists who understand that the main reason for this disaster-in-the-making is that the people concerned are black, they’ve got no money, they’ve got nothing anybody wants, and that’s why they’re going to die. It can’t have escaped notice that disasters which strike poor people are always more disastrous than those that strike the better-off. Any lingering doubts on this question should have been dispelled by the events of the recent Haiti earthquake.

Haiti was of course hit by a natural disaster nobody could foresee, followed by cholera unfortunately brought in, it seems, by a UN contingent sent there to help. But Haiti, the poorest country on Earth, is nevertheless on America’s doorstep, under the eyes of the world’s press, and images of spectacular urban destruction helped motivate the world to action. It is also a small country, easy to cover from the air, with a road system. The Horn of Africa is remote, huge and inaccessible, and besides there is nothing spectacular or newsworthy about hunger. It hides behind the news like perpetual background noise, audible but not quite loud enough to make it onto our busy agendas.

Until it surges into the limelight on those rare occasions when ‘perfect famine’ conditions combine to force it into the headlines. And then everybody blames the victims for overbreeding because they can’t be bothered to find out the real reasons, and bungs a tenner to Oxfam because they can’t be bothered to find out the real solutions. And they won’t blame the social system, because like the weather it’s just a fact of life, it’s always there and it can’t be changed.

But humans have already managed accidentally to change the global weather system. The urgent task for socialists is to make humans realise they can deliberately change the economic system too. Such a realisation will be too late for the people starving right now in East Africa. But it would make sure that nobody ever starves again, anywhere. Nature is not our worst enemy, capitalism is. Feed the world? First, free the world.

Paddy Shannon

The Not So Different World of Harry Potter (2011)

From the August 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

The last Harry Potter film based on the books by JK Rowling was premiered last month.

In many ways the world described in the Harry Potter books is vastly different from ours. A world of magic, wizards and witches, flying household objects, time travel. Yet despite all this we also find many similarities, especially in regards to their economic system. They, like us, have a money/wages based society.

 

It is not clear why wizards/witches would need a monetary economy given the fact that there is no scarcity, as they possess the powers to create almost anything with the wave of a wand. One could reply to this point with a question of one’s own of course: given the fact that we Muggles have the technology to produce what we need and more ourselves, why do we continue to rely on a system of (mostly artificial) scarcity?

 

One of the main differences is that while all witches and wizards own their own wands (and therefore in a sense their own means of production), in Muggle society the means of production are owned by a minority of the population, leaving the majority forced to sell their labour-power, in exchange for a wage or a salary, to this minority. It follows then that in order to utilise the non-magical technology available to us we first have to reclaim it from the minority who possess it. 

 

Given the fact that wizards and witches have the ability to sustain themselves already available to them, why do they, like so many characters in the books continue to work for a wage or a salary? If it’s simply out of a love for the job or because of a recognition that the work they do is needed for their own and the common good, then why not get rid of the financial incentive all together and allow them to work on a voluntary basis? Yet we don’t see this, all we see is numerous examples of witches and wizards forced to go without the things they need. 

 

An example would be the Weasley family. On numerous occasions in the books we find this family unable to afford the most basic of items. There is, for example, the moment on the Hogwarts express when Ron Weasley is unable to buy food (beginning of the first book I believe) and is forced into the degrading rigmarole of Harry insisting upon buying it for him. 

 

What about the time he is unable to buy a replacement wand and therefore loses a duel to the financially superior Lucian Malfoy? Indeed an impartial observer using only the Weasleys as a case study could assume that poverty and lack of basic necessities was a problem affecting all in the wizarding world. However, further examination shows this not to be the case. As mentioned previously, we have the Malfoys; a very rich family who have more than they could ever want or need.

 

Incidentally why do the Weasleys seem constantly ashamed of their poverty? Their father (Arthur Weasley) is a highly industrious man and their mother (Mollie) has singlehandedly raised seven children, surely if there is to be any shame in their situation it is to be shouldered by wizarding society as a whole?

 

It is not made clear in exactly how the Malfoys are so incredibly wealthy. The vast majority of people in Muggle society who can boast such wealth have only achieved it through extracting the surplus value from the labour of those they employ, did the Malfoys exploit their wealth through similar means, or are they simply a relic of feudalism like today’s aristocracy? 

 

It is true that in one of the books Hermione started a campaign to free house elves from chattel slavery, but there doesn’t seem to have been a movement to abolish wage-slavery.

 

There is also the issue of religion. It cannot go unnoticed that in the magical world of Harry Potter they celebrate Christmas. Yet given the fact that so many witches and wizards were tortured and killed in the name of Christianity (those that couldn’t employ the fire-resisting charm at least) why would they want to celebrate the birth of its founder? One can only assume that our fellow Muggles who go about expounding the supposed word of Christ have made a serious mistake; in actual fact Jesus Christ was not the Son of God but a highly advanced wizard, capable of charms that allowed him to walk on water, cure lepers, and revitalise the dead! “No spell can bring back the dead Harry, I trust you know that,” says Dumbledore in The Goblet of Fire; “Unless you’re Jesus!” should have been Harry’s reply.

Johnny Mercer