The Socialist Standard welcomes letters for publication, putting questions about the Socialist case or commenting on articles.
What will it be like ?
Bred in close capitalist captivity and held there for 45 years, intermittently chafing in my confinement, a curiosity as to other possible ways of being sometimes stirs within me. So I look at the Socialist Standard. I’m impressed, but I don’t quite understand. In fact, I feel lost.
If I tell you my present circumstances, perhaps you will be good enough to tell me how I might fare under SPGB Socialism, so I can assess my chances of survival. As things are, I drive my two older children to comprehensive school on the way to the office, where I attend from 9 to 5. After driving home, I “guard" all three children till I collect my wife from her job at 8.30. Then, we all have toast and tea, chat, look at the newspaper and “box", and go to bed.
Tonight, say, capitalism miraculously ends and Socialism comes to stay. Please outline how the British family Bula will now spend its future—especially me, as I’m meant to be “running the show” (as things are at present), and I’ve taken the trouble to write this letter. Kindly give some detail, as I keep getting a suspicion I’d be comparable to many South Vietnamese today— still just growing rice, but under different management.
Incidentally, your rejection of “religious thought as an obstacle to understanding” (June SS) seems complacent and sweeping. What kind of religious thought? And understanding of what? The frontier with the not-understood has been so vastly extended since Marx’s time that we’ve hardly an inkling of things we now definitely don’t know.
Alan Bula
Guildford
Reply
What must be grasped about Socialism is that it means not a “different management” but a totally different kind of society; classless, moneyless, giving free access to everything produced and freedom of choice by people as to how they want to live. It will not happen "miraculously” but by the action of the majority of people understanding and wanting it.
The captivity you describe is the situation of the working class. Why do you and your wife work all day every day? Not for pleasure or the common good, but to get wages because that is the condition of living for the great majority. Why not vary hours so that you can all do other things? ’Tisn’t allowed. What are you doing anyway? Possibly adding up capitalists’ figures, or some other occupation which would have no place in a sane society.
On the establishment of Socialism a very large number of jobs would cease to exist at once. Everything connected with money—banking, insurance, accountancy, ticket-collecting, salesmanship, wage-clerking, standing behind shop counters and countless other things. Working hours generally would fall dramatically. We say "fall”, not "be reduced”. You have to visualize being able to make your own choice, either individually or in agreement with the people working with you: no need for all of us to be here, or I think I’ll go fishing. Marx envisaged people changing their occupations all the time. On the other hand, many people long to have an occupation in which they could absorb themselves.
Nobody would be stuck in one place any more than in one job. Why not move when you want or need to? But there is also the question of what you do when not working. Money circumscribes it at present. Without that painful restriction, and able to make your own time anyway, it is possible to live. We are not necessarily invoking things like round-the-world cruises; the satisfactions now denied to lots of people can be creative pursuits, or spending time with the children, or a good read without being too tired to concentrate. Obviously the productive work of society has got to be done, but production will be arranged round people’s needs (instead of the opposite, as at present). Possibly some will want a simple life of plain living and high thinking; that is for them to decide in Socialism.
On your question about religion and understanding, see the reply to G. J. Rajakarier. Why not get in touch with the group of SPGB members in your area? They will be pleased to go into these matters fully with you.
Editors.
Being sure
I think you say that Socialism is scientific, and I appreciate an argument which is presented factually and as a result of convincing research. Your arguments on, say. population and food and raw material resources are compelling but clash with other arguments presented by reputable scientists. On what solid fact or research do you come to your conclusions, and where are your references for checking? It is true that a lot can be deduced from common sense and first principles, but on questions such as “how much fossil fuel is left?” only scientific facts will do. I know that an organization of your size and limited financial resources and research facilities can’t hope to tackle this problem, but references to second-hand figures from other journals leave at least one of your readers wondering: how do they really know?
I think your arguments are at their best when they are couched in cool and temperate language. While agreeing with many of your criticisms, are all monarchs and their hangers-on, politicians and capitalists etc. wicked, malicious, deceitful villains? Or is it not possible that the Queen, say, is an honest, straightforward, well-meaning anachronism and in that sense as, much a victim of the system as you or I? Do you really think that every single member (or leader) of, say, the Labour Party is a cynical careerist or is it possible that most are genuinely misguided sincere men who believe by reformism that they are doing good work? Again, the capitalists themselves: what are they to do in the present system—should one sell all his goods and leave his family as destitute as the rest of the working class just for the sake of it? Such a person may, through his environment, education and upbringing, be a victim of the system. Are there not wicked workers? I’m saying you are right, but can the working class be won over only if there are “baddies and goodies”? Or should we be looking at the system and its effects, treating human nature as an “effect” of the system?
Please reflect on this and see whether there isn’t a bit of truth in it. And it wouldn’t be a bad idea for one or two of you to be bloody wrong for once, because as well as being a bit peevish I think you are a bit smug as well. Try to take a joke.
J.
Greater Manchester (name and address supplied)
Reply
We say that the two condtions for establishing Socialism are (a) when social production can produce a sufficiency of goods and (b) when the majority of the working class understand Socialism and are convinced of the necessity for it. We claim that the first of these conditions exists. Our support for this comes from all sorts of sources. A major one is United Nations statistics (e.g. the Study of the Problem of Raw Materials and Development, UN Gen. Assembly A 9544); and it is unlikely that they are biased in our favour. Others include scientific journals such as the Scientific American and The Ecologist, to which reputable scientists contribute.
It would be easier for us to reply properly if you had been a little more specific: which scientists disagree with us over what? One report which superficially contradicts one of our claims is the MIT Limits to Growth study, 1972, which argues that of the 19 mineral and energy resources vital to industrial society, 10 had such low known reserves that at current consumption rates they would run out in forty years. But this makes assumptions such as (1) that population is increasing exponentially, (2) that current consumption rates will continue, and (3) that it is not possible to develop alternative energy sources. In fact it is no longer true that population is increasing at the 1972 rate.
Maybe there are “wicked, malicious, deceitful villains” around; we don’t allege that the Queen is among them, and we certainly don’t blame individuals for the positions they occupy in society. Capitalism and its effects would still be here if every capitalist and every politician were scrupulously honest. No capitalist is responsible for the present order of things; capitalism was brought about not by individual decision but by the pressures of class interests leading to a change in the mode of production.
We don’t tell capitalists to act the part of philanthropists, but we advise any individual to start propagating Socialism. And we don’t think it is human nature to cheat, be competitive etc.; this is only socially-conditioned human behaviour. If you do know any capitalist who wants to give some away, the SPGB is short of money at the moment. (Most of us do have a sense of humour.)
Editors.
Catching votes
In answering my criticism that the SPGB fails to get across the socialist alternative two reasons were given: lack of funds and the BBC’s refusal to allow the SPGB onto the Open Door programme.
It is deplorable that, through the BBC and its commercial pals, the Government continues to monopolize the broadcasting media in this country and I would say that the BBC’s grounds for turning down the SPGB is highly questionable and ought to be looked into.
But, these problems aside, there is clearly something wrong with the SPGB’s approach to the public. In the May GLC elections the three SPGB candidates managed to net 0.59 per cent of the total number of votes cast in the constituencies of Marylebone, Lambeth and Camden.
This doesn’t leave much evidence of non-party support. So either the Party is failing to make its platform attractive enough to the electorate or the latter cannot, or will not, understand it. Now if the political coherency of the average tabloid daily, popular among the British working classes, is anything to go by the political awareness of our electorate is . . . undeveloped.
So, as straightforward as your present image is (a rare thing in politics) it’s not catching votes. Perhaps the socialist programme is too overwhelming for the average person who has inherited centuries of conscious grovelling to capitalist leadership and wage-slavery. As much as this is inexcusable the SPGB is not going to change it as long as it remain aloof in the higher reaches of Marxist weltanschauung. Start by looking at the wording in your Declaration of Principles: precise it may be but the language resounds with nineteenth century tub-thumping.
Of course you will remind me of the inherent antagonism in the class struggle and the need to attack all the aspects of the capitalist habit. But if the SPGB wants to achieve political legitimacy it’s going to have to adopt fresh ways of approaching us simpletons who haven’t managed to get through every volume of Capital. I hope for everyone’s sake it does.
Jon Lieberman
Oxford
Reply
We invited you to expand on how the SPGB could, vide your previous letter, “exploit the media and all the other available channels”, and we find your response extremely lame. You say the BBC’s turning us down “ought to be looked into”. By whom? There have been various committees of enquiry into broadcasting; the SPGB has submitted evidence to all of them, and they have often stated that minorities such as ourselves should have opportunities to speak. The BBC has gone on rejecting us. What do you suggest?
You now abandon the other projects you proposed, and draw attention to our poll in the GLC elections as proof that “there is clearly something wrong with the SPGB’s approach”. However, in your first letter you said it was “a fact” that Trotskyists and other left-wing groups “had greater sway” and “leave the SPGB behind”. An article elsewhere in this issue gives election figures for all these groups. In the 1974 General Election they averaged an estimated .065 of the votes cast, and in the GLC elections they did not do conspicuously better than we. Would you now modify your previous opinion?
We hardly need telling that the political awareness of the majority of the electorate is “undeveloped”. Whether or not our language is “aloof” is a matter of opinion; the Socialist Standard frequently receives letters from readers who find it direct and comprehensible compared with other political journals. But whatever language is used, we still have to get it into the hands of working people. If you know “fresh ways” of doing this, or otherwise promoting the Socialist case, we should be more than interested to hear about them. Hope isn’t enough; as we asked previously, what are you doing to help get Socialism?
Editors.
Ever-interesting topics
I read with interest your publication this month, and I find that you seem to contradict yourself or the aspect of religion. One of the main themes of your publication is that one should not equate Socialism with the Labour Movement. I ask, then, why is it not possible not to equate Christianity with the Church of today?
Secondly, in reply to N. Fox’s letter in this month’s edition, you state that many people are deserting their religious beliefs “which palpably stand against their material well-being”, and yet in the preceding paragraph you condemn religious institutions “for their role in upholding property and exploitation”. Isn’t there a contradiction in terms here?
Finally, I wish to point out that ever since Adam, man has been interested in three things: politics, religion and sex. Whatever your efforts, you are not going to change that. Far from religion being “an obstacle to understanding” for man, it is the explanation of his being.
G. J. Rajakarier
Sheffield
Reply
To re-state your first point as we understand it, you are saying that Christianity need not be identified with the established churches, and you attempt an analogy with Socialism for Christianity and the Labour Party as the Church. It does not answer our case that Socialism is both valid and desirable, and Christianity (in or out of churches) is neither. We see religious beliefs as an obstacle to understanding that man makes his own history out of material conditions.
An example of people abandoning religious beliefs which conflict with their interests is the Catholic Church’s teaching on birth control. It is founded on the doctrine that the soul is infused by God at the moment of conception : therefore, birth control thwarts the divine intention. Despite that awesome thought, fewer and fewer Catholics adhere to this teaching and the numbers of the Catholic Church are falling. Why? Because, for the working class today, outsize families mean an unacceptable degree of poverty and discomfort.
You apparently have in mind that the capitalist class, who obtain their well-being from property and exploitation, would approve of religion’s upholding rôle. As individuals a good many of them do, of course. But for the capitalist system as a whole, materialism is the necessary basis for scientific and technical development to keep large-scale production profitable in the modern world.
Your final paragraph is mistaken, even overlooking “ever since Adam ’. Politics means participation in the powers of government, and until recently in history it concerned small sections of society. Only since the appearance of capitalism have increasing numbers of the population been widely interested in politics, being required to approve rulers of their nation-states—“dragged into the political arena”, as Marx and Engels put it. The forms taken by man’s interest in sex are closely bound up with changes in society; it has become a subject by itself to the extent that it has become separated from reproduction. As for religion being "the explanation for man’s being”, what religion we are talking about? Voodooism, sun-worship, the Aztec blood-sacrifice?
Editors.
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