News in Review: Top Men (1960)

The News in Review column from the September 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Top Men

The rearrangement of Mr. Macmillan's government caused quite a storm. The appointment of a member of the House of Lords as Foreign Secretary was responsible for a lot of the criticism and several newspapers had hard things to say on some of the other changes. In America, Senator Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for the Presidential election in November, despite the fact that he is a Roman Catholic—and Catholics for a long time have been considered a poor political risk in the States. His opposite, Vice-President Nixon, also caused a stir by refusing to pander to some of the regional prejudices of the Republican Party and selecting a New Englander, Mr. Cabot Lodge, as his running mate.

Are changes at the top all that important? Certainly, at election and other times each party reviles the opponents as incompetent and unworthy whilst offering itself as benevolent and efficient. But whatever influence on events the political leaders may have, what really counts is the fact that society as a whole supports the continuance of capitalism. That, in the end, determines the policies and actions of the world's leaders. And capitalism is vicious and anarchic, whichever party is in power and whoever happens to be at the top in the parties at any particular time.

Seamen on strike

The Merchant Shipping Act of 1894, we are told, is not an anti trade union Act but just one of those pieces of legislation which are necessary because they keep the vital wheels of society turning. The fact is that on August 11th eight seamen were sentenced to one month's imprisonment because, by striking work aboard the S.S. Castilian, they had contravened one of the Act's sections by disobeying a lawful order.

There are many Acts which, under the pretence of safeguarding the community's welfare, hedge round trade unionist activity with severe restrictions. One of these is the Electricity (Supply) Act of 1919, which may be used if the power station workers come out.

One simple method of safeguarding the community's welfare, keeping the ships sailing and making everybody happy, is to grant the seamen's wage demands. As a result of the recent agreement signed by the National Union of Seamen, a steward or seaman would earn a basic wage of about £40 a month with all found. To get this up to a reasonable level, he must work a lot of overtime. When he is ashore, of course, he is much worse off.

There can be nothing but commendation for any efforts to improve the seamen's working conditions. Time was when sailors were brutal and illiterate men. Capitalism has turned them into the regimented technicians which they are today.

They are like factory workers afloat. And like any landlubber, they are forced to fight to keep their heads a respectable distance above the economic waves.

Who's crazy now?

The man who claimed at Trenton, New Jersey, U.S.A., that he had built his own Atomic bomb in the basement of his house, and that it was timed to explode in 15 hours was immediately rushed away to hospital under observation. It seems that the authorities suspected him of being mentally ill. Yet scientists, who laboured for years to produce this same bomb, and even worse horrors, in the shape of hydrogen bombs, nuclear rockets, etc., are not thought to be mentally sick—oh no—they are lauded as having made a real contribution to the knowledge of society and the “defence of peace.”

Upset Swedes

President Eisenhower upset a lot of Swedes when, in his speech to the Republican Convention, he drew attention to the high suicide rate in Sweden and held this up as a warning against supporting what he called Socialism. It was rather unwise of the President to be so selective in his evidence to support his argument. Doubtless, some other comparisons would indicate that life in Sweden is preferable to that in, say, the United States. Presumably, Eisenhower was trying to frighten the American voters off the Democratic Party by associating them with Socialism. This is just as nonsensical as his assertion that Sweden is a Socialist country.

In fact, as the Dagens Nyheter—a Swedish Liberal paper—pointed out, Sweden's suicide rate, in a world where suicide is common, is unremarkable. It is now lower than during the five years preceding World War I and less than in Japan, Austria and many other countries. If the reasons for the majority of suicides in Sweden are the same as elsewhere, then the high Swedish rate is a symptom of the capitalist set-up in that country. For most of those who put an end to their lives do so when the strain of living under capitalism becomes too much for them. Sweden, like the rest, has the desperate problems which go with a brutal social system. Perhaps the next time an American President decides to attack Socialism, he will first take the precaution of finding out what it is?

Farthings

With the beginning of 1961, the farthing will no longer be legal tender in this country. Not so long ago, this little coin could buy a pocketful of sweets. Sometimes it came as change from the artful shopkeeper whose price of, say, two and elevenpence three farthings was meant to sound much less than three shillings. Now, to use the jargon, the farthing is to be demonetised.

Many older people sigh for the days when the farthing had some use. When, for that matter, the penny and the pound were worth that much more. But there is another side to the picture. According to the Ministry of Labour indices, average weekly wage rates in 1938 were one-third of those today, whilst prices have nearly trebled.

Put in another way, the amount of real wealth which a worker’s wage commands in this country has altered very little over the past twenty years. Certainly not enough to justify the laments of the old-timers or the joy of the alright Jacks.

The fact is that a worker’s wage is generally just about large enough to buy the things he needs to reproduce himself. That situation is not altered by the revaluation of currencies, upwards or downwards. In fifty years’ time a British government may decide to demonetise the shilling or some other currency unit. And when they have done it the poverty of the working class will be as acute as before.

Salad Days

Tomato growers in certain areas of France, where the cost of living has risen, have threatened to allow their crops to rot unless they can obtain better prices for them. They will not be encouraged by the prices quoted in the Paris newspaper France Soir today.

This snippet, from The Guardian of 9th August, is another morsel of proof—if any more is needed—of the motive for production in capitalist society. Here is an example of food being grown, not to satisfy hunger or desire, but to realise a profit for the owners of the means of its production. We can offer more encouragement than France Soir. A sensible society would grow tomatoes for people to eat and would only allow them to waste when the world’s needs had been generally satisfied.