Six Years' Hard Labour (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Britain has now been ruled continuously by a Labour Government for the past six years. In June, 1945, with high hopes and great expectations, the working class of this country voted the British Labour Party into power. A smaller number of workers repeated the action in 1950. The smallness of the Labour Party’s majority at the 1950 election has caused most people to anticipate a further general election almost any day since the result of the last one was known. It is a suitable time to take a brief look back over those past six years.

It is not our intention to delve into details of the various enactments that have resulted from Labour legislation. That we have done in the columns of this paper at intervals since 1945. We are not being wise after the event; the criticisms that we make now we were making many years before a Labour Government took office. Neither do we wish to preen ourselves and adopt an “ I-told-you-so ” attitude. We want to emphasise that, with an elementary understanding of Capitalism and a little Socialist knowledge, the workers can tell in advance whether a political party is worthy of their support or deserves their opposition.

The promises, statements and actions of the leaders of the Labour Party show that they, too, are ignorant of the economics of Capitalism, and that, despite their claim to be Socialists, they have not the slightest grasp of the very first principles of Socialism. They have not even tackled the job of managing Capitalism with a determination that might have won them some respect, if not praise, from their 1945 supporters. Mr. E. S. Sachs, secretary of a South African garment workers' union, writing in “The Garment Worker," January/February, 1951, gives his view of British labour leaders. Examining them from that distance gives Mr. Sachs an objective view which is a great advantage. He says:

“Very few British Labour Leaders are free from the faults of their ruling class. Their common characteristics are snobbishness, kow-towing to the rich and mighty and a feeling of superiority more especially in respect of colonial peoples. They become dizzy with success and despondent in defeat. Their ego and self-importance increase as they become better known. Few seek to raise their cultural level, and devote all their energies to their particular job. Their outlook is insular and the affairs of the world are to them “ Foreign affairs." (Page 3.)

The Labour Party’s declaration of policy, on which it fought the 1945 general election, was contained in a pamphlet entitled, “Let us face the future.” On page 11 is the claim that,

“No domestic policy, however wisely framed and courageously applied, can succeed in a world still threatened by war.”

Yet from 1945 to 1951, the Labour Party’s administration of Capitalism has kept the threat of another and greater war continuously over our heads. The Labour Government’s concern to be prepared for another war is now their excuse for curtailing some of their social insurance schemes, imposing more austerity on the workers and calling for more work.

The application of the social service plans may have removed the threat of the most abject poverty from sections of the working class, but it has not improved the lot of the working class as a whole. Its effect has been to redistribute the poverty of the working class and spread it more evenly over the entire class. The poorer paid workers and those with large families have received increased incomes, while the better paid and the childless or unmarried ones, through the medium of family allowances, income tax allowances and the arrangement of purchase tax. on particular lines of commodities, have come off particularly badly. Now, in the interests of a huge armament expenditure in preparation for the next war, some of the social services are reduced or curtailed.

We were told in 1945 that 

"Housing will be one of the greatest and one of the earliest tests of the Government’s real determination to put the nation first.” (“ Let us face the future," p. 8.)

As the housing problem is essentially a working-class problem, that statement could only be interpreted as a promise to the workers. But the Labour Government’s efforts to solve this generations-old problem have shown little determination and less success. Again, the threat of war has offered an excuse to curtail certain building operations.

"... a high and constant purchasing power can be maintained through good wages. ... But everybody knows that money and savings lose their value if prices rise, so rents and the prices of the necessities of life will be controlled." (“ Let us face the future," p. 5.)

The perpetual struggle of the workers to bring their wages up to the ever soaring cost of living level is evidence of the failure of the Labour Government to maintain the level of wages.

In the early days of the Labour Party its policy was known as “gradualism.” The idea was, that by reforming Capitalism piecemeal, a little at a time, it would gradually be reformed out of existence and in its place would stand Socialism. A different kind of gradualism has resulted since the Labour Party took office in 1945. The slashing attacks on many of the actions of previous governments have gradually been diluted, then abated, and finally the very same actions performed by the Labour Government.

Workers will remember the indignation of Labour leaders when Tory or Liberal Governments used troops during a strike. Yet, within a few months of occupying the Government benches in Westminster, the Labour ministers did the very same thing. They have done it a number of times during the six years. They have even prosecuted workers for striking.

Conscription was another issue which brought forth heated opposition from prominent Labourites in their pre-office days. Now they can find a host of arguments to justify it.

"Soak the rich, tax them out of existence,” was another old-time battle cry of Labour politicians. Successive Labour chancellors altered the tune and now say that this is not a good policy and that it will not work.

In what stirring words the Labour speakers and writers used to tell us that overproduction meant unemployment. But in 1948 they were telling us that, 

”. . . The danger to full employment is not producing too much, but producing too little—and too dear.” (Government-issued poster, 1948.)

Another poster about that time told us that “More from each means more for all,” and Mr. Attlee appealed to us for an increase of 10 per cent. in production to 'solve our problems. Since that time industrial production has increased by 25 per cent., but the workers are still waiting for the “more for all,” and the problems seem to have multiplied.

Nationalisation has, of course, been the “ top-of- the-bill ” turn for the Labour Government. It was to be a means of removing the capitalists from the control of industry and of buying them out. It was the Labour man’s idea of Socialism. The State serves Capitalism and when it takes over an industry it does so in the interests of Capitalism. It becomes the employer on behalf of the capitalist class. The control of industry by the State does not alter the capitalist nature of production. The Labour Government has introduced State Capitalism in some industries, but not Socialism.

The benefit of State ownership to the workers is nil and they are realising it. Mr. Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, speaking at his union’s biennial conference at Whitley Bay on July 11th of this year, found it advisable to utter a warning,

" If, in October, Labour appeals to the country and there is any considerable extension of the principle of nationalisation, we should get the biggest whacking we have ever had in our history." (Evening News, 11.7.1951.) 

This year's Annual Report of the British Transport Commission shows that the surplus of income over working expenses was about £40 million. Interest to the former owners, administration, redemption and special items amount to over £54 million thus making a deficit of over £14 million. To the worker striving for a few extra shillings in his wage packet, this is no different to pre-nationalisation days.

So, at the end of this six years of Labour Government we are in very much the same position as we were in 1938. Another war in the offing, wage increases lagging a long way behind price increases, threats of austerity and demands for more work, insufficient houses, peace-time military service—all the sores and symptoms of Capitalism unabated.

We do not hold the Labour Government to blame for this. It is not its fault. It does not determine the course of Capitalism. We know the Labour Party to be a party of capitalist reform and we knew that its efforts to make Capitalism more endurable were doomed to failure. We are opposed to the Labour Party as we are opposed to all reformist parties and our opposition gets more pointed when it passes off its quack reforms under a Socialist label.

The Labour Government has not attempted to end the exploitation of the workers for profit. It has, instead, worked hard to save Capitalism and to assure the capitalist class of its profits, its interest and its rents. At the next election it may lose the support of the workers and be back again on the opposition benches.

Unfortunately, most workers, not understanding Socialism, will turn to the Conservative Party as the only alternative. The Labour Party must take a lot of the responsibility for this political muddle-headedness on the part of the workers. It has made confusion worse confounded by its claim to be a Socialist party.

Mr. Bevan and the other rebels in the Labour Party ranks have nothing better to offer. They have no fundamental quarrel with their party. There have been other rebels, like Cripps and, later, Zilliacus and Co. They flare into prominence for a while then simmer down again, and the Labour Party goes steadily

on beguiling the workers with one illusion after another.

Socialism means more than a hotch-potch of capitalist reforms. It means the ending of the capitalist relationships—employer and employed, buyer and seller, borrower and lender. It means that industry will be owned by the community, not by the State, that wealth will be produced for people to use, not for the making of profit for a few. It means the end of buying and selling and of the wages system.

That requires a social revolution which necessitates conscious political action by the workers. Capitalism cannot be gradually rubbed away, it must be decisively abolished. The capitalist class cannot be bought out, it must be kicked out

W. Waters.

The Roots of Politics (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the Labour Party have failed to deliver the goods they promised there is a tendency to turn away from politics by many who previously supported the Labour Party. Some are turning to the trade union movement to seek the solution to their troubles, others are giving up the struggle in despair. A lack of understanding of the basis of their troubles led them to support the Labour Party in the first place. Had they realised that the policy of the Labour Party would not, and could not, lead to a fundamental change in the basis of society they would not have been disappointed with the fruits of Labour policy.

Wherever any class or individual throughout history has reached a dominating position it has been accomplished by participation in politics. Even the so-called dictators, like Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Napoleon, Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, have all gained a dominating position in this way. When firmly entrenched they have sought for means to keep up the illusion that their power is based upon the interests of the majority, and have even been compelled to make certain concessions to popular dissatisfaction. They have continued in power by promising a return to older procedure when the external and internal enemies of the State have been finally crushed. Hence their power has been prolonged by their capacity to continue to foster the illusion that the external and internal enemy is hindering the people from entering into the prosperity that the policy of the dictators aimed at securing.

It is sometimes argued that we are living in the present and that a study of past history is a waste of time. That we should concern ourselves exclusively with the practical questions of to-day. Practical questions of two thousand years ago are still practical questions of to-day, although some of them may come up in a somewhat different form. This is so because a fundamental social condition of to-day, the existence of class ownership of the means of production, was also present then.

In the opening paragraph of one of Marx’s essays he wrote, "The tradition of all past generations weighs like an alp on the brain of the living." Since the outgrowth of private property, thousands of years ago, traditions associated with it have troubled the brain of man across the ages and still muddle his outlook upon even the simplest problems of to-day, distorting bis views upon politics.

Politics has to do with the State. The State came into existence along with property and the division of society into classes that struggled against each other for power and domination. All class struggles are political struggles; struggles for control of the State for the purpose of using it or removing it The basis of politics is the production and distribution of wealth: the form political struggles assume is determined by the economic organisation of society at any given time. Political parties represent, or claim to represent economic interests. They are organised for the purpose of getting control of the State power to serve these economic interests.

Many of the institutions and the procedures bound up with government to-day are thousands of years old, and so are the arguments put forward in defence of these institutions and procedures. Elections, the secret ballot, short terms of office, rotation in office, majority rule, the whip, filibustering, the magistracy, representative government, leagues of nations—all these were present in societies, based upon property, that flourished over two thousand years ago. Every new class that economic development threw up sought, in its turn, to get control of the State machinery in order to put social relations into a mould that suited it.

Running through history like a thread are the constant disputations about how a well-organised State should be controlled, and property is the constant factor in which these disputations are rooted.

In ancient Greece class rule was philosophised into "the question as to whether the one ablest individual, or the most capable and virtuous minority, or the general body of citizens should, or does, rule"— and the same questions are debated to-day on the same basis, class rule.

An old Greek writer, Xenophon, put the idea in a general form when he wrote: “ 1 am always of opinion that of whatever character governments are. of a similar character also are the governments which they conduct.” It is interesting, in passing, to notice that Xenophon, in an essay “ On the means of Improving the Revenues of the State of Athens," put forward a strong plea in favour of nationalising such enterprises as the silver mines, shipping, market buildings, shops, lodging houses and places of entertainment. He argued that State investment was "the safest and most durable of human things."

Aristotle, the most influential of ancient writers, in his “Politics" proclaimed that “the State is a creation of nature, and that man is by nature a political animal." Farther on he writes :

“ 'And so, in one point of view, the art of war is a natural art of acquisition, for it includes hunting, an art which ought to practise against wild beasts, and against men who, though intended by nature to be governed, will not submit; for war of such a kind is naturally just."

In the Middle Ages Machiavelli (whom a humorist pointed out bears “ the domestic name for the devil") warns the Prince to take account of classes in governing, and balance one against the other for his own benefit.

In the early years of Capitalism, John Locke, in his essay on civil government, gave the following definition of political power:

“Political power, then, I take to be a right of making laws with penalties of death, and consequently all less penalties, for the regulating and preserving of property, and of employing the force of the community in the executing of such laws, and in the defence of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this only for the public good."

Harrington, in his "Oceana," argued that power naturally and necessarily followed property, and Cromwell opposed universal suffrage on the ground that: "The consequences of this rule tend to anarchy. For where is there any bound or limit set if men that have but the interest of breathing shall have voices in elections.”

lu America, Madison, one of those responsible for the Declaration of Independence, wrote: “From the influence of different degrees and kinds of property on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors ensues a diffusion of society into different interests and parties." How sentiments can vary from practice was shown by the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution of the United States, 1787-1789. The Declaration contained the following paragraph:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life. Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

- Section 9 of the Constitution runs as follows:

"The Migration or Importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress ... but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person."

This section was put in to serve the property interests of the importers and users of black slaves. “ All men are created equal "—well, not all men!

These are a few illustrations of the fact that since property came into existence it has produced the classes that contend for control of the State, and determined the attitude of a ruling to a ruled class. Further that as long as a class controls State power it seeks to mould society to suit its interests. To-day the capitalist class rules and rules in their own interest, though under the guise of "labour." In order to bring about a fundamental social change, a change from Capitalism to Socialism, it is necessary to take control of the State out of the hands of the capitalists. This can only be done by political action. But something more than this is required. This political action must be taken by a majority who understand and want Socialism, otherwise it will only have the appearance of the removal of power while in fact power will still remain where it is. This is what happened when the Labour Party became the Government.

Gilmac.

Work under Socialism (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the principal criticisms of socialist society is based on the assumption that a large number of people will use their newly found economic freedom as an excuse for dodging work. The objectors usually argue that work under Capitalism is compulsory for the working class, and without compulsion, as in a socialist society, no or very little work will be done. They instance absenteeism under Capitalism, go-slow tactics, idlers, including members of the capitalist class, who largely devote their life to idleness and pleasure.

Most readers win agree that work for the majority of people at present is not in fact work, but tedium. In spite of this, the Sunday Express (24th June, 1951) recently drew attention to die existence of a body called "The Education and Action for Leisure Organisation " in an article entitled "What men do when they retire from work." The object of this organisation is finding work for people when they retire. Dr. Carl Lawton, their spokesman, stated that out of 1,000 people he had interviewed during the past two years 80 per cent. of them wanted to go back to some kind of work and be paid for it Here are a few examples given in the article: Lieut-General Sir Oliver Leese, who retired at 52, now runs a mushroom farm in Shropshire. Tilly Losch, the former Countess of Carnarvon, danced her way to £10,000 per year before she retired from the stage; now she has not only become a well-known painter in America but has launched out as a straight actress. Sir William Larke, for 24 years director of the British Iron and Steel Federation, does a dozen different jobs in National and Social organisations. Sir Valentine Holmes, K.C., retired from the Bar where he was earning £20,000 a year; after a short rest he became legal adviser to Shell-Mex. Mr. Sidney Little, formerly chief water engineer of Hastings, does part- time jobs. He works for the Council, and tends his fruit trees.

The people named are apparently fairly wealthy, so we can reasonably assume that they are not compelled to work, and yet they do so from preference. There can be no doubt that these people have determined the conditions under which they will work, and like the jobs they wish to perform; most of them, incidentally, socially useful.

The working class at the moment do not determine the conditions under which they will work, and only in a minority of cases do they like their particular jobs. Were they in the position of determining their conditions of work, which is the prime factor in liking or disliking a particular job, it is safe to say that they would choose conditions vastly different from those that exist today. The removal of wage labour, the doing-away with the multifarious useless occupations; the feeling of social responsibility brought about by socialist consciousness, would invigorate the desire to produce useful and desirable articles and services for the use of one and all.

Recently the Daily Mail (4th July ’51) published a circular which had been displayed at Chatham Dockyard. The circular, put up by the Admiral-in-Charge (evidently landlocked) criticised the dockyard workers for slacking and general idleness, and ended with the usual appeal about playing the game. The following day a protest was received from all the workers. The shop stewards pointed out that all work allocated had been done in the time permitted, and that the men wanted still more work as it gave them the opportunity of earning larger bonuses.

The position then is that workers will work if they can see, rightly or wrongly, an economic advantage in the form of bonuses, which give them greater access to the means of life; food, clothing, entertainment, etc.

In socialist society every possible economic advantage will be present, as the means of production will be owned in common and the wealth produced will be freely accessible. The highness or lowness of the living standard will be determined by society as a whole and their capacity and desire to produce.

In all reason we cannot imagine society committing social suicide by refusing to produce its means of livelihood, which would be the case if no or little work were performed. The advantages of Socialism by far outweigh any of these highly problematical academic arguments about lazy people, which are the last ditch of the resisters of Socialism.

Jim D'Arcy

Editorial: Disillusionment in India (1951)

Editorial from the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

In addition to being members of the working class exploited by Capitalism, the Indian workers under Nehru and the British workers under Attlee have in common the experience of being presented with much-praised gifts that they are now discovering to be valueless. In Britain the workers celebrated nationalisation only to find that it leaves them in just the same exploited condition as before. In India the workers celebrated independence but are now sadly waking up to find that Capitalism and its politicians are just the same though the flag has changed.

Here are a few recent incidents in India to show just how little difference it has made.

Under British rule Indian Nationalists complained bitterly of British interference with the liberty of the Press. Now Nehru, who used to voice the protests, has got the Indian Parliament to pass an Act which gives the Government power to suppress newspapers in certain circumstances. The All-India newspaper editors' conference at Bombay has passed a resolution in favour of taking their protests to the United Nations and decided that every issue of their papers will carry the following inscription above the editorial: “Freedom of expression is our birthright, and we shall not rest until it is fully guaranteed by the Constitution.” (Daily Mail, 25/6/51.) One of the defenders of the Indian Government's action was the son of the late Mahatma Gandhi, who, father and son, used to protest against the British Government for denying freedom of the Press in India.

Then, on 11th July, the President of the Indian Republic "promulgated an ordinance . . . enabling the Government to take prompt steps to prevent strikes in the essential services.” (Manchester Guardian, 12th July, 1951.) It is directed especially against a threatened railway strike and those found guilty of instigating strikes will be liable to terms of imprisonment

Even the fraudulent facade erected by the Government to disguise the naked brutality of Indian Capitalism has been borrowed from the British Labour Government, for we read that in his report to the Congress Party Prime Minister Nehru “laid stress on the need for building up a Welfare State by combining private enterprise with the essential features of Socialism.” (Observer, 8/7/51.)

The prophet of Indian Nationalism, Gandhi, preached pacifism and his attitude was largely shared by Nehru. In line with this reputation a number of British writers, including supporters of the Labour Party, recently sent him a message thanking him for his “efforts for world peace.” (Manchester Guardian, 17/3/51.) It is the same Nehru who belligerently threatens war against the equally belligerent Government of Pakistan over possession of the disputed State of Kashmir.

Of course the stresses and strains of Indian politics have led to movements to form breakaway political parties in opposition to the Congress Party. One of them is led by Mr. Kripalani, whose speech at the inaugural convention is reported as follows by The Times (16/6/51):—

"Mr. Kripalani, who was voted to the chair, said that he had nothing to offer his follower but hard work. Food, clothing, and the housing position had deteriorated since independence. Their enemy to-day was sloth, indifference, superstition, and power politics. Power was necessary for the conduct of human affairs, but became despicable when used for sectional and selfish ends. He had worked under Gandhi’s leadership for India’s freedom, but had lived to hear people saying that things had been better under foreign rule. What could be more degrading for self-respecting Indians? ”

The new party proclaims its aim to be the establishment “of a free, democratic, casteless and classless society” (Manchester Guardian, 18/6/51), but, like Nehru and the Congress Party, they too are going to combine State Capitalism and private Capitalism, but with less emphasis on nationalisation.

The so-called India Socialist Party, which has no better claim to the name Socialist than has the British Labour Party, has a new programme which includes abolition of the rural landlord system without compensation, the “nationalisation of insurance and banking companies,” etc., a capital levy, and no incomes above £900 a year. (Manchester Guardian, 6/7/51.) Being an opportunist, reformist and vote-catching organisation, it has had talks with Mr. Kripalani's party about possible combined electoral action against the Congress Party. The Congress Party used to catch votes with the plea that independence would solve the problems of the Indian workers, though, having made India a Republic within the British Commonwealth, Nehru now defends the policy of remaining inside. So the “India Socialist Party” is trying to collect the votes of workers disgusted with Nehru's government by promising to take India out of the Commonwealth and by forming a new grouping of Powers “from Indonesia to Egypt,” in opposition to both the American-British group and the Russian group.

The significant thing about all these groups in the Indian political world is that every single item of all their programmes has been lifted from the British capitalist-reformist parties. They have taken with them on their departure from the rule of British Capitalism all the trashy political nostrums, everything in fact except the one thing British experience could have taught them—the uselessness to the workers of reforming Capitalism, and the necessity of establishing Socialism.

Passing Comments: Reformists (1951)

The Passing Comments Column from the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Reformists

Even on their own false definition of Socialism the Labour Party's claim to be a Socialist party grows more hollow with every month that passes. The Liberals claim that the credit for envisaging and planning the Welfare State is really theirs, and all the big parties join in promising to preserve it. The Americans have started buying their tin and rubber supplies in bulk (so bulk-buying can scarcely now be called “Socialist” either). Nationalisation, which used to be put forward as the very core of the Labour Party's “Socialism,” has now been accepted by the Persian ruling class as the best means of getting the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co.'s plant into their own hands, and the embarrassed Labour Government is faced with all the arguments the Labour leaders once used themselves. Even that old standby of Labour politicians, the vague and windy attacks on high profits and high prices, they must now share with the Tory Sunday Express, which gives front-page headlining (17-6-51) to its question “Are prices too high because profits are too high?"—and answers that many financial experts believe they are. Before long there will be hardly an item on the Labour Party programme that some other capitalist group or party is not also promising or putting into practice.

* * *

The Persian “People“

The Persian oil dispute has given the Stalinists another opportunity of displaying their patriotic fervour for the interests of Russia. It seems possible that if the Anglo-Iranian Oil Co. is dispossessed, some Persian oil may be diverted to markets inside the Soviet bloc away from its present markets in the Western bloc countries. This possibility is enough to line the Stalinists up behind the Persian ruling class, and their daily paper now defends the Persian capitalists with almost as much enthusiasm as it does the Russian rulers. One might have expected even a Stalinist to understand that there is not much likelihood of a Persian worker being better off simply because the job of exploiting him is taken over by capitalists speaking Persian from capitalists speaking English. Indeed, there may be truth in the allegations of the British Press that the Persian workers will probably be worse off under capitalists of their own nationality. But the World Federation of Trade Unions, a body under Stalinist leadership, has published a pamphlet written by a former Persian minister entitled “The Iranian People Fight the British Oil Trust." And the Daily Worker (editorial, 30-6-51) also glibly repeats the arguments of the Persian governing class, talking of the “Persians resuming possession of their natural resources," and saying that the British government is trying to intimidate “the Persian government and people." “Now that the Persian people are awake," it decides, “these tactics will not succeed.” But it doesn't explain why the fact that the Persian workers are supporting" the Persian capitalists, if they are doing so, shows that they are awake; Socialists would conclude rather that it proves they are still in a nationalist stupor.

So near and yet . . .

The day before, however, the Daily Worker unintentionally got near to the truth. In Mr. Walter Holmes' column the following appeared:

“Persia was described by Lenin in 1908 as ‘inflammable material in world politics.' His description of the scene then, when the Persians were struggling to end the absolutism of the Shahs and to win a constitution, while Russian and British imperialism rivalled each other in grabbing tactics, has sharp point now.” 

Sharper than you think, Mr. Holmes, sharper than you think.

* * *

Truth in wartime

The estimates given by each side in the Korean war of the losses suffered by the opposing forces differ considerably. To guard against too easy acceptance of the figures issued by “our" side, it may be worth while recalling that on May 14th, 1947, Mr. Noel-Baker, then Air Minister, announced in the House of Commons that although during the Battle of Britain the R.A.F. claimed to have shot down 2,692 enemy aircraft, the German records showed that only 1,733 had been destroyed; and that the. British government had now accepted the German figures. When the British figures were originally issued during the war, they were given not as estimates but as hard facts; and doubtless any citizen publicly stating his disbelief in them would have laid himself open to a charge of spreading alarm and despondency. And now here was the confession that the official figures exceeded the truth by more than 55 percent. !

* * *

Where dictatorship is good for business

It has always been the Socialist contention that the opposition sometimes expressed in the British Press to dictatorship and totalitarianism has not been founded on any dislike of those systems as such, but has merely been a means of stirring up a feeling of hatred towards those countries which are competing with Britain for overseas markets and raw materials. In the case of countries from which our rulers expect help in war, or with which they do profitable business, dictatorship is overlooked; more, it is often praised. What, in an “enemy country," is called rule by secret police and concentration camp, becomes in a “friendly country" orderly and stable government. For example, here is an extract from a recent statement by the Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh O'Neill, Bt., P.C., M.P.:

“It is with the deepest regret that I have to refer to the recent death of His Excellency Marshal Carmona, the President of the Portuguese Republic. He had been President for nearly 25 years and was held in the greatest affection by all his people. During this period Portugal enjoyed orderly government and achieved stability. He did much to extend and foster the good relations which have always existed between his country and its oldest ally, Great Britain.”

Now it is general knowledge that Portugal is as much a dictatorship as, say. Russia, and that Carmona stood in much the same relationship to the dictator Salazar as Kalinin used to do to the dictator Stalin. What then led Sir Hugh to sing this paean of praise to the figurehead of a dictatorship?

* * *

Profit covers a multitude of sins

Sir Hugh is chairman of Lisbon Electric Tramways, Ltd., and the extract above is taken from his annual statement for the year 1950 (Economist, 9-6-51). The net profit for that year, £70,390, shows an increase of £5,000 over the previous year's. And £61,595 of it is distributed to shareholders in preference dividends and in an ordinary dividend of 5 per cent.

No wonder Sir Hugh can turn a blind eye to the totalitarian political set-up in Portugal; indeed, since it produces "orderly government and stability," so much the better for business.

* * *

Precept . . .

Dr. Garbett, archbishop of York, warned us the other day of some of the dangers of the Welfare State. In the Observer (22-4-51) he is reported to have said:

" I think we should be proud that our country has been a pioneer in establishing the Welfare State. But it carries with it the danger that its citizens may expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything in return, beyond, of course, paying their insurance. The citizen may become a passive recipient, always demanding more, but gradually losing initiative and responsibility. The ‘they’ mentality is developed instead of the ‘we' — 'They must do it ’ instead of ‘We must do it.’”

Dr. Garbett was talking of a very real danger. But why has he waited until the introduction of the so- called Welfare State to utter his warning? For the citizens who "expect everything to be done for them without their doing anything for it in return” are to be found among the higher income-groups, among the owning-class; and these citizens have had their own privately-operated Welfare State working for a long time in the form of unearned income from the ownership of land, factories, and shares. Dr. Garbett's phrase about "passive recipients, always demanding more” is one of the best descriptions we have seen for some time of shareholders attending the annual general meeting of their company. Dr. Garbett said that the survival of the Welfare State "depends upon the duty of hard work by all able-bodied citizens. Unless we produce more for export by skill and hard work we shall be unable to purchase sufficient food for our people or raw materials for our industries.” If the archbishop had attempted to follow this up by attending Ascot the other week and advising some of the gentlemen there to take jobs in the factories and mines we feel that he would soon have seen exactly where the “they” mentality he refers to is strongest.

* * *

. . . and Practice

Talking about members of the owning class, the Evening Standard (20-4-51) tells us of the case of Mr. Ronald Tree, former Tory M.P. for Market Harborough, who has been receiving an income of £85,000 year from a trust fund of £2,678,000 left by his grandfather. Mr. Tree said that taxation had cut this down to £7,140 a year. Apparently an income of £140 a week did not allow Mr. Tree to live "according to his station.” So, instead of finding some other station to live according to, Mr. Tree applied to the Superior Court in Chicago for a further tax-free payment of £214,000 from the trust fund, and obtained it. Assuming that Mr. Tree devotes all this sum to immediate income, instead of putting it out to "earn” further interest, it will last for twenty years at the rate of £200 a week. There is, then, reasonable hope that for this period of time Mr. Tree will be able to keep up with the Joneses.

* * *

War Vocabulary

The trouble in Korea has enabled us to brush up our war vocabulary. One of the first things to be learnt is that the same event or object always has two terms to describe it, according to whether it occurs on one's own side of the Iron Curtain or on the other. A few examples are given below:

 Alwyn Edgar

Irish Politics and the Church (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Ritchie Calder, writing in the "New Statesmen” (28/4/51) gives an account of the dismissal from the Eire government of their Minister of Health, Dr. Noël Browne. Appalled by the high infantile death rate he proposed to give free medical services, "without any means test, to all mothers and children, to provide mothers with specialist gynaecological care, and to give health education.”

The Cabinet had not objected until the Catholic Bishops intervened, one of their objections being that "the right to provide for the health of children belongs to parents and not to the State.” They objected to the possibility of information on birth control being supplied though Dr. Browne had given safeguards on this matter.

Although Dr. Browne was able to show that Vatican spokesmen did not object, the more reactionary views of the local Catholic Bishops prevailed and Dr. Browne was dismissed.

Mr. Calder quotes some statements made by Ministers:

“As a Catholic, I obey my church authorities and will continue to do so " (Prime Minister, Mr. Costello).

“There is going to be no flouting of the Bishops on Catholic morals and social teaching" (Minister of Labour, Mr. William Norton, leader of Irish Labour Party).

And finally Dr. Browne, describing the Health Service before his resignation, said:—

"As a Catholic, I accept the ruling of their Lordship, the Hierarchy, without question.”

Mr. Calder points out that one result of these disclosures is that the Northern Ireland parties opposed to Union with Eire are using the incident effectively as propaganda among Northern Ireland Protestants, as proof of "the political duress exercised by the Catholic Church.”

Rip-Van-Daily Mail Wakes Up (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

At last it has happened fellow workers, a great revolutionary discovery has been made, a discovery so outstanding and unique that it requires a large headline in the Scottish Daily Mail (18/6/51). There it is friends, in bold letters, the statement of the century, "Lack of money makes crooks,” and on reading further, we find that this headline alludes to a report by a Stockport, Cheshire, committee set up to examine juvenile delinquency and the increase in petty pilfering in large stores. Now this reason for stealing is really quite new; after all, who would think that a child seeing all sorts of fancy things laid out before him in a shop, would take one, just because his old man hasn't the where-with-all to let him buy them. There must be some other reason surely.

We know of course what the "pulpit parasites” say about theft. As far as they are concerned, it is something that is "born" in the child, and all those children that are good throughout their lives, and don't covet their neighbour's goods, especially if their neighbour (metaphorically speaking, of course), happens to be their boss, will eventually climb the gold stairs and spend the rest of eternity sitting around in a long white nightgown doing an act like Harpo Marx only more solemn like. The  "bad” ones, so we are told, usually end up on a lower stratum, wielding a shovel in an atmosphere that would create a demand for asbestos suits.

Then there are those modern witch doctors, the psychologists. They’ve got their own reason for a child stealing and it is usually something like this. When three weeks old, the child saw its mother hit his father across the skull with a rolling pin. This left a lasting impression on the child’s sub-conscious mind (also on the old man's skull), and Junior has spent the rest of his days taking things, not knowing why, of course, but really because he is looking for a tin helmet to protect his pop from any more rolling pin massage.

Lastly, we come to the S.P.G.B., who have been saying for almost 50 years what the Scottish Daily Mail has just found out, and that is, that material conditions are the determining factor in human behaviour. They go even further than that, and point out that the main cause of the vast majority of problems that face the working class today is poverty, and that the sole cause of this poverty is the fact that the working class only receive back, in money form, a proportion of the value they put into the commodities they produce. But wait a minute, this being true, it must mean then, that the Capitalist, who pockets the difference between what his workers get for their wages, and what he gets for the commodities the workers produce, is really doing a large bit of stealing himself. Tut, tut Somebody had better tell the Scottish Daily Mail quickly so that they can get it into the news, and then perhaps we may see the following headline, "Lord Nockalot steals £10,000 from his employees in previous financial year.” Yes, perhaps.

DIOPTRE

The Next War (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every time a war comes, it's surprising. That doesn’t mean that the war, as such, is unpredictable—the Socialist Party of Great Britain has quite consistently predicted the wars that have happened since its inception—but simply that they aren’t quite the sort of war that’s expected. It always seems to be assumed that the next war will be much like the last, only bigger and better.

This assumption is usually wrong.

The 1914-18 war produced the first example of complete trench-warfare. Nobody expected that when the war began, and at first everyone was surprised, particularly the cavalry! As the war went on, both sides adapted themselves to the new situation. Trench warfare was accepted as the new norm.

When the 1939-45 war started, everyone was fully prepared—for trench warfare! The mightiest trenches ever constructed—the Maginot and Siegfried lines— were bristling with artillery, commodious and comfortable, well equipped with all the latest scientific devices. They were hardly used. The Blitzkreig had arrived on the scene. The enemy was advancing from behind, and the guns faced only forward! Everyone was surprised, particularly the fathers of the Maginot line! The blitzkreig, together with the increased use of air offensives, culminating in the devastation of the atomic bomb, became accepted as the new norm.

At the present time, everybody seems to be talking in terms of an all-out war between America and Russia, blitzkreig, atom bombs and all. But if we can get over our desire to be surprised, we can see that it may be different, simply because as things stand neither side stands much chance of winning such a war. Furthermore, it has been shown conclusively that the “winners” of such wars end up in hardly a better position than the “losers." Again, anyone thinking of starting a war would much rather it took place on someone else’s territory, rather than on his own. He might otherwise suffer himself, and that would never do!

What may happen, then? Are we not to have a war at all?

It seems doubtful at this stage whether capitalism can do without a war of some kind going on. When it was feared that there might be a cease-fire in Korea,, the whole of Wall Street slumped in one afternoon.

But the kind of war that will take place may be the type that is now going on in Malaya, Indo-China and Korea, and which may start in Persia, various parts of Africa, some parts (later on) of India and Germany. That is, it will be the type we first became familiar with in Spain—a “ Civil War ” which is either fomented or used—or both—by great powers who have theoretically no part in it whatever. This has been dubbed a “limited liability” war, and this phrase expresses very well the capitalist nature of the proceedings.

It can take three forms: the one, where an oppressed colonial people revolt, through the medium of a nationalist movement, against the “mother country"; another, where the oppressed peasantry or proletarians revolt, via a freedom movement, against the ruling class of their own country; and the third, where one part of a country which has been, split away, goes to the rescue of their “oppressed” brothers in the other.

Now, each of these types of war has in it the power to elicit sympathy. But in reality our sympathy should be for them, rather than with them, because they are so palpably misled. Their nationalist movements, in which they place so much hope, are movements leading them towards a narrow capitalism in which capitalists of their own nationality will oppress them and exploit them quite as enthusiastically as the colonists—and probably more so. Their “freedom” movements, in which they believe so fervently, will only succeed in changing one ruling class for a fresher and more efficient set of masters. And the “oppressed brothers” who are “rescued” or “ liberated ” soon find that under capitalism there is no rescuer powerful enough to save them, no liberation by mere force of arms.

These things would be true even if the protagonists were left to fight things out themselves. But they’re not.

As soon as one of these little struggles starts, round through the air swing the Russian and American vultures, the Russians with words (and arms), and the Americans with money (and arms). And another “limited liability” war has started. Strangely enough, the most important ones always start where strategy would dictate, either for position or for raw materials. Not so much for markets, because war is itself a market, a market in which expensive goods are sold, in large quantities, to people who are forced to pay for them, willy-nilly. For position, because a big war (Russia v. America) may come, and both sides want to get in the most favourable position in case it does; for raw materials, for internal consumption, export of finished goods, and war production, all of which must be conducted at a profit—preferably of the handsome variety.

But the “limited liability” wars could carry on for fifty years before the big battle commenced, quite easily. There are enough oppressed people in the world, in one way or another, to keep a dozen armies busy for thrice that time. And, as we have seen it suits the capitalist book very well to have a war or two going on. It’s very stimulating to trade.

But what a trade! Imagine for fifty years, the workers pouring out their, sweat and toil, producing commodities, not for their own consumption, but for the destruction of life and wealth in other countries, in which process the commodities consume themselves.

As the poet says.—

... and gun sales lead to more gun sales 

they do not clutter the market for gunnery 

there is no saturation ... 

because no other consumers are necessary. The great problem of markets is solved! Solved by allowing millions of hours of socially necessary labour-time, embodied in bullets, shells, bombs, tanks, bombers and fuel, to expend itself in the shortest possible period, and in the process to destroy lives and wealth laboriously built up over many decades. What a society, in which labour time so spent is “necessary”! Nowhere better than here is the open antagonism between what suits capitalists and what suits workers more glaringly revealed.

Capitalism thrives (albeit a temporary and precarious thriving) on the prosecution of wars. In the years following the great slump of 1929-32, re-armament was the main stream on which capitalism floated to recovery—if you can call what happened in 1939 recovery. Workers don't thrive on war. It’s workers who are driven to produce ever more and more, it’s workers who make sacrifices, it's workers who die. Capitalism wants fifty years—or more if possible—of “limited liability” wars. Workers don’t. There is nothing they want less—except the big all-out atom war that’s always lurking in the background as a possibility. But it’s what they’ll get—if they don’t get wise and turn to Socialism. There is no answer to Capitalism, and no answer to the workers’ problems, inside Capitalism. Capitalism must burst apart and change to Socialism. But this can only come about if you, the workers, understand and want Socialism.

You see where Capitalism is heading. Workers! Let’s use our heads, and head for something different!

J. C. Rowan

Blogger's Note:

J. C. Rowan has his own wiki page. It's worth a look.

A Challenge To All Workers (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

If, when the workers are told they have a “way of life,” to defend, instead of just accepting it, as most of them do, they were seriously to examine the statement or when politicians reel off any of those other sweet sounding phrases such as “defend freedom in the freedom loving countries,” “War to defend peace,”

“Western democracy faced with Eastern atheistic communism ” and so on, what would be the result if the workers were to consciously consider what they mean Mr. Herbert Morrison is reported in the Daily Mirror (29/1/51) to have declared that “Russia under Stalin was merely a dictatorship falsely sailing under the name of communism.” Perhaps now although only a few months later, as Foreign Secretary, he would like to enlarge on that statement. Workers might well wonder what freedom means to the dockers. It can’t mean freedom to strike, for the strike weapon is condemned and freedom to work when their conditions are being attacked is meaningless, yet what else have they the “freedom” to do? What does the “ British way of life ” mean to women when the buying power of their house-keeping money is ever shrinking, largely as the result of war preparations and after queueing they sometimes have to take home as little as six pennies worth of meat? Where is the urgency to defend a “way of life” which to the working class means skimping and scraping, hire-purchase, rising prices, ever intensified shortages and just sufficient of the main necessities food, clothing and shelter, to ensure their future presence at the workshop or place of exploitation? To those many thousands on the “housing lists,” living in a “rest- centre ” or with relatives, do you feel as though you have an Empire at stake?

Workers who maintain and try to express the right to strike, how does it feel to wind-up in court paying fines? Do you really have to fight the Russians for your freedom, or is there someone on your own doorstep it might do more good to oppose? The masses who fight their way to and from work in over-packed tube-trains and buses, how are you surviving on promises of a brighter future? We socialists have to put up with the same discomfort, but we have at least seen through the fairy stories of capitalism’s apologists. At every turn the working class get the dirty end of the deal, working like mad at an ever quickening pace they fill markets for their masters in hot competition with their fellows overseas, profits roll in all the time goods  can be sold but there is always someone being squeezed out by a lower-selling rival. This means increased poverty and misery for the workers, for capitalists do not employ carcasses they can’t exploit. Capitalism seems to have postponed the slump or at least to have stemmed its spread by the simple if diabolical expedient of war-preparations. It is admitted in America that many would be unemployed but for the arms drives. As the Daily Express (14/2/51) puts it, “America’s Mr. Grim got a nasty shock tonight. For months he has groused over expected shortages because of Korea and rearmament. He would not get his new car, the new T.V. with the enlarged screen or all the white shirts he wants. Now he learns he can have them all—and rearmament too.” If the workers don’t pay for capitalism with empty bellies they pay in blood; either way the Capitalist class is the only class with anything at stake, the class which no matter how hard the slump is never reduced as a class, to the normal level of workers, and government contracts worth millions take the edge off their war-time existence. “Henry Ford has just received a £14,000,000 order for tank engines. This is on top of an £11,000,000 order for lorries. He will also make aircraft engines, and swarms of the usual civilian cars ” (Daily Express, 29/1/51). For the vast mass of people all over the world who own no Malayan rubber shares or Persian oil bonds, the scales are weighed heavily against you. Millions of workers may die killing their fellows for Persian oil or Malayan rubber and in the former case, a proposed act of Nationalisation may be the spark of ignition. What would you have said if at the time the mines here were nationalised some foreign power with large share-holders there had protested or sent notes asking that their “concessions” be safeguarded, yet this is exactly the position in Persia. It only appears ridiculous to speak of some “foreign” capitalist groups owning concessions here because Britain, due to a number of reasons, was amongst the earliest capitalist countries to arrive on the scene and therefore had first choice of markets, trade routes, territories, etc.

When Labour Party leaders say they “represent the interests of all classes” what do the sweating workers in the steel industry think when their out-put targets are raised every time they are reached? Has the act of nationalisation made any difference here or in the mines where “ dig more coal ” is the order of the day and munitions factories get it first while domestic consumers have to wait? If all the workers want is work, no matter what so long as its a job, it seems they have it but socialists want something more than that, nothing impossible but more than that.

If times are hard now what will they be like after, if another war comes? when many lives, much industry and raw materials have been blown up? Can no permanent halt be called to this madness?

While workers keep trotting to the polls without the necessary understanding of the world they live in all they can do is vote for war and hardships in the form of continued capitalism with labourites or tories at the head. Of course war would be the last thing they would vote for intentionally but that is the outcome of their blind action. Merely to get tired of one government, imposing shortages and to replace it with another is going around in circles getting nowhere. An examination of the life around you is essential if you are to solve the problems which confront you, no politician can do it for you, experience should have shown you that by now. Capitalist society throughout the world including Russia, means that a minority own the means by which the masses live, either privately or through the State, and it is clearly of no use workers here fighting their counter-parts in Russia to stop it, for when they return they will find victory is much the same as defeat, for workers who depend on wages. The fight must lie then not between them and their fellow-workers elsewhere but between workers and capitalists all over the world. Workers who, by accident, happen to have been born in Britain, could lay Moscow flat to-morrow, but that wouldn’t give railwaymen the right to strike without being threatened. The real, in fact the only, solution to world problems lies within the grasp of the workers, but so many' distractions are found to take the worker's mind off his sordid life, that as yet only a minority have understood it. It is so much easier to go to the pictures after a hard day in the sweat-shop than it is to read pamphlets and books on the class-struggle, and the capitalist class can thank their "God” it is too.

Once the workers wake-up to what is going on around them they will see the futility of sending reformist politicians to patch up the existing form of society where capitalists own the instruments of production and live lives of luxury and comfort on the backs of the producers, who alone make this position possible. If production for sale on the worlds markets for profit, provides the breeding ground for war with economic rivals, surely war is no concern of the working class of any nation, for they do not own the goods or the sources of raw material from which they are made. No matter how much wealth workers produce, all they get are wages, the price of their energies, enough to see them through from week to week, reproduce their kind and put a few coppers by for a rainy day hoping it doesn't rain too hard. As a solution to all this we hold out common ownership with production for use; this requires a complete change in the organisation of world society, so only mass understanding can be instrumental in bringing it about If it sounds fantastic when we say we look forward to a world without wages or money, employers or employees, cops or robbers, armed forces, ticket inspectors, riches or poverty, a world with plenty for all and death from old age instead of malnutrition, disease or atomic warfare. When you have examined the evidence you will be even more amazed at how easy it really is. There can then be only one result conscious political action to overthrow capitalism arid establish Socialism.

Harry Baldwin

"Your Vote" (1951)

From the August 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The rumours buzz round from time to time that a General Election is likely to take place in the autumn, and once more the working class will be in a similar position to that of the “Light Brigade" with politicians to the left of them, and politicians to the right of them volleying and thundering for their vote.

It is therefore quite important to review this event that crops up every five years or so, and ask the people who constitute the “Electorate" what importance they attach to their votes. The Parliamentary Candidates consider this vote is so important to obtain, that they (through the medium of the political party that they represent) will go to great expense to get it.

They will ran garden parties to woo voters, socials, free entertainments of all kinds, and on the great day, they will provide free transport from your local railway station to the polling booth, or from any where else in the locality.

The workers are told what jolly good fellows they are by the contesting Candidates, and that if the workers cast their vote for the particular parties that they represent, everything in the garden will be lovely. The workers have been up and down this garden path so often that they have worn it into a trench as deep as Cheddar Gorge, and still they listen to the howl of would-be leaders who can only lead them even deeper into the abyss because these leaders are unable to show them the way out

There are certain numbers of the electorate who have grown tired of these howling saviours who give excuses for past failings and fancy promises for the future. “They are all the same," is a common statement. “All of them are only put for their own ends," and therefore these dis-interested people consider .that it is a waste of time to go to the poll. To these people this article is directed. The vote which politicians appeal to you for at every election both national and local, is something that cost a lot in the form of victimisation, bloodshed, misery, and transportation to prisons on the other side of the world. The vote which is your passport to political recognition, was got for you by such members of the working class as the victims of the Peterloo Massacre that happened on St. Peter’s Fields, Manchester, a little over a hundred years ago, the members of the Chartist Movement, and many more too numerous to mention. They dreamed the dream of Working Class emancipation through the use of this great weapon, “ The Vote."

Nobody realises the truth of the statement, “they are all alike” more than the members of the S.P.G.B., and for close on forty-seven years we have laboriously been telling this to the workers. But we do not say that going to the poll is a waste of time, for we realise that at the polling booth we are able to express opposition to the continuation of Capitalism. We can do this by writing the words “SOCIALISM S.P.G.B. ” right across the ballot form. By so doing we have withheld our vote. We have informed the Candidates that we are not interested in any of their airy-fairy promises. We are only interested in terminating the system that they wish to keep going. Those who do not agree with the S.P.G.B.’s case, but do believe that all the political parties are the same, could go to the polling booth and register disapproval of these people in some way or other. How you do it is your affair, but the vote is your weapon to wield as you like. With it you can make or break a government. We Socialists look to the future (for the future is ours), when through the use of this weapon we shall be able to see come into existence the one thing for which we are striving—The establishment of a system based upon the common ownership and democratic control of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interest of the whole community.

“SOCIALISM."

J. G. Grisley