Friday, October 4, 2024

Alan Johnstone (2024)

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers will have noticed that there have been no articles for a while from ALJO who wrote the Material World column and was a prolific contributor to our blog. We ourselves have not heard from him in Thailand for well over a year.

Alan joined the Edinburgh Branch in 1970 while a teenager and rejoined in 2003. Before his retirement he worked for Royal Mail and was an active member of the Communication Workers Union.

If anyone has any information about him or his whereabouts could they please get in touch with us.

Party News: three leaflets (2024)

Party News from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

To end the rage, end capitalism

The media love it when racists riot, because disaster sells.

There’s less interest in the real story, of cooperation, of solidarity against racism, of mutual support, shown by the vast majority of people.

People like you, here at this event.

There are those who say that humans are by nature greedy, selfish and cruel, and that peaceful and cooperative co-existence will never be possible.

That’s nothing but an excuse to justify a violent, warring system that, deep down, we all hate, in which billionaires lounge on their yachts while the rest of us scrape by, obey their stupid laws, and do all the hard work of running society.

It’s capitalism that drives many to a nameless rage they take out on innocent people around them through racism, homophobia and domestic violence.

And it’s capitalism that has become, to quote campaigner George Monbiot, ‘a weapon pointed at the world’, a system of runaway profiteering that is threatening our collective survival.

It’s time to declare we’ve hit peak capitalism.

We can do so much better.

We have the tech and the know-how to upgrade to a sustainable world of democratic common ownership, with no nation states, leaders, rich elites or money.

Making everything free will make everyone free.

Making everyone free will end the rage.

If you want this, say so – tell people you want to move beyond capitalism, because you’ll be surprised how many agree with you.

And contact us to help get the message out.

– Leaflet handed out at ongoing anti-racism events.


Green capitalism? No chance!

We need rational stewardship of the biosphere for our survival.

But the world is in the hands of a tiny capitalist minority, all in furious competition with each other to stay ahead of the pack.

All their grubby investment decisions are taken in private and only for profit. There’s no overall rationality, no ‘grand design’. It’s a crazy casino.

Environmentalists say you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet, and that’s true. So can we tame the casino? Can we magically rig capitalism so it pursues only modest or even zero growth?

That would be a feat for the ages, like turning a tiger vegetarian, or convincing a Great White shark to give back to the community.

Capital only wants to do one thing, make a profit, faster and faster, on and on, and bugger the externalities. You’ll never make it change. You’ll never make it green.

The only way to get rational stewardship is to get rid of capitalism.

We need to take the world into collective democratic ownership, with no market system or production for profit, and no rich class of irresponsible gamblers to ruin it for the rest of us.

– Leaflet handed out at Green Party Conference in September.


Against all capitalism’s wars

Why this war with all the death and destruction wars bring? It’s not, as it might seem, another example of an undying enmity between two groups – Jews and Arabs – but a fight between different capitalist factions over land, resources and strategic routes. And not just between the government of Israel and the Hamas regime in Gaza. The greater issue is who controls the oilfields in the Persian Gulf and the trade route out of it, with Israel being supported by the West to counter the threat from Iran and Iran promoting militant Islamism to undermine Israel.

In Gaza, the Hamas organisation, who are both anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic, came to power via elections in 2007 with the stated aim ‘to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’. But that was the end of any form of democracy there and, in their time in office, they have crushed multiple protests by rivals, expelling their officials to make sure there would never be a round of elections and killing dozens of their own people, many of them civilians. During that time the people of Gaza have been plunged increasingly into poverty with, for example, 40 percent unemployment, with their leaders enriching themselves assisted by backers from other Arab countries and enjoying multi-million-dollar land deals, luxury villas and black market fuel from Egypt.

The continuing oppression by Israel (a country by the way where 25 percent of households live on the poverty line) has also of course been a significant factor, as its government has sought to facilitate the enrichment of its own capitalist class by grabbing land and keeping a tight lid on protest. Now the lid has come off- and in the most horrific way.

There is no excuse for the horrors unleashed on innocent people by Hamas nor for Israel’s savage retaliation, killing thousands, attacking hospitals, depriving a land of food, water and power and flattening its infrastructure regardless of what may happen to the inhabitants in the short and long term. No wonder there are calls for a ceasefire to alleviate the sufferings of the people of Gaza.

Of course Israel’s government will support its own capitalist class to the hilt – after all that is its role. And it is all part of a playbook, which we see played out time and time again as governments representing their capitalist classes fail to resolve conflicts by diplomacy and resort to horrifying violence. We can only repeat the same thing we have always said when this has happened – that workers (in this case Arab and Israeli ones) have no interest in fighting one another but have a common interest in uniting with workers throughout the world to abolish capitalism and establish socialism, a world without borders where the Earth’s resources will belong to all humanity and are used to produce what people need, not profits for the few who currently own and control these resources.

– Leaflet handed out at anti-Gaza War protests.

SPGB October Events (2024)

Party News from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard



Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

*Update*

Tonight's SPGB Zoom Meeting.

"Lenin: Anti-Tsarist revolutionary who succeeded or revolutionary socialist who failed?"

Speaker Adam Buick

4th October 7.30pm (Greenwich Mean Time)

#Socialism #Lenin  #SPGB

To join the meeting click https://zoom.us/j/7421974305

Onward, Christian soldiers (1977)

From the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The armed forces must be prepared to play a new rôle in enforcing democracy in Britain should the present system of government break down.” Thus, the Very Reverend John Field Lister, the Provost of Wakefield Cathedral, as reported in the Yorkshire Post of 15th July.

This gem of current religious philosophy was delivered on the occasion of the laying-up of the regimental colours of the First Battalion of the Coldstream Guards at Wakefield Cathedral. He went on to say: “More and more nations are finding that government is almost impossible to carry out. This may be because democracy is a Christian concept and that without it, it cannot succeed.

“When governments break down, then we have seen in one country after another that the military have to be brought in. It might well be that in the years which lie before us the armed forces will have a new and different rô1e to play, and how important that role will be.” There followed some all-too-familiar references to the power of the unions, the possibility of a general strike, etc., etc.

It is to be hoped that the guardsmen on the receiving end of this will have learned something about their function in the eyes of supporters of the capitalist class. They are themselves members of that same working class they may be ordered to suppress.
Richard Cooper

So They Say: The Reason Why (1977)

The So They Say Column from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Reason Why

A bewildered assistant is no assistant at all; the Conservatives have got one of theirs, Margot Lawrence, “flummoxed”. Judging by her contribution to the columns of the Daily Telegraph on the 30th August, this is probably no difficult achievement in any event. She became concerned to clarify the “highly emotive phrase” “production for use, not profit”, which some dastardly Socialists argue from time to time. Writing under the title “Isn’t production for profit?” she is puzzled why the Conservatives are “failing to use the strongest argument in their own book”:
That production for use is production for profit, the two are intertwined and inseparable.
Notwithstanding Margot Lawrence’s view that “almost all people do have enough money for what they really need”, we suggest that one of the reasons the rest of the Conservative Party does not argue along the lines she proposes is that such a contention could not be sustained.

Production in capitalist society is carried on because the owners of the means of production realize a profit from selling their commodities. All of these commodities are considered useful by the purchaser, whether they be the lawn-mowers used as an illustration in the article or weapons of mass destruction used in war. When production in certain fields would be unprofitable however, no owner will advance capital for such production. Vast numbers of the world’s population do not starve because food would not be “useful”, they starve because it is unprofitable to feed them.

When the Socialist says “production for use”, he is saying: abandon the form of society in which society’s needs are assessed in terms of the minority’s requirement for profit.


Problems and . . . More Problems

We give below two excerpts from newspapers which illustrate this particular point. Capitalism has an apparently uncanny ability to produce social problems. A study of the foundations on which it is based show in fact that it cannot fail to do otherwise. Although it would be naive to suggest that Socialist society will not face problems, we will be able to devote our fullest efforts towards solving them and preventing new problems from arising.

In capitalism we have surely reached a pinnacle of absurdity when the means are available to solve, for instance, the problem of starvation, but the possible avenues for tackling the first problem, through only partial application, create a “problem” of precisely the opposite nature. We are sometimes asked what Socialism will be like: we can predict now that the newspapers of Socialism will not need to carry items like these.
The Community [EECJ is being chased by an ever-increasing milk surplus. It is about to operate what is described in the jargon of Brussels as a “corresponsibility levy”, in other words a penalty against farmers for producing too much milk . . . Milk is a tiresome commodity for the EEC to handle since it is expensive to store and difficult to sell to anybody else . . . the official intervention stores are often the only outlet for it.
The Times, 5th September 77
Asia’s major hope for future development, the “green revolution”, is now failing to keep pace with the rapid growth ir. population, and this will condemn a quarter of mankind to continued poverty,, hunger, malnutrition and unemployment.
The Times, 6th September 77

First Things First

The well known Conservative bull-frog, Reginald Maudling, has been croaking on the difficulties faced by industrialists because of the governing consideration of profitability. The aforementioned Margot Lawrence would do well to note his passionate comments. Mr. Maudling, a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, had this to say in a published letter:
With the possible exception of the strike-ridden motor car industry, it seems to me clear that potential supply is far greater than existing demand. Maybe potential supply has been reduced by discouraging investment, but there is no doubt whatsoever from every bit of evidence that emerges from industry, that what is holding back supply at the moment is not capacity, but inadequate demand.
The Times, 2nd September 77
He was writing a week before Ford Motor Company’s decision to build an £180m engine plant in South Wales, but even so his comments do not seem so wide of the mark, as Ford is making it clear “that the new plant did not point to plans for a huge increase in total car production”.

The problem of “inadequate demand" seems an odd one at first glance. Can this be anything other than a campaign of stubbornness by members of the working class? Why, at the present moment the majority are forced to live in circumstances where the watchword is Cheapness; one-and-a-half million of the blighters are out of work entirely. You would think they were able to make plenty of “adequate” demands for the sake of the frustrated industrialists. “Ah, but wait a minute,” will say the latter. "They may have plenty of demands —but have they got the money to go with them?”


Miracle Man

It may not be the second coming, but it is a present-day equivalent. When the Associated Television Corporation began making their fiction-film Jesus of Nazareth, we recall Lew Grade, the group chairman and chief executive, muttering about it being made because it would be meaningful, important and so on. Some may have mistakenly imagined these comments related to the content of the film.
Zeffirelli’s majestic production of ‘Jesus of Nazareth" was first shown in this country on Palm Sunday, 3rd April 1977. It achieved immediate success both at home and abroad. In Britain, the audiences amounted to 21 million viewers; in the USA to over 91 million and in Italy 84 per cent saw the film. I have no hesitation in saying that this film, representing ATV's largest single film-production investment, will prove an asset of inestimable wealth to the company and provide a valuable annuity over the years to come.
The Times 8th September 1977
Lord Grade (as he is now called) had taken a full page advertisement to publicise ATV’s results. Although he refers to the “inestimable wealth” resulting from the film, share-holders like to have their information in more precise terms.
The results speak from themselves. The pre-tax profit figure is £11,161,000, the highest in the 22 years history of the company, and shows an increase of 81 per cent over 1976.
Thus we learn, in the words of the good book, exactly what it shall profit a man.
Tony D'Arcy

50 Years Ago: Does capitalism need the House of Lords (1977)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

For years we have warned the workers against the danger of Labour Governments. Capitalism can be administered, as regards essentials, only in one way—the Capitalist way . . . The Queensland railwaymen [employed in a nationalized industry] tried to help some workers who were on strike in the sugar industry. The “Labour” Government met this sympathetic action by dismissing the 11,000 railway employees, and was able to force them to desert the strikers and go back to work. Thus Queensland is vindicated as a territory which is still safe for Capitalism.

#    #    #    #

For those who imagine that the existence and powers of a House of Lords are questions of first-class importance, it is useful to remember that Queensland long ago abolished its Upper House. When it is necessary to crush revolt among the workers, a single chamber in the hands of a “Labour” Government in Queensland can be as drastic and as brutal as anything England or the U.S.A. can show, and what is of more importance from a Capitalist standpoint, it can act so much more promptly than can a cumbersome two-chamber system.

[From an editorial "Capitalism in Queensland—Ferocious Labour Government". Socialist Standard, October 1927.]

Letter: Sitting duck rules (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sitting duck rules

Thank you for publishing my letter plus your reply. However, I'm afraid that good at criticizing the status quo (who isn’t? It’s a sitting duck) you weaken completely when asked for your alternative.

Without money, how can it be decided whether I’m to have the use of a pair of low-quality, plastic shoes (the present reality), or of a Rolls Royce (which, of course, I richly deserve)?

Without the need for money, how on earth am I (and a few million others) going to get up and go to work each day?

Politics is the art of the possible and. having recently exceeded the allotted three-score and ten, the SPGB should seriously consider what Marx and Engels would think, say and do were they here today.

With or without class and money, the tough-minded people—the aggressive, assertive minority—will pursue their interests at the expense of the rest, who have neither the energy nor courage to oppose them. What humanity needs most is for the powerful and influential, in all walks of life, to decide to co-operate with each other for the good of all.
Allan Bula
Guildford


Reply:
Though you speak of money as an indispensable facility, on your own evidence it is not: instead of enabling you to get things, it prevents you from doing so. How was it “decided” that you have low-grade plastic shoes? Obviously, you want better ones but your choice is nullified by your pay-packet. Nor does the capitalist class or the government "decide” that you shall have only so much money. The government (any government) would like to have everyone in work, well paid and contented; it does not choose but is forced into policies which have the opposite effects. For the capitalist class as a whole, workers are customers. Each capitalist would like all the others’ employees to have plenty of money to buy his wares; but he must try to keep his own employees’ wages down. No "decision” is made. It is the way capitalism operates.

You need to reason this out. The sellers of wealth are the owners of it. If common ownership existed, there would be no owning class; the means of living and the products would belong to everyone. Can you explain what basis there would be for buying and selling, and what function money could possibly have? As for its being an incentive, you clearly see it as the reward of labour. Yet you acknowledge (see above) that it provides an inadequate reward for you. We are saying that Socialism would provide incomparably better material rewards, and therefore as much incentive as you need.

Without class there are no interests and no powerful people: power is political. Since a class society produces competing interests, it is impossible for "the powerful and influential” to co-operate "for the good of all” (you say this yourself in the preceding sentence). But society has been and is ruled by so-called strong men, and the .result in your own words is that the status quo is “a sitting duck”—i.e. has almost nothing to be said in its favour. Why do you think it will be different in the future? Socialists take the realistic attitude that a change of rulers makes no difference because the problems are produced by the class structure of capitalist society. Your view is the Utopian one.
Editors.

Letter: Class and Ideology (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class and Ideology

You accused Harold Walsby of holding that the working class is "mentally inferior”. Challenged to support this you produce statements that the working class does not understand or accept Socialism. But in order to show that Walsby held them to be mentally inferior you have to show him saying or implying that some other group is mentally superior to it. You have failed to support your accusation.

You describe as "absurd” my statement that “in acceptance or rejection of Socialism there is no significant difference between workers and capitalists”. My evidence is that although the majority of capitalists do not accept Socialism, a tiny majority do accept it. Similarly with the workers. Although the overwhelming majority of workers do not accept it, a tiny minority do, and show this by belonging to the SPGB.

It will be more fruitful to try and get to the root of the difference between Walsby and the SP. It is not the case that the working class accepts Socialism and the capitalist class opposes it. Class position does not correspond with acceptance or rejection of Socialism, and is not coming to do so. What does determine it? The ideology of the person concerned. All of us begin life with the same ideology. Some of us move on to a more sophisticated one, some of those to a more sophisticated one still, and so on. The result is the existence of a number of ideological groups forming, very roughly, a pyramid. The SPGB is the political expression of an ideology very close to the top of the pyramid, an ideology, therefore, with a very small group attached to it.

If a person possessing this ideology hears the Socialist case, he will probably accept it. A person possessing any other ideology will reject the case; it does not "fit” his ideology. This is why, whenever an SP branch is started in a "new” town it usually reaches a size comparable with that of established branches and then stops growing; all the people of the appropriate ideology in that area have been "collected”. Over seventy years the SP has proven that it is impossible to get a majority of Socialists. Walsby’s theory explains why this is, and opens the way, through recognition of the ideological structure of present society, to solution of our main social problems.
Geo. W. Walford
London N1.


Reply:
You acknowledge that Walsby held that the majority of workers would never understand Socialism, but object to our identifying this with the view that they are “mentally inferior”; we must show what other group he compared them with, you say. From Walsby’s writings, let us take the original quotation used in our January article: “an established fact—namely, that the average human intelligence is on the decline”, followed by a sentence accusing the SPGB of vacillating over "whether the workers have or have not the intelligence to establish Socialism”. "Decline” can only mean that the workers at a given time are inferior to a previous generation.

In your own statements, comparisons implying superiority and inferiority are made repeatedly. For example, the “more sophisticated ideology” and the "more sophisticated one still” which "some of us”—but not "the overwhelming majority of workers”—hold. You kindly place the SPGB “close to the top of the pyramid”, with the mass of the workers a long way down below. We do not think you are handicapped by language here: it would be possible to speak of a different ideology and a still more different one, and to use another geometrical shape if that was all you meant.

You misrepresent our answer to you on workers and capitalists. We pointed out (a) that most workers have not heard the Socialist case at all, and (b) that something more than minimal exposure to it is required as grounds for saying they have heard it and reject it. You accept that workers and capitalists are separate classes, but treat it statically; what is not mentioned in any of your three letters, although it was the starting-point of the article you criticized, is the class struggle.

None of us disputes "the existence in society of a number of ideological groups”. Where do they come from? The socialist case is that they arc produced by the class structure of society. A person raised in poverty has different assumptions and attitudes from those of a luxuriously-nurtured person. Of course further experience affects his attitudes; but that also is derived from a class-divided society. A capitalist may, as you suggest, accept Socialism as a system of ideas. That does not make him any less a capitalist, obliged to put his material interests before the “more sophisticated ideology” he may have acquired. (There are exceptional cases.)

The founders of the SPGB knew from earlier experience that the task they undertook was likely to be a slow one; other people, then and since, have understood Socialism but been unwilling to work for it for precisely that reason. Your thesis that a Party branch soaks up "all the people of the appropriate ideology” in its area is quite fantastic. Our branches, whether in suburbs or cities, would be pleased to have a situation in which this was tested—it would mean everyone had heard and considered the SPGB.

The remedy offered by Walsby and his followers for social problems consists of domination over the masses by intellectuals. We give three quotations.
Thus, in basing his ideas of achieving a scientifically controlled society upon an unconsciously motivated assumption—the mass-rationality assumption—the scientific intellectual is wasting much of his political time and energy. It is this assumption (with its associated repressed material) which today largely befogs the minds of those scientists—and others—who are striving for a society in which sub-atomic energy is no longer used for the destruction of man, but for his benefit and well-being.
("Atoms and Ideology” by Harold Walsby, in The New Age of Atomics)
Is the great mass of mankind through its inherent incapacity for scientific thought and understanding, doomed to eternal suffering?. . Concomitant with the rational superiority of these politically more enlightened people goes their inevitable numerical inferiority. Yet, year in and year out, with admirable though blind optimism and appalling ignorance as to the nature and structure of political development, they go on, fighting among themselves and vainly appealing to the masses with the same arguments and upon the same subject-matter which was instrumental in their own 'conversion.
(Understanding the Mass Mind, by Richard Tatham)
No longer are we confined to announcements as to how people ought to think, or as to the attitude they must adopt if civilisation is to be saved . . . not until this relationship between the intellectual and the mass is understood and accepted—and who is to do this if not the intellectuals? — will it become possible to control the development of society.
(The Intellectual and the People)
That takes us back to Plato, and men cast in higher moulds.
Editors.

Letter: Riches and poverty (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Riches and poverty

One wonders what the inmates of London’s poorest streets find in common with the occupants of power in Buckingham Palace, for it was the humblest of homes that had the largest flags. Bunting hung from the houses that have been witness to cries of hungry families or the young and old in need of warmth. The monarchy never saw fit to look after the simplest needs of the working class outside its everyday use on the labour-profit market, or in war to fight under its flag for so-called freedom. The only freedom they (the state) cares about is its own safeguards—big business under the puppet system plus the old three party political collaborators. At the Guildhall we saw them feast luxuriously side by side with murderers from the Commonwealth, yet the very same wanted |to keep Amin out.

The Church of England are all part and parcel of this pomp for the Queen is its head. It has much in common with its stable-companion the Catholic dictatorship. The great wealth of the rich has only been built on deeds of plunder, piracy and wholesale murder and the wage-slave-profit market.

Until the real people cast their eyes and minds on the true and rightful road of Socialism, where all the everyday needs of life—food, light and heat, and a decent home free from the price and rent label for ever in a classless society dedicated to the welfare and health of all the people: this will be the highest law in the land. No longer will the evils of the money market be with us. That’s right, no banks, no profit-mongers, the end of the big business supermarkets. The network of landlords (private and state) will be an evil of the past—homes, like all building, will be for the use of the people not profit.

Once the abolition of money comes about, only then can you plan a rich and carefree future.
R. Bloomfield,
London SW8.

SPGB Meetings (1977)

Party News from the October 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard 







Thursday, October 3, 2024

The Greater War: Our Appeal For Recruits. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the members of the working class: —

For the moment the anti-Socialists have triumphed, and Europe is plunged in anarchy and bloodshed, while over the seas pillage and death have spread their wings. The much vaunted “intellectual development of society,” the great “progress of capitalist civilisation,” the “directive ability” and the “administrative powers” that the master class are supposed to monopolise, have resulted in a vile and vicious struggle between them as to which can murder most of OUR class—the WORKING CLASS.

This is your reward for trusting your enemy; for when either or both sides become exhausted in this conflict, the master class will patch up their little difference, but will continue the Greater war—the subjection and robbery of the working class.

“Peace, perfect Peace,” sing the churches; but “pieces, golden pieces,” chirp the masters, and in their fight for markets in which to realise the wealth stolen from the workers, the Christian croakers and peace praters find their answer as the bullets find their billets in the sons of God, and leading church divines draw dividends from the sale of powder.

This is the reward of those who have foolishly placed reliance on religion.

But meantime the workers have suddenly become important, and particularly the strong, young men. To them appeals are being made; threats even, and hints of probable unemployment are given; while the “superior persons” vie with each other in flattering the possible recruit to their murdering machine. “Your country is in danger, fight for it and maintain your liberties!” Such is now the cry of the masters to the young men of the working-class. Strange, is it not, that the masters should now be so concerned with our country and our liberties? The perjured, lying hypocrites! It is their own country and their own interests that are threatened.

The working class have no country (they must go where they can get a job), nor have they any liberties it would hurt them much to lose.

The lot of the working class in this and other countries is just to be allowed to exist for the convenience of the master class. The workers’ portion, in England as elsewhere, is to be ground down in the struggle to gain the pittance to eke out a miserable existence.

Under the Union Jack or other national flag the workers are the slaves of those, who own and control the means of life. Here, in times of peace, THE GREATER WAR still rages: the relentless, bitter struggle against poverty and starvation. Here we have sweating, low wages and brutalising toil, child-labour and cheap female-labour, unemployment, shoddy clothing, slum dwellings, and adulterated food.

Here we have strikes and lock-outs, and the military machine used in the interests of the masters when the workers, fighting for a living, are batoned, shot, and starved into subjection. Poverty and prostitution ever increasing—degradation ever deepening : such are the liberties, such is the system you are asked to risk your lives in defence of. But a far better thing to do is what we ask of you—that is to stay at home and think.

Realise that the only party of the workers in this country is the Socialist Party of Great Britain—all other parties have misled and betrayed you—all other parties are at present betraying you. Get to understand the economic enslavement of your class. Enlist in the army of the Social Revolution. Your OWN class needs you, let the master class see to itself.

Rouse ye!

The Executive Committee.

‘The great appear great to us because we are on our knees! Let us Rise!’ (Desmoulins)

The Idle Parsons Bless the Busy Soldiers. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I come not to send peace but a sword.—Matt. X. 34.
“Peace and goodwill towards all men” is thought, by some to be the watchword of the Christian Church. The Church which is the organisation, above all else, claiming to be the Party of peace and the promoter of better relations between man and man. Nineteen hundred years have passed since their creeds were established and yet almost the whole of “Christian” civilisation is embroiled in deadly war. Verily, it is said the Church is paid by the ruling class to do the work of the rich, for we find the parasitic parsons to-day praising and defending what is undoubtedly the most mercenary massacre which ever stained the pages of history. Every section of the Christian faith adds its blessing to this savagery.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the Anglican Church, who gets £15,000 per year to preach the “Gospel of love,” said (“Standard,” August 25th):
“So far as I can see, our conscience as a Christian State and people, is as regards this war, wholly and unchallengeably clear. We might, I suppose, for a time have stayed outside the arena, but to have stayed outside at this time would, as I understand it, have been at the cost of England’s honour, at the cost of England's chivalry to weakened peoples, at the cost of England’s faithfulness to her plighted word. Could any of us for the sake of avoiding war have asked God’s blessing upon our reticence ? . . . It was not in quiet and peaceful times that Christian heroes like Henry Lawrence Havelock or Gordon bore an undying message which will live while England stands.”
The awful cant and hypocrisy about “England's honour” and “England’s chivalry” is well taken if we recall how the tiny Boer Republics were treated, the deeds of valour amongst the Indians and Egyptians and nearer home in the ” Emerald Isle.”

St. Paul’s Cathedral is the Mecca of modern Christians and the Canon of the Cathedral, therefore, was sought for his attitude. This is what Canon Alexander said (“Standard,” Aug. 25th, 1914):
“At this, one of the greatest crises of the world’s history, we could not pray for success, we could not look up in simple trust and confidence to God, unless our hands were clean, unless we were convinced that our cause is just. It is God’s leading that we are following now.

“War is the instrument through which God is working out His own purpose. It is Him we are called upon to serve and if we are faithful and loyal and true, He will bring us, in the language of the scripture, “through fire and water,” “out into a wealthy place.”
“Trust in God and keep your powder dry” was the famous charge of Oliver Cromwell to his Ironsides, and to-day Lord Kitchener has struck the same note in advising each member of the force he has sent out that “the first duty of a soldier is to fear God . . . God holds in his hands the issue. Fortunately the strikes and troubles that existed here are settled now. Classes are united. Rich and poor alike are shoulder to shoulder in a righteous cause and in this we see God working out our salvation.”

The Roman Catholic Church is, of course, in the same position as their Anglican confreres in crime. Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster, states his views thus (“Standard,” August 22nd, 1914):
“War cannot itself be a sin, since God Himself has actually commanded war on many occasions and even aided His own people to obtain the victory by miraculous means. It is quite certain that God cannot at any time have done or commanded anything sinful. Moreover, in the New Testament the profession of arms ia treated as a perfectly legitimate one ; special favour was shown to the officers of the Roman army (Luke VII, 2, 10). St. John the Baptist, far from advising soldiers to abandon their calling, urged them to be careful to observe military discipline (Luke III, 14), and our Lord not only foretold the coming of war in the future (Matt XII, 36); but declared that he came “not to bring peace but a sword,” and we are told in the Apocalypse (XII, 7) that there was war even in heaven.
Such an authority for war has rarely been surpassed by the followers of the meek and lowly Nazarene.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Salford also agrees as to the divine origin of the war for he says (same paper) :
“The war is the result of the sins and passions of men; it is the great scourge used by the Almighty to chastise the sins of the world.”
The Nonconformist Conscience has also been appealed to and the Pastor of Westminster Chapel, the Rev. G. Campbell-Morgan, blesses the wholesale butchery in these words (same paper):
“I preach peace at all seasons, but with regard to the course of Great Britain in the present great conflict, I have changed my views because I believe that my fellow-countrymen are pursuing the only honourable course open to them by upholding the cause of a small nation, upon which all the horrors of a ruthless invasion have been forced. … I am certain that Great Britain has been drawn into the present strife by the highest and noblest of emotions. . . We are thankful to God for the readiness of the sons of the nation to go forth upon their stern duty.”
Even the Quaker testifies for the “Fatherland and the Flag.” E. B. Sprigg, of the Society of Friends, asked by the “Standard” (19.8,14), says:
“The action of Great Britain on embarking on her present adventure in Europe is probably a righteous one.”
Westminster Abbey is the home of kings and from this shrine the voice of Canon Westlake speaks a good word for the war. His views appear in the “Standard” for August 18th:
“I cannot think there is any negation of Christian principles in a Christian people going to war … In the present instance we find Great Britain, Belgium, France and Russia resisting warlike aggression on the part of other nations, and their cause is therefore a righteous one. Great Britain could not have kept out of the conflict and retained her honour.” After quoting from the Bible he goes on to say: “This sanction of the sword by the Christian Religion is borne out by the fact that the old Bishops of the Church were warriors, and often rode into the fight with the armies. Then again, there is the blessing of flags and arms, which is a religious ceremonial, and the appointment of Chaplains of fighting regiments. This indicates that the Church gives its sanction to war.”
Cottonopolis must, of course, get its religious representative’s blessing and hence Bishop Weldon, Dean of Manchester, writes thus “Standard, August 27th, 1914):
“The soldiers of the King stand in need of prayer so that by their conduct, as by their courage, they may show themselves worthy of their Christian native land.”
The Dean of Ripon informs the “Standard” readers that “the Lord is on our side,” having undoubtedly received a private wire, uncensored.

Numerous others of the “Black Squad” could be quoted in the same strain for the Church is doing its work well.

It is, of course, quite incidental that many of the dignitaries of the Christian faith have shares in the armament firms who live on war and war scares. The Bishop of Kensington, for instance, is listed as a shareholder in the International armour plate ring known as the Harvey United Steel Co. The Bishop of Chester is a shareholder in Vickers, the International firm whose works at Fiume supplied Austria with torpedoes to be used against the marines the dear bishop blesses. The Bishop of Hexham is a shareholder in Armstrong Whitworths, which belonged to the world combine of armament manufacturers in company with Krupps. The Bishop of Newcastle is another shareholder in Vickers, whilst that bitter and outspoken enemy of Socialism, Dean Inge of St. Paul’s, is a shareholder both in Armstrong’s and Vickers. The Bishop of Newport is a shareholder in John Brown & Co., and the President of the Free Church Councils, Sir J. Compton Rickett, owns 3,200 shares in John Brown & Co., and 2,100 shares in Cammell Laird, the two famous firms in the death trade.

Rumour has it that these eminent Christian firms do not spend all their time “beating swords into ploughshares” but that report is, of course, untrue.

Space does not allow of any more names, but those given are sufficient to show the material interest of these “Ambassadors of Christ.”

Well does the Nonconformist “British Weekly” declare “United, we stand,” for the parsons and plutocrats hang together lest other things happen. When the war heat has passed away for a time, we can imagine a banquet in honour of the Church and the spokesman of Capitalism blessing it, with the words : “Well done ! thou good and faithful servant.”
Adolph Kohn

A few comparisons. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

Together with the conclusions we draw from them.
It has been said that mere comparisons do not appeal to the workers in general. So accustomed are they to their poverty and the possession and display of wealth by the class that exploits them, that to merely point to such a fact, or even to draw comparisons of the extremes of wealth and poverty, conveys nothing to them. It does not appear at all extraordinary to them that a class performing none of the useful work of society should possess fabulous and ever increasing wealth, while they who produce all the wealth of society should remain always in abject poverty.

This is not because the worker lacks the power of observation or comparison; but rather because he has seen it all his life, has become accustomed to it. Just as he expects the night to follow the day or the day to follow the night, and accepts both as unalterable; in the same way he looks upon society as being of necessity made up of two classes, rich and poor. Natural and social phenomena are in the same category for him—things that have always been and always will be.

This is scarcely to be wondered at, for almost from the cradle influences have been at work shaping in his mind this idea as to the fixed character of social institutions. All those he comes in contact with show by their actions daily and hourly that they do not question the elementary rules upon which society is based, however much they may squabble over the details. The average worker, therefore, regards his class as helpless and inert, though he is himself a unit and a fair sample of all the rest. Even if he understands Socialism, or claims to, he overlooks the power that can be attained by an organised movement, and the paramount importance of maintaining such a movement by individual effort, consequently he does nothing. That, together with the incessant struggle for a bare existence, is the explanation of apathy among the working class.

The result of apathy is disastrous, not only to the working class as a whole, but to the individual. Those who are quiescent not only strengthen capitalist domination, but are continually throwing away what opportunities remain to them of becoming men and women in the real sense; for nothing can be more contemptible than to wear chains without making an effort to throw them off ; while persistence in manly actions makes men.

Socialists, like others of the working class, are compelled to sell their energy in order to live. They cannot escape from wage slavery, but they have already escaped the effects of one of capitalism’s worst weapons, the deliberate propaganda of ignorance and confusion. Without Socialist principles that make his class position clear, the worker cannot discriminate, his brain does not function as the organ of thought, but becomes the receptacle of all the ignorant twaddle that is purposely served up to him through the Press, platform, and pulpit.

Correctly speaking, ignorance is lack of knowledge, but it does not follow that ignorance is purely negative. Ignorant persons can babble, fraudulent labour leaders can make social reforms appear plausible to those who do not think for themselves. The clergy by their trained eloquence keep alive superstitions that no longer exist in the minds of intelligent men and women, because science has long ago explained their origin and growth and shown their absurdity.

Where ignorance speaks the loudest, however, is in the dissemination of falsehoods with regard to the function of capital. Those who own the most capital are everywhere extolled as the most desirable citizens. Yet when one of these desirable citizens dies, the function of the capital he leaves behind goes on without interruption, though it may be left to a child or a lunatic. Whatever that function may be it is obvious that it does not need any special ability in its owner in order to function ; an extract from “Harmsworth’s Popular Science” illustrates this.
“But many a modern shareholder of means resembles a French nobleman of the old regime. He knows personally nothing about the workmen who help to earn the dividends on which he lives. All that be knows is that when they strike for higher wages they are striking for a reduction in his income. He often knows no more about the manner in which the income on his capital is obtained than he does about the manner in which the animal from which his meat is sliced was bred and slaughtered.”
The great mass of the wealth of all capitalist countries is owned in this way by shareholders, who may know a little or a great deal about their concerns, but who certainly take no part in any of the necessary operations of production. This fact is borne out by a superficial examination. When “the heads” do come down to see us at work they are blissfully ignorant of the meaning of it all, and have to be shown round and have things explained to them. They really have no time for the understanding of things industrial or economic ; the pursuit of pleasure absorbs the whole of their useless lives, as Lady Troubridge says in an article in the “Royal Magazine.” “The pursuit of pleasure by society has been brought to a fine art, and almost every week has its own special gaiety and distraction . . . The real fact is that the London season is but the culminating point of a year’s ceaseless round of gaiety and sport, every month of which is mapped out so as to seize the greatest amount of pleasure that it is possible to obtain.” When is their boasted directive ability exercised if they chase pleasure all the year round ?

“What do these men and women know” says the same writer “of the monotony of long, grey days, broken only by tedious work and the weariness of accustomed sights. To them the glittering ballroom with its rose wreathed pillars, its haunting music, its flower-decked tables heaped with dainties, are exchanged before they have time to pall, for the white deck of a yacht, or the moors or uplands of breezy Scotland, and later on for the hunting field and the luxurious country home ; and all the time society is preparing for the great culminating burst of gaiety that comes with the flowers of May.”

On the one side is all luxury, gaiety and sport, on the other want and misery. The World’s workers are robbed of the wealth they produce and then insulted with the hoary tale that if there were no demand for luxuries poverty would be still more widespread—almost sufficient in itself to proclaim the rotteness of the capitalist system. The very fact that they have a superabundance proves that there is no need for anyone to lack the necessaries of life, but to claim indulgence as a virtue and give themselves credit for making work, is pure hypocrisy, and should cause every worker to think. In fact, on every hand we find contradictions, inconsistencies, and comparisons that should rouse the workers to thought. Modern society is full of them. Fashionable women spend incalculable sums on dress and “Swaddle their dogs in costly blankets and spray them with priceless scents,” while, according to Mr. J. J. Mallon, Secretary of the Anti-Sweating League: “The vast majority of women workers in this country earn less than ten shillings per week.” An American millionaire, Lieu. Com. Spofford, bestows one hundred pounds per week on his baby, and Mr. E. McClean’s child is known as the twenty million pound baby, while the Rev. J. E. Roberts says that in London alone 122,000 children are underfed. Mr. Lloyd George once told a large audience “that he knew twelve men whoso income during the worst days of depression would suffice to keep fifty-thousand working-class families in comfort for one month.”

These are a few comparisons taken at random for the thoughtful reader to reflect upon; they should arouse the deepest indignation and the desire to eradicate them. Those who believe in tho permanence of the capitalist system can only suggest social reforms of one kind or another, that are easily shown to be impossible or absurd. The very fact that there are no remedies possible of application within the system, proves that the system is responsible and we have to look to that for the cause.

The system of society we live under to-day differs from feudalism and chattel slavery, though like it, both these were forms of slavery. Under feudalism the worker owned the land he tilled and his took, but was forced to give up a portion of his produce and labour-time. Under chattel slavery the workers were bought and sold like cattle. Under capitalism they are stripped of everything in the nature of property and forced to sell themselves.

Under all these systems the workers produced all the wealth of society, yet may only retain, or have returned to them the barest necessaries of life. Under each of them they are forced to labour to add to the luxury of a ruling class, while they remain poor.

In Oriental countries where the needs of the workers were scanty and easily supplied, they were forced to labour to add to the luxury and grandeur of their rulers. In capitalist countries it is the same; the more thrifty and efficient the working class becomes, the greater the affluence of the master class.

The merchandise character of labour-power is also a condition that breeds and develops antagonism ; the germ of the class struggle. This struggle cannot continue indefinitely, though it is bound to go on while labour-power is merchandise ; obviously, then, the struggle will cease only when the conditions that engender it come to an end. So-called economic action is useless to this end, because in the main it agrees with the wages system by asking for more, while when it endeavours to be revolutionary it simply challenges armed forces with which it is unable to cope.

The working class have to learn that man frames his system according to the means and methods of producing and distributing wealth, and that they can and must change the system to make it harmonise with the changes that have taken place in these means and methods. That change must be from the present private and class ownership to the common ownership and democratic control of all the means of life.

This is Socialism—the only remedy for poverty in the midst of plenty. In its establishment the working class will receive no assistance from the class above ; on the contrary, every obstacle that can hinder the movement will be flung across the path of the revolutionary working class. The workers must therefore preserve their indignation and hatred of the crimes of capitalism. They must be wary of cant and hypocrisy, suspicious of social reformers, and above all, watchful and critical of those who profess to be their friends. In a word, every worker must understand Socialism for himself, then no one can deceive him.

It is part of the policy of the rulers in every country to encourage those who deceive and confuse the workers as to the meaning of Socialism. One section is telling us that Christianity is Socialism, another that the State must own the means of life, another that we must buyout the capitalists. These are easily seen through; the worst frauds are those who lull the workers into apathy by telling them Socialism will come by evolution, and that even now we are in the transition stages.

Socialism can only be established by the deliberate and conscious action of the working class utterly disregarding the interests of those who oppose them. Before they can arrange or control the details of their own lives they must own and control the means of wealth production. To gain possession of these, they must first control the physical power that protects the capitalist class in their ownership. This is only possible by means of a working-class organisation that will control the political machinery. When the armed forces, through the machinery of government, are controlled by the working class, they can enter into possession of the means of wealth production without bargaining or compensation.

Of the details of the future system we say nothing, content to leave them in the hands of those who control—the people. Lady Troubridge, in the “Royal,” says: “Truly this world is a pleasant place for the rich and the gay. . . . Those happy ones whose hearts dance to as merry a tune as the fashionable rag-time music of Cassano’s famous band.” With modern methods of production and a sane system of society, slavery and poverty would be a thing of the past, and all hearts might dance to whatever tune they pleased.
F. Foan

How Volunteers are made. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard
“Any unmarried man who is big enough and strong enough to serve in the Army is asked to offer himself as a recruit in His Majesty’s forces. In the event of his being accepted his place in Lord Derby’s stable will be kept open for him. . . Any man who has refused to try and serve his country in this way has been discharged. I am glad to say that nearly all have shown their patriotism by enlisting.”Hon. Geo. Lambton, in the “Daily Citizen,” 4.8.14.

The standard the workers must keep . . . (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The standard the workers must keep flying during the war is the Socialist Standard. Let us see to it that it holds its place in the forefront of the "greater war" in this time of crisis.

Again we tell you. (1914)

From the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard

The average working man does not like the Socialist to tell him that he is a slave. But nevertheless he is a slave. The only freedom the worker has to day is the freedom to starve, or to change one employer for another. Even that, he finds from bitter experience, he cannot always do.

If the worker cannot find work to do he has no means to live on. It then soon dawns upon him that if he cannot find an employer to give him work, he will be forced into the workhouse, or, worse still, be compelled to steal and to become an outcast dodging the upkeepers of the capitalist laws.

We are Wage Slaves. It does not matter what class of labour we do, whether we work as navvies, clerks, or mechanics, we all come under the category of working men. The master class call us by one name: his employees.

Now we of the working class do not own the mines, factories, land, etc. We have no alternative, therefore, but to go to those that do own them, and ask them to give us permission to work. One thing is obvious: we have to work in order to live. If someone else owns the means by which we live then we are subservient to them. Are we not, therefore, slaves, when we have to ask others to let us work for them in order that we may live ?

It is only when we can make a profit for them (the masters) that we are allowed to work, so the thoughtful man can easily see that we are not considered for a moment. When the markets are glutted and our employers cannot sell the commodities we have produced, we are given the sack.

The poverty of the worker when he is working, and the nerve-wrecking fear of unemployment, makes his position as a wage slave worse than any previous form of slavery that was perpetrated upon his ancestors. The chattel slave had comparative security. We have not. The serf had security, less work, and more leisure, than we have.

The working man has no property. He can live in a house—or rooms—just so long as he can pay rent for it. He can go on paying rent for 50 years and the house is not his. His furniture ! Ah, yes ! That is his so long as he can pay the rent. If he cannot fulfil his obligations to the landlord then his furniture is taken.

To put the case in a few words, we own nothing but the power to work. As we own no property, I repeat, we are the slaves to those that do. “He owns my life who owns the means by which I live” is as true now as when Shakespeare wrote it. It will be, too, as long as we, the working class, like to keep a parasitic class upon our backs.

It is no longer necessary to do this. The capitalist class has served its purpose. It is now suffering from disorganisation and decrepit old age. The working class is the last class to achieve its freedom. We have now to carry out OUR mission. That is to take over the means of producing and distributing wealth ourselves, and use in the interests, not of a few, but of the whole community.

It should be obvious to the worker, surely, that if we control our owns means of living we will put a a end to slum dwellings and unhealthy places to work in. The majority of diseases and complaints which the worker suffers from are the result of the conditions under which he works or the unsanitary, over-crowded dwellings wherein he lives. That would be obliterated, never to show its ugly form in the future.

That is the goal before us. The ending of poverty which is the result of the private ownership of the means of life.

With the common ownership of the world’s means of production the social evils that we are faced with to-day would never occur again. That briefly is what Socialism offers. It is your place to take a firm stand one way or the other. If you do not believe that what we say is right, then fight us vigorously. But if you believe in the principles and policy which we expound, join us and help us to end such a system as can only hold out to the workers in their youth, starvation and misery as the fruits of unending and arduous toil, and in their old age, a five shilling pension or the workhouse. The means of producing wealth are now so fertile that only fools can accept poverty as a necessary condition of society to-day.
J. G. W. Stone

S.P.G.B. Lecture List For October. (1914)

Party News from the October 1914 issue of the Socialist Standard




Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Exhibition Review: In the Wild (2024)

Exhibition Review from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Manchester Museum (part of the University of Manchester) underwent a sizeable redevelopment last year. One result of this is a much larger space for temporary exhibitions, which is currently occupied by Wild, a display on until June next year.

It is a thought-provoking exhibition, featuring paintings, animals as taxidermy mounts, and information displays that focus on specific projects concerned with rewilding (‘letting nature take care of itself, enabling natural processes to shape land and sea, repair damaged ecosystems and restore degraded landscapes’, rewildingeurope.com). An interesting concept is the baseline, a time when an ecosystem was healthier, though this can be subject to various interpretations.

Beavers were hunted to extinction in the UK about four hundred years ago, but they are now being re-introduced, as they build dams and so on, being ‘natural engineers’. In Yellowstone National Park in the US, the last wolves were deliberately killed in 1926, but this led to there being too many grazing animals, and wolves were re-introduced in the 1990s.

Knepp in West Sussex (knepp.co.uk) is the first major rewilding project in England. Its soil made it unprofitable as a dairy farm, and from 2001 it was transformed into a naturalistic grazing system with a range of habitats and herds of cattle, ponies and pigs. But, of course, it still has to make a profit, and this is achieved by means of safaris, accommodation such as yurts, and selling meat. It has been criticised as not truly being rewilding, as the landscapes are not in any real sense natural.

The Isle of Arran off the west coast of Scotland now includes the South Arran Marine Protected Area (arrancoast.com), aiming to ‘protect and restore a diverse, abundant and beautiful marine environment’. In Lamlash Bay this includes a No Take Zone, where no fish or shellfish can be taken from the water, seabed or shore. This is intended, among other things, to protect beds of maerl, a coralline pink seaweed that forms a space where small species can find food and hide from predators.

The exhibition makes the point that there can be a contradiction between rewilding and using land for housing and food. At the end, three possibilities are set out: prioritise nature and leave it to do its own thing; prioritise the relationships between humans and nature; or prioritise nature for the benefits it provides to people. These are hardly mutually exclusive, and different ones could be applied in different areas, rather than there being a single global policy. But issues such as this may well form part of democratic discussions and decision-making in a socialist world.
Paul Bennett

Cooking the Books: Harris in Blunderland (2024)

The Cooking the Books column from the October 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Believe me, as president, I will go after the bad actors and I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price gouging on food,’ Kamala Harris declared in a speech on 16 August, adding: ‘My plan will include new penalties for opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules’ (tinyurl.com/7c373bda).

Price gouging is not a term employed this side of the Atlantic where the equivalent would be ‘profiteering’ or ‘rip-off’. Basically, it’s when a firm or individual selling something to the general public takes advantage of some temporary shortage to jack up the price and reap an extra profit beyond what they would get in normal times.

What Harris was promising appeared to be to bring in legislation to stop the price of food rising, a people-pleasing promise when there’s a cost-of-living crisis.

Actually, when you look at the small print, all she was promising was legislation at federal level to prevent this when a State of Emergency had been declared such as for a forest fire, a hurricane or some other disaster. It wouldn’t apply in the case of a supply chain problem or a temporary shortage arising from some other economic or industrial cause. In any event, many of the states of the US already have such legislation.

In her first interview after officially becoming the Democratic Party’s candidate, Harris went further and promised not simply to stop grocery prices rising but to actually bring them down:
‘Prices in particular for groceries are still too high. The American people know it. I know it. Which is why my agenda includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries’ (tinyurl.com/5eyfpf7m).
She didn’t explain how she was going to do this. A federal act to punish ‘opportunistic companies that exploit crises’ won’t do it. Nor will naming a raft of measures an ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ as the Biden administration has already done.

These days ‘inflation’ is defined as a rise in some index of the price of a basket of consumer goods, whatever the cause. This can be caused by a depreciation of the currency through over-issue (the main cause since the 1940s) or by an exceptional rise in the prices of some key products in the basket of consumer goods (which was the main cause from 2020 till this year due to supply chain problems as a result of the Covid epidemic). In neither case would price controls work to stop ‘inflation’ any more than a command by King Canute stopped the tide coming in.

‘Inflation’, then, is the difference between what the index was at one date compared with what it was at a previous date. What this measures is the rate of increase. So, ‘bringing inflation down’ is reducing the rate at which prices are rising, not bringing prices down. Doing the latter would be ‘deflation’, which is what Harris seemed to be promising.

This is theoretically possible, but it would require a change of policy on the part of America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, which currently aims to keep the rate of increase in the general price level at 2 percent a year (even if not very successfully in the past few years). In other words, that prices, including the price of groceries, should rise at this rate every year.

Since it is unlikely that the Fed will abandon this policy or that she will pressure them to do so, we can confidently predict that a President Harris will not bring down the price of groceries. Anyone who votes for her because she has pledged this will find that they have been ripped off.

50 Years Ago: Confucius, Lin Piao and the CCP (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Lin Piao is dead and in disgrace. Confucius who died a couple of thousand years earlier is getting the treatment reserved for high-ranking renegades — scapegoats of the Chinese ‘Communist’ Party. (…)

The Chinese ‘Communist’ Party set out to develop and control capitalism, and now claim to have set up a Socialist society. Socialism will come sure enough, but in spite of them. What any student of Marxian economics would recognise as an emerging capitalist state was described as ‘People’s Democratic Dictatorship’ and when the state had gained control of the greater part of industry and agriculture it was supposed to have carried out the transition to Socialism. A state of affairs where, on their own admission, classes and the class struggle still exist.

This is not a harmless deception as capitalist society can only work against the interests of the working class and any government trying to run it must come into conflict with the workers. Part of any government’s armoury of weapons in this conflict are arguments designed to get workers to make sacrifices for the mythical nation and warn them of the dangers to the workers of wanting more of the wealth which they produce. Although there may be power struggles taking place in the top ranks of the government, the Lin Piao-Confucius campaign is also a weapon in the class war against the workers. Once workers become aware of their class status they will see through the deceits and come to understand that a class-less society cannot be brought to them from above. They will then form their own Socialist party in opposition to those who at present administer their exploitation. (…)

The Chinese ‘Communist’ Party having pursued the national liberation of China are, despite their protestations to the contrary, nothing but a party of capitalism. They have taken the terminology of Socialism and used it to disguise the State capitalism they administer. The ‘Thoughts of Mao’ may serve them now, but such is the dynamic of capitalism that they will ‘become antiquated before they can ossify’ and become redundant like ‘the ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions’ of Confucius.

(from Socialist Standard Special Issue on China, October 1974)

Action Replay: Bulls, lions and cuts (2024)

The Action Replay column from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

In July it was claimed that there had been massive job losses at the British Basketball League. But our focus here will be on a similar situation in another leading sport. That same month, the i reported that Rugby Football League and Rugby League Commercial, the organisations at the top of the game, were likely to make at least ten members of staff redundant. The big clubs are not happy with how the sport is being run; in particular, the marketing company IMG is being paid £450,000 a year, but so far to little effect, with no new sponsors found and TV coverage reduced.

Rugby league is the eighth most popular sport in the UK, but Super League attendances average well below ten thousand. Financially, the sport is not in great shape. In 2022 every Super League club in England lost money, the total (after tax) being over £12m; this figure excludes Catalans Dragons, who play in Perpignan in France. The largest loss was of £2.5m at Huddersfield Giants, and the smallest, at Salford Red Devils, was still over half a million. Salford may be helped out if the local council take full ownership of the Community Stadium where they play. Wigan Warriors had an operating loss of over £1m, from a turnover of £6.6m (they lost over £1.75m in 2021). Government support during Covid has been ended, and the loans involved are now having to be repaid.

Bradford Bulls, who play in the Championship as a part-time club, make use of a corporate hospitality suite to boost their income. The owners put in cash, and insist on keeping the elite academy, which costs £140,000 a year to run. Wakefield Trinity were the top-spending team in the Championship: they had been relegated from the Super League, have an extremely rich backer, and are still full-time, though they may have to leave their Belle Vue stadium, as it does not comply with current standards.

Central funding has decreased quite drastically, largely because of a cut in TV coverage. In League One – the lowest of the three tiers – Swinton Lions, for instance, have suffered a reduction in central funding of £150,000 since 2021. In 2023, West Wales Raiders, based in Llanelli, withdrew from the league. In the last few decades, attempts to expand the sport to clubs in Blackpool, Chorley, Nottingham and Sheffield have all been unsuccessful.

Three clubs, including Bedford Tigers, have applied to join League One next season. So maybe league can still expand beyond its traditional heartlands, but it will probably be a struggle.
Paul Bennett

Editorial: The capitalist witches’ brew that led to Grenfell (2024)

Editorial from the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The final report of the Inquiry into the Grenfell Fire makes devastating reading.

There was an active lack of interest in fire safety at the heart of central government:
‘In the years between the fire at Knowsley Heights in 1991 and the fire at Grenfell Tower in 2017 there were many opportunities for the government to identify the risks posed by the use of combustible cladding panels and insulation, particularly to high-rise buildings, and to take action in relation to them. Indeed, by 2016 the department was well aware of those risks, but failed to act on what it knew’ (Executive Summary (tinyurl.com/GrenfellExec), p. 7).
Then the most damning paragraph of the report:
‘One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market. In the case of the principal insulation product used on Grenfell Tower, Celotex RS5000, the Building Research Establishment (BRE) was complicit in that strategy’ (p. 10).
A regulatory body had been captured by the construction industry:
‘The National House Building Council (NHBC) […] failed to ensure that its building control function remained essentially regulatory and free of commercial pressures. It was unwilling to upset its own customers and the wider construction industry by revealing the scale of the use of combustible insulation in the external walls of high-rise buildings, contrary to the statutory guidance’ (p.14).
The local authority, Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), managed the property at arm’s length through a Tenants Management Organisation (TMO):
‘RBKC and the TMO were jointly responsible for the management of fire safety at Grenfell Tower. The years between 2009 and 2017 were marked by a persistent indifference to fire safety, particularly the safety of vulnerable people. […] RBKC was responsible for overseeing the TMO’s activities, not monitoring its operations on a day-to-day basis, but its oversight of the TMO’s performance was weak and fire safety was not subject to any key performance indicator’ (p. 16).
The TMO allowed an unqualified person to be the fire safety manager, who carried out substandard assessments:
‘The demands of managing fire safety were viewed by the TMO as an inconvenience rather than an essential aspect of its duty to manage its property carefully’ (p. 17).
The TMO ‘wanted to reduce the cost’ by using the specific type of cladding panel that failed so appallingly but were badly advised by an incompetent firm of architects. In fact:
‘[not] one of those involved in the design of the external wall or the choice of materials acted in accordance with the standards of a reasonably competent person in their position’ (p. 19).
Here, then, were the ingredients of the capitalist witches’ brew that caused Grenfell: a housing market largely geared towards the wealthy, with workers squeezed into as little land and living space as possible. Politicians driven by an ideological aversion to regulation and a desire to please the construction industry. A local authority holding its tenants (many of whom were vulnerable people on benefits) at arm’s length as an unwelcome cost not to be listened to. A regulator captured by the industry it is supposed to regulate. Builders concerned with growing their profits over the wellbeing of the people who will live in the buildings. Unscrupulous manufacturers willing to gamble with people’s lives to sell a few more units of their goods, knowing profit-hungry builders wouldn’t look too closely and would cut them in on the action.

Grenfell was not a mistake but the result of a combination of regular occurrences under capitalism.