Pillars of the State, (1931)

From the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

or

We all go the same way home.

During the great fight to secure seats in the House of Commons, the superficial observer might have been misled into thinking that a tremendous gulf separated the rival factions. Upon closer examination the differences are seen to be of quite minor proportions and mainly concerning details, but there exists a curious unanimity of purpose. Whilst the National crowd claim to have a monopoly of patriotism and national interests, and predicted dire results in the event of a Labour Government being returned, this was hotly disputed by the Labour Party, who themselves claim to be just as patriotic and considerate of National Interests as their opponents.

The victory rested with those who had the most megaphones, and made the strongest appeal to working-class political inexperience.

The Church (of course) was on the side of Sanity, and the Bishop of London (a follower of the Prince of Peace, who urged the workers to shed their blood in the masters’ interests in the shambles of 1914 to 1918) again did his little bit for his masters when addressing his Diocesan Conference, predicting as a “solemn truth” that “If the verdict of the country goes wrong the pound will fall to five shilling’s in twenty-four hours, one shilling within a week, and one penny in a month.” Note the dogmatic exactness with which he prophesies the decline.

Cardinal Bourne, whilst differing from the Bishop of London on questions of Theology is on the same side when it comes to a question of serving the masters’ interests. Speaking at a meeting at the Victoria Palace, London, he said,

“It was the duty of Catholics to promote national peace, and most of them rejoiced that for the time being there was a weakening in the country of that rigid adherence to party which had been the cause of so many evils in the past. It was part of their duty to exorcise all that was evil in party spirit, and make its service as much as possible for the good of the nation. They had also to work for social peace. Nothing in the nature of class war might be fostered or encouraged by Catholics.” (“Eccles Journal,” October 30th.)

Dear, dear ! Whether they were really perturbed at the possibility of the return of a Labour Government we don’t know; but they needn’t have been alarmed.

Let us call the spokesmen of the Labour Party to give evidence against themselves. In an interview with the “Manchester Evening Chronicle” (Oct. 28-31), Mr. Clynes said,

“My conviction is that the Labour Party has stood as the most effective bulwark between revolution and a deep underlying discontent with economic and industrial conditions. The destruction for the time being of the Parliamentary Labour Party may well release forces for dissatisfaction which may assume the most ugly forms in the absence of the political power which the Labour Party welded.”

While Mr. Henderson in the “Daily Herald” (Oct. 29-31) referred to “Labour as the only bulwark against reaction and revolution.”

These are not merely individual views but are representative of the official party attitude as is shown by the “Daily Herald” leader (Oct. 30th),

“The Labour Party in Opposition, as in office, will do its duty to the Nation. The Government’s proposals will be carefully considered and judged purely and simply on their merits. Where they are considered to be wise, just, and designed for the advantage of the Nation they will be cordially approved, and every aid will be given in carrying them out.”

The term “National Interests” is generally construed as meaning the interests of the whole of the people. Let us see. In society as at present constituted there is a class which owns the means of wealth production and distribution, and draw their incomes simply because of this ownership.

On the other hand there is another class which constitutes the majority, who, because of the fact that they do not own the means of wealth production are compelled to work for those who do, on terms dictated by the owners. Between these two classes there is a diametrical opposition of interests, so that there can exist no national interests in the generally understood sense. National interests, upon examination, are found to be ruling class interests, and all parties standing for national interests are obviously supporters of the existing order no matter what labels they impudently give themselves. To quote the “Daily Herald” again (Nov. 3rd), while claiming that their object is Socialism, they define it as “a common-sense plan for the rationalisation of the system in which we live.”

The Socialist Party of Great Britain represents the interests of the working class, as opposed to the interests of the capitalist class, and does not pander to popular prejudice in order to secure seats in Parliament, or to get a following. Its constant aim is to get the workers to realise the necessity of a revolutionary change in the basis of Society and ending the present “system in which we live.”

The Labour Party is lined up along with the Liberals and Tories in defence of capitalism, and is an obstruction in the path of the workers in their struggle for emancipation ; an obstruction to be kicked out of the way. The I.L.P. members in a belated attempt to justify their title have decided not to sit with the Labour members on the grounds that: “Our experience with the Labour Party and the Labour Movement in recent years, has been such that we cannot possibly put our political actions under their control until we have some evidence that there is a general return to Socialist principles.” (“Daily Herald,” Nov. 4th). It would be interesting to know what were the Socialist principles once held by the Labour Party, and at what date Maxton’s peculiar crowd think they deserted them.

The I.L.P.s claim to be Socialist is just as impertinent as that of the Labour Party, and its principal achievement is that it gave to the Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden.

Out of the election results, one thing is made evident. If, in the event of another war, the workers are stampeded into support of it, the Labour leaders will again do their bit for their masters as recruiting sergeants.

Fellow-workers, why dally longer with these cheap-jack vendors of political shoddy; with reforms that do not reform ; with palliatives that do not palliate? Why support parties that are bulwarks of the present system when that system can only exist by keeping you in a subject position? Why follow leaders who are hoping to receive decorations from the enemy for services rendered—to the enemy?

The three “traitors” are no more and no less subservient to capitalism than the present leader has in the past proved himself to be. Organise along with us in the Socialist Party for the purpose of establishing Socialism, and leave these leaders without a following, when they can no longer be a danger to you nor useful to the capitalist class.

J. L.

Letter: Are We Wrong About Capitalist Crises? (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are We Wrong About Capitalist Crises?

A correspondent (“Robbo,” Croydon) has been digging into year-old articles published in the Socialist Standard, and wants to know if we have changed our mind about capitalism’s crises. He writes as follows : —

“In spite of your evident contempt for the “doctrine of collapse,” I think there is at least an outside chance (notice, I do not say a certainty) of a breakdown, before we have time to make the Socialists. In this connection I have been studying the article, “Will Capitalism Collapse?”, in your April, 1927, issue. There you refer to a previous criticism (February, 1922) of the same doctrine, pointing out that “half the allotted time” had passed, and that all the essential signs of a collapse were lacking. May I now point out that the “other half” has passed, and although, to be quite fair to you, the actual collapse has not yet taken place, it is significant to notice that almost all the features which you postulated as acceptable indications of collapse, and which may have been lacking in April, 1927, are now present in overwhelming force.

For instance (front page), “Where, now, are the unemployed organisations?” May I suggest, very much in evidence. Again (page 114), “Barring the failure of the natural physical basis of human life, it (the capitalist system) cannot fall,” and (also page 114), “The system does not cease to function.” Again I suggest that these things are happening. The physical basis is failing, and the system has almost ceased to function. Also (page 115) you say, “Since 1921 unemployment . . . has been almost halved, currency problems . . . have been . . . satisfactorily solved, and no one now supposes that the war debts present any special difficulty.” In the light of present conditions, comment on the latter statements is surely superfluous, and a re-reading of your own article should give you “furiously to think.”

Reply:

The late Mr. Bonar Law once retorted to a political opponent who had been making wild prophecies about the effects of a certain policy, “It is no use trying to argue with a prophet: one can only disbelieve him.” Fortunately one can do more than Mr. Bonar Law was disposed to do in that case. One can ask the prophet to state the grounds of his belief.

For the benefit of other readers we must first explain the references made by our correspondent to earlier articles in this Journal. In 1921 and 1922 the Communists were busy preparing for the breakdown of capitalism which they believed to be imminent. One of them said in reply to a question that 10 years would prove or disprove the soundness of that theory, on which the whole Communist movement was built up. In February, 1922, and again in April, 1927, articles by the present writer appeared in these columns criticising the assumptions of those who founded their policy on the supposed collapse of capitalism. In April, 1927, attention was drawn to the fact that half of the allotted ten years had passed, without the promised collapse and the world revolution which was to accompany it. What our correspondent “Robbo” asks us to believe is that even if the Communists misjudged the situation in 1922 and 1927 they have not over-estimated its seriousness to-day, because factors then lacking are now present. Let us consider these factors one by one.

In 1921 and 1922 the organised unemployed who were trying to force concessions from the Guardians and the Government by means of demonstrations, deputations, and the seizing of public buildings, were said to number hundreds of thousands, and the Communists claimed that they had the leadership of them. By 1927, with the passing of the worst of the industrial depression, the unemployed organisations had simply melted away ; hence the remark, “Where now are the Unemployed organisations?” Our correspondent; replies that in 1931 “they are very much in evidence.” But he quite mistakes the point of the remark to which he refers. The intention was to show the uselessness of the Communist theory of so-called “mass organisation.” Instead of building up a party of Socialists understanding Socialism, they believed in building up a loose organisation of vaguely discontented workers. Our criticism was that no permanent organisation could be constructed on such a base, and that anyway it could not be used for the achievement of Socialism because the members did not understand Socialism. We were right. Apathy and a decline in the volume of unemplovment destroyed the unemployed organisations and robbed the Communist Party of the bulk of its own members. The same thing will happen again. Our correspondent must not imagine that we believe the capitalist system to be in danger from the activities of organised unemploved even if they do number hundreds of thousands. The capitalist class can always deal with such situations by the joint method of police action and the giving of more unemployment pay and other concessions. The Communists themselves were compelled to admit that this is so. Their official organ said in 1923 : —

“The unemployed have done all they can, and the Government know it. They have tramped through the rain in endless processions. They have gone in mass deputations to the Guardians. They have attended innumerable, meetings and have been told to be “solid.” They have marched to London, enduring terrible hardships. . . . All this has led nowhere. None of the marchers believe that seeing Bonar Law in the flesh will make any difference. Willing for any sacrifice, there seems no outlet, no next step. In weariness and bitter disillusionment the unemployed movement is turning in upon itself. There is sporadic action, local rioting, but not central direction. The Government has signified its exact appreciation of the confusion by arresting Hannington.

The plain truth is that the unemployed can only be organised for agitation, not for action. Effective action is the job of the working-class as a whole. The Government is not afraid of starving men so long as the mass of the workers look on and keep the ring.” (“Workers’ Weekly,” February 10th, 1923.)

The next point is the conditions under which capitalism might come to an end. The passage referred to is as follows (S.S., April 1927, p. 114)

“Capitalism might conceivably be rent asunder and destroyed in a long-drawn-out struggle for mastery between contending classes, but, barring the failure of the natural physical basis of human life, it cannot fall and cannot be revolutionised except by the actions of the men and women who compose it.”

To this our correspondent retorts, “The physical basis is failing, and the system has almost ceased to function.” (Italics his.)

This statement is amazing, and our correspondent should himself have recognised the need for evidence to justify something so utterly out of keeping with the obvious facts of the present situation. The physical bases of human life—food, clothing, and shelter—were never so plentiful and so easily produced as they are to-day. The world is overburdened with supplies and the means of producing more of them. Yet in face of that our correspondent says that “The physical basis is failing.” Like the late Mr. Bonar Law one can only disbelieve him.

Then we are told that the system has “almost” ceased to function. There must be much virtue in that “almost” in the eyes of our critic. The production and distribution of wealth goes on with no more difficulty than it did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. The number of workers actually in employment now is more than 1,000,000 above the level in the 1921 slump. In many respects the capitalists are now better informed and better able to make adjustments to the constant demands of their system than in the past. As regards the political side we have just seen the capitalists get a new mandate for the retention of capitalism in spite of all the causes now operating to make the workers discontented. Perhaps “Robbo” will enlighten us as to what he means by “almost ceased to function.”

The last passage referred to by our correspondent is the following :—(S.S., April, 1927, p. 115.)

“Again, allowance should have been made for the familiar recurring depression which is a century old feature of the system. Such a depression, affecting almost all the world in 1921, no more justified the prophecy of ruin and collapse for British capitalism than depression did in pre-war days. Since 1921 unemployment in this country has been almost halved, currency problems in most European countries have been from a capitalist standpoint satisfactorily solved and no one now supposes that the war debts present any special difficulty.”

Our correspondent says about this, “In the light of present conditions, comment on the latter statements is surely superfluous, and a re-reading of your own article should give vou furiously to think.”

But comment is not superfluous, it is just what is needed, and in its absence we are left wondering what is our correspondent’s point. Between 1921 and 1927 unemployment fell from 2,500,000 to about 1,250,000, and now with a larger insured population it is back to about the same percentage as in 1921. But what does that signify to our correspondent ? To us it signifies that capitalism is behaving in very much the same way as in all the crises of the past. As regards currency problems our correspondent need only refer to contemporary political and economic journals to find that in the years just after the war the currency muddles of the European countries were far more disturbing than anything the world can show to-day. This country has now returned more or less to the currency position it occupied in the years from 1918 to 1925. Does that portend collapse? Obviously not. And has our correspondent forgotten that several times during the 19th century financial crises forced British Governments to suspend the Bank Charter Act governing the gold backing for the Bank of England Note issue ?

If “Robbo” believes that the war debts do present some special difficulty,” all he has to do is to tell us what feature there is in the present crisis that cannot be paralleled in one or other of the pre-war crises, when war debts did not exist in amounts comparable with the present debts. We can see no such additional feature. What we can see is the German capitalists using the depression as an excuse for getting rid of their burden of reparations. They have also used reparations as their excuse for reducing the pay of Government employees. But our correspondent has only to look at the other countries to see that reparations are a convenient excuse, nothing more, for the British Labour Government and practically every Government in the world has used the fall in prices and the depression as an excuse for reducing civil service pay. Wage reductions were of course a feature of every pre-war depression also.

In conclusion it may be of interest to point out that the idea of the imminent and certain collapse of capitalism, with its fatal effect on serious Socialist study and organisation, is far older than the Communists, who are indeed only carrying on the theories and tactics of the reformists in the Social Democratic Federation. In the ‘eighties and ‘nineties of last century unemployed organisations, demonstrations, deputations to the Guardians demanding “work or maintenance,” conflicts with the police, the seizing of public buildings, all of these things were in full blast whenever unemployment became acute. And then, as now, the reformists thought that capitalism would collapse and that the discontented non-Socialists in the unemployed organisations could be led to establish Socialism. And then, as now, there were the half-educated so-called “intellectuals,” who had misread Marx, assuring the workers that this theory is Marxian, and that it is true although it fails to fit the facts. The late Mr. Hyndman had perhaps some excuse in 1884 for holding this unsound theory of the collapse of capitalism. He wrote in “Justice,” in January, 1884 :—

“It is quite possible that during this very crisis, which promises to he long and serious, an attempt will be made to substitute collective for capitalist control. Ideas move fast; the workers are coming together.”

Later on he suggested 1889 as the probable date for the revolution. (See “Rise and Decline of Socialism,” by Joseph Clayton, p. 14.)

Edward Carpenter, in “My Days and Dreams,” says :—

“It was no wonder that Hyndman, becoming conscious as early as 1881 of the new forces all around in the social world, was filled with a kind of fervour of revolutionary anticipation. We used to chaff him because at every crisis in the industrial situation he was confident that the millennium was at hand. . . .”

Hyndman continued to see the revolution “round every corner” until the date of his death, although, ironically enough he bitterly hated the Communists who are only carrying on in Hyndman’s own earlier tradition.

His successors in the I.L.P. and the Communist Party have no such excuse as Hyndman had. They have no excuse for their ignorant assumption that Marx supports their view, nor for their failure to acquaint themselves with the easily accessible facts of past experience and the theories Marx based upon them, which show how capitalist society actually works, and how it may be replaced when, and only when, the workers want Socialism and will organise politically to obtain it.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Socialist Forum: Ourselves and the Russian Five-Year Plan. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ourselves and the Russian Five-Year Plan.

Mr. W. Langham (W. Ealing) writes as follows :—

“You often condemn the Russian Five-Year Plan as not being Socialism, and being apparently a wrong method of attaining Socialism, but according to the ideas of the S.P.G.B. Socialism must come through Capitalism, it could not come through any other economic system, and as Russia under the Czars had been kept industrially backward for many years, it follows that the Five Year Plan is a necessary step towards Socialism. At least State Capitalism will make the change over much easier than from the Individualistic Capitalism which exists in other European countries.

You also condemn the I.L.P. for advocating Nationalisation, but this if brought about would tend to put the whole control of industry into the hands of Parliament, and production and distribution would at last become subject to the direct will of the people. Surely the fact that such services as the Post Office being of no advantage to the workers at present, only proves the necessity for taking over all services of production and distribution, and not make one pay for the inefficiency of private enterprise. It seems to me that this must be the way Socialism will at last come.”

Reply:

Our correspondent is in error. We do not “condemn the Russian Five-Year Plan” ; what we do is to condemn the Communists here and in Russia for propagating the falsehood that it is Socialism.

The further question about the technical development of Russia is answered by the condition of things in Great Britain, Germany, the U.S.A. and elsewhere. It is true, as Marx pointed out, that a country cannot jump from a backward, pre-capitalist, stage of development straight into Socialism; and we condemned the Bolsheviks for attempting to do this. But it is also true that something more than mere industrial efficiency is required in order to establish Socialism. Otherwise we would have had Socialism in the advanced capitalist countries decades ago.

State capitalism may, in certain circumstances, bring about the development of industry more rapidly than if it were left to private capitalist enterprise. It is, however, useful to remember that State capitalism has been little resorted to in the U.S.A.—a country which the Bolsheviks are taking as their model for industrial efficiency. There are, too, many observers who doubt whether State capitalism in Russia has achieved this end more quickly or more efficiently than would have been the case if private capitalism had been given greater freedom.

The more important point is, however, the argument that State capitalism “will make the change-over much easier.” It is an old argument, but is there any foundation for it? Germany and Australia are two countries in which vast experiments in State capitalism have been tried out over a long period. Have they in consequence made greater strides towards Socialism? We know of no evidence whatever to that eflect. We challenge our correspondent to prove this assertion.

May we also point out that the question of nationalising industries is one which the capitalists themselves will continue to decide so long as they remain in power, and they will decide it in their interests, not in ours. During the past ten years the process all over Europe has been in the direction of handing over State capitalist concerns to private corporations. Almost the first action of the late “Labour” Government was to ratify the agreement transferring State cables and wireless services to Imperial and International Communications, Ltd.

We certainly do condemn the I.L.P. for pretending that nationalisation and public utility corporations are Socialism, or are steps to Socialism; and our correspondent admits that we are justified in so doing, when he confesses that State ownership as in the Post Office is “of no advantage to the workers at present.” Socialism can only come when the workers have become Socialists. The I.L.P. and the Labour Party have made the work of propagating Socialism infinitely harder by pointing to nationalised industries as instances of Socialism. The worker who believes the Post Office to be a Socialist institution and who observes, like our correspondent, that it is “of no advantage to the workers,” quite naturally looks without enthusiasm at Socialist propaganda. Before we can get the workers to listen to our propaganda for Socialism, we have to undo the harm wrought by the I.L.P. and Labour Party.

To talk about putting industry under the “direct will of the people” by nationalising it is absurd. Is the Post Office under the direct will of the people? It is one of the most bureaucratic and hidebound bodies in existence. The unfortunate postman is hedged about with ancient and stupid regulations which most private capitalists have abandoned long ago. He may not even unfasten his collar in a heat wave ! Is this the will of the people?

Parliament is the dominating factor in the situation for all industries, not only nationalised ones. When the workers determine to do so they can control Parliament and, consequently, control the whole situation. The need is to get the workers to have the will to establish Socialism, not to interest them in minor questions about the form of capitalist control. Converting the workers to Socialism is still in its infancy in Russia as in other countries.

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: War and the collapse of capitalism. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

War and the collapse of capitalism.

A correspondent objects to our statement made in the September issue that it is a hoary fallacy to suppose that capitalism will collapse of its own accord. He asks, “How is it possible for it to survive another world war? And under capitalism another war seems inevitable. Such a war would smash past repair the financial systems of Europe.”

To this question we would reply by asking another : “How was it possible for capitalism to survive the last war?” It is certainly true that capitalism did survive it, in spite of the hysterical prophecies of the believers in that hoary fallacy that it would collapse “past repair.”

What our correspondent overlooks is that no matter how great the damage a war might cause to parts of the capitalist system, the survivors of the war, unless they are Socialists, will turn to and build it up again. There is no way of getting Socialism without Socialists.

Ed. Comm.

The Socialist Forum: A question of gold and prosperity. (1931)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

A question of gold and prosperity.

Editor of Socialist Standard.

Sir,—Your notion that the relation between gold and trade depression is “an illusion,” and that it can be “easily dispelled” is erroneous. The relation is not, as you seem to imagine, such that the stock held by individual countries can secure their prosperity in face of world depression. The relation is between the rate of increase of the world’s stock of gold as against that of other primary products, and the statistics for the period 1850-1913 show that when this relative gold supply was increasing primary prices rose, and that when it decreased their prices fell—vide the figures and chart of Professor Cassel and Mr. Kitchin re-published in the first interim report of the Gold Delegation of the League of Nations. The ill effects of a downward trend of prices upon industry and employment are well established, and the relation between gold and trade depression is now only disputed by those who are concerned to maintain a deflationary policy, or who are ignorant of Professor Cassel’s work.

Geoffrey Biddulph.

Church Street, S.W.7.

October 18th, 1931.

Reply:

Mr. Biddulph “corrects” a notion which we do not hold. That he attributes it to us can only be due to careless reading of the article in question. We made it quite clear that we were concerned (as indeed, we always are) with the main problem of the workers, not with the problems of different sections of the capitalist class.

The difference between Mr. Biddulph and ourselves can be illustrated from his notion that rising prices, due to an increasing supply of gold, mean prosperity. We do not deny that prosperity may come to the manufacturing and trading capitalists : but what of the workers?

The table to which Mr. Biddulph refers us, and from which we have ourselves quoted recently, shows a very great increase in the world supply of gold from 1890 to 1914. Do we, then, find the workers prosperous? In 1901 Mr. Seebohm Rowntree found a third of the workers below a very meagre level of existence which he called the poverty line. In 1903 Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman endorsed Rowntree’s findings and declared that “about 30 per cent. of the population is living in the grip of perpetual poverty.” In 1904 Sir Leo Money (then Mr. Money) ascertained that 96 persons out of every 100 died owning less than £100, while the other 4 out of every 100 possessed an average of over £9,000 each. He found that about one-seventieth of the population owned far more than half of the entire wealth of the United Kingdom.

If this is what Mr. Biddulph means by-prosperity—i.e., prosperity for the few—we do not dispute it. But we repeat our statement that the main problems of the workers have nothing to do with the supply of gold.

Ed. Comm.

Rationalising the Petrol Industry. (1931)

From the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Miners complain that petrol has helped to deprive them of their jobs. The developments of the petrol industry are at the same time reducing the number of workers required there. Many improvements in the distribution of petrol have been made since the War.

The substitution of the old horse-drawn wagons by motor-lorries has enabled the petrol companies to close down a large number of depots, involving the dismissal of drivers and vanguards in each case, as the motors can cover a larger area. Where depots have not been closed, a thorough revision of the vehicle routes has enabled lorries, drivers, and vanguards, to be dispensed with at nearly all depots.

The replacement of the petrol can by the petrol pump has resulted in the displacement of still more workers. Petrol can be run into a tank-wagon and out again into the retailer’s underground storage much more quickly than when it was necessary to load the cans on to a lorry and then to unload at the retailer’s, and then to load what empty cans had to be returned to the depot for unloading there. Then, of course, there was the filling of the empty cans at the depots, all of which took a considerable time. Vanguards were generally employed to assist in loading cans, but now they have largely been dispensed with, and the larger number of retailers who can be supplied by one tank-wagon has resulted in the elimination of further vehicles and drivers on this score. The large amount of labour involved in the manufacture and the periodical cleaning and painting of cans is no longer necessary. Motorists were induced to change over to pumps by quoting a lower price ex the pump.

Chiefly as a result of these changes in the method of delivery, in one firm alone 2,000 workers have been sacked during the past two years, and for the whole industry in the United Kingdom the number would probably be round about 6,000.

A casual inquirer might ask why, instead of dismissing so many workers, the hours could not have been shortened all round, or more holidays given, or, seeing that there is a like facility of production in the manufacture of cars and motor-cycles, why society could not have provided them with motor-cycles or cars in order to use up the surplus petrol.

The capitalist form of society, however, knows of no such solution. Goods are not produced primarily for use, but in order to make a profit, and when competing capitalists bring down prices in order to undersell a competitor or to force their entry into a price combine, the others are bound to follow suit, in order to retain their profits, cut down the number of their workers to the absolute minimum, and if that is not sufficient, reduce wages.

Hence we see that, all round, increasing facility of production of foods and commodities of all kinds only means an increase in the poverty of the workers.

No modification of capitalism can alter this condition of affairs. The solution is to abolish capitalism. Capitalism is only one of the many forms of society which have evolved, and Socialism is its only logical successor. Only by the establishment of Socialism can the poverty of the workers be abolished. Read our Declaration of Principles and see how this can be brought about.

RAMO.

SPGB Meetings. (1931)

Party News from the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

• There is more information about Hull Branch's Dan Billany at the following link.
• J. Horner, the speaker at the Sheffield meeting, was Joseph Henry Horner. A former member of the British Socialist Party, he was a member of the SPGB from January 1930 until lapsing his membership in March 1933.
• D. Goldberg was David Goldberg. He joined the Hackney Branch of the SPGB in March 1925. He joined the armed forces whilst a member during World War II, and was killed in action during the Italian campaign. He is briefly mentioned in Barltrop's The Monument.
• David Lamond of Edinburgh first joined the SPGB in April 1926, and possibly rejoined in March 1930. (No mention of why he may have left the SPGB in between those years.) There is an all too brief obituary for him in the February 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard.

To Our Readers. Please Note. (1931)

From the December 1931 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Interesting to note that Standard with primarily available in the east part of London.

The real Michael Foot (1982)

From the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Could it be that in Michael Foot the Labour Party have elected someone who will never rise any higher than Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition? As Foot fumbles on, questions are beginning to be asked about him, and hopeful contenders for his job are making careful speeches. One version of Foot is the sick, half blind, scabrous, dishevelled bookworm, accident-prone in more senses than one — the sort of person who would wear a donkey jacket at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Another is the former left wing firebrand who has come to betray his principles and his friends and now hunts the Militants out of his party like mediaeval witches. Another, more despairing, is that he is a tousled intellectual, so unsuited to the political rough and tumble that he is quite unable to put the Tories, three million unemployed, Norman Tebbit and all, out of their misery.

Foot comes from a a well-heeled family with famously liberal traditions. Until he was upstaged by his tempestuous nephew Paul he was the wayward son, the brainy darling of the Labour Party rank and file who was greeted at the conference rostrum with rapturous applause before he had so much as uttered a single word. Of course he went to Oxford and of course he occupied there that position, so coveted by all aspiring politicians among the dreaming spires, of President of the Union.

Of course he was involved with Tribune and with the old TUC/Labour Party newspaper the Daily Herald. His brilliance so impressed the crusty imperialist Lord Beaverbrook that, in spite of his reputation, Foot was given the job of editing Beaverbrook’s paper the Evening Standard. Just after Dunkirk Foot, with Peter Howard (who later joined Moral Rearmament) and Frank Owen (who later joined the Liberal Party) wrote the book Guilty Men. This cleverly caught the mood of the time; it argued that many of the problems in pre-war Britain, and the war itself, were the responsibility of a bunch of complacent, arrogant Conservative politicians. Guilty Men, with other similar books published by Victor Gollancz, quickly became fashionable reading among people who were looking for an explanation — or more accurately a scapegoat — for the dreadful things that had happened since 1918.

In the 1945 election, Foot was a notable boulder in the landslide to Labour, capturing Plymouth Devonport which had been the seat of Lady Astor. This was indeed a symbolic victory — the dazzling young intellectual sitting where once sat a Tory who personified much about pre-war Britain that had become despised — and had been denounced in Guilty Men. Foot had no intention of allowing the glamour of his victory grow dim. He quickly busied himself in the appropriate causes, in particular the Keep Left Group, whose manifesto attacked the basis of the Attlee government’s foreign policy, which was the alliance with America and the cold war antagonism towards Russia.

To a government which was fighting the cause of British capitalism on several fronts at once. Foot was something of a nuisance and there was small prospect then of him ever joining the Front Bench. He came to represent much of the frustrations of Labour supporters who wondered why their government was failing so signally to introduce the Promised Land into Britain; he was the evidence that cleverer, more sincere, more radical ministers would do a more effective job of transforming society. The working class in Devonport did not see it quite like that however; in the 1955 election Foot lost his seat and remained out of Parliament until 1960, when Aneurin Bevan's death left a vacancy at the mining seat of Ebbw Vale. Foot was Bevan’s worshipping biographer; he seemed the obvious choice as Labour candidate which, in a place like Ebbw Vale where Tories were as rare as fumbling fly-halves, was tantamount to being the MP.

No eyebrows were raised when he was passed over by Wilson during the 1964/70 governments but when Labour came back to power in February 1974 Foot was given charge of the Department of Employment. His first brief was to settle the miners’ strike. In her diaries. Barbara Castle describes this as a brilliant appointment; Foot would use his standing among the miners to get them back to work and Wilson would defuse a potential critic. Foot's start was not all that promising because when he went to get his seal of office and to kiss the queen he was dressed as if he had been camping. But the queen need not have worried; her new Minister of Employment soon showed that it is not necessary to wear formal clothes in order to protect the interests of the class she represents.

Labour’s programme in the first 1974 election was very embarrassing because it talked about “socialist aims” and declared an intention to “. . . eliminate poverty wherever it exists in Britain . . .” Just in case they did not manage to get rid of all poverty, the Labour programme had as a fail-safe a rather less ambitious aim, which was to “. . . achieve far greater economic equality in income, wealth and living standards . . . bring about a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of power and wealth in favour of working people and their families . . .” Denis Healey, their Chancellor of the Exchequer, showed that he meant business, and that he was not to be easily embarrassed by little considerations like election promises, by threatening to squeeze the rich until the pips squeaked. What with all that, and with the tearaway lefty Foot at the Department of Employment, workers who thought that any shift in the balance of wealth might begin with a rise in their wages could well have concluded that their day had come.

Illustration by George Meddemmen

But the first message of that government was that there must be some delay. World capitalism was fast sliding into recession and the Labour government’s response, to which they were by then well conditioned, was an assault on working class living standards. The conflict was sharpened by the fact that after Labour had abolished the statutory wage restraint of the Heath government there was a flood of wage claims. It was then that Foot showed the true mettle of a left winger in power; with some gusto he bent to the task of holding back the flood. The coal strike settled, he quickly decided that further miners' wage claims were “excessive", although by what standards he did not make clear. In January 1975 he told the TUC that there should be no argument about the official “guidelines” on pay (the Labour government's new name for wage restraint) but that they should ". . . merely apply them as they stand". Barbara Castle thought that “He is taking his role as guardian of the Pay Code so seriously that he is becoming more rigid than Jim Callaghan was in his Chancellor days” (she was commenting about an argument over a rise for the nurses) and she later explained “Mike is obsessed with the need to win the next election”.

The record of that government, whose return was Foot's obsession, is set down now in a disreputable history. They quickly abandoned the professed aims of their manifesto and concentrated on organising a more efficient and intense exploitation of the working class — or of those of them that remained in employment as the dole queues grew longer. Public expenditure, which many Labour supporters saw as the key to any change in the balance of wealth, was cut in absolute and relative terms and Chancellor Healey, trying to hold wage rises below those in prices, turned his attention to squeezing the poor. There were some bitterly contested strikes, in which Prime Minister Callaghan encouraged workers to break through picket lines and urged the police to immediately arrest any picket they thought was making threats against blacklegs. Meanwhile, the pips of the rich remained conspicuously unsqueezed; the signs were that their share of national wealth, which had actually fallen under the Heath government, increased under Labour.

Disgruntled Labour supporters now describe those years as a time of mistakes and missed opportunities. They assert nostalgically that the aims of the 1974 manifesto are still relevant, which is another way of saying that the problems Labour claimed to be able to deal with then are still here today — that, in other words, the manifesto was worthless.

Any sense of betrayal in their ranks, as Labour recovered from the shock of their defeat in 1979, can only have helped Foot beat Healey for the leadership in 1980. In spite of the responsibility he bore, Foot seemed to be considered somehow blameless while Healey acquired the reputation of a beetle-browed political thug. Since then Foot has continued to play the double game. The conference rhetoric is as readily available as ever, to excite the delegates who have come all that way to the seaside to be cheered up: “I am a peacemonger!” Foot raved to thunderous applause at Brighton last year. “An inveterate, incurable peacemonger." The value of those rousing words could be assessed a few months later, as the Task Force was being prepared for the assault on the Falklands: “I believe the government is right. . . I support the despatch of the Task Force” were the words with which Foot urged the government on to quicker and more brutal bellicosity.

The man who once marched in support of CND’s demand for immediate unilateral nuclear disarmament now craftily fudges the issue: “I agree with the programme . . . for trying to get a non-nuclear defence programme for this country as speedily as we possibly can. . . (Weekend World, 3 October 1982). “The greatest task which this Labour Party will have to take is . . . securing nuclear disarmament in this country and throughout the world" (Labour Conference, 28 September 1982). In more direct words. Foot was saying that he favours nuclear disarmament eventually. when all the other nuclear powers have also disarmed — the sort of noncommittal policy to attract Tories, Liberals. SDP members and all floating voters everywhere.

These developments are not accidental; they are exactly consistent with Foot's record in government and out of it. Neither is he himself exceptional; he is only the latest example of the processes of capitalist leadership, which passes through stages of extravaganza, reality and disintegration. This unavoidable process reflects the fact that capitalism's problems — like poverty which Labour promises to abolish, like weapons of war which Foot once wished to abolish — do not respond to the dramatic speeches of political leaders. Foot is typical in that his followers invest him with a power which he does not have, nor can have; their political ignorance and his impotence are components in the basic fallacy of the entire principle of leadership and the theory that leaders are indispensable.

So will the real Michael Foot stand up? To show us that, after all the learning, the speeches and the writing he has at last come into his own? And then would some of his followers also stand up. to show that they understand that it is all a noxious mockery of their human interests.

Ivan

Who cares for the nurses? (1982)

From the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is important that nurses, in contemplating strike action, are rejecting their image as self-sacrificing and dedicated professionals. By acting in a militant and self-interested way they are questioning an oppressive ideology long associated with this form of employment.

There are all sorts of moral values attached to nursing. You just have to look at the words which the public, the unions, the media and nurses and patients themselves, use about the job. Nurses are expected to have a sense of “vocation", to function in a dedicated, committed and devoted way. These characteristics are to some extent hang-overs from the historical association with certain religious orders which have traditionally cared for the sick and needy; the terminology in nursing with "sisters" and “matrons” (mothers) — confirms this. But if you think about what these words really mean, then you have the problem in a nutshell. A nurse's sense of vocation is supposed to suggest a “calling”, in a literal sense by a god or some other external power. To be “committed” and “dedicated" to that sense of vocation means to “give oneself over” to it, to lose a sense of self in pursuit of an activity or purpose outside of oneself. In other words, to be self-sacrificing rather than —self interested.

Why is it that nurses are questioning the notion that they should be selflessly committed, and are beginning to act in a self-interested, class-interested way? The most clear cut reason arises directly out of their actual day to day experiences at work: contradictions between what they expect and what happens.

What are nurses' expectations? Most people who enter training do so out of a genuine desire to help people. The sick need to be looked after. Most reasons given by nurses for their choice of job are associated with helping people and the social usefulness of the work (Maguire: The Role of the Nurse, RCN Research Project, 1966). Yet in practice nurses are frustrated at every turn by their inability to do precisely that. There is a stark contradiction between the real desire to care for and give to other people and the economic realities of working in any capitalist health organisation. The NHS is a low class service oriented basically towards servicing the sick and making them socially and economically useful once again (in much the same way that the parts of a vehicle need to be serviced every so often); it exists to patch up workers and send them home — and back to work — as quickly as possible.

The allocation of finance and skills within the NHS is on the basis of cost-effectiveness. Well-equipped geriatric care units are of a much lower priority than surgical units. The economic return on removing an infected appendix from an otherwise fit young male is higher in this society than is the allocation of resources to the terminally ill. The young male will be fit for the labour market after his treatment. whereas the old person is no longer economically useful to capitalism: literally, he or she can be considered fit for nothing.

This “needs allocation” decision-making process is actually mirrored in the nurse's daily routine. Given an environment constantly lacking adequate resources (of people and equipment), simply because these are not allocated on the basis of human need, the nurse must decide which needs can be satisfied. And there is very little choice in what is a priority. The needs of those who are likely to go on living take precedence over the needs of those who are almost certain to die. A nurse will cause trouble on a short-staffed ward by insisting on sitting with and comforting an old person who is dying, rather than giving out drugs, helping to feed or wash patients, or anything else which in a simplistic way will — like a certain orange, fizzy glucose drink — “aid recovery”. The nurse, like the administrators, makes decisions according to social and economic norms associated with the rationale on which the NHS is based — on what is most "profitable". It is profitable to service fit young people; it is not profitable to spend time or money on the dying.

Perhaps the most explicit contradiction which the nurse experiences is that between the theory of nursing practice and the practice itself. This must create unpleasant tensions. The main contradiction is between more or less intelligent and scientific approaches to caring for sick people, which are learned during training, and the fact that these cannot be put into practice. For example, the nurse is taught to have a view of the patient as a “whole person”; to “empathise”, and respond to perceived physical and psychological needs. If in practice the nurse can only act as an automaton, a dose of Lucozade, and respond only to selected physical needs, a tension is felt. It is a commonly held view among nurses that what they are taught is irrelevant to how they must perform as practitioners. It is naively idealistic to believe that nurses can care for the “whole person”, or meet such varied needs, in a working environment where those needs must be systematically ignored. Rather than begin to believe that the training is impracticable or faulty, nurses have to resolve the tension by realising that it is the economic structure of society, and the consequent nature of the health service itself, which creates the problems. Neither a genuine desire to help people nor to care for them in the most effective way possible, can be satisfied in a health care system organised to “cure” the largest number for the lowest cost. In such a system the weakest go to the wall. When a nurse has to decide who to neglect, day in and day out, the idea of being able to “empathise” becomes a sick joke. The tensions are endless.

Another singular aspect of nursing as employment is the rigidity of its hierarchy. To experience the authority structure in a hospital is to learn to tread carefully — an unpleasant mixture of walking a tightrope and a cat on hot bricks. Not only is there the medical contingent “above” the nurse, but there is also the army of ancillary workers to whom the nurse is “superior”. On one level the experience of the different status of co-workers seems bewildering and intimidating; on a more complex level it engenders another contradiction.

Nursing is an unusually “co-operative” activity. Anyone who has been in hospital may have witnessed the enthusiasm created by a group of nurses trying to do their work, often under pressure, in the most effective way possible: they have a common and human aim to do as much as they can for their patients, and often it is up to them to organise this as best they can. One quality of a “good” nurse is “team spirit”, an ability to co-operate and co-ordinate effectively with others. This is only one side of it however. This cooperative situation only exists when nurses actually perceive that they have an aim in common — a goal to work towards together. As soon as nurses enter into a game of one-upmanship this is no longer the case: and unfortunately, one-upmanship is often the game to be played.

Trainee nurses are in competition with one another, as well as having the cooperative aim of getting the work done. Each one will be graded by the nurse in charge of the ward, and each one will attempt to be evaluated more highly than fellow workers. Similarly for qualified staff: they constantly seek promotion to higher grades, and must therefore win the approval of the hierarchy. This competitive behaviour conflicts with the cooperative endeavour. On a practical level this means that the nurse you were working with in a fulfilling, friendly, useful way five minutes ago, has suddenly gone sneaking off into the office to report something to the sister which you just noticed — so scoring your point.

Why is it that the types of working relationships created in nursing have to turn peoples’ illnesses and lives into a matter of scoring points? This is a question which most nurses must sense. Mow they answer it is of vital concern. They have to see the tension between the competitive and cooperative nature of their work as a product of the entire power structure within their profession. They are induced to compete because a hierarchical structure requires competition for positions of status. And more than this, it is vital also to recognise it as a mirror of the way in which workers compete with one another, to score a few points in the status stakes, rather than cooperating in their interests as a class.

There is another important factor which encourages nurses to question traditional expectations and, alongside, the values and ethics of a society which creates their oppressive and perverted role. In hospitals there is a clear-cut sexual division of labour according to status. Ninety per cent of nurses are female; 80 per cent of doctors are male. As one ascends the nursing hierarchy, the proportion of males increases, while in the medical profession women are decreasingly represented in the higher ranks. The difference in the representation of men and women in medical and paramedical jobs occurs largely in terms of gender expectations.

Doyal and Pennell, in their book The Political Economy of Health, give an historical analysis of the development of this situation. They quote Eckstein:

. . . the Nightingale nurse was simply the ideal Lady, transplanted from home to the hospital . . . to the doctor, she brought the wifely virtue of absolute obedience. To the patient she brought the selfless devotion of a mother. To the lower level hospital employees, she brought the firm but kindly discipline of a household manager accustomed to dealing with servants. . .

In their own analysis, they go on to say:

A basic division was therefore created between what were regarded as the hard-headed, diagnostic attitudes of medicine, the "curing" that male doctors did, and the “caring" which was to be done by women. . . 

In other words, to be a nurse is to be the stereotypical woman: selfless, devoted, committed and unassertive. In fact this is becoming less and less the case. Changing social attitudes to masculinity and femininity have enabled nurses to he more critical of tradition — and this has encouraged their greater militancy in the traditionally male arena of trade union action. To be involved in action for better pay and conditions means leaving selflessness and unassertiveness behind: means abandoning, to some extent, passive femininity and recognising a class interest. This is a vital step in the development of women's consciousness. Unless women reject traditional femininity, they will not develop a critical attitude toward society. Nursing creates many contradictions, which can be resolved in a class conscious way.

But we start with indignation. Nurses are rightly indignant about their position. They are sick of working for a pittance. Anyone can see that for a nurse, trying to get everything done is like trying to bail out a leaking boat with a sieve. It is time for nurses to express this real indignation — and not just about being paid “too little". It is time to get up and say “Look, I'm sick of being put upon, of being paid a pittance to watch people suffer needlessly. There comes a time when I just have to express my own needs — there’s just too many demands being made on me. I am being exploited in every sense of the word — as a worker selling myself for a salary as well as a person wanting to help other people".

Within capitalism, genuine caring cannot flourish. For nurses and other workers, self and mutual interest only begin with fighting for better pay; beyond this is a necessary political struggle to create a society in which the desire to be co-operative and caring people can be realised.

Chira Lovat

Running Commentary: Russia yawns (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In face of the conspicuous indifference of the Russian working class, the weeping news-reader announced that their leader, Leonid Brezhnev, was dead. Within a week the non-weeping masses were told to mop up their tears, for a new Tsar (official title: General Secretary of the Communist Party) had been appointed by the Politburo. Like the dictator who preceded him. Yuri Andropov. ex-KGB chief and Russian ambassador in Budapest in 1956, will preside over the Russian state capitalist empire. All leaders, be they elected like Thatcher and Reagan, or installed by totalitarian regimes, like Andropov and Jaruzelski. can only rule within the limitations of the anti-social profit system. Brezhnev’s tyrannical policies, which sent dissidents to the freezing wastelands of Siberia or the mind- manipulating confines of psychiatric asylums, were not the expression of his own hatred of the working class, but of capitalism’s inherent inability to satisfy working class needs and still produce maximum profits.

The new leader of Russian capitalism lives in a luxury apartment at Kurtuzov Prospekt — a home which is said to compare favourably with any owned by the richest capitalist parasites. How does he get his privilege and luxury? Simply by being one of the class of Party bureaucrats who control the state, which formally owns the means of wealth production and distribution. In short, Andropov and his fellow Communist Party dictators over the proletariat, live off the fruits of the labour of the Russian working class. To speak of such a system as socialist — as do certain gullible folk on the Left — is to totally distort the meaning of the word.

Capitalism is characterised by wage labour and capital, social phenomena which clearly exist in Russia. The only difference between Andropov's capitalism and Reagan’s is that in the latter capital tends to be privately owned and controlled and workers have some opportunity to choose their leaders, whereas under the former the state owns and controls most capital and workers have very limited democratic opportunities.

Within the field of capitalist politics, the so-called Left wing favours state capitalism and the Right wing prefers private capitalism. Both are prepared to accept either form of capitalism when the needs of profit-making dictate: for example, for all his rhetorical commitment to “the Soviet system” (state capitalism) Brezhnev was always happy to trade with the West. Whatever new policies Andropov may introduce, the capitalists of the West may rest assured that he will not cease to involve the Russian state in international commercial competition in which the wage slaves always lose.

Socialists oppose capitalism in ail its forms; we oppose it for the simple reason that it has outlived its usefulness as a way of organising society. Opposing the idea that there must always be leaders and led. socialists regard the passing of Brezhnev and the inauguration of his successor as of no consequence to the working class. The class which produces all social wealth need not mourn the death of one of those who legally steals that wealth from us. 

Steve Coleman

Running Commentary: Costly votes (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

History was not made by the high level of debate, nor by any prescience of the voters' decisions, in the recent American elections but records were broken by the amount of money laid out in the candidates' campaigns.

Something like £150 million was spent in this massive effort to persuade the American workers, against what should have been their better judgment, that capitalism would be good for them under Republicans or Democrats. Some staggering sums were afforded by the candidates themselves.

A Democrat in Minnesota spent a total of $8 million, half of which he paid himself. In Texas a Republican spent $12 million — and was not elected. But most spectacular of all. in the battle for Governor of New' York State, Republican Lewis Lehrman’s election expenses came to $15 million, half of it from his own pocket.

Lehrman was another loser, at least in the election. In other ways he is a winner; "I will." he announced, "go out to work and make the money back." He was only fooling because his millions came not from his own work but from that of his employees, whose exploitation yielded the profits which enabled Lehrman to make his flamboyant bid for power in New York.

Expensive election campaigns, which imply that only the rich can mount an effective contest, make a lot of people fear for democracy. Such anxieties miss the point, which is essentially in the fact that millions of New Yorkers voted for the big spending Lehrman and millions more for Cuomo, the Democrat victor, who also spent millions of dollars in the election.

Workers who are enlightened about capitalism, who are aware of the impotence of its politicians to run the system in the interests of the people, are unimpressed by gaudy, costly electoral stunts. Such workers are. in the end, the only certain guardians of democracy.

The fact that at present working class voters are so misled as to support candidates like Lehrman and Cuomo is not a measure of how much money was spent in their campaigns but of the low level of workers' consciousness.

Running Commentary: On the gridiron (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the baseball players of America went-on strike in the summer of 1981, we pointed out the similarities between their action and that of industrial workers trying to defend their standard of living. Most American workers, with a fair bit of prompting from the media, took a cynical attitude to the dispute, which was seen as a squabble between two sets of rich people. Now the players of the National Football League, who perform in steel helmets and liberal amounts of padding and look more like spacemen than footballers, have also taken “industrial action”.

Normally games are televised live on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings but since the middle of September the networks have been showing instead Canadian Football, old “classic” games, or baseball, now in the last days of its season. None of this satisfies National Football League addicts.

Television income is one of the points at issue. The players have asked for fifty per cent to be allocated to them, to be divided on a seniority scale, and changes in the system of medical checks. They are unhappy about the way drug testing is conducted, want each player to have the right to a second medical opinion and a surgeon of his choice, and to be told all pertinent information about his injuries. The very fact that these medical demands have to be made shows how dissatisfied the players are with the present situation. At the time of writing, labour and management remain deadlocked on all these points.

The point about the players’ high wages deserves some further comment. In a number of cases high salaries can be the front behind which surplus value reaches the pockets of wealthy capitalists. However, the American brand of football is hard, bruising work and the great majority of players come from the working class, often from the desperately poor. Under capitalism wages represent the value of labour power — that is. the average cost of producing and reproducing the worker. American football is such a dangerous game that even in a deep recession — with welfare checks (dole) a probable alternative — it is only the high pay and other lucrative trappings that induce men to make a living of it.

American football is well able to pay such wages: with only a few top clubs widely scattered over a large country, even the unsuccessful play in front of near capacity crowds. On top of this is the large income from television. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Britain where a large number of clubs are in competition and many are near to bankruptcy. Recently the Rugby League players in England threatened to strike, but this dispute has been smoothed over. The threat of being driven out of business is often used by capitalist spokesmen, sometimes in defiance of the truth, in order to dissuade workers from pursuing pay claims. In the case of the Rugby League, however, a prolonged stoppage may well have closed many clubs. The Rugby League game is only part professional anyway, the players’ main income deriving from other jobs when they are lucky enough to have one. There is no suggestion however of the NFL clubs going to the wall, even though a long strike is considered possible.

To dispel any lingering doubts about whether the issues in the footballers’ strike are indeed the same as in an “ordinary” industrial dispute, we give two quotations from the International Herald Tribune of 2 and 3 October 1982. Gene Upshaw , Union President, said:

It is a tragic situation to be dealing with these people. They don’t care about you. We’re replaceable parts. We asked them what gives them the right to give 1500 players a physical examination. Then we said "what if 1500 players refuse to take them?” They said they would get 1500 other players.

Jack Donlan, director of the League’s Management Council, presented the management view:

Their proposals, we perceive, are designed to control the game. They’re always talking about their wage scales, their medical program. They’re trying to take away everything that has made this game and this League great.

There you have it; we have been wrong all the time. The crowds don't turn up to see the players play. They don’t even go to see the managers manage, which can be a spectaclc in itself in the United States. They go to see the owners own. 

E C Edge 

The dispute was settled shortly after this piece was written. None of the players’ demands was met and they returned to work.

Correction (1982)

From the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the item Sunshine in the October Socialist Standard we may have inadvertently given the impression that if only politicians and "experts" could predict the course of capitalism's economy, slumps and booms could be eliminated. In fact both are impossible; capitalism is anarchic and can be neither predicted nor controlled.

Editors.

50 Years Ago: Shorter Hours No Cure for Unemployment (1982)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Various Labour leaders, having therefore rejected the idea of shorter hours with reduced wages, have stood firmly by the notion that the problem can be solved if hours are reduced and wages left unchanged. The Transport and General Workers’ Union have made much of an agreement fixed up with Mander Brothers, paint manufacturers, of Wolverhampton, under which hours are reduced from 47 to 40 without reduction of the minimum rates of pay. The agreement may or may not be a satisfactory one in other respects, but it certainly does not show a way of remedying unemployment, for the change is accompanied by a reorganisation of the works and the introduction of a new system of piece-rates winch will increase the output per head of the workers and will result in eventual dismissal of redundant staff. The only guarantee is that no dismissals shall take place for six months and that the dismissed men will then receive some “compensation.” In the meantime, the increased output at smaller costs will enable Manders to undersell their competitors and throw their workers into the ranks of the unemployed.

[From an editorial in the Socialist Standard December 1932]

SPGB Meetings (1982)

Party News from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

Audio recordings of the following meetings from the December 1982 Standard are available on the SPGB website.

WILLIAM MORRIS’ VISION OF SOCIALISM (Part 1, Part 2)

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 12th December 1982

Speaker - Steve Coleman

MARTOV AND THE ANTI-BOLSHEVIK APPROACH TO REVOLUTION

Part of the series Socialist Thinkers – People Who History Made

Date: 26th December 1982

Speaker - Steve Coleman

Paid to Kill (2024)

Book Review from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Wagner Group: Inside Russia’s Mercenary Army. By Jack Margolin. Reaktion Books £15.99.

Mercenaries have existed through much of history, at least since Ancient Greek times. A well-known recent example was the US firm Blackwater, which has since undergone a number of name changes after some of its employees killed seventeen Iraqi civilians in 2007 (the killers were imprisoned, but later pardoned by Trump). The term ‘private military contractor’ is sometimes used as supposedly sounding less nasty. Here Jack Margolin recounts the history of the Wagner organisation; his work is diligently researched, though quite a lot remains unclear.

The boss of Wagner was Evgeniy Prigozhin, a thug who had spent nine years in prison for theft but later became a business-owner. After the collapse of the USSR, private military companies began to flourish, often doing the dirty work that state security services preferred to steer clear of. Wagner seems to have originated in eastern Ukraine in 2014, as pro-Russia separatists endeavoured to set up regimes not linked to Kyiv, and it may even have been created by the Russian state.

In 2015-6 Wagner soldiers fought in Syria, defending the Assad government on behalf of Russia but also making a profit from Syrian oil. Many front companies were put in place then and later, and an agreement was signed with the Syrian regime that entitled Wagner to up to a quarter of the revenue from oil extracted at sites they had ‘liberated’. Attention was then turned to Africa, fighting and making profits in Sudan and then the Central African Republic with its sizeable mineral resources. Wagner established a regional hub in Libya and in 2022 its fighters were responsible for a massacre at Moura in Mali, where at least five hundred people were killed and women and girls were raped. It is not possible to put a figure on Wagner’s income from government payments (including the Russian state) and its profiting from resource exploitation.

Wagner probably became most notorious for its part in the Russian invasion of Ukraine from 2022, though it took a few weeks for it to play any role. It was allowed to recruit from prisons, promising amnesty to those who ‘volunteered’. They had perhaps five thousand fighting in Ukraine, most of them convicts, which helped the Putin regime to avoid introducing conscription. Deserters were killed, often with a sledgehammer, which became a kind of symbol of Wagner.

But as the invasion wore on, Wagner and Prigozhin began to distrust Russia’s military leadership, a feeling that was mutual. In June 2023 it was decreed that private military companies would have to sign a contract with the Ministry of Defence. This would put Wagner and others in a subordinate role, Prigozhin refused to accept it, and a mutiny or putsch took place. A convoy of Wagner vehicles and fighters occupied the city of Rostov, in the hope that Russian army soldiers would join them. A march towards Moscow started, but this was abandoned after an intervention from Aleksandr Lukashenko, president of Belarus (though it is not clear precisely what happened). Wagner forces were evicted from Russia and moved to Belarus. Then in August a plane carrying Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders crashed north of Moscow, killing all those on board. According to Margolin, it is pretty likely, though not absolutely certain, that it was Putin who ordered Prigozhin’s assassination, just as other rivals and critical journalists have been killed.

Margolin suggests that embattled governments may well continue to make use of private military forces, as will rebels too, with the state not having an absolute monopoly on violence. But whoever does the fighting, it will be in the interest of rulers or would-be rulers of one kind and another, and it will be ordinary people who will suffer and be killed.

Paul Bennett