About ourselves (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the Socialist Party?

An independent political party which stands opposed to all others in this country, including the Labour and Communist parties. Our only links are with similar socialist parties in some other parts of the world.

What is your aim?

The replacement of the existing capitalist system of society by a new and different system we call socialism.

What is capitalism?

A system based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth (land, industry, railways, offices and the like) by a section only of society who thus form a privileged class. The others, who in return for a wage or salary produce wealth for sale with a view to profit, make up the producing or working class. In Britain less than five per cent of the population belong to the owning or capitalist class. Most people — those who work in offices as well as those who work in the factories — are in the working class.

What is socialism?

A democratic world community without frontiers based on the ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth by society as a whole. Socialism will abolish classes and free all humanity from exploitation and oppression. The basis of socialism is this ownership of all the means of production by the whole community; control over their use will rest in the hands of the community through democratic institutions. Wealth will be produced not for sale or profit, but solely to satisfy human needs. This means the end of buying and selling and all the other financial and commercial institutions like money, prices, wages and banks. People will co-operate to produce an abundance of wealth from which they can take freely according to their needs.

Will everything belong to the State?

No. The State does not represent the whole community; it serves the interests only of those who own the means of production. State ownership or nationalisation is one of the ways in which this class controls industry. When the State takes over industries (like the railways and coalmines in Britain) it does so in their interests. State ownership leaves unchanged the class basis of society, the profit motive and the wages system, all of which socialism will abolish. Nationalisation is just State capitalism.

What system exists in Russia?

Russian society is part of world capitalist society. It shows all the essential features of capitalism: a class who control the means of production through their control of political power: another class forced to work for wages: production of goods for sale with a view to profit and the accumulation of capital out of profits. The same goes for countries like China, Cuba and Yugoslavia. They like Russia have State capitalism.

Do you want something like the kibbutzim in Israel?

Socialism can only be a world community without frontiers. It cannot be established in one country let alone on one farm. The kibbutzim do show that human beings can live without money and can work without wages, but their small scale means that what they can offer is very restricted so that young people are tending to leave them. In practice they have paved the way for the development of capitalism in Israel and some have themselves become capitalist institutions employing outside wage labour and producing for the market with a view to profit.

How do you advocate socialism should be established?

By the class of wage and salary earners, once a majority of them want and understand socialism, taking democratic political action to change the basis of society from the class to the common ownership of the means of production and distribution.

Why must there be a majority in favour of the change to socialism before it can be made?

Socialism, by its nature as a system involving voluntary co-operation, could only be kept going by those who really wanted it and knew what it involved. Any attempt to establish socialism without a majority first being in favour is bound to fail.

Do you repudiate undemocratic minority action to achieve socialism?

Most definitely. No leaders, however sincere or able, can lead a non-socialist working class to socialism. Leaders who take power while a majority do not understand socialism have no choice but to develop and administer capitalism, as has been shown in Russia and by the various labour governments in Britain. When a majority do want and understand socialism they have no need of leaders, but only to organise themselves democratically.

Why do you advocate political action to achieve socialism?

It is their control of the machinery of government that now allows the capitalist class to protect their privileged position as the owners of the means of production. In Britain it is parliament that makes the laws granting them property rights and it is the police and the Courts, and if need be the army, that enforce these laws. The socialist majority must win political power in order to remove the protection the government machine now gives to class ownership and to carry through the establishment of the common ownership of the means of production.

How do you advocate the socialist majority should win political power?

By using their votes to elect socialist delegates to Parliament and the local councils. A socialist victory in a democratically-run election would demonstrate to all that a majority were in favour of the change to socialism.

Why are you opposed to all other political parties?

All of them accept the capitalist system and believe that current social problems can be solved within its framework.

Why do you think that reforms of the capitalist system are not the solution?

These problems are caused by the class ownership of the means of production which all reforms leave unchanged. The policy of trying to deal with social problems one by one by reforms of capitalism is futile, as this is to deal with effects and not the cause. We call this policy "reformism" and are opposed to it.

But surely you are not against all reforms?

We are not opposed to reforms which may bring temporary relief to some workers, but we do not regard it as the task of a socialist party to propose reforms of capitalism. Were we to do this we could easily soon become just another reformist party. To avoid this danger we advocate socialism only.

Why have all the other parties failed?

Basically because capitalism cannot be reformed so as to work in the interests of the class of wage and salary earners. It is a class system that can only work for those who own the means of production. Any party, be it Labour or Conservative, which takes power under capitalism is forced to run that system in the only way it can be and so is inevitably brought into conflict with the mass of people who work for a wage or salary. This has been proved time and again.

So it is not because the politicians are not determined enough or are incompetent or dishonest that they fail?

No. No matter how determined or able or sincere the members of a government may be they still could not make capitalism work for the good of all. The politicians fail because they have to accept the class system which causes the problems they are always promising to solve.

If you agree with these views or have any questions, please write to us or come along to one of our meetings

Passing Show (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jockeying for position

Had he been a footballer, John Prescott would have been right under the moon about the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle last November. Perhaps as punishment for standing against Roy Hattersley for the deputy leadership, he lost his job as Energy spokesman and was instead put to shadowing the Ministry of Transport, which was not highly rated as fertile ground for a sprouting political ambition.

It did not help his case that Prescott, who looks and sounds like a bulldog about to savage an imprudent burglar, promised to be more aggressive in the conduct of the meaningless parliamentary sparring and larking which is called opposition to the government. The other hopefuls in Labour's seething ranks are more discreet than to make such criticisms of their leader. There is the eminently sober duo of John Smith and Gordon Brown, who would like to organise the financial affairs of British capitalism as Chancellor of the Exchequer. There is boyish, articulate Tony Blair, who has Prescott's old job as shadow Energy minister and who is a formidable TV performer — which means that he is precociously skilful at evading difficult questions while making the most of any similar evasion by an uncomfortable opponent. There is smooth Michael Meacher, who first made his name by discovering the amazing fact that however capitalism may be reformed there remain millions who suffer from the direr pressures of poverty. Meacher recently angered Labour's top brass by speaking out for the legalising of sympathetic strikes and secondary picketing, just as if the winter of discontent had never been and just as if his party is not now desperately trying to obscure its trade union connection.

These burgeoning ambitions are feeding off Labour's inability to seduce the voters away from what seems a chronic addiction to the Thatcher way of running British capitalism. Labour's policy review may be the beginning of Kinnock's last stand, a desperate attempt to make the Labour Party resemble the Tories so closely that the voting public won't know which one to vote for — or won't care — and so may end up. in their utter confusion, by electing another Labour government. According to another aspirant leader, Bryan Gould, the policy review ". . . will, we hope show that Labour is ready to take up the reins of government in the 1990's”. But if the review doesn't have that effect, if it fails to attract the votes so that Labour suffers yet another emphatic electoral defeat, Kinnock may be forced to disappear from the scene, to swap reminiscences with Michael Foot.

The reason is that the Labour Party is dedicated to winning political power over British capitalism. This is not so trite and obvious a statement as it may seem, for there are plenty of Labour supporters who are sustained by the delusion that their party is still based on the principles of socialism, that it aims to bring about a fundamental change in social relationships and will continue to advocate that change whether it is popular or not. The truth is that Labour will promise almost any reform, almost any policy, which will attract votes. It will try to exploit any issue when it thinks that this will gain it some support and it will shy away from any issue which is likely to lose it votes. If necessary it will perform the sort of policy U-turn to impress Ted Heath (for example Bryan Gould writes: “We are clear that the market and the private sector have an enormously important and valuable role to play in any modern industrial society . . .").

That is why Labour is going through yet another policy re-appraisal and why the party leadership begins to look like a steeplechase when the horses are coming to the last fence and the run in to the winning post.

Prescott's luck

And that brings us back to John Prescott and his job as transport spokesman. When he was reshuffled the media were still juggling with the most recent exposure, by the capsize of the Herald of Free Enterprise and the fire at Kings Cross, of the fact that capitalism's priority has to be profit before safety. This is perfectly apparent to anyone with any insight into what happens in the world, and why it happens, but insight and clarity are things which the media are not noted for.

Since then a series of outrages, misnamed accidents, have provided Prescott with one opportunity after another to boost his public image. At one stage it seemed as if no day was complete unless it included Prescott on our TV screen, snarling and snapping and posing as the outraged guardian of the travelling public. Slack security, after the Lockerbie crash, was exposed by a series of journalists and other pranksters wangling their way on to aircraft. Botched production standards and inadequate maintenance caused the Boeing 737 to come down on the M1. The Clapham rail crash came about because electricians were being overworked to the point of exhaustion The only way we could put all this to rights was . . . to get bulldoggish Mr Prescott in charge at the Ministry of Transport, or better still at Number Ten.

Channon's pure genius

A rather different person is the target of many of Prescott’s barbs. Paul Channon is an extremely wealthy member of the Guinness family. He sits for the Southend constituency which is regarded as more or less the electoral property of his family; it was previously held by his father who was one of capitalism's mega-parasites and who didn't seem to care who knew it. Channon cannot match Prescott for being bulldoggish: he looks more like a mournful turtle with a complexion which often signals an over-indulgence in the beverage on which the family fortunes are based. Or perhaps he spends too much time in the sun; he owns a place in the West Indian paradise island of Mustique. where only the super-rich can afford to enjoy the silver sands, the turquoise sea and the temperature held steady in the eighties.

It was to Mustique that Channon sped, just after the Lockerbie crash, excusing himself by saying that he wanted to spend Christmas with his family like everyone else — which did not. of course, include the people killed in the crash and their families. Since then the Guardian has revealed his contemptuous treatment of a couple whose son was killed at Lockerbie, an incident which hints that Channon has a view of society which, as a Tory politician, he would do better not to make so obvious.

Channon’s wealth originates from the labour of the workers employed by the Guinness company. It comes from their unpaid labour time, from the wealth they produce which is surplus to what they receive for the sale of their ability to work. This is called (although so unpleasant a word probably never sullies the lips of a member of the Guinness clan) exploitation. The exploited people in society — the working class — are the majority: they are the non-parasites, the useful, productive people. Yet they do not have, nor are they expected to desire, any real say in how society is run, in how significant decisions are taken. It is assumed that they will accept their lot — their poverty, repression, their needlessly truncated lives — without complaint or question. If they should die in one of capitalism's "accidents”, in a capsized ferry or a train trapped by a faulty signal — why. they are sacrifices to the god of profit and that, after all the hypocrisy about their deaths, should be satisfaction enough for them.

If that is degrading — well, so is this social system. Capitalism is kept going by working class sacrifice. It churns out the wealth of people like Channon and it boosts the ambitions of those like Prescott. Perhaps sacrifice is the wrong word; perhaps suicide would be better.

Ivan.

Euro-capitalism or world socialism (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

June 15th 1989 is your opportunity to register your support for The Socialist Party candidate in the European elections. You may not have heard of The Socialist Party before so what is it?

We are a political party, separate from all others, Left, Right or Centre. We stand for the sole aim of establishing a world social system based upon human need instead of private or state profit. The Object and Declaration of Principles printed on the back of this manifesto were adopted by The Socialist Party at its formation in 1904. In other countries there are companion parties sharing the same object and principles and they too remain independent of all other political parties.

SO WHAT DO WE MEAN “EURO-CAPITALISM OR WORLD SOCIALISM?”

Capitalism is the social system which now exists in all countries of the world (including Russia, China, etc). Under this system the means of production and distribution (land, factories, offices, newspapers, etc) are owned by a minority, the capitalist class. All wealth is produced by us the majority working class, who sell our physical and mental energies to the capitalists in return for a price called a wage or salary. The object of production is primarily to produce profits for the capitalists (less than 5% of the population) by selling on the market goods and services created by us the workers. Not only do the capitalists live off the profits they obtain from exploiting the working class, but as a class, they go on accumulating wealth extracted from each generation of workers.

Food mountains and wine lakes exist throughout the EEC. Farmers are paid subsidies not to grow food and yet, at the same time, people throughout the world starve or go hungry.

The formation of the EEC in 1957 and the widely advertised removal of barriers to trade by 1992 are examples of capitalist production relating to new economic circumstances. This is what we mean by referring to the EEC as 'euro-capitalism'.

The other parties taking part in this election, such as the Labour Party or the Green Party are in effect telling you that capitalism can be reformed in our interests. This is untrue for, as long as capitalism exists, profits will come before needs. Some reforms are welcomed by some workers but no reform can abolish the fundamental contradiction between profit and need which is built into the present system. No matter whether promises to make capitalism run in the interests of the workers are made sincerely or by opportunist politicians they are bound to fail, for such a promise is like offering to run the slaughter house in the interests of the cattle!

SO WHAT IS THIS ALTERNATIVE OF SOCIALISM WHICH WE WISH TO ESTABLISH?

Socialism does not yet exist. When it is established it must be on a worldwide basis, as an alternative to the outdated system of world capitalism. In a socialist society there will be common ownership and democratic control of the Earth by its inhabitants. No minority class will be in a position to dictate to the majority that production must be geared to profit. There will be no owners in this classless society: everything will belong to everyone. Production will be solely for use, not for sale. The only questions society will need to ask about wealth production will be: what do people require, and can the needs be met? These questions will be answered on the basis of the resources available to meet such needs. Then, unlike now, modern technology and communications will be able to be used to their fullest extent. The basic socialist principle will be that people give according to their abilities and take according to their self-defined needs. Work will be on the basis of voluntary cooperation: the coercion of wage and salary work will be abolished. There will be no buying and selling and money will not be necessary, in a society of common ownership and free access. For the first time ever the people of the world will have common possession of the planet Earth.

HOW WILL SOCIALISM SOLVE THE PROBLEMS OF SOCIETY?

Capitalism with its constant drive to serve profit before need, throws up an endless stream of problems. Most workers in Britain feel insecure about their future: almost one in four families with children live below the poverty line: many old people live in dangerously cold conditions each winter and thousands die; millions of our fellow men and women are dying of starvation—tens of thousands of them each day. A society based on production for use will end those problems because the priority of socialist society will be the fullest possible satisfaction of needs. At the moment houses stand empty and thousands of building workers are unemployed; yet many people are homeless or inhabiting slums. At the moment food is destroyed and farmers are subsidised not to produce more; yet many millions are malnourished. At the moment hospital queues are growing longer and people are dying of curable illnesses: yet it is not “economically viable" to provide decent health treatment for all. In a socialist society nothing short of the best will be good enough for any human being.

The election of our candidate would not, in itself, bring about Socialism. It would be one step in the process of capturing political control in the interests of us, the working class of the world. It would give us a useful platform to put our ideas across on the world stage. If you agree with us, 

VOTE KILGALLON (Socialist Party of Great Britain), Tyne and Wear constituency.

Blogger's Note:

From the same issue of the Socialist Standard, see 'European Election Manifesto'.

Brave new world (1989)

From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 4 January 1941 Special Issue of Picture Post was devoted to A PLAN FOR BRITAIN, looking ahead to the post-war world. It was a wide-ranging review, covering work, social services, urban development, housing, farming, education, health and leisure. Forty-eight years on it is interesting to compare what was envisaged with reality.

The introduction is a letter written to Picture Post by a Welsh worker who had left the land to become a miner.

So, one day in late autumn, when the unwanted apples were killing the grass in the orchard, I went eighty miles away to work in the mines. That night, in my new home. I found that apples were dear and scarce. The people would hardly believe that I had seen them left to rot.

Equally he found that coal, which was scarce and expensive in the country, held no value where it was mined even though nearby out-of-work miners were picking over disused tips in the hope of finding bits of coal among the rubble. He ended his letter:

Between the dear coal and the cheap cutting. the scarce apples and those that rot. I think I can see the peace aim I would like to achieve. It is security — security against war and exploitation, by man or by country. And what I ask for ourselves should be granted to the whole world.

Amen to that; as good a definition of socialism as we have heard!

WORK FOR ALL lists a number of aims (including lower Income Tax, state control and state managed investments, and a job for every able-bodied man) and outlines a "national plan" related to an "international plan”. Thomas Baiogh calls for planning control and stimulated demand to ensure full employment (in spite of the role women played in industry in the First and Second World War, he specifies only jobs for men!). He warns against a post-war boom which would “create big profits for a few and high wages for a minority of workers”, saying that "there must be no return to what used to be called 'normal' — that is, complete freedom for the speculator to make high profits". Towards the end he says:

If we are to make a success of such a system it would have to be based on practical international understanding . . . It is obvious that such planning is not possible while maintaining the traditional concepts of sovereignty. They will have to go.

What Professor Baiogh failed to grasp is that while capitalism exists the need to generate profit and the ongoing fight for markets between competing factions, nationally and internationally, will prevent the achievement of even his limited aims. The situation has not changed from that outlined by the unemployed Welsh miner.

The next two articles dealt with social security and urban planning. Most of us at some time have experienced first hand the continuous honing down of the former, and we did not need the heir to the throne to point out the hideous character of much urban development and the inadequacies of high rise and other working class housing, which turns into slums a decade after it has been built. A warning against crystal-qazing is in the pictures of hospitals, factories and housing estates then held to be desirable, which few would not condemn today.

PLAN THE HOME. Here Elizabeth Denby, described as a "housing consultant whose chief interest is planning working class homes”, puts her view of the desirable future. The first thing which strikes you is that conditions shown in a miserable slum picture of 1941 can still be found in many parts of town and country, despite innumerable promises by Labour and Tory politicians to solve “The Housing Problem" during the intervening decades. The "planned kitchen" and “spacious, sunlit, cheery" living room pictured would today be described as hopelessly outmoded and spartan, but the aim that “hot water should be immediately available at any time of day or night, at every bath, sink and basin in the house" is still, in 1989, wishful thinking for many who cannot even boast a bath, never mind constant hot water.

A PLAN FOR EDUCATION has a topical ring. The aim set out by A.D. Lindsay is to give equal learning opportunities to all children and eliminate the elitist privileges of the rich; making education from primary school to university available to all on the basis of ability rather than cash. (Incidentally, here again the writer refers only to boys, which is strange because even though Balliol, at which he was Master, did not admit women, quite a few were nevertheless going to university and had been doing so for many years.) Mr. Baker's proposals show how far we have (not!) progressed towards achieving even the very limited aims of Professor Lindsay. The need is still to train the workforce for the tasks they will be required to perform; if there has been any change at all, it is that today’s Tory government is more open about that than was the wartime Coalition of 1941.

HEALTH FOR ALL and A REAL MEDICAL SERVICE. The picture of the crowded outpatients' waiting room in a hospital is familiar; only the clothes look a bit old- fashioned. Another showing a patient getting special preventative treatment is captioned “This is out of reach of most people, who must wait for serious illness to receive attention". Forecasts of immediate free explorative X-rays, dental treatment and chiropody are especially ironic today, when not only are waiting lists growing ever longer but both examination and treatment have again become fee-charging in the case of the latter two.

The final article, WHEN WORK IS OVER deals with how we shall be spending our leisure time. Compared to the "exotic” cruises, foreign and far-away places we want (and pay for) during our two or three weeks off the chain, their expectations were indeed modest. Would J. B. Priestley say today, as he did in Picture Post, “Nor can I agree with those theorists who believe that this . . . silly style of amusement is something deliberately imposed upon the masses by wicked capitalists". While we agree with him that creative activity is a satisfying use of leisure time, his view that woman needs more leisure time than a man to enable her to "cultivate all the small graces of living and making herself and her domestic surroundings look more attractive" is quaint, to say the least, on two counts. It is not only the idea of the “little home-maker", but the notion that housework is leisure!

At the end of the Special Issue, Picture Post asked readers for their views on the PLAN FOR BRITAIN. Although too late for publication (Picture Post was long ago laid to rest) we give them now. This is not with the benefit of hindsight, but in the certain knowledge that our comrades would have said the same thing in 1941.

However good the intention, while society is ruled by the profit motive, it cannot be made to run for the benefit of the majority, the workers. Capitalism cannot be reformed to any significant degree. The only alternative is to replace it with socialism. We will then achieve not just a Better Britain but a Better World.

Eva Goodman

Socialism on tape (1989)

 From the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

From the list above the following recordings are available on the SPGB website:

• Is Britain Worth Dying For? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Lady Olga Maitland (Women and Families for Defence) (1984).
• After The Miners Strike — Which Way Forward For Socialists? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Socialist Workers Party (speaker Colin Tipton) (1985).
• Is Inequality Natural? Speaker Clifford Slapper (1985).
• Did Lenin Distort Marx? DEBATE between The Socialist Party and Monty Johnstone (Communist Party. Marxism Today) (1982).
• Why Tony Benn Should Be A Socialist. Speaker Dick Donnelly (1980).
• The Crisis In Capitalism — What Is The Next Step? DEBATE between The Socialist Party (speaker Clifford Slapper) and Bill Etherington (General Secretary. Durham Mechanics NUM) (1986)
• Historical Materialism: Theory And Action. Speakers Janie Percy-Smith. Steve Coleman (1987)
• Marxian Economics And Capitalist Textbooks. Speaker Adam Buick. (1987)
• Marx's Conception Of Socialism. Speaker E. Hardy (1987)

Education Series: Socialist Thinkers — People Who History 
Made. Speaker Steve Coleman (1982).

• Plekhanov And Historical Materialism.
• Dietzgen And Dialectical Thought.
• Kautsky's Critique Of Religion.
• Bronterre O'Brien And Working Class Radicalism.
• Belfort Bax And The "Ethics’ Of Socialism.
• William Morris' Vision Of Socialism.
• Martov And The Anti-Bolshevik Approach To Revolution.

50 Years Ago: Fascism & Democracy in Germany (1989)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

The constitution of the German "Weimar" Republic — already doomed before Hitler took power — was formally one of the most democratic in the world. Nevertheless, so miserable had the existence of wide masses of the German people become, that in the last free election held in Germany a majority of the electorate voted for the abolition of democracy. For in spite of the concern for democracy which is expressed by the Communists nowadays, at the time of that election both National Socialists and German Communists were united in their hatred of what they called “bourgeois democracy". For the Communists to assert at this time of the day that the downfall of German democracy was due to the refusal of the German Social Democrats to form a united front is nothing less than sheer effrontery; they wouldn't have touched the then "social fascists" (as they described the Social-Democrats) with a barge pole. The chief difference between the followers of the Communists and Nazis was that they chose different vehicles through which to express their hatred of democracy. Lacking an understanding of their social position, disgusted by the antics and ineptitudes of self-styled socialists, the mass of the German people found the source of the grievances not in the capitalist nature of the social system, but in the democratic form in which it was administered.

[From an article "Fascism and Democracy". Socialist Standard, June 1939.]

SPGB Meetings (1989)

Party News from the June 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Race prejudice is a barrier to Socialism (1963)

Editorial from the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Those who said that the last war was fought, among other things, for racial equality, are having to eat their words fast. Twenty years after the Warsaw Ghetto, we still see the ugly manifestations of racial intolerance and strife in many parts of the world.

Witness Birmingham, Alabama, scene of the latest battle in the struggle over desegregation, where more than nine hundred Negroes are arrested at one demonstration and Ku-Klux Klan bomb outrages wreck an agreement a few hours after it has been readied. Then go further North to Washington D.C., where the situation has produced the Black Moslem Movement, a bitterly anti-white. anti-Jewish organisation, aiming at the establishment of separate Negro States in the U.S.

Over in South Africa, racial oppression is sharpened by fresh laws giving sweeping powers of detention to the police, and to open your mouth too much in public is to invite a charge of treason and perhaps the death penalty. In another part of this unhappy continent, Nairobi based British troops riot in retaliation for the murder of one of their number.

Here at home, Chinese shops are smashed at St. Helens, Lancs, and there is the usual resentment against coloured bus workers—this time at Bristol. It is only a few months since the Colin Jordan affair and the tins of “Jew Killers.”

Racial prejudice and antagonism are with us all the time, but it is only now and then that they flare into headline news. Mostly they smoulder sullenly beneath publicity level, but ready to be sparked off. perhaps by some comparatively minor incident, into really nasty outbreaks of violence like the Notting Hill affairs a few years ago.

Then it is that ignorance and bigotry come fully into their own as hysterical fanatics hurl abuse and insults at coloured and other minorities. Scapegoats have now been found to blame for workers problems, it being conveniently forgotten that the problems existed long before the scapegoats ever appeared. Passions are inflamed and crime, one of the everyday hazards of private property society, now takes on a racial—almost political—significance.

In the welter of confusion it is not surprising that to many workers, race has become synonymous with nationality. It is a notion which the capitalist press has encouraged from time to time. During the last war, for instance, it was the policy of one paper at least to refer frequently to the “German Race” and to try and prove its essentially warlike nature. “Get back to your own country” is a remark often heard, and there was even one English father who refused his son permission to marry because the girl came from Wales, and who wanted frontiers established between the two countries.

Probably many people thought this quite ludicrous at the lime, yet it is really no more so than the whole notion of nationality which most workers support in a world made smaller almost daily by the advance of communications. It is the same notion which incidentally produced two opposing candidates in one ward in the recent municipal elections at Bradford, both standing for “Pakistani Interests.”

Socialists have always opposed racialist theories. There is no scientific evidence that one group is innately superior to another, and in fact it would be difficult to find a “pure” race in the world today, even if scientists could agree on a definition of the term. And among the capitalist class, too, there is a growing recognition that discrimination is decidedly damaging to their commercial interests. It was the “Business Community” in Birmingham, Alabama, which sought agreement with Martin Luther King.

While workers hold such ideas, there is the added danger that they will lend a ready ear to potential dictators, and that even today’s limited political democracy will suffer. But, above all, racialism is a barrier to the growth of Socialist knowledge and the recognition that the division between capitalist and worker is the only one which really matters. The interest of all workers everywhere is the same—the abolition of capitalism and its replacement by Socialism. Until they get this vital fact clear, they will stay in the mess that they are in today.

"The growth and spread of civilization . . ." (1963)

From the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The growth and spread of civilization has gone on with a serene indifference to racial lines. All groups who have had an opportunity to acquire civilization have not only acquired it but also added to its content. Conversely, no group has been able to develop a rich or complex culture when it was isolated from outside contacts."

Ralph Linton, The Study of Man

News in Review: Birmingham, Alabama (1963)

The News in Review column from the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

Birmingham, Alabama

Alabama had to have its turn, sooner or later. Now that it has come, ignorance and violence seem to be taking command.

Ignorance because the ugly scenes in Birmingham have been caused by the assertion of the simple fact that differing skin colours is no reason why people should not share buses, restaurants, schools, and so on.

Violence because we live in a violent world, in which an indefensible idea can often be asserted by the breaking of heads—and worse.

And, as far as racial theories go, Alabama is the very pit of ignorance. That is the one state to have held out completely against the federally decreed desegregation of schools. That is the state where they still salute the Confederate flag, where they wish that the Civil War was being fought all over again. That is the state described by Attorney-General Robert Kennedy as like a foreign country.

It is no surprise that the Negroes have developed their own counterpart of Southern repression. The Black Muslims talk in the same terms as the most extreme segregationists, except that their policy is for black people to discriminate against white. Once again, the inevitable result of ignorance and violence has been to breed yet more of its kind. 

Is there no glimmer of hope? As American industry expands into Dixieland, it takes with it no nonsense about segregation. It wants to exploit them all, white and black.

This development is likely to give the Negroes the weapon they lack at the moment—the vote. When they have that (as President Kennedy acknowledged so blatantly in his 1960 campaign) they will be a political factor to reckon with. We shall probably see a lot of Southern Congressmen hurriedly changing their tune.

That still seems a long way off. At the moment the South presents a doleful picture, especially for Socialists, who know that the future of the world depends upon how long it takes the international working class to throw off its manifold ignorances and to unite for the establishment of a sane, humane society.

Spies for peace

It is in the nature of the misuse of words which characterises capitalist organisations that the Spies for Peace were not spying and that they were doing nothing for peace.

The existence of the Regional Seats of Government was a very loosely kept secret, one which was divulged to plenty of everyday Civil Defence volunteers. In any case, anyone who was not actually in the know need not have been a Sherlock Holmes to have deduced that such places existed. The capitalist class will obviously make their preparations to re-establish the government of property society after a nuclear holocaust.

What will the Spies for Peace achieve? They are unlikely to get hold of any secrets which really matter to British capitalism. If they do, it will hardly safeguard peace to reveal them to other capitalist powers, who will doubtless use them to bolster their own military machines.

All that the Spies can do for themselves is to fall foul of the law (which they all, by implication, support) and to stir up the irritation of the masses of workers who so ardently defend their masters' interests.

And when we have said that we are only just beginning.

What is so wearying about the Spies for Peace—and about the Committee of 100, and the March Must Decide brigade, and the CND itself—is that they are yet another group who steadfastly ignore the obvious.

Wars, and their weapons, are part of capitalist society. The only way to abolish all of them is to get rid of capitalism. Some unilateralists, in fact, would say that they agree with this.

Nevertheless, they continue with their antics and as each of the stunts fails to have any effect upon the build up of the world’s nuclear arsenals they carry on to other, sometimes sillier, escapades.

Anything, in fact, rather than work for Socialism.

As we said, it is very wearying.

Hunger and profit

We are now, in case you have not had a collecting box stuck under your nose, or have missed the big spread adverts, in the middle of another campaign, the Freedom from Hunger Campaign.

Hunger is certainly a massive, depressing problem. The third World Food Survey, published last April by the F.A.O., reported that between ten and fifteen per cent. of the world’s population is undernourished and up to one-half suffer from hunger or malnutrition. There are plenty of other eminently quotable statistics which all add up to the fact that a large chunk of the people on the earth simply do not get enough to eat.

Some people regard this as a problem of overpopulation, of the world’s resources being outstripped by human breeding powers. Others think that it is a problem of getting enough money to send a tractor here, or a shipload of fertiliser there. In fact, this is only playing with the problem.

Capitalism is the barrier between man and the solution of hunger. The physical difficulties of society will never be tackled sensibly as long as capitalism lasts. Take, for example, the case of the Dutch milk. Reported The Sunday Telegraph on May 12th last:

A plan to fine farmers who produce too much milk is being considered in Holland by Mr. V. G. M. Marynen, Minister of Agriculture.

The object is to cut production by four per cent. The scheme has been agreed with provisionally by the farmers and workers unions.

Mr. B. Van Dam, director of the Netherlands Milk Marketing Board, said: “ The time has come to set a new course for our milk producers. It is no use going on increasing production in view of the present state of the market.”

It is typical of the enduring stupidities of property society that millions of people starve in one part of the world while in another people are penalised for producing food. For capitalism, human suffering does not matter; the "state of the market” is what brings in the dividend cheques, and so that is what counts.

The Freedom from Hunger Campaign has recruited a great many sincere helpers. This sort of campaign usually does. The deeper their sincerity, the greater the tragedy that their efforts are always so wide of the mark.

The Labour Party itching for power

The Labour Party, itching for power, is like a man listening to the last few football results with seven draws on his pools coupon.

They suffer. They perspire. They are fearful lest a wrong word should shatter their glorious dream.

That was why the Labour Party was so worried about the railway strike which never got started. Perhaps the strike was something of a forlorn hope. But, after all, strikes are the only weapon workers have in their disputes with their employers.

The Labour Party, let it be recorded, did not oppose the strike for any reason connected with the welfare of the railway workers. They opposed it because they judged that it may have damaged their chance of winning the next election; it might have upset their Treble Chance. For Labour, as for other capitalist parties, votes are tremendously important.

Mr. Wilson is doing his best to gather as many of them as he can. He celebrated May Day, for example, by propounding a plan to “. . . make a reality of the Commonwealth . . .” (although there was nothing very new in what he said—just some more mucking about with Imperial Preferences).

He also threw in his now customary make weight about the Labour Party not being prepared to see Britain as a second rate power.

Now all this may have been palatable to retired colonels in Bournemouth and to the floating, drifting voters whom the Labour Party has wooed so coyly for so long. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the Socialism which Mr. Wilson protests he stands for, nor with the working class interests he professes to defend.

There must still be some members of the Labour Party who can remember the days when strikers were people to support and when patriotism was something of a dirty word. What do they think of their party, as they watch it take its inevitable path to the status of a fully fledged party of capitalism, with power as the one and only object of its miserable life?