Education for what? (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Tory MP for Wokingham, William Van Straubenzee, addressing his constituency advisory committee recently, must have sorely disappointed some of his less-discerning friends when he claimed that it would be quite unrealistic—“pie-in-the-sky” was one phrase he used—for Conservatives to think of unscrambling the comprehensive schools and turning back to the grammar-secondary-modern system. (Times Educational Supplement, 8th July.)

His words, however, will have reassured his more realistic industrial and commercial masters, for whom the comprehensive system had become essential if they were to compete successfully with their capitalist rivals elsewhere in the world.

For this reason, if for no other, one may be confident that Straubenzee’s views broadly coincide with those of his party bosses, Mrs. Thatcher and Norman St. John-Stevas, whatever they may feel obliged to say publicly. It is obvious that neither of them will be particularly anxious to restore the educational privileges of the self-styled middle class if, as they clearly do here, they happen to conflict with the interests of the capitalist class they represent. (No doubt they would also privately argue that it is not, after all, the continued existence of the public school system that is at risk.)

Of course, the introduction of comprehensive schools has made no significant difference to the principle of selection enshrined in the 1944 Education Act. Only the manner in which the selection is engineered has changed.

Neither has the overall condition of the end-products been altered in any way. Those school-leavers who can find jobs are obliged to sell their labour- power in the form of a commodity to capitalist employers. The remainder help to swell the ranks of what Karl Marx accurately described as the “reserve army of capitalism”—the unemployed.

And in the end, a major imperative of capitalism— that its education service should, as nearly and as effectively as possible, match up to that system’s requirements—will have been consolidated.

Richard Cooper

Time for a change ! (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

No member of the working class needs to wade through the press or listen to television and radio to realize that living standards have taken a sharp plunge over the last four years.

A reading of Labour’s two manifestos issued for the elections of 1974 shows what has happened to Labour’s attempt to make capitalism work for the benefit of the majority of the people.

Remember how the slogan “Back to Work with Labour” was used as a piece of propaganda against the three-day week, which large sections of industry were working under the Tories prior to the election. The one-and-a-half million unemployed, and thousands of other workers whose jobs are threatened, know that the alternative slogan “Out of Work with Labour” would be far more accurate. In both manifestos there was the inevitable electioneering talk about the need for “social justice.” The Labour Party claimed that this could be achieved under capitalism. It talked of the “need to tackle rising prices”, “to strike at the roots of the worst poverty” and “to make the country demonstrably a much fairer place to live in”.

In the February 1974 Manifesto, Labour pledged itself to “introduce strict PRICE CONTROL on key services and commodities”. Efforts were to be made to stabilize food prices and the use of subsidies was proposed. Significantly, these promises were dropped from the October 1974 Manifesto.

The result of Labour’s attempt to control inflation has of course been an annual inflation rate rising to 26.9 per cent, at its height. At present it is 17.6 per cent. The Labour government has misled some people into believing that it can control rising prices. A Government White Paper issued in July 1975 declared: “By the end of 1976 price increases will be down to less than ten pence in the pound”. However, prices were rising by fifteen pence in the pound at the end of 1976.

What of the Labour Party’s talk of “social justice’ when Lady Beaverbrook can spend £8,000 to charter a special plane to take her two poodles to New York? According to a report published in December 1976 by the Child Poverty Action Group, thirteen million people in this country alone are living close to the Supplementary Benefit level which the government officially recognizes as being a state of poverty.

But the working class will be making a great mistake if they believe that the Tories can do any better. In April 1972, under the Heath government, unemployment passed the one million mark for the first time since 1940. Under the Tories, workers had to put up with wage restraint and rising prices just as under Labour.

The present economic crisis shows that capitalism cannot be controlled. During the boom period of the 1950s, all the major parties, Labour, Conservative, Liberal and “Communist,” were under the illusion that it would be possible for governments to “spend their way out of trouble”. The Socialist Party of Great Britain said at the time that this Keynesian solution to economic and social problems would be doomed to failure because capitalism is an anarchic system which repeatedly passes through boom and slump periods. The history of capitalism over the last two hundred years makes this abundantly clear.

The leading politicians with all their talk of “national unity”, “increasing productivity” and everyone tightening their belts, are bankrupt of ideas. None of them can offer anything to the working class.

It is possible to say that capitalism was once a revolutionizing system which expanded the machinery of wealth creation. However, the twentieth century has shown that capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It is in many cases destroying wealth, and constantly prevents wealth being produced. Fruit and vegetables are regularly ploughed into the ground, factories are closed down with machinery left idle, while millions of workers are unemployed. Privilege continues while there is worldwide poverty. All this for the sake of the great capitalist god, profit, which benefits only a small minority of the population.

What is the alternative to this madness? The case put forward by the Socialist Party of Great Britain is clear and concise. The alternative is Socialism. It involves the democratic ownership and control of the factories, agriculture and wealth-producing and distributing agents by the whole community. Socialism will be a truly worldwide system.

Vincent Otter

". . . more fun than fun . . ." (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The only way to enjoy life is to work. Work is much more fun than fun."

— Noël Coward, quoted in the Radio Times.

50 Years Ago: Crime and Punishment (1977)

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

Socialist society will, of course, try to protect itself against anti-social acts. What it will not do is to debase human life and stultify its own efforts by introducing the irrelevant idea of punishment. It will seek primarily to remove the cause, a line which our present rulers are prevented from following by their need to defend private property.

#    #    #    #

Secondly, it will recognise that some breaches of public order are inevitable, and are risks which society must accept as it accepts the wind and the rain. To embody brutal penalties in legal codes is no better insurance against them than is the action of the savage who makes an image of his God to protect him against the terrors of nature and then smashes the image when he suffers loss through storm or flood. All he does is to give vent to his disappointment. We are not savages, and must learn not to wreak our rage on unfortunate prisoners whom chance has brought within the reach of the law!

[From an unsigned editorial on the Sacco and Vanzetti case, Socialist Standard, September 1927.]

The Politicians and the crisis: Part 2 (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

These are the times when unthinking workers look for scapegoats, as they did in Germany in the latter period of the Weimar Republic. There the once proud and powerful Social Democratic Party (SPD) were in government; they unwittingly paved the way for the Nazis. Hence, the concern of the political leaders of Western Europe, North America and Japan. They reason as follows.

The slump of the early ’thirties undermined the established regimes in places like Germany and Japan and many other less powerful countries too. Imitative fascist-type parties sprang up all over Europe (some holding power), gaining support from disenchanted workers. In the case of Germany the Nazis gained power through the ballot box in 1933. In Japan the militarists managed to mobilize popular support against the existing Liberal administration because of the economic situation—unemployment and deflation—not, as now, inflation. The new regime began reflation in 1932 and before the bottom of the world slump had been reached Japanese industry began to recover being propelled along by an aggressive drive in export markets.

This was bad news for capitalist interests whose markets were being successfully penetrated by Japan, e.g. the colonial possessions of the Western industrial states were taking an increasing volume of textiles. This was one of the reasons for “protectionism” of the 1930s, which the governments now wish to avoid. This encouraged Japanese capitalism, with militarists firmly in the saddle, to possess colonies of their own. In 1937 they attacked China, having as early as 1932 driven the Chinese out of Manchuria without any formal declaration of war.

War economy

Germany from 1933 onwards pursued a twin policy of re-armament and so-called "economic self-sufficiency”. Unemployment decreased (although it was still above 1 million in 1936) and the armaments industry and its adjuncts, like the new autobahns and airfields, increased. Many workers were employed on the work connected with numerous Nazi rallies; the 1936 Nuremberg Rally alone cost £2,000,000 to stage. To limit imports, license schemes were introduced and synthetic materials developed, partly to deal with Germany’s balance of trade problem and also geared to their “war economy”.

Germany entered into trade arrangements with countries in South-East Europe and Latin America. These countries agreed to take more exports from Germany in exchange for imports from them, but their volume was only 69 per cent. above 1929; whereas Britain’s exports were then 83 per cent. above that year. Britain had achieved this advantage by bi-lateral arrangements with various countries. The Commonwealth and Empire countries increased their import preferences for each others’ goods and as mentioned above placed restrictive quotas on textiles from Japan.

In spite of all this, unemployment in Britain was still over 1.3 million in 1937. In the June 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard was the following:

When Hitler for the German capitalists says that Germany must expand or explode, find markets or perish, he meets his opposite in Mr. Hudson. British Secretary for Overseas Trade who said in Warsaw on March 21st [1939] that “we are not going to give up any markets to anyone . . . Great Britain is strong enough to fight for markets abroad. Britain is now definitely going to take a greater interest in Eastern Europe”. (From News Chronicle, March 22, 1939). Fighting that at present takes the form of words, trade agreements, loans, guarantees against aggression etc. may. as in 1914 turn into an armed conflict, and that armed conflict will be yet another war produced by capitalist rivalries.

This area of Eastern Europe was Germany’s existing and expanding sphere of influence, for recovering territory lost in the previous imperial conflict—the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, Danzig and the Polish Corridor, and Memeland from Lithuania. Germany also had eyes on the Rumanian oilfields (hence the British guarantee to that country in spite of the fascist regime there), and the wheat-growing areas of the Ukraine, in Russia and Poland.

These brief references are to the seeds which helped produce the second world war, and the politicians at the recent London summit conference said so quite openly. By any sense of logic working-class ears should be pricking up at these statements, questions should be asked and conclusions drawn. The Socialist Party does its best to help draw these conclusions and to develop a Socialist awareness.

It was noteworthy that Mr. Fukuda was particularly alive to the dangers of the present slump. He was a young diplomat in London in 1933 at the time of the World Economic Conference which broke up solving nothing, to be followed by “beggar thy neighbour” policies which were already under way prior to the conference. One of the major factors preventing even formal agreement was America’s refusal to stabilize the dollar; Roosevelt having taken them off the Gold Standard with a view to raising US commodity prices as an inducement for investment by the industrialists. This caused the US dollar to fluctuate wildly in the foreign exchanges. The delegates from the other countries at the conference wanted America to stabilize back on the Gold Standard: this Roosevelt refused to do, being pre-occupied with the domestic effects of the Depression.

Crisis capitalism

This was and is crisis capitalism. Predicament—the conflict between national economic interests and the stability of the international trading and monetary systems. This was recognized well enough in 1933. 

The journal The Round Table declared, some months before the Conference at the time of the Imperial Economic Conference at Ottawa, that "within a few months, conclusions must be reached in the financial and economic field, the effect of which will probably be decisive for or against the happiness of at least one generation of human beings all over the world.”

In September 1933, two months after the conference broke up, the same journal commented: ‘‘The great international conferences have come to little. The pulse of the Disarmament Conference is beating feebly (which began in June 1932) . . . The World Economic Conference has failed to reduce the obstructions to international trade, or even to make a tentative approach to agreement upon a solution of the world’s monetary problems”.

In the Daily Telegraph of May 9th, 1977, the day after this year’s conference, in an Economic Commentary article ‘‘Best view of the summit in few months” the author, Rodney Lord, stated: ‘‘It is idle to expect any great progress on persuading countries to regulate their economies for the general benefit of international stability. Politicians look first to the interests of the people who elected them.” The latter part of that quotation cannot go unchallenged of course—but we know what he means.

Politicians are the custodians of nation-states in a competitive world—that is, custodians for the capitalist class of their particular countries. At the same time they depend on the working class to go along with the arrangement, and have to try to placate them when it is necessary.

Conflicts of ‘national interest’

This conflict of national interest and international stability, with its inherent dangers, was demonstrated in Tokyo only four days after the end of the Economic Summit.

There were reports of a fire in an oilfield in Saudi Arabia which supplies over 30 per cent. of Japan’s crude oil imports. Prices fell on the Tokyo stock market and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry assured the Press that the fire would probably not have a serious effect on Japan’s supplies in the long run.

At the same time Mr. Fukuda, the Prime Minister, told a meeting of business leaders that the government is to press the case for Japan to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. He said that at London he had the ‘‘strong impression” that it will be difficult to get America’s approval because of President Carter’s “deep-rooted opposition”. However, Mr. Fukuda assured the businessmen that he was “most determined” to negotiate the issue with the US independently of other countries. The Japanese, apparently, have been shocked by the American President’s nuclear energy policy (from a report in the Daily Telegraph, May 13th).

An indication of Japan’s problems—even though being currently the world’s most successful economy— is the news that from the end of 1971 to the end of 1976, 30,000 shipyard workers lost their jobs. It is estimated that another 25,000 will go before the end of 1978, which is nearly the total workforce in British yards. (From the AUEW journal for May 1977.)

On May 9th the Daily Telegraph reported that British TV manufacturers were protesting to the Government that Japanese TV manufacturers were “bent on destroying” the British industry. This was in response to the plans of the Hitachi Company to build a factory at Tyne and Wear.

Commercial ‘aggrandisement’

The British businessmen said that there was already over-capacity in the industry. 1,751,000 sets were made in 1976 as against 3,000,000 in 1973, and Hitachi’s arrival would increase to 400,000 the number of Japanese colour sets made in Britain. Two other Japanese companies are already established here. Many more jobs would be lost—up to 6,000—than would be created, it was claimed. Hitachi had already a 20 per cent. interest in a Finnish company which is expected to export to Britain for assembly a substantial part of 800,000 total output of colour tubes. It is part of a policy of “commercial aggrandisement” in Europe, say the British capitalists.

No wonder Mr. Fukuda and the other statesmen are worried.

Frank Simkins

To be concluded

SPGB Meetings (1977)

Party News from the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Letter: Importance of understanding (1977)

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

Importance of understanding

I can only presume that the correspondents G. Walford and Ian Campbell (July Socialist Standard) have failed to hear the saying “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know”. The human mind always fears something it may not understand fully, hence the fear of the religious supernatural, and the state capitalism of the so-called Communist countries. Due to the false propaganda spread under the banner of Socialism the working class are naturally enough in a confused state of mind.

A Socialist society is an unknown quantity to some extent. In that a Socialist understands what it will mean to mankind, but he cannot predict the future—how will it work and function? The working class can only be convinced of its possibility by gaining Socialist understanding. For example, by explaining what a change in the mode of production would mean to society, whether it is accepted by the individual or not, this by its very nature leads to further questions on the subject of Socialism. Therefore one less barrier breaks down. The SPGB have constantly propagated the case for Socialist understanding, knowing that ignorance only breeds further ignorance.

Both correspondents should ask themselves: have they acquired a Socialist understanding? If so, have they rejected or refused it, or do they fear what they understand?

Brian Johnson

Pontypridd

Letter: Industrial action (1977)

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

Industrial action

In your article “Obstacles to Socialist Understanding” in the January 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard you state: “Class consciousness means the recognition of the existence of class society and arising from this the knowledge that political action by the majority based on the clear understanding of Socialism will replace capitalism by a Socialist society".

The first part of this statement is correct but inadequate. The concluding remarks are additionally inadequate and does not pay full service to the introductory part of the statement. It is the knowing of the function of capital and how it does not function in the interests of the working class that is most important. And in knowing this the worker uses constantly his economic knowledge (Socialist understanding of economics) to get as much as he can by all necessary means.

This is political-economic action which is superior to just political action. It brings a showdown and breakdown of capitalism on the industrial-economic field of capitalism. It is at that stage the political action takes over by the introduction of Socialism (common ownership, production only for use, etc.).

While writing, why does the SPGB in a puritanical and snipey way condemn your anarchist correspondent when replying to a letter published in the Jan. issue when he stated of having a society “where there is nothing else but a person’s social habits". The SPGB claims this is being utopian. Yet social habits means needs. And surely under Socialism people will be able to retain or assert their own social habits as it is their needs? Under Socialism, people take according to their needs, which are part of their social habits.

W. J. Street 

London, W9.

Reply:

You give no indication of how industrial action can bring a “showdown and breakdown of capitalism”.

It is quite mistaken to suppose that workers who understand economics can get more out of the capitalist class (some of us wish it were so!). What can be obtained by trade-union action depends on several factors, including the concentration of workers in a particular industry. The biggest factor over-all is the state of production and trade. Wage increases and improvements in conditions are gained with less difficulty in boom periods, when the employers’ order-books are full and they do not want production and distribution held up by disputes. When trade and manufacture are depressed, the employers are more ready to make a fight against demands by workers’ organizations. How would the knowledge that “capital does not function in the interests of the working class” alter this situation?

As you link “political-economic action” with “the worker getting all he can by all necessary means”, presumably you mean the trade unions seeking to bring pressure to bear on governments. Trade-union organization is valuable to the workers in its own field; attempted political action has only a damaging effect on it. Since they are not a political party, the unions which attempt such action must support the policies as a whole of a party which promises legislation favourable to them. If, on the other hand, you have in mind the syndicalist idea of a confrontation between unions and the state, your worker with Socialist understanding will be aware (a) that the majority of workers are not members of trade unions, and (b) that the state has at its disposal the legal machinery, police and armed force. Those circumstances hardly make for breaking down capitalism by that means.

You have misread the reply about anarchism. It criticized a statement by Kropotkin predicting a society where ‘the liberty of the individual will be limited by no laws, no bonds”, and pointed out that this vision of unrestricted individual liberty is incompatible with democratic social organization.

Editors.

Letter: Socialism with wages (1977)

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

Socialism with wages

In a television interview with David Frost the miners’ leader Arthur Scargill, in spite of opposition from most of the audience, ably set out principles for the organization of a Socialist society. These principles were those of the SPGB with the exception of the retention of the wage system.

His plan seemed very practical. Would you like to comment?

John Keith

Aberdeenshire

Reply:

It is not uncommon for left-wing spokesmen to say things which, apparently, the SPGB could endorse; some of them even borrow from us in criticizing aspects of the existing order. It is necessary to look further into what they are advocating.

You say Scargill set out Socialist principles “with the exception of the retention of the wage system”. That isn’t a minor point—it is what Socialist principles are all about. The wage-labour relationship is not an optional extra but is basic to capitalism. It exists when and because the means of living are the property of a class: the other class, the non-owning majority, are thus forced to sell their labour-power to the owners in order to live. The retention of the wage system therefore cannot be associated with Socialism, for it implies by itself the existence of these two classes. Wages are the price of labour-power, and the wage-worker is the seller: can you have sellers without buyers?

We may say charitably that Scargill is a very muddled person, but it is worth noting another viewpoint claimed by Labourite reformers in the past. Some of them were aware of the nature of Socialism as a classless, wageless society, and that it is the only alternative to capitalism. Nevertheless they rejected the idea of working to establish it because, in their opinion, it would take too long. Instead they sought quick ways to remedy social problems under the name “socialist measures”, or reform programmes which were held to be different because those who advanced them wanted to think of themselves as socialists. None of them has cured the basic ills of capitalism or shown a possible alternative to Socialist action; but the result has been a great deal of confusion as to what Socialism is.

Editors.

Letter: Eye of a needle (1977)

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

Eye of a needle

While I believe that the SPGB have a closer understanding of Socialism than most other groups in this country, I completely fail to understand how they can ever visualize a majority of the working class—with such famous members as bankers, debt collectors, hired hooligans of the law enforcement racket etc. all rushing to the polls to vote it in!

When that day comes they must surely be beaten to the post by the "bored with wealth” brigade.

It will be the lower strata of the working class who will finally establish Socialism—not those so-called socialists of the “upper working class", those “middle-class-working-class” intellectuals of Somnambulistic Enterprises Ltd. Socialism will always remain the prerogative of the poor— never of the "managers” of the wealthy!

J. W. Pitt

Worthing

Reply:

If what you say were correct, the most poverty-stricken city areas would be full of Socialists; manifestly, they are not. As an example, at the time of writing there is a by-election in Ladywood, Birmingham, which was described in The Times of 13th August as "one of the worst environments of any big European city”—yet the chief interest in the campaign is the possibility of the Tory candidate being elected. Further, if what you say were correct the Socialist Party would have an interest in obstructing the "lower strata of the working class” from trying to improve their standard of living.

Your point of view is the understandable one that managers, administrative workers and law-enforcers perform anti-working-class functions and therefore cannot act as Socialists. Yet these people are themselves exploited. Marx said of them: “the labour of superintendence, entirely separated from the ownership of capital, walks the streets” (and more about this in Volume 3 of Capital, second half of the chapter headed "Interest and Profit of Enterprise”). Dire poverty is one but certainly not the sole source of Socialist consciousness; many workers become Socialists through other frustrations and perceptions of the hopelessness of capitalism. To whoever does, it means he has acquired class consciousness which over-rides the capitalist-conditioned outlook he previously had (if he is in an anti-working-class job, what he does about it is up to him). Don’t say that certain people are beyond the reach of class consciousness; in a class-divided society, nobody is.

There is another way of looking at this. According to National Income and Expenditure 1965-75, published by the Central Statistical Office, out of 28,123 tax units (i.e. incomes) in Britain in 1973-74, 24,251 were under £2,500 net and 20,496 were under £2,000. So if Socialism were dependent on low incomes the great majority of the working class would qualify anyway. Those who have you worried are a small proportion; the “lower strata" is (most of us.

Editors.

Letter: Does the sun shine? (1977)

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

Does the sun shine?

I fear that the Socialist Standard is understood only by “intellectuals”. Why can’t you cater for the mass of the workers as the Sun and the Mirror do? Yes, they say the same old load of rubbish but they present it in a way the vast majority can accept. They are not “angry” in their approach but present opinions not without humour. It is no good presenting the truth when nobody’s prepared to listen because it’s not entertaining.

David Waite

Nottingham

Reply:

Since you describe the Sun and the Mirror as a "load of rubbish”, we infer that you don’t include yourself in the “vast majority” who cannot understand the Socialist Standard. We do not look down on the rest of the working class in that way.

Certainly we aim to make the Socialist Standard as readable as possible, and—as regular readers know—we are not averse to humour. However, we are presenting analyses and information; the papers you mention do not deal in either, and workers who want them have to (and do) go elsewhere. There is no merit in having a mass circulation if it achieves nothing in enlightenment. The Sun is produced to make money; the Socialist Standard is produced to make Socialists. Would you want to read it if it treated matters in a superficial way?

As for being angry—yes. we are. Instead of treating social problems as bubbles which can easily be burst if we all give a good puff for “the country”, we have to demonstrate that they are ineradicable from capitalism. Instead of giving cuddly-doll nicknames like “Sunny Jim” and “Supermac” to politicians, we show them as the holders of political power who administer the system against the workers’ interests. This is precisely what the asinine grin on the face of the Sun masks.

We don’t write for “intellectuals” but for working men and women who, in our opinion, are capable of understanding what we say. We are always open to constructive suggestions, and if you have any specific proposal for improving the SS it will be considered.

Editors.

Letter: Anxiety (1977)

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

Anxiety

Though I am in complete agreement with the assessments and aims expressed in your Declaration of Principles, I do wonder if you have ever considered the possible psychological effects of living in a new, Socialist society. We often read that a working-class pools winner chooses to continue in his wage-slavery (indeed can often become anxious at the thought of guaranteed security). So do you not think that similar undesired effects could result after a transition to Socialism?

Please don’t answer this question simply by referring to the incidence of mental illness in a capitalist society. I think the question is too vital for comparisons.

P. Dodd

London E3

Reply:

This raises the fundamental question of whether conduct and attitudes which may seem an obstruction to Socialism are human nature or human behaviour. Can we all cope with freedom and security?

Human nature is the collective phrase for man’s necessary drives. Basically they are self-preservation—getting food, protection against the elements—and sex. The other item to be added is that men cannot satisfy these demands and survive except in co-operation with other men: our nature is social. Its various manifestations depend on the forms which social organization takes, and the superstructures on the base of society produce complex patterns of behaviour which can be and are mistaken (for the time being, at any rate) for human nature.

A commodity-producing society-capitalism—leads to special emphasis being put on individuality. Thus, present-day consciousness focuses on each person’s self-appreciation : his problems, wants, how the world is through his eyes, and his capacities in comparison with other individuals. It has produced a science dealing with these matters. But, as Marx pointed out: "Society does not consist of individuals, but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.”

Where does this lead us? It means that in viewing the reaction of the man who is frightened by winning the pools we must look not to human nature but to existing social relations for the reason. A class-divided society conditions everyone. Large numbers of people in the civilized world are convinced, because as members of the working class they have actually been trained along these lines, that they could not manage their lives without being given orders and that getting more than a limited amount of wealth would bring them some kind of distress. All this is human behaviour within capitalism, and there is no reason for projecting it into a classless society.

On the other hand, man’s social nature makes isolation something he fears. It is a fear played upon by a lot of advertizing, and is an obvious element in the pools-winner’s case: will he be alienated from his former associates, would he be able to fit in other surroundings and circles? Any proposed step away from known circumstances invokes the same fear.

Read Marx’s statement, and consider not hypothetical individual cases but the relations within which all individuals will exist in Socialist society. In particular, the ending of class division and the further divisions resulting from it will mean a community will exist. The individual won’t worry about security (his place in society) because that will be the common condition without the comparisons which cause anxiety. We all want to "get on well” with our fellow' men, but in a class society this urge is channelled into impressing them by position and possessions; in Socialism we shall be able to live harmoniously with one another as people.

Two other points. First, Socialists are not persons who have escaped being conditioned by the society we live in today. Class consciousness gives us awareness of it, and that provides the means to envisage a society without it. Second, a sometimes-heard objection to Socialism is that if everyone is secure we shall have a dull eventless world. On the contrary, imagine the flowering of individual abilities now suppressed, and the directing of social resources unfettered for the first time to transforming the world. Socialism means the beginning of history.

Editors.

Letter: A Case for Labour (1977)

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

A Case for Labour

Why do workers join and support the Labour Party of Britain? Do the workers expect the Labour Party to introduce socialism? Not really: they expect the Labour Party to bring them benefits under the existing political system (capitalism). Is this a worthwhile aspiration? The workers think it is—that’s why they join and support the Labour Party.

The next question is: Does the Labour Party actually bring benefits to the workers? Is it possible for the workers to improve their lot under the capitalist system? Yes, it is. They can struggle and get a greater amount and even a greater share of the values they produce—on the job through the trade-unions and in the political field through the Labour Party. This means that the capitalist class will get a smaller amount and even a smaller share of the values that the workers produce.

If this change in the sharing of the values produced by the workers puts the operation of the capitalist system in jeopardy, makes it unviable, so much the worse for the capitalists. The workers, at this time, simply will take over the government and the economy and install socialism. Socialism will give the workers 100 per cent of the values they create and. incidentally, eliminate the need for the Labour Party.

The SPGB sees only the negative aspects of the Labour Party (betrayal, sellouts, misleadership, no struggle and education for Socialism, etc.). The SPGB sees no positive aspects of the Labour Party (an organization that organizes the workers so that they can struggle for political benefits, etc.) The workers see both the negative and the positive aspects of the Labour Party. The workers see the Labour Party as the present vehicle which will bring them toward a better life. When this vehicle ceases to improve their lot, they will alter the vehicle or change to a new, better one.

J. J. Sternbach,

New York

Reply:

Your letter is based on a number of misconceptions. All references to the Labour Party could equally apply to the Conservative Party. According to current opinion polls and recent by-election results, they have amassed more working-class support than the Labour Party, for just the reasons you give in your opening remarks. We get no further on when you assert that the Labour Party is "an organization that can and sometimes does, struggle for political benefits for the workers” when you singularly fail to give instances of any “benefits.” You will be aware that the present Labour Government’s message to British workers is that living standards must fall and wage claims are to be limited to less than 10 per cent. (they are running inflation at approximately 17 per cent.), while productivity should increase so as to encourage investment and profitability. Profits, you will note, belong to the capitalist class as do the means of wealth production and distribution and this fundamental relationship has never been seriously challenged by the Labour Party or its supporters. Your charitable view of them does not measure up to reality.

Your view of the workers gradually acquiring more and more of the share of the values they produce under capitalism is not to the point. What has not altered is the basic pattern of ownership of wealth, which has remained substantially the same since the formation of the Labour Party. While the position of the worker relative to, say, his grandfather has improved, so has that of the capitalist and his grandfather.

The reference to a "change in the sharing” of values does not take into account the capitalists’ economic considerations. While the owners have a trade and manufacturing boom they are more likely to concede wage demands; it is precisely when individual concerns are less ‘‘viable” because trade is in a depression that the capitalist will resist workers’ demands more keenly. Even before he is pushed to the limit, he will begin to lay-off men. Beyond this he may shut down altogether and wait for an improvement. Note the contrast between your view that workers will simply take over the economy and the real situation where trade-union leaders are agreeing to hold down wage demands while the Labour Government attempts to feel its way through the depression and reduce the massive unemployment figures.

It is simply not a question of the honourable (or otherwise) intentions of the Labour Party and its individual members. It is a political party committed to running a capitalist system of society. While workers can be persuaded that this is a worthwhile exercise they will be rewarded with the crumbs which fall from the capitalist’s table and told to be grateful for them. The workers are not stupid as you say; that is one good reason for continued work in putting the Socialist case.

Editors.

To All Readers (1977)

From the September 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last month we notified readers that from September the price of the Socialist Standard will be 15p. Following this, the yearly subscription rates have to be raised to £2.50 for the Socialist Standard (12 issues) and £3.25 for a joint subscription covering 4 issues of the Western Socialist as well. The figures include postage and packing.

The explanation of these increases is as follows. While trying to hold down the price, for the past two or three years the loss on the Socialist Standard has been about £2,700 a year, which has to be met from the funds of the SPGB. Two months ago printing costs went up 10 per cent. Each copy costs us 11p or 12p, depending on the numbers printed. Supplies to newsagents and other distributors have to be at an appreciable discount, and a number are sent free to public libraries.

The present subscription rate includes 7p postage, which means that subscribers receive their copies for 8p—2p below the normal retail price, and up to 4p below the cost to us. We do not think we need to labour the point that it is impossible for the Party to go on supporting losses at this rate; funds are wanted for elections, the publication of pamphlets, and our many other activities.

The new rates are still below the full price. At a retail price of 15p we can cover costs. However, we would also point out to members and supporters that the more Socialist Standards are sold, the larger the print order and the lower the cost per copy. Raising the circulation is a practical way of helping.

The Automatic Factory— Fantasy and Fact (1955)

From the September 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

Automation and its sister magic word electronics have inspired extremes of panic on the one side and rapture on the other, both flowing, however, from lack of understanding of what is involved. One man’s nightmare is another man’s dream of bliss. On one extreme it spells a world without jobs, all the workers being unemployed; on the other a world of leisure and abundance without anyone having to work.

There is no evidence to support either fantasy. Automation is an extension of the familiar mechanization of production, a series of complex processes operated and controlled by the machine itself using electronic controls which help “to reduce the amount of routine brainwork in factories, just as mechanical handling on the production line displaces routine labour.” (For those interested in definitions the correspondent of the “Times Radio and Television Supplement,” 19 August, 1955, whose words are quoted above, defines an electronic device as one which depends “at some stage upon the passage of current through a vacuum, gas or semiconductor ”).

Much that is being written about automation and its likely consequences is confused in the minds of writers and readers alike. Because it has been possible to operate certain factory processes automatically and with very few workers (as is already true of modern oil refineries) it has been rashly assumed that automation is capable of general application and that it will bring great saving of labour and cost. In general the confusion is caused by failure to separate technical problems and solutions from economic and social ones.

It is assumed that because a mechanical and electronic apparatus is technically possible for the engineers it is commercially acceptable to business men and will be adopted by them. While governments may go to almost unlimited expense to apply a technical invention to armaments, business men have to look at cost, which usually means that they look at saving of labour. (There are exceptions to this. As Marx pointed out, if wages fall below the value of labour power, employers, being interested in saving cost not saving labour, have no incentive to go to the expense of introducing a labour saving machine).

The extent to which automation will be commercially practicable and the speed with which it will be introduced are then largely governed, by considerations of cost and profit.

Factory owners who are invited to spend large sums re-equipping plant for automatic methods want to know whether it will cheapen production; it is not sufficient to tell them that technically the job can be done. But so far little attention has been given to providing the kind of information needed. The Manchester Guardian (20/6/55) criticised the recent Margate Conference on Automation for that reason:—"A more serious deficiency has been that, with one limited exception, there has been no attempt to assess the economic cost and advantage of automatic processes, for the answers to such questions will determine the rate at which automation can be introduced.”

The “experts” generally take the view that the development of automation in Britain will not be extensive, and will not be rapid even where technically it is possible. A contributory cause of delay is that the factory owner, under present boom conditions, has first to overcome the difficulty of getting the equipment and then of getting workers to instal and operate it; the electronics industry is itself hampered by “shortage of technical manpower.” (Times Supplement).

A pointer in the slowness of industrial change in this country is given by the telephone service; the first automatic exchange was opened more than 40 years ago but still a quarter of the exchanges have not been converted to automatic working. This is one of the industries in which the introduction of automatic working was expected by an earlier generation to accomplish a speedy and revolutionary change, but the overall saving of manpower has proved to be quite small. And such is the amount and cost of the equipment that several hundred thousand would-be subscribers still cannot be provided and have to wait in the queue.

The most serious and misleading error in the approach to the problem of automation is that of assuming, without examining the facts to find out, an enormous increase of productivity. To be told that a machine has been produced which eliminates hand labour from the “end processes” in cigarette making, or coal cutting or telephoning or any other operation, does not tell us anything at all about labour-saving and productivity; all it tells us is that labour has been eliminated from the end process, and that labour has been necessarily increased in the preceding processes of making driving and maintaining the machines. To the extent that, for the same total output, the labour saved at one end exceeds the increase of labour at the other, there will be labour saving and increased productivity. Although from time to time a particular industry may make a big jump in productivity when new machines and methods are introduced, the average increase over a period of years for all industries is of very modest amount. In Britain during this century it has averaged between one per cent. and two per cent. a year.

The general picture of British industry since back in the nineteenth century is of a transference of workers from end-process work (miners, landworkers, and hand workers generally) to the engineering and allied trades which have grown enormously and are growing still. In effect many tens of thousands of land workers, mine workers, cigarette makers, etc., are now employed in the engineering industries making machines for those trades.

If it is said that automation will be markedly different from the older mechanization processes and will really increase overall productivity at an unprecedented rate, past experience calls for caution: it should be remembered that similar claims have been made endlessly and falsely throughout the past century, and that no-one has yet produced evidence that will support the claim that automation can rapidly increase productivity in industry as a whole. (An influential committee is reported now to have been set up in U.S.A. to study the effects of automation on costs).

The illusion that industrial invention and mechanisation, have in the past enormously increased productivity is still very widespread. A Labour Party publication, “Towards World Plenty” (July, 1952) informs its readers that the application of scientific knowledge and the revolution in the methods of production in Western Europe, North America and Australasia “has raised productivity a thousandfold.” This may be described as somewhat more than a slight exaggeration. Productivity of British workers in the past 150 years has not risen a thousand-fold or a hundred-fold or even ten-fold. (In passing one wonders why, if the Labour Party believed that productivity of British workers had already gone up by a thousand-fold, the Labour Government was badgering them in 1945-1951 to increase productivity by the trivial addition of 10 per cent. “to save the country”). 

We have, too, a ample test of current announcements of new processes. If they really brought about a dramatic saving of labour this would show itself in a fall of prices even against the general monetary factors that are tending to raise price levels. But though we read of six men who “can produce the electricity for a town” and four men who “can do the major job” in the production of a third of Britain’s crude oil (Daily Mirror 29/6/55) and twenty-one gas workers who do the work of 350 (Daily Sketch 27/6/55), we read almost simultaneously that electricity, oil and gas, are going up in price! Doubtless the innovations in these industries have produced some small overall saving of labour so that there is a small increase of productivity, but not enough to offset other factors leading to higher prices. In the coal industry all the mechanisation has failed to counteract the effect of the coal having to be mined from greater depths, so that average coal output per man per year is lower than it was 70 years ago and there is little prospect of it getting back to the former level of output.

And the new fuel source to replace the expected diminution of supplies of coal and oil, atomic energy, only slightly changes the situation since the labour required for its production and application is expected at best to be only moderately below that required for the old fuels, and that not at once but ten years ahead. At the Geneva conference on nuclear power in August

“ the papers presented . . . here show that we must not expect the cost of nuclear power to be cheaper in the next decade than power from coal." (Times 20/8/55).

The Times goes on to quote Sir John Cockcroft, Director of the Atomic Research Establishment at Harwell, as saying that “there is good reason to believe that in the second decade the cost of nuclear power will fall below that of power from coal and oil.”

It would be wise on past form to accept even this estimate with caution, since it may turn out to be no more accurate than the “expert” forecasts of a few years ago of expected increased productivity and cheapening of coal.

But if the problems of automation have been misunderstood by many observers that does not mean that there are no problems for the workers to face. To an economist, remote from the factory and the farm, it is easy to talk of farmworkers becoming engineers, miners going to work in factories, and clerks becoming bus-workers, but the transference may be impossible, or, where possible, very difficult and costly to the worker. Lord Halsbury, speaking at the Margate conference on Automation, dealt with this:

“A more serious problem, he thought, would concern those workpeople who could not be fitted into the future pattern of industry with its demand for high skill. A farm labourer can be trained as an engineer if he is still young, but can this be done after he is 40?

(Manchester Guardian 18/6/55).

His two further remarks, that the farm labourer’s children will become trained as engineers, and that automation will not spread quickly, may or may not bring comfort to the man whose job is threatened.

What other bearing does automation have on unemployment ? As already mentioned there will be the closing down of certain jobs, and unemployment for the workers who held them. If they can find other work that they can do, in the place where they live or where they can get accommodation, the loss of employment may not last long under present conditions, but they may have to take a lower wage because their old skill may not have much use in another job.

But the mass unemployment of a crisis is a different proposition. This is caused by widespread dislocation and failure of markets and when it occurs it engulfs all industries, whatever their degree of mechanization; mechanization itself will not be the direct cause of a crisis though its development can be a contributory factor in helping to create dislocation of markets. Crises occurred in earlier days when machine production was in its infancy, and the problem of their cause is not much altered by automation.

Which brings us to the most important aspect of all as far as the workers are concerned. Automation will not be applied for the benefit of the workers but for the benefit of the Capitalists. They own the old means of production and will own the new ones. If anyone benefits from its introduction it will be the owners not the workers, except to the extent that some of the latter can struggle successfully to make it so. And the owners will as usual find plenty of university professors and technical experts to prove the inevitability of whatever harmful effects automation has on the workers. We may fittingly conclude with an observation made by one of the experts on automation. Professor Norbert Wiener, of Massachusetts:

“The ordinary worker . . . is just a source of low-level judgment. He can and will be replaced by machines."

 (Manchester Guardian Review of Industry 1952. p. 72).

It is up to the workers to exercise their capacity themselves and in their own interest by replacing Capitalism by Socialism—they can expect no salvation from the owners of industry, the politicians and parties that administer Capitalism, or from the technicians and scientists who preside over the new technques of production.

Edgar Hardcastle