News in Review: The Pope and peace (1965)

The News in Review column from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Pope and peace

Of course it made some nice headlines for the newspapers; but the one thing the Pope's visit to New York last month was not concerned with was peace.

It is difficult to imagine anyone being taken in by the Pope’s speech, so numerous and familiar are the appeals and declarations which are constantly being made on the subject—often by politicians who are up to their necks in war.

None of the world leaders who make these appeals ever has the slightest difficulty in excusing the wars in which he gets involved. None of them ever has any difficulty in excusing the most horrible of atrocities; all of them are concerned with the national interests of their ruling class before any considerations of humanity.

In one way, it was fitting that the Pope should make his appeal at the United Nations, for that more than anything highlighted its ineffectuality. UNO has a function when the smaller nations are involved in a comparatively trivial dispute, which the bigger powers want to see cleared up. But when the stakes are higher, it is a different matter.

UNO was helpless in Korea. It could do nothing over the Berlin crisis. The vague noises it made over Cuba were not allowed to divert Russia and America from their stern purpose. It stands helplessly by now, as the war rages in Vietnam.

Just as the great powers of capitalism do not allow UNO to affect the way in which they protect their interests, so they do not tolerate interference from religious leaders. The Pope has his uses to capitalism, but international politics cannot be settled in the Vatican.

In any case, what are any appeals for peace worth? War in the modern world does not happen by accident, or because the leaders of world religion have omitted to make a speech about peace. War is a direct result of the nature of capitalism and there is no more ardent supporter of that system than the Catholic Church.

That is why Catholics are in no two minds, when a war breaks out. With the blessing of their Church, they take arms—often killing their fellow Catholics on the other side.

The time for a religious leader to speak out is when the shooting starts. But to do so would be to challenge the capitalist social system; it would be to expose religious hypocrisy, with which the churches constantly divert working class energies from the essential task of building a world of peace and brotherhood.

It is only necessary to state this proposition, to see how ridiculous it is.

New York had quite a time during the Pope’s flying visit. And when he was gone they went back to the business of running capitalism; in factories and offices the American workers were still exploited, the Stock Exchange went on with its dealings, in the South the Negro was still persecuted. And the Pentagon was still running the show in Vietnam.

Indonesia

“PALACE COLONEL OUSTS SOEKARNO.'’ 

“JAKARTA CLAIMS COUP CRUSHED.”

Conflicting headlines—always a sign that nobody is quite sure what is going on, but everybody’s doing their best—brought Indonesia once again onto the front pages. Not that Indonesia is out of the news for very long. This “Republic of Islands”, as one newspaper aptly described it, is the largest country in South East Asia.

Like so many new States that were once colonies of a European power, Indonesia is a rather ramshackle affair, with great difficulty in holding its scattered parts together. The boundaries of these colonies were largely fixed by what the colonisers could grab, and hold against the attacks of their greedy rivals.

They are not always particularly easy to administer as an independent state. In addition Indonesia has terribly poverty. This has not however prevented their new ruling class from embarking on a continual policy of Imperialist expansion, aimed at making Indonesian the dominant power in South East Asia.

One’s mind goes back to 1945, when the “Dutch East Indies” proclaimed their' Independence, and began a fight against Holland. It was one of the first to do so, and great hopes were held by the “Left” as to their prospects.

“Australian Unions” organised strikes to hold up shipments of arms, and “Hands off Indonesia” placards were carried on May Day in London. Independence was gained, and their followed the usual process of exploitation by the new ruling class that had replaced the old.

The main conclusion was that this revolt, which appears to have been “Communist” inspired, would weaken Indonesia’s ties with China. This may be the case, but should anybody happen to be worrying, if it suits the interests of the ruling classes in these two countries, the ties will soon tighten up again.

Gas strike

Towards the end of last September British Petroleum announced that they had struck natural gas beneath the North Sea, although they were not sure that they had found enough to make it a paying proposition.

This was the first strike of any importance in the search which eight groups are carrying on in the North Sea, at a cost somewhere near £100 million. At that price, they obviously hope to find something worthwhile and the news from BP gave them the first glimmering of hope that they will do so.

Of course, the press rhapsodised upon the benefits which the gas strike is supposed to be bringing the people of this country. But a couple of weeks later another piece of news put the matter in a different perspective.

On 6th October the Dutch and British governments signed an agreement which fixed the exact line dividing the areas over which each of them has the right to grant licences to drill for gas and oil. The British government already had applications for licences from the big oil firms in their pending trays.

What this means is that, in the search for valuable raw materials and fuels, the British and Dutch ruling classes have simply annexed the North Sea, giving themselves the legal powers to do so in the process.

This is something like what happened when the newborn capitalist powers were opening up the world to their manufacturers and commerce. They simply moved in and stole vast areas of the world, suppressed the inhabitants, fixed the borders, signed agreements with other international robbers and gave licences and concessions to their own companies to exploit the place. 

There is, of course, no need to suppress the fish in the North Sea. But the carve-up of the area could be as much a source of dispute in the future as was the division of Africa and the Far East.

We are being told that nothing but joy and plenty will result from the discovery of gas and oil under the North Sea. Yet there are no grounds to believe this.

How much happiness did the Congo’s rubber bring? What contribution to the peace of the world has the oil in the Middle East made? What were the effects on the war in Algeria, when the French discovered- oil and gas under the Sahara?

Capitalism is a competitive system, in which rival powers fight ruthlessly for advantage. In this set-up, the discovery of sources of natural wealth often turn out to be anything but a blessing for mankind.

If the North Sea is the El Dorado which some of the experts think, it may well become another sore spot. The agreements which now divide the area will be challenged by those powers which arrived too late to get a share. Legal arguments—and perhaps worse—will be used in the dispute; there will be the customary declamations about “right” and “heritage”. And who dare say what the end of it will be?

Indian A-Bomb

The plain fact about the Indian government’s much publicised decision, several years ago, not to produce an atomic bomb is that it is too good to be true.

And so it is turning out.

India's renunciation meant that some people thought of her as a country where human interests were put above those of narrow nationalism. India was held up as an example for the rest of the sabre-rattling world to follow.

This has never been consistent with the way India acted over, say Goa and Kashmir—incidents which made Delhi’s attitude to atomic weapons look suspiciously like one inspired by anything but humanitarianism.

In any case, the Indian government always made it clear that, if the international situation demanded it, they would make the Bomb. For a long time they have been working on the basics of a nuclear weapon—their separation plant near Bombay, which produces plutonium, has been working for over a year.

And now comes the news from New Delhi that the pressure from Indian military and political circles to make the Bomb is growing, and that (according to The Guardian of 27th September last) the first one may be exploded sometime next year.

The campaign in favour of an Indian Bomb, to go with the rest in the world, has gathered strength from recent events. Indian military men complain that Pakistan had the advantage of advanced American weapons in the fighting in Kashmir, and that the threat from China looms ever larger.

They also claim that the old argument, that the Bomb was too expensive, has been disproved. The estimated cost is now around £20 million. There is no record yet of anyone in India protesting at this sort of money being spent on weapons by a country which has such a chronic problem of hunger and disease.

Such considerations are irrelevant. The reasons for making the Bomb are always the same; one senior Indian officer summed them up: " . . if national interests are at stake . . . we have no alternative but to go ahead.”

Everyone is familiar now with the argument of “national interests”. It is used to excuse any suffering, any atrocity, any betrayal. It is an argument which will be used by many nations if and when a global nuclear war ever starts.

It is only appropriate that we should be hearing the same argument now that India may be getting ready to go back on her word over atomic weapons. It is also appropriate that India, who has done so much to foster the idea that there are such things as oases of nobility among the murderous desert of capitalism. should herself expose the fallacy.

Confusion on the left (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

In his time, Mr. Harold Wilson has been cast in many roles. One of the latest, as this year’s Labour Party Conference made clear, is that of the master surgeon who, by skilful use of anaesthetic and scalpel, has amputated the Party’s Left Wing.

The operation has left a stump, which will probably grow and once again become a seat of infection. But for the moment all is as Mr. Wilson intended; what there is of the stump is a feeble thing—indeed, some of the observers at the operation were not even sure of where to look for it— and the patient is just becoming to come round.

It is as well if, before we go any further, we try to be clear about what we mean by Left Wing. First, let us say that the term has no real validity, in the sense that it does not describe a particular, permanent political viewpoint. Some politicians are said to be “left wing” on some issues and “right wing” on others. Even the Conservative Party is supposed to have members who are “left wing”—for example. Sir Edward Boyle. It is apparent that, although it is an expression which is in constant use, nobody is very anxious to pin down the meaning of “Left Wing” in a definition.

At the same time, we all know that there is a section of the Labour Party which is always nagging about banning the Bomb, or raising pensions, or getting out of Vietnam, or getting into the Congo. At any and every time, this section is in a ferment of protest—demonstrating, marching, resolving, even resigning. Sometimes, under the lash of Labour’s Right Wingers, they are called rebels, or other less complimentary things. Usually, and conveniently, they are called the Left Wing, and for the purposes of this discussion we may as well accept the term, although we recognise its drawbacks.

The Left Wing claim that the Labour Party’s rank and file are behind them and, if we take the annual vote of the constituency parties for members of the National Executive as our only guide, this claim is true. In their eagerness to return Left Wingers to the Executive, the constituency parties have sometimes braised the ego of Labour’s famous leaders. The late Lord Morrison was one who was spurned in this way, and he neither forgot nor forgave.

It is not, however, true that the constituency vote always goes left. This year, for example, a majority of it apparently supported the Government's prices and incomes policy, when it was under fire from the Left. The constituency vote for the Left Wingers is a different matter; they vote for them because they regard them as men of honour and principle, who will keep what they think of as the ideals of the Labour Party unsullied.

Perhaps they never reflect upon what happened to the famous Left Wingers in the past. There was Stafford Cripps, once the hottest of firebrands, who switched so smartly from Left to Right when the call came. There have been others who have committed themselves behind the scenes to supporting the policies they once attacked, and who have announced this to their astounded followers, as Aneurin Bevan did over the Bomb at Brighton in 1957. And there have been others who have simply joined up and shut up—taken jobs in the Government and sat mute while their followers of yesterday have thundered their protests. This year, for example, the constituency parties elected Barbara Castle, Anthony Greenwood and Richard Crossman to the Executive—all of them Left Wing rebels of the past, all of them now members of a Government which infuriates the Left. 

It is clear that the Labour Party are still under the ether which was administered to them in October last year. Everything about the 1965 conference — the “composition” of hostile resolutions, the prominence given to Ministers, the hero-worship of the Government, the rough handling which the delegates got from chairman Mr. Gunter—showed how stupid the Labour Party has now become. What remains of the Left is leaderless. Even Michael Foot, once the busiest of rebels, was silent; “. . . no Left-winger,” wrote Anthony Howard of him in the Sunday Times, “Has defended the Government more loyally.” To this point we shall return.

The lack of leadership is a serious matter for the Left Wing, because if there is one thing they love it is a leader. The sort of man who can rouse the annual Tribune rally, with a speech of mixed hypocrisy and nostalgia is an absolute essential to them. They must have fiery speeches full of demands which the speakers (and perhaps a large part of the audience) know have not the faintest chance of becoming reality. Take away their leaders and the Left is lost. That is what Harold Wilson has done. Indeed, he has taken away the greatest hope the Left has had for a long time; himself. For he once encouraged the rebels in the Labour Party to regard him as their leader (at the same time, of course, as he did as little as possible to discourage the Right Wing from regarding him as their leader). Perhaps this is why the Left are in such a fury over Vietnam, the Bomb and the other issues on which the Labour Government have disappointed them.

It would be an interesting exercise were the Left to ask themselves why they are always being betrayed in this way. Much of what they demand sounds sensible enough. Who doesn’t want the war in Vietnam to end? Who doesn’t want to scrap nuclear weapons? Who doesn’t want better pay and working conditions? It is easy enough for a politician or a rebel to give voice to these demands. The big snag is that they are difficult, not to say impossible, to obtain under capitalism. That is why, if a Left Winger gets a job in the Government he always seems to be able to forget the heady days of rebellion and get down to the job of running the system. Conscientious objectors become Ministers of War (like Mr. Shinwell), trade unionists go to the Ministry of Labour (like Ernie Bevin). The Left Wing, betrayed again, has to look around for new leaders.

What do the realities of capitalism make of the Left Wing’s policies? What about Vietnam? The Americans are fighting there not in the interests of the Vietnamese people, but to protect the substantial military and economic interests which they have in the area. Ever since the defeat of Japan, Washington has been determined that only one power should control the Far East. Any challenge to American domination there must provoke the same result, as we saw in Korea and as we are seeing now in Vietnam. The results are unpleasant, but inevitable.

By the same token, nuclear weapons are essential to capitalism in the Sixties. The disputes which capitalism throws up require every competing nation to be in readiness for war, and the wider a country’s interests and its domination, the more frightening its preparation will be. It is thus no coincidence that the United States and the Soviet Union have the world's most advanced and destructive weapons. The results, again, are unpleasant—but nobody has yet been able to put a stop to capitalism’s arms race.

Nobody, either, has been able to put a stop to the persistent battle between workers and employers over wages and working conditions. The fact that the majority of capitalism’s people have to work for wages in order to live means that they will always have to struggle to get the highest wages possible, and to protect their other conditions. Governments may do their utmost to control the situation, with legislation and appeals, but the conflict will go on and the results of it, although not as spectacular as those of a war, are unpleasant enough.

The frictions and the malaises of capitalism are an unavoidable product of the system. The Left Wing does not recognise this—they live under the delusion that a Labour Government, suitably purged and reformed, could run capitalism without war, without strikes, without poverty. None of them has ever shown how this could be done, and the evidence says that it cannot be done. The evidence is there, in the records of the Labour Governments and it is there in the persons of people like Michael Foot and Barbara Castle, who loyally support a Government which on most issues is indistinguishable from the Tories they have castigated for so long.

We said we would return .to the matter of loyalty. Where, we may wonder, will the loyalty of the Foots and the Castles lead them? Labour is their Government, right or wrong, but how much wrong are they prepared to accept? Will trade unionists in the Government stomach all and every attempt at imposing the Early Warning system on wages? Will Ministers who in the past spoke out against racial intolerance stay silent while the colour bar on immigration gets stronger, and while Labour panders more and more to the racist vote? Will those, like Anthony Greenwood, who once marched from Aldermaston, be at Mr. Wilson’s side if he ever has to press the button? Loyalty to a government can cover a multitude of sins, and there is no reason to suppose that loyal Labour men will abandon their Party, no matter what it does. As Woodrow Wyatt (no Left Winger, of course) put it: “It is when we are wrong that we need the backing.” Perhaps this means that the louder the appeals for backing, the more the Labour Party realise they are wrong.

If the Left Wing are confused, and often hypocritical, they are only one group among many. Their faults are typical of all the other organisations which support the social system which breeds confusion and thrives on hypocrisy. In the so-called Age of Enlightenment the need for the facts to be stated clearly is as great as ever. Capitalism is a social system which by its very nature produces a host of antisocial problems such as war, poverty and clashes of interests. Any government trying to run capitalism will come up against these problems and in the end will have to run the system in the interests of its ruling class. No government can let wages run riot, or willingly surrender a position of power and influence in the world. These are the realities, distinct from the dreams of the Left. When the Labour Party come to power, they do so on a promise to reform capitalism, to be different, to be more humane and efficient. But they, too, have to run the system as it demands. As Labour forgets many of its promises, as it does many things which it once swore never to do, it disappoints and outrages its own supporters. For comfort, and as a way of assuring themselves that there is nothing basically wrong with the Labour Party and that somehow, somewhere, it can be changed, they cluster around the Left Wing.

But they will find no peace. In some ways they are useful to the Labour Party. Apart from the fact that Left Wingers are often among the most zealous of party workers, they also keep the Labour Party in touch with its past and the romance of its pioneers. It gives the active members the chance of having a good, old-fashioned demonstration once in a while, when they can almost hear again the cries of the victims of Peterloo. The Left Wing gives the Labour Party a certain standing among workers who sincerely want a better world to live in.

And perhaps—and this is its greatest condemnation—the Left helps to convince people that the Labour Party is not the cynical, vote-grabbing machine of capitalism that it actually is.

Ivan

What’s happening in China (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

The so-called communist rulers of China are in trouble. They are trying to achieve two impossible feats; to make exploitation popular with the Chinese workers and to kid them along that the form of capitalism which is developing there is socialism.

The latest campaign to accomplish this is called the “Socialist Education Campaign”, now in full swing, which was recently commended by the Chinese premier as being “of great revolutionary and historical significance”. Such campaigns are no novelty in “communist” China, where the workers seem to need a lot of convincing.

Previous campaigns have been passed off as methods of getting rid of the remains of capitalism or as part of the building-up of a “communist” system of society, or as the eradication of specific errors and failings of the Old China. They were represented as a necessary process of cleaning up and modernising the social structure and they dealt largely with problems that were laid at the door of the old era.

But this time it is different, in that the government leaders have to deal with problems which, they frankly proclaim arise directly from the present system of society. The “Socialist Education Campaign” is teaching workers, both in industry and the civil service, to deal with the new problems caused by the creation of a modern, technically developed state from a recently backward country. It is this which enables Premier Chou-En-lai to assign “historical significance” to the current campaign.

To enable them to reconcile awkward facts with an incorrect interpretation of society, the Chinese have to be dosed with plenty of “communist” education.

One problem with which they have to deal is that of the new “managerial class”. Mao-Tze-tung, Chou-En-lai and the rest of the old die-hards of the Communist Party, were tough, unscrupulous but courageous labour leaders tested in battle and called upon for great personal sacrifices in prompting the Communist Party to the leadership of what they may have once believed was a different system of society.

But the old guard are getting older, and they are finding it difficult to select their successors from the ranks of the new business bureaucracy who seem to be taking their place. These young people are slick, well educated executive types who are rising to the top in the nationalised concerns and government departments. They have little understanding of political theory, little desire to make personal sacrifices, but, like business executives the world over, are ambitious to rise in the hierarchy and enjoy the luxuries which only the possession of money makes possible. Such is a thumb-nail sketch of one of the groups that the die-hards are trying to impregnate with so-called communist ideology. But the die-hards are as horrified at this developing class, as the swan was when it found it had hatched a duckling. Capitalist society develops along its own lines, irrespective of the muddled thinking of its apologists.

An Tzu-wen, Director of the Organisation Department of the Party’s Central Committee, considered the nature of some of these groups in some detail in an article which appeared in the Party journal Red Flag on 22/9/64 and which was reported in the China Quarterly April/June 1965. An is primarily concerned with the campaign to train successors to the present leadership. He distinguishes between the older cadres of pre-liberation vintage who have failed to adapt themselves to the technical and organisational development going on, and the younger ones who have not the political benefit of those who went through the Civil War.

It is from An’s article that it is possible to build up a picture of the various groups he sees developing around him. His criticisms have been publicised to the greatest extent possible in the Chinese national press and on the radio. He said that the gravest dilemma for the Chinese leaders may be the conflict between their own background and the need for modernisation in economic planning.

Chou-En-lai made it clear in his report last December that one of the main motives behind the “Socialist Education Movement’’ was the need to prepare the country for economic expansion. He speaks of the need for a “scientific and realistic approach”. An calls on the older cadres to adapt themselves and he describes the movement as “a mass movement for studying Marxist-Leninist and Mao Tse-tung ideology with emphasis in its flexible interpretation and application”.

The Chinese Government are training the new managerial class to a degree which must involve contact with the thinking of the outside world and they are at the same time inducing the old die-hards to work efficiently in the fervent atmosphere of industrial capitalism, misnamed “socialist expansion”.

Another section being “educated” are the Chinese followers of the Russian communist party. Since it now seems that many of the interests of the Chinese ruling class are opposed to those of .the Russian, Chinese supporters must be “re-educated” to enable them to make an intellectual somersault. China is living in a capitalist world jungle and must be prepared, in its own interests, to support a war against its erstwhile “comrades”. There must be no fifth column in the Chinese camp.

Another homegrown problem is the rise of the wealthy farmer, a new economic group since the seizure of governmental power by the Chinese “communists”. With their surpluses of commodity crops they have made a mockery of the food and clothing rationing which still obtains in China. The black market is now known as the free market and is officially recognised by the Government. Any of the rationed goods can be obtained at a higher price and this is part of a process whereby the rural rich are becoming richer. Universal rationing for all has become rationing by price, officially lauded by the authorities. This, of course, is the state of affairs to which the workers of the rest of the world are accustomed, whether they are starving in the backward countries or the “affluent” of western capitalism.

China has had a somewhat different history of social development to the West over the centuries, so that capitalism there is a little different from capitalism here in some of the details. But Chinese workers have basically the same economic interests as the workers here; and the so-called communist government there behaves domestically and in its foreign policies, like the capitalist power that in fact it is.

Frank Offord

The grand Plan is a farce (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

After much ballyhoo the grand National Plan was published in September. It aims for a 25 per cent increase in total production by 1970. In a television talk Wilson described the Plan as a “national crusade for higher productivity” and called for a “determined attack on anything that holds back production”. Among those he mentioned as “wreckers” were “Luddite employees”. The Plan assumes that the problem of increased production is just a technical question; it assumes a state of social harmony since only if the interests of everyone were the same could those who hold up production justly be called wreckers. Both assumptions are open to challenge.

A social order in which the land, raw materials and the man-made instruments of production were owned in common and were subject to the democratic control of all would be one of social equality and harmony. There would be no built-in minority privileges or sources of group conflict. The problem of producing things to meet social and individual needs would be merely one of planning and organization. The people of such a society would have to work out ways of organizing themselves to satisfy their needs. Use would be the aim of production. Planned production for use would be the rule. Nobody could have any interest in wrecking the planned production of things to satisfy needs.

This, however, does not at all describe the present social order. For today the land and instruments of production are the property of a minority, which means that production is not for use—not even the use of the privileged minority themselves. This arises from another feature of the present order: the owners of the instruments of production, or capitalists, are rivals of each other, they compete to sell their products. Hence things are produced for sale rather than for use. Market production is unorganized, unplanned production. The competing capitalists get a living from the profits they get from selling their products. The making of such profits is in fact the aim of production. The question that is asked before things are produced is not “can they be made?” but “can they be sold?” The rule is thus: no profit, no production. The market and the need to make a profit are restricting factors; much more could be produced than can be sold at a profit.

Total production does increase in the long-run but this growth is by no means a steady expansion. Periods of rapid growth are followed by periods of stagnation. This is the familiar boom-slump (or “stop-go”) cycle which is an unavoidable feature of unorganized, market production. Confidence in future profits is a very important factor in fixing the rate of growth. In times of rising prices and sales expanding and reckon that they can get the best of it; their expanding and reckon that they can get the best of it; their rivals think the same. The result is overproduction relative to the market: more has been produced than can be sold. When this happens expansion is checked, production slumps and the number of unemployed rises. In treating increased production as if it were just a technical question the Plan ignores the dangers of overproduction. Wilson merrily calls for more and more production without stopping to think whether it can be sold. Even if he doesn't businessmen will. By all accounts the Plan is over-optimistic so that if businesses do gear their output figures to its targets they may find themselves with stocks of unsaleable goods. More likely, however, is that everyone will ignore the targets and treat the Plan as the scrap of paper it is.

Wilson seems to think that a rational explanation—and defence—of restrictive practices and strikes is impossible. As we saw, the land, raw materials and machines are today monopolised by a minority. As a result the rest of the population are forced to work for those who own, for a wage or a salary. Wages are in fact the price of a person’s working ability. The benefits of increased productivity go only to the minority of capitalist owners: a greater share of what is produced goes to them, if wages are kept to a minimum. It is obvious that the question of increased productivity is not one over which the two classes of people, capitalists and workers, have a common interest especially as labour-saving inventions, as the name implies, often allow workers in a particular industry to be laid off.

Those who make up the most numerous class of people, the wage and salary workers, are driven to consider ways of mitigating the workings of this system. The first and obvious move is to try to restrict the competition for jobs; to unite the workers of a particular trade into a body capable of raising wages by restricting competition. Trade Unions are an outstanding example of a restrictive practice. Many ways of restricting competition in particular trades have been worked out: long training periods; requirements that only trained men can do a particular task; requirements about unskilled assistants. Other practices aim at forcing capitalists to take on more workers than are strictly necessary. “Making work” may raise the costs of the capitalist but it also restricts competition in the labour market. Besides dealing with wages, Trade Unions can also exert pressure to improve working conditions. They can try to restrain arbitrary acts of dismissal and punishment by the owner or his disciplinary agents; to establish and maintain a standard pace of working which allows even the oldest to keep up. All these practices which, along with tea-breaks, make work a little less unpleasant also restrict production and raise costs.

These devices will be more or less effective depending on conditions in the labour market. But, as can be seen, they are protective rather than restrictive practices. Their primary aim is not to restrict production but to protect those who work for wages in a particular trade. There is no direct relationship between wages and productivity. Wages are a price and depend on market conditions. An increase in productivity which does not alter conditions in the labour market has no effect on wages. An argument does arise, however, as to how increased productivity does affect the demand for labour. Experience suggests that, in the first instance at least, labour-saving inventions lead to sackings and hence help to exert a downward pressure on wages by increasing competition in parts of the labour market. When we consider the long-run effect, we should remember that under the wages system people live from week to week and, as Keynes is supposed to have said, “in the long run we’re dead”. Again, there is the lesson of “overproduction” where the result has been widespread unemployment. The experiences of workers over the years has suggested that unrestricted competition and production are by no means beneficial to them. “Restrictive practices” are tried and successful weapons for defending the interest of the class of wage and salary workers.

Strikes, too, interrupt production and thus are condemned by Wilson. But here again experience has taught that the collective withdrawal of labour is a most useful defensive weapon. Experience has also taught the best time to use it. In times of slump, with many seeking work, strikes were less effective. In times or shortages of labour the matter is altogether different. Groups of wage-workers can choose when to use it. The obvious choice is when an interruption of production is going to hurt the capitalist most: when he has a valuable order or when sales are good. In these circumstances he will wish to settle more quickly. Thus for airport workers to strike at a peak holiday period is by no means the result of “viciousness” but rather of sound action based on experience. It is true that in cases like this other workers are put to considerable inconvenience and, of course, popular sympathy should not be ignored when considering strike action. It seems that only when “the public” suffer will the capitalist employer listen.

We see then that Trade Union protective practices and strikes are by no means examples of inconsiderate wrecking. They arise from the very nature of the present social order which forces one of the two classes to defend its interests in these ways. In assuming that such actions are irrational the Plan indulges in wishful thinking. The class struggle is a fact which cannot be persuaded (or coerced) out of existence. These practices are firmly rooted in the tradition of those sections of the working class where Trade Unionism is common. They will persist and be modernised and perfected throughout the period of the Plan. The class struggle too will treat the Plan as a scrap of paper.

The Plan assumes, as we have seen, that the interests of employers and workers are the same but sees a basic conflict of interest between the various “nations” of the world. The expressed purpose of the Plan is to make goods made in Britain better able to compete on the world market. In this struggle for a share of the world market “restrictive practices” are acceptable. For it is not only workers who organise and struggle to restrict competition and production in their own interest. This is true of groups of capitalists too. They can, given favourable market conditions, join together to raise prices and so rake in a monopoly profit. The perfect competitive conditions of the Free Trade dream have never existed and the very workings of competition lead to the growth of monopoly elements. The “nation” is itself a form of monopoly. The capitalists of a particular political area use the power of their State to try to further their interests in the same way that workers use their Trade Unions. This power is used in various ways to restrict competition, especially by tariff protection, which restricts the free movement of goods and gold. Tariffs, import controls, duties and surcharges, national currencies, and exchange control all restrict some parts of production in the interests of a particular group of capitalists. In the eyes of the Plan some such restrictions are praiseworthy. The Plan is against monopolies at home (which allow one group of capitalists to hold the rest to ransom) except for those in the export industries. Clearly a double-standard is applied: the capitalists on the national scale can band together to restrict production but the workers, never!

But here again the Plan is unrealistic. Many of the measures it offers for solving the capitalists’ overseas payments problem, such as cutting down overseas aid, investment and defence spending and finding substitutes for imports, may make the world market more competitive, thus making the 5 per cent annual increase in exports harder to get. For these measures could make the overseas payments of other groups correspondingly worse. They too will try to recoup by similar methods.

So all in all the grand Plan is a farce. Even as an attempt to solve the capitalists' particular problem it will most probably fail. It had to ignore the possibility of overproduction, the class struggle and the effect of its own policies on the world market. It will turn out to be no more reliable than the long-range weather forecasts which have also been introduced recently. This is not really surprising since the market is as unpredictable as the weather.

Adam Buick

Should we feel flattered? (1965)

From the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

When, in 1904, the founders of our Party were attempting to formulate a clear and correct statement of Socialist principles upon which to base the new organization, they found an earlier declaration which had appeared in William Morris’s Commonweal of the greatest value as a starting point. From time to time during the intervening years it has been suggested that the continued prominence we give to this declaration, to which we steadfastly adhere, could lead to misunderstanding, so great, it is said have been the changes in the style of language since the beginning of the century. So it is with considerable interest and, we must admit, a certain degree of amusement that we have recently come across a curiously distorted version of our declaration of principles published in the August issue of "Africa and the World” which retains the period-style if little else.

NIGERIAN SOCIALIST MOVEMENT


(Incorporating “Forward with Nigeria Movement”)


DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

The Nigerian Socialist Movement holds:

1. That Nigerian society as at present constituted is oriented to capitalist form of social relations and the consequent exploitation and enslavement of the working class and the peasants whose labour produces the bulk of the wealth of the community.
2. That there is necessarily an antagonism of interests between the privileged, aristocratic and plutocratic class on the one hand and the working class and peasants on the other.
3. That this antagonism of interests manifests itself in Nigeria in mounting industrial disputes, but that tribalism confuses and divides the workers and peasants and is encouraged as a means of diverting them from a genuine struggle to obtain their rights.
4. That the antagonism of interests can only be abolished by the adoption of a truly socialist system where the workers and peasants are secured the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
5. That as all political parties are an expression of class interests and the interests of the workers and peasants are diametrically opposed to those of the privileged, aristocratic and plutocratic class, the workers and peasants must organise themselves in unity, with progressive and revolutionary intellectuals as a political force for the conquest of governmental powers—national and local—so that the machinery of government may be converted from an instrument of oppression and exploitation into an agency of emancipation and the abolition of all privilege whether aristocratic, plutocratic or economic.
6. That racialism, wherever it is practised is opposed to the universal principles of equality and social justice and therefore the Nigerian Socialist Movement considers the abolition of racialism and the economic and political exploitation of the people of Africa the most urgent problem facing the world today.
7. That in order to liquidate colonialism; to arrest the present tendency to neo-colonialism; to emancipate the people of Africa from all forms of exploitation; to restore the dignity of African culture and personality; and the promotion of world peace; a Socialist Union Government of Africa is a necessity now.
8. That the Nigerian Socialist Movement therefore enters the field of political action as a force representing the aspirations and yearnings of the workers, peasants, the progressive and revolutionary intellectuals and youth, calls upon the workers, ; peasants and the people of Nigeria to muster under its banner so as to bring a quick end to the system of exploitation and slavery; and that comfort, equality, true freedom and social justice may prevail in Nigeria, Africa, and the world as a whole.

Issued by The Political and Policy Bureau of the Nigerian Socialist Movement, 192 High Street, Stoke Newington, London, N16.

Were it not for the fact that this declaration of a London based group calling itself “The Nigerian Socialist Movement” follows our word order somewhat more closely, it might have been a mere adaptation of an earlier one which was put out in Nigeria by the Northern Elements Progressive Union. As it is, it looks very much as if it has been plagiarized direct from source. However, whatever were the circumstances in which this Nigerian group drew up its standpoint, we consider it necessary to deal with its tenets one by one.

(1) Their first error is to confine their analysis of society to Nigeria which is merely the successor state to the arbitrary contrived British colonial unit of the same name, Nigeria's problems are not unique. They are characteristic of formerly colonial Afro-Asian territories which are now emerging as distinctive capitalist entities. The fact that we are dealing here with an emerging capitalist state does presuppose the existence of remnants, at times quite substantial, of earlier social structures and this is indicated by the reference to the peasants. But with an economy so utterly geared to the world market (palm-oil, cocoa, tin and sides) capitalism has for some time had a predominating role in Nigeria and it is to the working class born of this development, and not to the peasantry, that the call for socialism is relevant and can be made meaningful. And even allowing for the difference in the level of capitalist development in Britain and Nigeria, it still remains true that wealth is entirely the product of the labour of those who produce but do not possess, not just the “bulk” of it.

(3) We can allow clause (2) to pass, but in clause (3) we must point out the dangerous lack of precision when reference is made to workers obtaining “rights.” We can readily agree that for workers to retain tribal loyalties, just like feudal or national loyalties, does stand in the way of their becoming aware of the international class character of their problems.

(4) By borrowing from the British Labour Party’s clause 4 the declaration descends into deep confusion and woolliness. Socialism does not mean the “equitable distribution of the fruits of the industry of the workers and peasants.” Having converted the means of production and distribution into the common property of society the working class will, by so doing, have emancipated itself and, indeed, the whole of mankind from the entire class system. There will no more be workers or peasants to have “fair shares” secured for them than there will be capitalists or landowners to deny them. Each member of a classless socialist society will have free access to the things that he or she considers he needs. These may well vary from person to person, just as in working according to his ability each man will be contributing differently.

(5) To state that political parties are but the expression of class interests is true enough, but if, by what follows, it becomes evident that what constitutes a social class is not understood such a statement is rendered meaningless. Who are the “progressive and revolutionary intellectuals” with whom the workers and peasants are exhorted to unite? If by intellectuals we are to understand people possessing a high degree of understanding then we say that it is only when the majority of workers become intellectuals, in the sense of attaining a basic understanding of the nature of capitalism, their position in it and the socialist solution, that they will be able to bring about the Socialist Revolution. Furthermore, the history of human development shows that our fellow workers do have the capacity to achieve this. If, on the other hand—and this is more likely the case by “intellectual” is meant a person possessing superior mental powers, an élite, a leadership, then it is evident that what is envisaged is a non class-conscious working class being led to its salvation by the chosen few, an idea proven by bitter experience to be quite erroneous. And in the context of a semi-feudal, semi-colonial society, just who are such “intellectuals” anyway? They are, almost without exception, the embryo capitalist class, those with the skills, techniques and ambitions of power who, upon the emergence of a locally governed state become its ruling class and who, far from abolishing privilege, entrench it upon the new capital and wage labour basis.

(6) Again in error racialism is seen as a problem in itself. Properly perceived, racialism is a noxious by-product of economic exploitation and competition. Consequently its disappearance is dependent upon the attainment of socialist understanding by working men and women of the entire human race and their acting upon it. Racialism, like war, poverty and other monstrous facets of present-day society, is an inescapable consequence of capitalism. It is, therefore; the abolition of the wages system itself which is the most urgent task facing workers throughout the world today.

(7/8) The problems of capitalism are world-wide. The socialist solution must, if it is to be a solution at all, be world-wide, too. There can be no national, regional or even continental solution, no Nigerian or British, West African or West European solutions. Human dignity requires an end to exploitation of man by man everywhere.

Eddie Grant

Passing Show: Now He Tells Us. (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Now He Tells Us.

In November 1956, a British and French force invaded Suez. At the same time, Russia was busily suppressing the Hungarian rising and there was a rich field for hypocrisy, with each side condemning the other for military aggression. America, smug in her official non-alignment, tut-tutted loudly and it was mainly as a result of her pressure through the U.N. and behind the scenes, that the Suez adventure collapsed. The Israelis had already attacked and it was claimed that the Anglo-French operation was really a “police action” to separate the contestants and demilitarize the Canal zone. The Daily Mirror made mincemeat of the little piece of double talk, and a lot of people didn’t believe it anyway (a lot did believe it as well).

The real reason for the action was the threat which Britain and France saw to their interests in the area from Nasser’s seizure of the Suez Canal—only on August 8th of that year, Sir Anthony Eden had said “Suez is a question of life and death for us.” Moreover, the active support and encouragement given by Cairo to the Algerian rebels had long angered the French ruling class and here was an opportunity to put a stop to it once and for all. There was a sort of tenuous three-sided collusion between Britain, France and Israel—tenuous because Britain was not the willing ally of Ben-Gurion and, if we are to believe the Bromberger Brothers, as late as mid-October had been prepared to bomb Israel in the event of a conflict with Jordan. Tenuous because, again according to the Brombergers, the French wanted much swifter and more decisive action than the ailing and hesitant Sir Anthony was prepared to take.

Less than a year later, Merry and Serge Bromberger published their book Secrets of Suez which well and truly blew the gaff about the double-dealing and behind-the-scenes manoeuvres between the participants in this ugly affair. “We were warned” they said in a foreword, “that there might be denials for political reasons.” An under statement indeed—there were plenty of denials, including a denial of collusion With Israel, despite the mounting evidence to support it.

Well that was a few years ago and memories may have got a bit hazy, so it’s interesting to have the Israeli General Moshe Dayan’s confirmation in his book Diary of the Sinai Campaign reviewed in The Observer for September 26. General Dayan says that consultations with London and Paris had been going on for at least two months before the outbreak of hostilities, and when the Israeli attack came it was well organised and executed.! It had naval support, and air cover by some sixty Mysore IV fighters and fighter bombers—all provided by France.

We should be used by now to the lying denials of capitalist politicians, particularly concerning matters of war; none of them would dare to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It’s in the bitter irony of capitalism’s scheme of things that only long after the event does the truth trickle out; often from the pens of those who were doing the dirty work at the time. The Brombergers were not opposed to the Suez action; they were concerned mainly to criticise the way it had been handled, particularly by the British. The collusion, apparently, was not efficient enough for them.

By the way, the Socialist Party did not have to wait years before we took a stand in opposition. We published a leaflet in unqualified condemnation within a day or two of the start of the fight, and sent copies of it all over the world. Remember that on this ninth anniversary of the Suez crisis, then read again the Brombergers’ book and appreciate the soundness of our stand.

But not a drop to drink.

Water has been in the world a long time, but just look at the state of some people’s necks! Just the sort of funny to make a Hyde Park audience titter you might think, but if the drought conditions experienced in New York this summer become more commonplace elsewhere, the dirtynecks among us may be claiming some moral justification for their existence. New York’s water supply all but dried up, and you would consider yourself lucky if you got a muddy brown dribble at the turn of your kitchen tap. “Save Water” begged the slogan tied to a blimp floating over the city.

Droughts have been with us on and off for many years—I remember the “use less water” posters on the sides of buses when I was a boy—and are not a feature entirely of present day society. Their effects have however been accentuated by rapidly increasing demand, mainly industrial, particularly since the end of the second world war. In fact, even without droughts, the rising level of water consumption threatens to cause serious shortages in parts of the world within a few years.

If you are a simple minded type who looks at problem purely from a technical point of view, the answer to the problem would also be quite simple. Build more reservoirs; transfer water from one place to another by a grid system (the rainfall in Britain overall, for example, is still enough to meet overall needs); perhaps desalt water from the sea? Regrettably, though, the answer is not entirely a technical one, or the problem would never have reached its present proportions.

Why do I say this? Because the experts have been looking not just for a solution, but for a cheap one, and the first two alternatives I have mentioned would call for a lot of money. So also would the third, a few years ago. Methods of desalting such as conventional distillation, ion-exchange etc. have been available for some time (in fact the firm of G. and J. Weir patented their first desalination plant in 1884) but they were not a cheap proposition. The matter has been raised again now, only because atomic energy looks like bringing the cost down with a bump.

“Can water from the sea be processed at a cost which rivals that of rainwater collection?” asked Guardian science correspondent Anthony Tucker on October 5th. The first international conference on desalination in Washington early in October, seemed to think that this was feasible. The flash- distillation process would use the heat from an atomic reactor (already producing cheap electricity) to produce desalted water costing about three shillings a thousand gallons. Anyway the British and American governments are sufficiently confident to invest quite a few millions in its development and in the not too distant future, we shall no doubt be witnessing the familiar competition between rivals trying to capture the new market for this type of plant. It has been estimated that single contracts in this field could be worth £50 millions or more.

The lesson to learn from this is not that capitalism is incapable of solving some problems technically, but that its profit motive often hampers and delays their solution for years. As Tucker points out, man has had it within his power for some time to make the desert bloom again. However:—

The future of Australia and of many large semi-arid areas . . . will be largely determined by whether or not it is economic to secure the supplies of water necessary for development.

So there it is in a nutshell. We shall never be able to see the technical wood for the financial trees so long as capitalism lasts.

Gaspers.

“According to the new system, workers would be paid more for producing more, improving quality and raising the profits of their enterprise”.

(Soviet Premier Kosygin, speaking on new bonus system, on September 27th.)

“Action to mitigate noise is limited by economics. Our own national airlines have narrow profit margins, and if foreign airlines found restrictions too great they might avoid Britain and leave us in an aviation backwater”.

(Aviation Minister Roy Jenkins, to the airport consultative committee at County Hall, September 15th.)

“The worst drought conditions in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa for thirty years have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the edge of starvation.

(Guardian report September 23rd.)

“President Nkrumah said that Ghana would restrict production rather than put up with the present low prices for her cocoa”.

(Guardian report September 23rd.)

“I am not here to help the industry but with the intention of helping our company and our shareholders”.

(Egg Producer John Eastwood, speaking to shareholders on September 22nd.)

“I am not a rich woman”.

(The Dowager Marchioness of Queensberry, after having been robbed of £15,000 worth of jewellery.)

Eddie Critchfield

Letter: Profit motive in Russia (1965)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Profit motive in Russia

Dear Sirs,

I am writing as one who is anxious for Socialism to be established and therefore agree with your basic principles. However I am extremely puzzled at your antagonism to the Communist countries and the Daily Worker.

Surely it is obvious that these are working for the same principles as the SPGB, so why knock them? Your behaviour is almost as bad as that of our government, which claims to be Socialist but supports the USA in its Colonialist adventures.

This blind spot of yours makes you fail to understand the difference between Russia’s profit motive and that of the Capitalists. The argument in the August Socialist Standard is nonsense. You say quite correctly “. . . the surplus that arises from the labour of all will be used for the benefit of all.” Is not this what occurs in Russia? Their profits do not go into private pockets, but are collected by the State for the benefit of all the Russians.

You sneer at the word “State”. Who would administer the profits in this country if it became Socialist according to your ideas? It could only be the State. What happens now to the profits of the Nationalised industries here? It ceases to go to shareholders pockets but is used for the benefit of all consumers. That is Socialism.

By ignorantly knocking the countries which have become Socialist, you are making your party quite ineffective. This is a great pity, because we can ill afford to waste such a potential.

Are any of the Labour Party M.P.s also members of the SPGB? If not why not?

Yours faithfully,

H. Horwood.

Reply:

The aim of the article under discussion was to show that the origin of Profit was not efficiency or price-raising but the unpaid labour of the working class. Profit is the form under which the surplus above the consumption needs of the producers is taken by the owning class in capitalist society. This is so in Russia as here. 

H. Horwood denies this. He argues that, profits made in State industries are not the same as profits made in private industries as they are used to benefit everybody instead of going into the pockets of a few shareholders. “That”, he says, “is Socialism”. We would call it State capitalism. State profit-making is not Socialism. In socialist society there will be no State and no profits. The whole social product (including the “surplus”) will belong to society as soon as it is made. Buying and selling and all that goes with it like profit-making and working for wages won’t exist. It will just be a question of alloting what is made to various social uses and to individual consumption. This is production for use.

We are asked about the State. As Gabriel Deville, once put it: “The State is the public power of coercion created and maintained in human societies by their division into classes, a power which, being clothed with force, makes laws and levies taxes”. The State is not just an administrative machine; its central feature is force. In socialist society, with the end of classes there will be no need for a public power of coercion; the centre will simply be a clearing house for settling social affairs. In class societies the State is used by the ruling class to serve its ends. Today the capitalists are the ruling class so the State serves their ends. The duties they give it are many: from looking after their general interests at home and abroad to the running of industries. Such State-run or nationalised industries have nothing to do with Socialism. The basic features of capitalism, profit-making and working for wages, remain.

What happens to the profits of nationalised industries? In Britain, despite the popular myth, most of them make a “trading surplus”. Some of this is paid out as interest on loans; some is ’taken as taxes; the rest is used again to exploit wage-labour or kept as a reserve. How much goes in interest payments can be got from the blue-books on National Income and Expenditure. Woiswick and Ady in The British Economy in the 1950's give a table based on this information. For most of the period interest payments amounted to about 40 per cent of “gross income (before depreciation)”. In 1960, for instance, this was £590m. Of this £286m. went as interest and £12m. as taxes, leaving a net income of £292m. Let’s see where this interest goes. Before 1956 all the nationalised industries except coal could borrow directly from the capital market. They used to offer interest-bearing stock for sale. The 1956 Finance Act made them borrow from the Treasury. So the interest goes to the Treasury and in the end into the pockets of those who lend to the government (including, ironically enough, the Moscow. Narodny Bank which holds British Treasury bills!). Most of the profits are of course re-invested as in private industries. But capitalists can still enjoy the proceeds of exploitation in the State industries—as bill and bond holders instead of as shareholders.

In Russia the arrangements are a little different and more complicated to unravel. The State industries are controlled from the centre as to output, prices and surplus. Most of the surplus which the State industries make is taken by the centre as taxes and is used to pay for the upkeep of the State as well as for sharing out amongst the State industries for re-investment. Until recently the State used to raise extra money for investment by means of loans, often compulsory. The rich were given a chance to invest in government bonds. The fact that this has stopped doesn't mean that the wealthy class who rule Russia don't get a share in the proceeds of the Slate exploitation of wage-labour. They do. but not in the obvious forms of dividends on shares or interest on bonds. They get it as prizes, bonuses, bloated salaries and the like (all devices used by private corporations in the West to share out profits and avoid profits taxes). Mr. Horwood's argument about the people's profits is wrong, but it would be more plausible if political democracy existed in Russia.

It also shows how, as Russian State capitalism gets more and more like the capitalism of the West, its supporters are driven to ever more fantastic arguments to keep up the pretence of Socialism. In the past no one would have dared to argue that Russia was socialist because State profit-making was Socialism.

Finally, no Labour M.P.s are members of the Socialist Party because by joining a capitalist party they have ranged themselves on the side of the opponents of Socialism and arc thus ineligible for membership.

Editorial Committee.

SPGB Meetings (1965)

Party News from the November 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard