Socialist Sonnet No. 246: What Price Democracy? (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

What Price Democracy?

 

Why democracy? What does it entail?

Best chance to change the world from how it runs

Now, by revolution that seeks no guns.

Except, of course, it’s been put up for sale

To shady crypto-coiners who profit

From sharp selling of bubbles, which float

Higher, for a moment, than they aught,

Before skimming the dividend off it.

There are those who can be bought by the rich,

Self-aggrandising, dismissive of need,

Being single minded about personal greed,

Making dubious deals to secure their pitch.

We who have clear vision, nothing shocks us,

Not even buying of ballot boxes.

D.A.

The Passing Show: The Psychologist (1962)

The Passing Show Column from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Psychologist

 

Psychology has the answer to all the world’s problems. If only we all became psychologists, if only we all studied psychology and learned to understand the hidden springs of each other’s actions, then the difficulties and injustices of society would all melt away.

No doubt psychology has its part to play in the modern world, at least under capitalism. Certainly many individuals have been and can be helped by psychiatric treatment. But, wars, exploitation, poverty, and unemployment, arise not from any defects in man which could be cured by psychology; they arise from capitalism, and the resulting break-up of society into irreconcilable classes.

If you don’t believe that, you may care to reflect on conditions in what is perhaps the only country in the world which has a psychologist at the head of affairs. It is the near-Fascist republic of South Africa. Dr. Verwoerd, the Prime Minister, is a former Professor of Applied Psychology at Stellenbosch University. But the people of South Africa are not any better off for that. Dr. Verwoerd is the representative of the ruling landed and farming class of South Africa, and he and his Government run the country in the interests of that class. The fact that he is also one of the country’s leading psychologists makes no difference whatever to conditions in South Africa.

Mosley

Whatever may be the right way to deal with Mosley, to go along to his meetings and knock him down is merely foolishness. Firstly, it gives him and his party country-wide publicity in press, radio and television. Secondly, it is resorting to the very weapon—violence—that Fascists and Nazis prefer above all others. Violence is what they plan for, what they train for, what they hope for. To reduce political argument to the level of people knocking each other down in the street is to descend to methods which the Fascists and Nazis would probably use better than any others. As for Socialism, violence is totally irrelevant, even if there were no other objection to it; for the establishment of Socialism depends on an educated working class, which really understands what goes on in the world. Our weapons are argument, knowledge, and reason. Anyone with an understanding of the Socialist case would have no difficulty in pricking Mosley’s bubble.

Race-hatred

Equally irrelevant is the measure now proposed by some MPs of all three large parties to ban incitement to race-hatred. Acts of Parliament cannot kill ideas. If the ruling class of this country decided to bring in the Fascist form of capitalism, or a near-totalitarian system such as our rulers introduced in the last war, no Act of Parliament could stop them. It has been said before, but it will bear repeating, that the only sure safeguard against Fascism is the establishment of Socialism.

In fact, many of those now agitating for a Bill “against race-hatred” were in the forefront of affairs in the last war, writing articles and making speeches which had the single aim of inciting race-hatred against the Germans, Italians, and Japanese. If such a law as they now propose had been in existence from 1939 to 1945, they themselves would have been its most frequent transgressors. And in any future war, whether “conventional” or nuclear, we shall (if there is time) have to listen to the usual flood of propaganda inciting race-hatred against the Russians, or whoever the “enemy” happens to be. And any law there may be which makes incitement to race-hatred illegal will either be repealed or ignored by our rulers.

Militarism

This war-time propaganda is, of course, intended for us, the workers, only; it is hard to believe that the ruling classes of the world fool themselves. For example, the Anglo-American line in the last war was that the Germans and the Japanese were incurably militaristic, that they loved uniforms, drilling, and fighting, and that they rushed into the army at the least opportunity. This, we were told, was one of the “real reasons” for the war. At the end of the last war, the American ruling class insisted, as it had to do if it was to be consistent, that the Japanese should adopt a constitution which renounced totally and for ever any armed forces. But, of course, the realities of capitalism soon caught up with America. Within a few years the American capitalists saw that their next enemy would probably be Russia, and that Japan was almost certain to be America’s ally in that war. So, against strong Japanese opposition, the Americans themselves insisted on Japan renouncing its American-sponsored constitution, and setting up again a strong army, navy and air force.

Endanger the alliance

This, of course, is now history. But exactly the same thing is currently happening with those other “incurable militarists,” the Germans. The German capitalist class has made immense profits since the war, helped by the fact that they have not had to pay very much out on armaments. The German rulers feared attack only from Russia; such an attack, they thought, was almost impossible because the United States would immediately counter-attack with atom-bombs. But the American capitalists have been getting increasingly unhappy about having to shoulder the burden of Germany’s arms-spending as well as their own. Germany already has 350,000 men under arms, and has been persuaded to try to raise this figure to 500,000; but now the Americans are urging Germany to increase the Bundeswehr to a strength of 700,000. This suggestion, however, is very unpopular in German official circles. The German ruling class would much rather go on keeping its large profits and letting the Americans find most of the money for the arms build-up against Russia. In particular, they are relying on the American H-bombs in any future war. In a recent television broadcast, Herr Strauss, the west German Defence Minister, criticized the idea that Western Europe could rely on conventional weapons alone, and said that the theory that the United States would use its nuclear weapons only if American territory were attacked was false. But what he said next showed that he really meant he hoped it was false: “If this were the official view in Washington,” he said, “it would endanger the (Nato) alliance.”

So the present position is that the German ruling class is doing its best to avoid having to build up its armed forces, while America is doing its best to persuade it to do just that. It all seems a very long way from the propaganda we had thrust down our throats in the last war.

Alwyn Edgar

Macmillan changes nothing (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

We have been here before. There is no novelty in Government changes, even if they are in one big purge at the top, as Mr. Macmillan has just pushed through. Punch greeted the news with a reprint of a cartoon which showed a shelf full of discarded top ministers from the Balfour government of 1905. Clement Attlee was always liable to make important changes and in some of them won for himself a reputation for ruthlessness.

In one of his reshuffles he called to Ten Downing Street a minor minister who was generally accepted to be running his department satisfactorily. The minister left smiling brightly and the newspapers decided that Attlee had called him only to say, “Well done—carry on.” In fact, the minister had been brusquely sacked and was never seen on the front benches again.

This may have been typical of Attlee’s handling of his men, but it does not fit in with the popular conception of Macmillan. Up to his last purge the Tory premier had stuck to some of his men through thick and thin. When the responsible minister offered to resign after the shake-up over the Portland spy case, Macmillan refused to let him go. He has stood by Selwyn Lloyd under the opposition’s fiercest fire, answering criticism with promotion. This had given Macmillan a reputation for personal loyalty to his ministers.

So we have had a lot of nonsense from the press, who like us to think that the men who run British capitalism are affected in their work by sentiments like loyalty and friendship. There is a certain grim humour in this. Politicians, after all, are the men who must try to hold down our wages, decide to explode bombs which they know will release lethal fall out, declare war which they know will kill hundreds of thousands of people. And while they are doing all this, they must justify it by telling us that it is done in our interests.

So politicians must be hard and cynical and ruthless. They must be cold liars. They must be calculating mass killers. It is too much to believe that they are also the sort of men who will regret sacking a colleague because he went to Eton with them, or because he once took on one of capitalism’s dirtier jobs for them.

The men who are at the head of capitalism’s affairs are very remote from the rest of us. It is, therefore, difficult to discover the reasons for government changes, but we can discuss one or two aspects of them. Were the changes intended to reinvigorate the government? It is a popular delusion that a vigorous minister who runs a better department means a better life for us all. The Guardian plugged that line in 1950, when it thought the Labour government was tired and in need of a rest. It thinks something like that about the Tory government today. It may be that an energetic minister is better at his job than one who has been broken by years of trying to solve capitalism’s insolubles. But nobody has yet demonstrated that an energetic and efficient administration of capitalism benefits its people. Problems like bad housing and slumps and wars persist in capitalism, whoever may try his hand at getting rid of them. Sometimes, in fact, they can transform an energetic minister into one who is washed out. They did this to Anthony Eden. Sometimes they can break an entire government, as they did the Labour administration in 1951.

This goes, too, for the theory that young men make better ministers than old men. This theory is beloved in many places—perhaps most strongly among young workers, who hope that a young minister understands their problems. This was one of the themes on which Kennedy took power in the United States. Yet the facts shoot the theory full of holes. Young men who have risen fast in the government—men like Anthony Eden, Harold Wilson and Hugh Gaitskell—have shown no more skill than their older counterparts in taking capitalism’s hurdles. It cannot even be said for them that they have brought any especial benefits to young people. They have, for example, always eagerly supported the wars in which young men are pushed into the extremities of danger and suffering. In fact, young ministers have run capitalism, as best they may, no better and no worse than old ministers have run it.

Perhaps the Macmillan purge was designed to improve what is called the image of the government—its appearance before the doubtful electors. A government’s image is important; in some cases it wins or loses them votes. Yet in one way the changes do nothing to help the government’s image. For the image must be a successful one. And can a government which has had to be put through a shattering change be described as successful? Perhaps there are different interpretations of the word. Up to the last moment the government were assuring us that Selwyn Lloyd was successful, that his policies were correct and that he was administering them firmly and wisely. What sort of an image has Lloyd, now?

We could go on like this for a very long time; the politics of capitalism are full of double dealing, lies and worse. But let us consider the reshuffle from the point of view of the people who are meant to be impressed by it; the people who vote governments in and out; the people who keep capitalism running; the working class. For them, what are the changes worth?

In a word: Nothing. We have been here before and we have seen it all before. Governments have come and gone, been reshuffled, turned upside down, inside out and up the right way again. Prime Ministers have been ousted and replaced. The governing party itself has been changed. Through it all the same old problems have kept nagging at us.

Many workers who decided in 1945 that the Tories were a pack of played out, hard-faced men, were disappointed at the Labour Party’s efforts to do better. Whatever changes are made in any government’s personnel the results are roughly the same.

There need be no mystery about this. Governments run capitalism. And capitalism will keep throwing up economic troubles, personal insecurity, international disputes and the rest, as long as it exists. Whoever is in charge of any particular ministry can have no effect’upon these problems. Foreign secretaries have failed to remove war from capitalism. Chancellors have not been able to budget poverty out of existence. Housing ministers have been baffled by slums.

The evidence of the past says that this is true. So does the evidence of the present. One of the brightest stars to rise in the recent reshuffle is Sir Keith Joseph, who is now the Minister of Housing and Welsh Affairs. This man seems to have everything. Educated at Harrow and Oxford. A beautiful home, a lovely wife. Oozing with culture and knowledge. The top papers rushed to eulogise him and to tell us how lucky we are to be bossed by somebody like the elegant Sir Keith. One of them, carried away, described him as man who offers his opinions like fine sherry served on a silver platter.

Now what sort of sherry has Sir Keith to offer on the housing question, which nags and depresses and desolates so many workers? This is how The Guardian, on August 1st last, reported his contribution to the House of Commons debate on the homeless in London:

“The remedy was more new houses. At first he wondered if slum clearance could be stopped, but when one realised the condition of some of these slums. Cable Street, Stepney, for instance, no Government would wish to stop their clearance, however bad the housing shortage . . . ‘That is undoubtedly what we need, more low-cost housing in London, and my purpose is to try to help the L.C.C. and other authorities, and private enterprise, to achieve just this’.”

The remedy is more new houses! Not a very original conclusion—we have been hearing it for as long as there has been a housing problem. At the same time, we have also been hearing why capitalism cannot get around to building enough new houses; they can’t be afforded, or must take their turn in the queue behind armaments. We’ll be hearing the same from Sir Keith, before long.

Wondering if slum clearance can be stopped! Here, perhaps, is one solution to the housing question. But it can be extended. Has Sir Keith wondered about housing workers in caves, or in disused coal mines? There are going to be more of these going soon and some of them are probably better than Cable Street.

We need more low-cost housing! In other words, if the working class are to be housed they need more cheap, poky, substandard, working class homes. If they are to be cleared out of today’s slums, tomorrow’s must be ready to receive them.

This is what we are invited to accept as rare sherry on a silver platter. Sir Keith Joseph may be a charming, cultured, educated man. But capitalism has him beaten and fumbling, just as it has the people who vote for it and who don’t need an expensive education to do so. Yes, we have been here before and we shall be here again. Because capitalism keeps throwing up the same problems and bringing us back to the same realities. It is like a nightmarish roundabout, driven by nonsense and ballyhoo and simple lies.

Ivan.

The Farce Of Consumer Protection. (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 30 pages and over 150,000 words the team of eleven men and women who signed the final report of the Molony committee on Consumer Protection made recommendations about ways of securing that the things people buy shall be a little nearer to what they want and what the makers and sellers claim them to be.

The Committee made a large number of observations and recommendations, the most important of the latter category being the proposal to set up a 12-man Consumer Council “to devise and advance” the means of resolving the problems of consumers. But the Council is not itself to prepare test reports on articles offered for sale, or receive complaints or take proceedings. Its chief functions are to get information about consumer’s problems, determine what can be done and give advice and guidance through Citizen’s Advice Bureaux and other organisations and by its own publications. It all sounds very vague and ineffective. Other recommendations are that whatever protection is now given by hire-purchase law shall no longer be limited to transactions worth less than £300, but shall be extended (taking in cars and caravans), and that misleading descriptions of articles offered for sale shall be made more difficult by tightening up the administration of the Merchandise Marks Acts and widening their scope to all classes of goods.

At the time of writing the Government has not announced its intention about the recommendations, only undertaking to “study the reactions of all parties affected before finally concluding what we should do.”

What is more interesting than the details of the Committee’s recommendations is what they did not do, and the principle on which they worked.

If buyers in great numbers complain that they are being misled or defrauded by sellers it would seem that two lines of action would theoretically be open to a Committee set up to solve the problem; to place legal restrictions on the freedom of action of sellers, or to abolish the buyer-seller relationship. The latter is the solution inherent in establishing a Socialist system of society and was not even thought of by the Committee. The Committee, however, managed to find a third solution, which is to allow the sellers to behave as at present, but to encourage the buyers to show more aggressive resistance. So the Economist, in its issue of July 28th, after an implied approval of what it calls “slick American style selling,” blames the 15 million British housewives for not standing up to it, and hopes that with more information and advice they will be encouraged to do so:

“This is why it was so important that the Molony report . . . should get its balance of recommendations just right. The right precept is full free speech for the advertiser and salesman, but also full free speech (and sufficient detailed information) against them. In the event the Molony committee severely avoids being anti-salesman, but seems not quite sufficiently radically pro-consumer.”

Quality goods

No doubt the Government will implement parts of the Molony recommendations and if the Labour Party, with or without association with the Liberals, becomes the Government after the next election, it is certain that they will do much the same. It is equally certain that the problem will not be solved, nor even stated. Neither this Committee nor the earlier Committees that ploughed the same field, nor any of the Party spokesmen and newspapers that have offered alternative proposals have got as far as admitting why these deceitful practices go on, much less accepting the logical conclusion that there is only one way to end them.

There is a question that could be asked. In a world in which technically it would be possible to produce and distribute only first-class articles, not needing false deceptions and high power salesmanship to make them acceptable, why do the producers and distributors put out so much that is inferior and cheap and known to be so by the purchasers, and so much that is, in addition, dressed up to look better than it is? The manufacturers have a simple answer to the first part of the question. What would be the use, they would say, of producing masses of good quality articles that the majority of the population could not afford to buy. It is the poverty problem of every country in the world today—one standard of quality and quantity for the rich few, and another for the poor majority, and none of the governments are concerned to put an end to this situation. We also have to accept that many workers still regard it as natural and inevitable—like the workers rebuilding the Prime Minister’s residence at 10, Downing Street, who told a Guardian correspondent:

“There should be a sense of achievement on a job like this—doing something exceptional, you know. Another added, It’s not just a housing estate after all—you can’t just bung it up.” (27 March 1962.)

These workers probably themselves live in just such a bunged-up estate.

The other aspect—the adulterations, the false descriptions, the petty cheating, is in a different category and a complex one for those who govern. It can hit the rich shopper as well as the poor one, and while some manufacturers are prepared to legislate to limit it, others want it left alone. Their interests are divided and only pettifogging “remedies” are possible. Some manufacturers of high-quality, high-cost, articles would be happy to see the advertising carried on by their mass producing rivals curbed; and the latter would favour laws against the swindling activities of cheap-jack competitors who undersell them; but how is this to be done without hampering the normal business in which they are all engaged, that of making profit?

The dilemma they face here is closely paralleled by the problem of placing limits on the exploitation of the workers. All capitalist profit flows from the exploitation of the workers, so there is a common interest in continuing it, but if particular groups of employers carry exploitation to extremes by child labour, excessive hours, dangerous and insanitary factories, it undermines the health of the workers (not to mention their fitness to be soldiers) and damages the profit interest of the whole class of exploiters.

So also in the field of legal restrictions on the sale of defective and misrepresented goods. Committees of inquiry expose the evils (like the one that sat just over a century ago), then the interested parties squabble about the minimum of legislation they are prepared to enact.

Those at the back cry forward and those at the front cry back! While Jean Robertson in the Sunday Telegraph (29/7/62) criticises the Molony Committee for being too timid and points out that “while we were waiting for Molony, four modest consumer Bills introduced by private members were killed off in his name”, the Guardian (26/7/62) while admitting that some of the existing regulations under the Merchandise Marks Act “are enforced slackly or not at all” goes on to plead the traditional businessman’s case against legal restrictions: “There is much to be said against attempts to interfere administratively with too many points in the complicated business of distribution.”

Adulteration

The problem examined by the Molony Committee is not new, though in earlier times it went by the cruder name of adulteration, and this time the scope of the inquiry was expressly limited. The Committee confined itself to private consumers, cutting out the sale of goods to manufacturers, farmers and traders. Nor did it include services, though admitting there is much complaint about such work as the repair of radio and television sets. It excluded food and drugs on the ground that these are covered by the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, and excluded the nationalised power industries (except the sale of solid fuels) mainly because in these industries functions and relationship to the public have been determined as a matter of government policy. They admitted that they heard much complaint about prices being excessive, but decided against making recommendations because it would be difficult and costly to fix prices and in any event “vigorous competition” makes price control unnecessary. They fell back on the good old myth of the capitalist economists that the consumer has “wide freedom of choice” and this is his best protection. (Paragraph 6.)

As already remarked, the problem of adulteration is not new. The 1950 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica in an article under that heading divides it into three types, the intentional palming off of an inferior article, the addition of injurious ingredients, and the deliberate or negligent use of contaminated or deteriorated material not necessarily injurious. Having produced evidence that such practices existed from the earliest historical times the article smugly avoids inquiry into their precise causes with the remark that “adulteration of the first kind is probably as old as human greed itself” which, of course, adds nothing to our knowledge.

The Encyclopaedia writer did, however, throw light on a development that explains why the Molony Committee became necessary and the form its inquiries took:

“… as the rise of the factory gradually took the manufacturing of many foods out of the home, and away from the farm and the village, the forms of adulteration became at once more invidious, more numerous and more difficult of detection. The proof of the pudding was no longer in the eating, but in the laboratory.”

This development has extended to all sorts of products, not only foods: in our century it is not enough for the buyer “to beware,” he now must have at his disposal expert knowledge and means of elaborate testing.

For the economic background we must turn to Marx for more enlightenment about adulteration. In Volume I of Capital (Chapters VI, X and XXIV) he reproduced from the reports of committees of inquiry over a century ago numerous examples of the widespread practice of adulterating foodstuffs, medicines and other articles, and showed how the demand for laws against adulteration of bread came from bakers themselves: they saw their trade being ruined through the lower prices charged by their adulterating rivals.

The moral

But unlike the Encyclopaedia, which avoided seeking the real cause and took refuge in a sort of original sin, the greed of the human race, Marx pin-pointed it in the class structure of capitalist society, which functions through the exploitation of one class by another and by the necessity of making profit:

“This fanatic love of the capitalist for profit is expressed … by the adulteration of the elements of production, which is one of the principal means of reducing the value of the constant capital in comparison with the variable capital, and thus raising the rate of profit.” (Capital Vol. III Page 100.)

The moral of this ought to be obvious—though not to government committees. What is needed is not more laws and regulations to restrict capitalism’s freedom of action in the market, but the abolition of a system of society that works through the Market; having in its place production solely for use, so that there will be no-one against whom consumers will need to be protected.

Edgar Hardcastle

The Soviet State - Part 2 (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The Russian State is powerful. Russian workers would be the first to agree with this, for their dependence upon the State as their employer is the measure of the State’s power over them. Again, the Communists may not agree that there is anything undesirable in this, but what did Lenin write about it in his book State and Revolution? “While the State exists there is no freedom, when there will be freedom there will be no state.”

There cannot be much of Lenin’s sort of freedom in Russia today, when the State has its fingers in every pie. Consider, for example, the Twenty Year Plan, recently published (Moscow, 1961) amidst much clamour, which promised free housing, transport and food to the Russian workers sometime between now and 1980. When this programme (a better word for it than “Plan”) is stripped of the ballyhoo, there is no difficulty in seeing it for what it is—a familiar document of Capitalism.

In Management of the National Economy and Planning, the statement: “The sphere of material production is the main sphere in the life of society” is the key to the situation which is illustrated by the following quotations:

“The Party attaches prime importance to the more effective investment of capital, the choice of the most profitable and economical trends in capital construction, achievement everywhere of the maximum growth of output per invested rouble, and reduction of the time-lapse between investment and return. It is necessary continuously to improve the structure of capital investments and to expand that portion of them which is spent on equipment, machinery and machine tools.” (Page 71).

“It is necessary for enterprises to play a substantially greater part in introducing the latest machinery.” (Page 73).

These passages leave no doubt that the Soviet government is as much concerned as any of its counterparts with the need to accumulate capital. And capital accumulation, let us remember, means capitalism. It means Capitalism in Great Britain and the U.S.A.—and the U.S.S.R. How is the Russian worker to be persuaded to pull his weight in making “more effective use of capital investment” and the rest? Why, in just the same way as the British or American worker is sometimes persuaded :

“In the process of Communist construction economic management will make use of material and moral incentives for high production figures.” (Page 73).

And to do all this, there is the intricate machinery of checkers and chasers, money grubbers and ledger slaves, all being urged to work harder and better:

“There must be a continuous improvement in rate setting, the system of labour payments and bonuses, in the financial control over the quantity and quality of work, in the elimination of levelling, and the stimulation of collective forms of incentives raising the interest of each employee in the high efficiency of the enterprise as a whole. It is necessary in communist construction to make full use of commodity-money relations in keeping with their new meaning in the Socialist period. In this, such instruments of economic development as cost accounting, money, prices, production costs, profit, trade, credit and finance play a big part.” (Page 74).

The only reference to Communist society in this section is as follows:

“When the transition to one Communist form of peoples’ property and the Communist system of distribution is completed, commodity-money relations will become economically outdated and will wither away.”(Page 74).

This is not explained until the next section of the programme:

“The task will be effected by (a) raising the individual payments of working people according to the quantity and quality of their work, coupled with reduction of all retail prices and abolition of taxes paid by the people; (b) increase of the public funds distributed among members of society irrespective of the quantity and quality of their labour, that is, free of charge, (education, medical treatment, pensions, maintenance of children at children’s institutions, transition to cost-free use of public amenities, etc.) “(Page 75).

This list is amplified later to cover housing, public services, public transport, holiday homes, public catering (mid-day meals).

Taxes

The programme may be ponderously worded, but its implied promises to abolish taxes, reduce prices and make public amenities free, are the stuff which wins by-elections in countries like England. Apart from that, what are they worth? The “abolition of taxes paid by the people” is only possible where the State is the sole realiser of surplus value, so that it can utilise part of the surplus for the running of the public services. Talk of “free services” is misleading and meaningless, because either the State has to pay the workers in wages to cover these services, or provide them directly, which may be cheaper because it can centrally plan and allocate expenditure. The State can budget more or less exactly because it knows that its expenditure is to be taken from existing and known funds, and not from an unknown income, such as fares payments, gas and electricity consumption.

Every “free” State service is a cost to the State as a whole. The plan for public catering, connected as it is to the prices the Soviet State must pay to the collective farms (Kolkhozes), is obviously meant to be financed in part, at any rate, in this way:

“It is essential that the level of state purchasing prices encourages the Kolkhozes to raise labour productivity and reduce production expenses, since greater farm output and lower production costs are the basis of greater incomes for the Kolkhozes.” (Page 68).

Now the main part of production expenses is made up of wages, so that if this section means anything, it is that the Russian farm workers will be expected to produce more for the same pay. A finer example of capitalist sophistry would be hard to find. This applies, too, on the industrial field:

“Technical progress and better production organisation must be fully utilised to increase labour productivity and reduce production costs at every enterprise. This implies a higher rate of increase in labour productivity as compared with remuneration, better rate fixing, prevention of loss of working time, and operation on a profitable basis in all sectors of production.” (Page 62).

Anyway, prices are only to come down (if at all) under certain circumstances:

“Prices must, to a growing extent, reflect the socially-necessary outlays of labour, ensure return of production and circulation expenditures and a certain profit for each normally operating enterprise. Systematically, economically justified price reductions based on growth of labour productivity and reduction of production costs are the main trend of the price policy in the period of Communist construction.” (Page 75).

And the entire programme is summed up by a passage which would be applauded at any Lord Mayor’s banquet at the Mansion House:

“It is necessary to promote profitable operation of enterprises, to work for lower production costs and higher profitability.” (Page 74).

Commodity production

This would be approved in the City of London because in this country wealth is produced for profitable sale—that is, it takes the form of commodities. The Russian State is urging the “. . . profitable operation of enterprises . . .” because in the U.S.S.R. also, wealth is produced as commodities. Stalin, as we saw in part 1 of this article, admitted that the Soviet Union “. . . has not abolished commodity production . . .” and went on, as he had to. to hedge this statement round with qualifications. But Marx was quite clear on the matter. The opening words of Capital read: “The wealth of a community in which the Capitalist mode of production prevails, appears as an immense collection of commodities.”

Marx’s analysis is still valid. Commodity production means Capitalism, whether it is in this country or anywhere else, including Russia.

What can we conclude from the Twenty Year Plan and from the other evidence which seeps through the Iron Curtain? The Soviet Union seems to be trying to become an ever-bigger monolith of an intensely automated, super-efficient, high-powered production machine. Such a nation must generate something of a momentum and values of its own. The Russian workers are caught up in a system which dictates its own terms. The Russians believe that this is Communism and presumably will go on believing so until Capitalism itself wakes them up.

Then they will realise that all the talk about the “all-round, harmonious development of the individual” and a “truly rich spiritual culture” (page 97) is so much humbug. Such concepts cannot flourish in a society that glories in production norms, because it produces people with a production norm mentality.

Alienation

The culture of a people is inseparable from its work. But Capitalism, in Russia and elsewhere, separates work from culture; for most of its people, work is an expenditure of their labour power which they must go through to get their living wage. It has nothing to do with culture and this fact is one of the chief reasons for social illness in a highly industrialised society. The shortening of the working day and the intensification of labour go hand in hand. But the increasing mechanisation and automation of industry must create a void between the worker and the object of his work; and what sort of culture came out of a void? “What, then, constitutes the alienation of labour?” says Marx. “. . . the fact that labour is external to the worker, i.e., that it does not belong to his essential being; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself.” (Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844), Moscow, 1959, page 72.

It is the intention of the Soviet Union to outpace the United States in production; the only way to do this is to outpace them in the techniques of exploitation; but the result of this in America has been this very alienation—in an aggravated form—that Marx wrote about in 1844, and has been further commented upon by others since then.

The British constitution (what there is of it) does not say that the United Kingdom is a capitalist State, but we know that it is because the evidence says so. In the same way, whatever the Soviet: Constitution may say, the evidence says that Russia is a capitalist nation. As long as it remains so, the anomalies and problems of Capitalism will be visited upon its people.

We will not need a constitution to tell us when Socialism is established, because Socialism is a world in which “the Government of people is replaced by the administration of things,” where the whole object is to make men and women masters of themselves—for they have had masters too long.

Ian Jones

 

(Concluded.)

The importance of economics (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Production and consumption of wealth are every day essentials in all forms of social organisation. Economics, or political economy (the study of wealth production, distribution and exchange) is, therefore, most important. The manner in which these tasks are accomplished determines how and where people shall live, the quantity and quality of the food, clothing and shelter they consume, as well as their recreations, etc.

Considering the tremendous advance which has been made in industrial and scientific development and the enormous productive capacity of modern society, one would think that the major social problems, such as poverty, unemployment, etc., would be abolished. This is not so. It is paradoxical that despite the high productive efficiency of modern society the actual producers of the wealth fare very badly so far as its consumption is concerned. While capital is constantly expanding and the private fortunes of the capitalists accumulate, the workers’ poverty remains fairly constant.

Few, if any, people will deny that we have several grave social problems in our midst. The solving of these problems is widely discussed and many schemes advocated. Socialists stand in opposition to the idea that reforms are a means of solving the major social problems. We contend that the social problems arise from the nature of modern society and will remain while this society exists. We emphasize the importance, for serious-minded workers, of economic study because it reveals the correctness of our claims. The Marxian Theory of Value is, so to speak, the anatomy of the Socialist case. If working men and women are to solve their economic and social problems they must first understand the nature of these problems. Given this knowledge the solution is easily obtained and understood.

This introductory article is intended to interest readers in a further study of the economic structure of society and the social relations amongst men. By society, we mean men organised together for the purpose of producing the things which are essential to sustain life. We define capital as — wealth used in the reproduction of wealth in order to obtain profit. By social relations we mean the cooperation or intercourse between men in doing this job. The phrase private property is used in the sense of ownership of property which enables the exploitation of men by men to take place, i.e., ownership of the land and other instruments of production.

How this system works is an interesting and instructive study.

The following questions are of great importance to all workers. Can we have high wages and low prices? Can wages purchase a quantity of food, clothing and shelter, etc., equal in value content to the wealth which workers produce? What is rent, profit and interest and from what source does it come? How is it that capital and the private fortunes of the capitalists expand, despite their high living expenses, while the producers remain poor? Can poverty, unemployment and wars, etc., be abolished in modern society? An examination of the economic basis of society reveals the answers to these questions clearly.

Poverty is not something accidental. It is an indispensable and permanent condition of life for the great majority of people today. Private ownership of the land and other instruments of production establishes two classes whose economic interests are opposed. The specific form which this property assumes is the capitalist mode of wealth production. This creates basic social relations between men, viz., capitalist owners, who do not produce, and propertyless workers who do produce. We wish to make clear that ownership of capital, i.e., productive machinery and raw materials in itself is useless unless an abundance of wage labour is available. It is, therefore, essential that the great mass of people should be excluded from ownership of their own means of production and, as a consequence, compelled to sell their ability to work for wages.

The economic and social requirements bring these two classes together in the first instance as buyers and sellers of labour power. Labour power is the sole commodity which workers have to sell. When sold, the class relations become employer and employee—master and servant. The capitalists dominate the productive process and determine what shall be produced, and in what quantities and qualities. The wealth created, together with the tools of production, belongs to the capitalist. Consumption of the wealth is through the medium of sale. In this sphere the classes sometimes meet again as buyers and sellers. The quantity of cash, wages, determines what the producers may consume, human needs being of little consequence. As buyers and sellers, the value relations between men are major social relationships. There is no escape from the “sacred” laws of private property; they enter into almost every aspect in the lives of people. Whereas the workers buy the essentials of life in order to reproduce their labour power and sell it again, the capitalists sell and enrich themselves.

There can be no harmonious identity of interests here. In the first instance the property owners stand between the rest of society and their access to the means of production. In the second phase they stand between all other people and consumption of the goods. The whole resources of nature, together with the highly productive equipment, the labour of society, is utilised for the profit of the few. In this arrangement, the workers are, in a sense, merely a part of the means of production. What Socialists call the exploitation or, in stronger language the “legalised robbery” of the working class of the fruits of their labour, is the normal purpose of capitalist production. Poverty, wars, bad housing, and other social evils are as natural and normal in society today as rent profit and interest. In addition, the whole of the property in the hands of capitalists is the result of the collective accumulated labour of the producers.

If the economic organisation of Society were understood by the working class they would not tolerate its continuance. Desire and power to change a social system can only arise from knowing how and why it should be done. The source of scientific sociological knowledge is here, at your disposal. We wish to repeat, with emphasis, that this source is the Marxian or Socialist case.

It is our intention to publish several articles dealing with economic aspects, such as commodities, value, surplus value, etc. We think that such articles will interest readers in further economic study which reveal the real nature of our economic and social problems and show the need for and the practicability of a Socialist system of society.

John Higgins

50 Years Ago: Land Tax (1962)

The 50 Years Ago column from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

At a time when the toilers are engaged in a bitter struggle with the employers, the Liberals are busy diverting attention to the “wicked landlords” and their “unearned increment.” The dockers being “done down” by a Devonport, are told to tax land values. The miners, vainly seeking 5s. a day, are urged to support the Single Tax idea. The railway men, cursing Conciliation, are advised to levy the ducal landlords.

The Land Tax campaign serves the Liberal manufacturers well. Labour unrest is exploited to turn the minds of the workers away from the real question to the old bogey of taxing land. The policy of smothering men’s bitter feelings against the Devonports, Thomas’s, and Hugh Bells, has, however, a more palpable and material driving force behind it. Hence we note from the Liberal Press that a wealthy and influential committee has been formed to boom the Land Tax campaign.

Mr. Joseph Fels, the well-known soap manufacturer, has contributed £30,000, and many others have given largely. Mr. Josiah Wedgwood, the Liberal pottery manufacturer, is one of the leading spirits in the movement.

Hirelings are sent about the country at great expense, preaching the virtues of the Single Tax.

But why this enormous expenditure? Why this outcry about taxation? Once the worker grasps the true facts of the question of taxation, the campaign and its real meaning become plain. The upkeep of this system of society calls for hundreds of millions a year to support the services that must be run to ensure the safety of our masters.

The cost of the Army. Navy, Police, and bureaucracy is ever rising, and the manufacturers and business men—chiefly organised in the Liberal party—are crying out about their heavy burden of taxation. Wishing to divide the cost of those forces and institutions necessary to keep the workers down, they propose to tax land or land values. The landowners, on the other hand, have no desire to be taxed further, hence their bitter wail.

This time honoured squabble as to who should pay is but one between robbers over the cost of the robbery.

[From the article, 'The Lying Land Campaign: The Socialist View' by Adolph Kohn, the Socialist Standard, September 1912.]

The Jamaican scene (1962)

From the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The following letter has been received from a sympathiser in Jamaica and we think it will be of interest to our readers.

The Jamaica Labour Party has won the recent election with 26 of the 45 seats, thus replacing the Peoples National Party. In 1944 after the new constitution for adult suffrage was granted, the J.L.P. came, into power with an overwhelming majority. Their leader Bustamente had led strikes of portworkers, and farm labourers throughout the island. This, of course, made him very popular with the workers. On assuming power, however, his militancy for wage increase disappeared. He soon showed his true colours by breaking up strikes by force. Cost of living had by then overtaken wages, and by the next election in 1949 his popularity had decreased tremendously, particularly in the urban areas. He was returned, but with a reduced majority.

The P.N.P. by this time had been making good use of the opportunities offered it by the J.L.P. and went: around preaching the need for “Socialism.” Here is an excerpt from one of its pamphlets:

“The aims of Socialism are the same in Jamaica as they are everywhere. There are two great principles. To give to, and secure, that the people in a democratic way shall really own and control the things which are used to produce what people need, that is to say, the land of their country and money for its development.” Another section of this documents says, “Socialism condemns capitalism, because Capitalism has had a long innings and it does not work. In the struggle for profit for the few, the many starve.”

One can just imagine the impact this had on the workers. This must be the party to end our misery and inequalities the people thought. The electorate expressed their confidence in this party by voting them into power in January, 1955. Like the Labour Party of England the P.N.P. turned out to have a lot to say about Socialism out of office, but very little to do when it was in power. They first made friends with the civil service with substantial pay increase, which causes this section of the working class to reach a high social status, thus identifying their interests with that of their rulers, and consequently rejecting other workers of a lower income. Social prejudice now replaced colour prejudice as a dominant evil in society. The terrible housing problem was left to private capital, so only those workers who were in a reasonably good job could afford to sign their life away on some financial company’s document, for a house.

In education only those who are advanced get any chance, classrooms are overcrowded and many children leave school before they are fifteen. The government had promised to end unemployment, but the problem is as obvious as ever. They claim to have provided 30,000 jobs in seven years, but there is still well over 100,000 unemployed (without the help of emigration it would be much more). Instead of curbing inequality the P.N.P. helped it to increase. Hooliganism flourished, the Rasta cut themselves off from society, and frustration and disillusion was expressed in various other forms. The P.N.P. had now lost all its “left wing” vigour. They had failed like so many before them in trying to run Capitalism in the interest of the rich and poor. The poor had long been forsaken. While the government was making a muddle of things, the J.L.P. took its chances and used the high cost of living and the unemployment problem to regain its lost popularity. They promised to solve everything and the workers, not knowing any better, believed them. Many reasons have been given for the P.N.P.’s defeat. The press (there is only one daily) claim that they treated the people as schoolmaster and students. Others say that the party’s slogan “Follow the man with the plan,” laid too much emphasis on one man, their leader Manley. On one thing they are all agreed, that nothing will basically change.

There are only two unions and they are both party controlled. The B.I.T.U. (Bustamante Industrial Trade Union) affiliated to the J.L.P. and the N.W.U. (National Workers’ Union) associated to the P.N.P. Both unions have continually joined forces in crushing the formation of any other union. When the union’s party is out of office they are very conscious of the workers’ problems. When they have changed position, however, they become completely docile to it.

Society in Jamaica is just as sick as anywhere else where Capitalism exists. Young men turn to rum drinking, others to the doctrine of the rasta; and the disgust and emptiness of peoples’ lives increase daily. It is the job of Socialists to expand their bounds and give them a new purpose for living, the purpose of understanding Socialism. They can then help in establishing a society where the satisfaction of man is our only goal.

D.

Branch News (1962)

Party News from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Autumn Delegate Meeting is being held on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, October 6th and 7th at Head Office, 52 Clapham High Street, SW4. More details will be given next month, but meanwhile it is hoped that Comrades will note the date and Branch Secretaries will contact Head Office regarding Provincial Delegates in order that arrangements can be made if necessary for their accommodation.

Outdoor Propaganda generally has been good, despite the very bad weather, Birmingham with Coventry have been teaming well and their programme should be further stimulated by visits from London members. Glasgow are keeping up the good work and no doubt will have a lively Autumn-Winter programme for indoor meetings, more details in October.

The Propaganda Committee is planning at least one large indoor meeting to start off the Winter session and on going to press, they have not quite fixed up the date and venue, but certainly Comrades will be well informed in order that they can give their full support to the meeting. The Films Committee is also very busy with their winter programme and will have a goodly list of films for showing in October.

Regretfully, the changed meeting place of Coventry Group was not given in the last two issues of the Standard and members and sympathisers are asked to note that the Group meets at 60 Alma Street, (off Lower Ford Street) Coventry on the first and third Mondays in each month. Enquiries should be made to the Secretary at that address.

Wembley Branch members were unfortunately unable to canvass in Portsmouth on June 17th as planned, but managed to hold the scheduled open-air meeting on the sea front. This was successful, and the comrades have arranged another for August 19th. Results of this in our next issue.

Stevenage is due for a visit from Wembley on August 26th when a canvass will be tried, this to follow Paddington’s meeting there on on the previous day. It is hoped that the newly formed Mid-Herts group will get some help from this effort.

Posters advertising our meetings have now been sent to British Railways and should be appearing shortly on station hoardings in our area. We plan to keep our local press advertising going at the same time, of course, and it will be interesting to see what sort of results we get. Other branches might like to try the poster idea. It is comparatively cheap.

Having run several successful indoor public meetings, we are busy planning another for the late autumn. Members and friends are asked to watch tor details, and to give all the help they can.

Glasgow Branch are following up their most successful series of indoor lectures with an enlarged outdoor series of meetings. They hold regular Sunday evening meetings in West, Regent Street and on Saturday afternoons speak at Royal Exchange Square. In addition they hold meetings at the Mound in Edinburgh every Sunday, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. They have also opened a new outdoor speaking stance at Rose Street, off Sauchiehall Street on Thursday evenings.

They have prepared an ambitious series of lectures for the indoor season in St. Andrews Halls this winter from October till April and those interested will find the details elsewhere in this issue. The Branch also intend to run this series in Hamilton and Edinburgh—and those interested in the Hamilton meetings should contact T. Jones, 56 Buchanan Crescent, Laighstonehall, Hamilton, and those residing in the Edinburgh area should contact the Glasgow Branch organiser, A. Thomson, Shirva, Twechar, Glasgow. The success of this, the most ambitious series of lectures depends upon the support of sympathisers and Party contacts. We make a special appeal to all those interested in Socialism in the Hamilton and Edinburgh areas to support this venture.

Phyllis Howard

SPGB Meetings (1962)

Party News from the September 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialist Sonnet No. 245: Echoes (2026)

From the Socialism or Your Money Back blog

Echoes

Socialism or Barbarism! Which?

Citizens, of what once was the Third Reich,

    Voting in numbers for the barbaric;

    Can they be persuaded, one day, to switch

    From all parties left and right and centre?

    They’ve fundamental grievances of course,

    Yet bitter politics lead to remorse

    Once nationalism’s allowed to enter

    Everyday discourse. Politicians try,

    But their best intentions fail hour by hour

    Because capital holds the real power:

    And patriotism is its biggest lie.

    The ballot box can leave pundits aghast,

    When it’s an echo chamber for the past.

D.A.

                                                                                                                                

Sting in the Tail: Discontented Capitalists (1994)

The Sting in the Tail column from the September 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Discontented Capitalists

At present Lord Palumbo is facing a fierce legal battle with his son and daughter over his management of a £70 million trust fund. They reckon he should be replaced as trustee as they don't like some of the things he is doing with the money.

This wrangling over the loot produced by the working class amongst the families of the capitalists is no new thing, but what makes it interesting is some of the expenditure by Lord Palumbo that is revealed by the dispute.

"Among the transactions being questioned by the children are the purchase of a Scottish island and two houses in France worth £4.5 million; £9.5 m in directors' payments; charitable donations of £4.9m; and donations to Tory party funds of £263,000.

They also allege that £13m has been spent on works of art, £2.5m on wine and about £2m on assorted properties and vintage cars. Lord and Lady Palumbo deny any misuse of the trust fund."

(The Independent 6th August).

Managing a £70 million trust fund must be quite demanding, doing so while allegedly consuming about £7,000 a week, since 1987, on booze is mind blowing!

Would-be capitalists

Workers are forever dreaming of winning the football pools. Living, as they do, in poor housing and fearing the prospect of unemployment it is not difficult to see why.

If you live in a large city like Manchester or Glasgow, statistically you have a better chance of being murdered than winning a large prize on the pools.

Even if you should be one of the very lucky few it does not mean security for life as shown by a report in the Sunday Times (31 July)

"Stockbroker Peter Creegan, who advises Littlewoods winners, advises: no pools winner should give up work unless he is at least 40."

Certainly, if like Lord Palumbo, your wine bill is £7,000 a week, you should consider keeping on your day job.

Contented capitalists

Under the heading "City Warms to Tony Blair’s Labour", The Independent (6 August) in their View from City Road column recalled how pleasing past Labour governments have been to all those drones, hangers-on and speculators collectively known as "the City."

"During the first Wilson government of 1963 to 1970, shareholders saw a 100 percent return on shares, or 13 percent a year, and in the second period of Labour rule returns were nearly 200 per cent, or 40 per cent a year, according to figures prepared by BZW.

Gilt markets did not do so well in the first phase, returning only 5 per cent over the seven year period, but returns were over 100 per cent, or 20 per cent a year, under Labour in the seventies."

Remembering that the source of all rent, interest and profit is the unpaid labour of the working class, you can see that while some sections of the British capitalist class may rejoice at the return of a Labour government no member of the working class should.

Odious comparison

Some other shareholders are also upset. These are managers in British Telecom who are faced with redundancy. BT wants to get rid of 6,500 of them this year even if this means by compulsion.

As is usual in such cases, those faced with the sack argued that savings could be made elsewhere and pointed to the huge sums paid to BTs Board of Directors.

BTs Chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, had a predictable answer to that one:

". . . board decisions were more far-reaching in their impact and deserved a higher bonus level, while board salaries also had to reflect the level of pay at other top companies."

(Guardian 29 July)

That last bit is sheer humbug. What if BTs unions demanded a pay rise because "other top companies" were paying more than BT workers were getting? Vallance's answer to that would be equally predictable — that what other companies pay their employees in no business of BT.

Wrong union

In July we drew attention to some Buddhist monks in Japan who formed a trade union. Now we learn that the Manufacturing, Science and Finance union (MSF) has recruited a dozen Anglican clergy and hopes to enrol thousands more in a special clergy section.

Falling congregations and the loss of millions of pounds on the property market have forced the church into a major economy drive. "Livings" have been lost as parishes amalgamated and there is a proposal to abolish "the parson’s freehold" which has guaranteed free housing and job security until 70.

Faced with this twin threat, one union recruit said:

"On the whole, my background would not be particularly pro-union, but I'm in the process of being re-educated. We are being told bishops are man-managers, that they are adopting management structures. The logic is, if they want to adopt a more managerial stance, those at the coalface must adopt a more ’worker' stance."

(Guardian 3 August)

That clergymen should join a trade union is appropriate enough. What is not is joining one which has some connection with science.

God in retreat

Thirty-one years ago the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich's book, Honest to God, put the cat among the theological pigeons. In it he denied the existence of a supernatural God. Instead, God was love, tolerance and all that was best in mankind.

Now comes Anthony Freeman, the Sussex Gear, who has been sacked by the C of E for saying much the same. And he is not alone. He has the support of 22 vicars, non-conformist ministers and a Roman Catholic priest.

One of his supporters said: " . . . to hold to a traditional view of an external deity does not make sense" (Guardian 4 August), while Freeman claimed on TV that "a substantial number" of priests shared his views but are afraid to speak out in case they share his fate.

Islamic fundamentalism and crackpot evangelism may be temporarily on the rise elsewhere, but in this part of the world religious superstition is undeniably in headlong retreat.

Blogger's Note:

The August 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard carried an article - written by Pieter Lawrence - which discussed the controversy surrounding the Bishop of Woolwich's book, Honest to God.

How to end the rail strike (1994)

From the September 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

A strike is not an act of nature, like a thunder storm or an earthquake. There were no strikes in the earliest human communities, when goods were held in common and no person worked as an employee of another. Fred Flintstone might have had trouble with his boss, but in the real Stone Age work was not conducted on the basis of exploiter and exploited, and the real Fred Flintstone would have been as baffled by such absurdities as working for wages as he would be by Hollywood cinematography. 

The strike is a result of an antagonism between two interests: employers and employees. The employer needs to pay the lowest wages or salaries possible in order to maximise profits. The employee, having no interest in the act of employment besides the money that can be obtained, seeks the highest wage or salary for the job.

The explanation of this antagonism lies in a brief examination of the nature of wages and salaries. These are, in fact, prices. They are the price paid by the employer for the labour power of the worker. A capitalist will only pay this price on one condition: that he expects the value of the worker's product to be greater than the wage or salary' paid. In short, capitalists only buy labour power if it will produce for them unearned income (surplus value) which is over and above its ow n value. So, contrary to the illusion that the boss gives his workers a wage or salary, the truth is that the workers give the capitalists a free gift (surplus value which is the basis of profit) and the wages/salaries paid are merely the part of what is created by the workers which is not stolen by the employer. To thank a boss for your wage is like sending a thank-you letter to a burglar who steals everything from your home and then leaves you a fiver to buy yourself a second-hand armchair.

Exploitation

Why do workers put up with this exploitative situation of constantly giving more to the employers than we are given back in the form of wages or salaries? The answer is simple: under capitalism we have no choice but to work for those who own the means of wealth production and distribution, i.e factories, farms, mines, railways, airlines, the media etc. The only productive resource workers own is our labour power, our mental and physical energies. Selling these for the best price we can obtain is our means of paying for the necessities, and occasionally luxuries, of life. Given that we cannot live on share interest or profits from employing others (because we lack capital), our only option is to try to sell our one possession of value: our labour power. We are wage slaves.

If the market creates a high demand for labour power workers are in a good bargaining position over wages and salaries. This is often so in a time of economic expansion, when both skilled and unskilled workers are scarce and capitalists, in order to receive their golden eggs, must pay the geese well. Often they will even seek to recruit labour power from overseas, as Enoch Powell did as Minister of Health when he urged West Indians to come to Britain and take low-paid jobs. Right now the market is far from expanding. There is an economic depression, millions are unemployed and the bosses have more supply of labour power available than they demand to make profits.

In the current situation, not only in Britain but across the globe, the capitalists can afford to be very arrogant. They will shed jobs, force workers to accept worse conditions, longer hours, fewer safety regulations and, above all, lower wages and salaries. In a market which offers wage slaves the simple choice between low wages or no wages workers tend to knuckle under.

The best way for workers to defend themselves is to form trades unions. Originally these were seen by the bosses as a threat and those joining them were deported (the Tolpuddle Martyrs) or outlawed in other ways. By uniting workers in a particular place of work or type of occupation unions could say to the employers that either certain demands must be accepted or the workers would withdraw their labour — strike. This is the most powerful defensive weapon which workers have under a system of wage slavery. It will not stop us from being wage slaves, but it can improve our conditions of exploitation.

Class Struggle

In this century two false beliefs associated with trade unionism have emerged. The first is that strikes can somehow overthrow capitalism. This is all nonsense: when workers decide to get rid of capitalism we will not withdraw our labour, but withdraw the capitalists' right to buy it. Striking is not a revolutionary strategy. The second fallacy adopted by some trade unionists, especially those with jobs within the union hierarchy, is to accept that employers and employees have a common interest. British union leaders under Labour governments have been especially willing to accept this illusion, particularly when state-run industries meant that strike action would place their members in conflict with a Labour-run state. These leaders are usually rewarded with well-paid retirements in the House of Lords. But the fact is that workers and capitalists can have no common interest. We are class enemies.

A more recent fallacy is that the class struggle is all a thing of the past. Strikes were once useful, but now workers have been "tamed" and outgrown such disruptive practices. It is quite true that in a recession unions are limited in their capacity to obtain improved wages and conditions, and that after several years of sustained attacks on trade unionism (not just in Britain, but across the world) many unions are demoralised, depleted and legally weakened. But the class struggle has not gone away; the struggle of the RMT against RailTrack is clear proof that strikes can still be used as a powerful weapon to force the bosses to retreat. If the Railtrack employers had accepted the original pay settlement without a strike they would have lost hugely less profits than has since been the case. The more united striking workers are the greater the chance of victory. This is why strikes should always be conducted democratically, for willing strikers will fight longer and harder than workers pushed into a strike by union leaders. Working class unity is also important because the bosses will always seek to bribe scabs to fill in for union workers, so weakening the effects of the strike.

Socialists recognise the important need for workers to be in unions. Not just to be in them, but to participate democratically. The unions must not be hijacked by would be Lords who use them to create a spurious class unity or by muddled leftists who use workers' struggles for their own ends. When there is a strike which is on sound class lines and democratically organised, socialists are always on the side of the strikers and against the employers and their hirelings, the scabs.

End Wage-slavery

We do not leave the class struggle there. Unlike those leftist groups which imagine that fighting the class war is the be all and end all of working class action, socialists maintain that fighting over terms of wage slavery, while necessary, is ultimately futile. The aim to struggle for is to end wage slavery and with it the class struggle.

We have stated that in pre-property society there was common ownership of resources and no employment. Socialists are not calling for a return to those times, but for the creation of those social relationships in the setting of current technological development. In short, we are not opposed to modern production, which is now capable of producing enough for all, but to modern relations of production. The objective, then, is to abolish the minority class ownership of the means of producing and distributing wealth and replace this with common ownership and democratic control on the basis of production solely for use, not for sale or profit.

Do socialists want more strikes? No, we do not. The strike is essentially a feature of the waste caused by capitalism. Who wants trains standing still when there are places for people to go and goods to be moved? In a socialist society, where wage labour will be a thing of the past, there will be no reason to strike, for each of us will work according to our abilities and take from the common store according to our needs.

There will be those who say that this is too much to hope for. But what is the alternative? Years of workers striking and struggling over crumbs from the cake which we have baked. Is it not time to seek more then crumbs or even a bigger slice of the cake and go for the bakery itself?

Steve Coleman

Learning for survival (1994)

From the September 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists tend to emphasize the humanitarian aspects of Socialism. Given that the problems people face are gross and immediate and that they are an endemic part of capitalism, this is not unreasonable. We quote the millions of deaths every year from hunger and its diseases, we spell out the facts of poverty and unemployment, slums and homelessness and the rape of the environment and we try to put into words the horror of unending war and violence that is an ever-present feature of capitalism.

Like other workers, socialists live within the system; we experience these problems but, of course, we are not in a position to quantify them. Ironically, the measures of these appalling miseries that we do use to support our contention that capitalism is a blight on humanity are almost always drawn from the agencies of capitalism itself.

What is not quantified, and cannot be measured (except, perhaps, in terms of crime and other forms of socially-alienated behaviour), is the complex conception of isolation, of not belonging, of being of little or no consequence within society, of not achieving, accepting society’s definition of failure, being socially, physically or financially inadequate. These are among the problems and inevitable uncertainties that, in a competitive world, feed anger, frustration and despair and, against the heightened profile of the “success" culture, increasingly transmute these emotions into forms of depravity that the great majority of people find confusing and frightening.

You do not have to be a psychologist to appreciate that it is these capitalist inputs that cause the myriad conflicts and divisions that categorize people, minimize expectation and induce loneliness and fear. What passes for education, rather than being concerned with the development of knowledge and personality in the individual, to allow him or her a meaningful role in society, is, certainly for the working class, a fear-ridden process of training designed to equip the recipient to sell a major portion of his or her life to an employer (another human being or group of human beings) simply in order to live. The price of failure can be grim and permanent.

Two facts stand out in relation to this usurpation of young lives into the relentless, pressurized process of training that presently masquerades as education. The first is that many of the alleged “educational” facets peculiar to most of capitalism’s specialized functions have little or no value outside the marketing needs of the present system. Most of the training that underpins the legal profession, accounting, financial management and many other of capitalism’s much-vaunted professions, has no educational value in the true sense of the term; their value is solely in the functions they perform within capitalism and, if that system ended tomorrow, the acquired skills of practitioners in these areas would be redundant.

The second point is that because education is budgeted largely against taxation and taxation is ultimately a charge on capital, it has to be cost-efficient. It is this that dictates most of the practices in the schools and it is this that to a large extent determines success or failure because these qualities are determined by time. For working-class children the school programme is scheduled to take place within a given period of years. Wisdom gained after term, after exams or assessments or following the end of schooling doesn’t earn a diploma.

The whole process, rather than being one that integrates the young as caring members of society, is an intensive survival course that engenders the primacy of self. This concept is, of course, in line with the flawed notions of “individualism” that capitalism promotes as an alibi for the ghastly social plunder of the many by the few — within which framework the great majority of individuals have their lives demeaned and circumscribed by the alien interests of those who live on the fruits of their labour. The idea of self is an essential prerequisite of a world of property values.

While these values are unlikely to achieve any great measure of realization or satisfaction for the great mass of people who have no stake in ownership outside that of a few personal effects and, perhaps, a mortgage, they are of use to capitalism because they are the foundation stone of working-class acceptance of that system. The whole structure of capitalism is based on the belief, inculcated from childhood and reinforced in the school system, that every man and woman has the right to accumulate individual wealth even though such wealth is the product of the labour of others. The numerous religions accept this, the educational system generally embodies it in academic studies and, of course, the achievement of wealth, however unscrupulously gained, is a passport to influence, power and esteem.

Such is the credit side, for capitalists. For capitalism, on the other hand, this ruthless conception of self is a basic cause of many problems, not simply among those scrambling for profit but among the masses of frustrated individuals who are wholly or partially denied the realization of even their modest hopes or who are alienated by the denial of hope itself. This frustration, this denial, and the anger, fear and lack of concern it breeds for other individuals is the source of most antisocial behaviour, of crime, aggression and jealousy as well as much of the neurosis affecting society today.

Socialists see the individual truly liberated when human personal attainment is fully separated from the task of procuring the material means of living. In Socialism individuals would act in voluntary co-operation to produce all the goods and services required to provide each individual with the material means of a full life. The cost-factor that plays such an essential part in determining “education”, training, working and planning in capitalist society would disappear, along with the old social relations.

Certainly Socialism will solve the economic problems of society but, in order to appreciate how it will radically change the role of the individual in society, we would contrast the role of the individual in a Socialist society with the cost-efficient wage-slave that is an essential requirement of capitalism.

Socialism will measure efficiency in terms of human happiness. Every single person will have a claim on society for the provision of his or her material needs. Education, in whatever form it takes, will be a process aimed at developing skills and abilities in line with the individual preferences of each person —and, for those who require it, it would be an ongoing process rather than a crammed apprenticeship for work. Primarily, the emphasis will be on the individual but rather than the competitive selfishness which capitalism must inculcate in the individual as survival training for a world that pits student against student, worker against worker and human against human. the student in Socialism will live and study in an ambience of social cooperation. The logic of that co-operation will be evident in every facet of life and it would be no exaggeration to say that many of the anti-social products of our cost-effective grading and assessment system of today would be regarded, in Socialism, as abnormalities that required help.

Of course, our current systems of education have evolved with the present economic system and just as they would be immediately abolished in a socialist world because of their anti-social, even anti-human, nature, so, too, would the values and concerns of socialist education be alien and harmful to capitalism. Imagine an educational establishment turning out individuals today who see their role as actively co-operating with their fellows in the pursuit of the interests of society as a whole. They would quickly be chewed up in the competition and conflict of capitalism, the educational system would have failed them by failing to make them selfish, contending fighters for survival. Imagine the more general application of such a system: capitalism's workforce would refuse to compete with one another; refuse to partake in the exploitation of their fellows; there would be few police and the judiciary would become socially inquisitive. And, of course, who would make munitions and do capitalism’s killing?

As we said at the outset, Socialists usually emphasize the material problems of capitalism and, perhaps, one of the reasons for this is that we feel poverty, world hunger, slums, unemployment etc., are more visual than the mental enslavement of our class. But that mental enslavement is a terrible reality, a reality designed by the political pundits of capitalism and serviced by its system of “education” and conditioning.

Richard Montague