How well is the "Welfare State"? (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

(Continued from August Socialist Standard).

The reader of the previous articles under this title will have seen that all is not well in the “Welfare State.” It is, besides, significant that more often than not, the term is applied sarcastically, as a joke. If the writer quoted the pattern of Austria, this is only because of his first-hand information on a country with a reputation for, and boasting of, its social welfare schemes, even though equally frequent criticisms of its social evils flatly contradict the praise.

Thus a recent Vienna daily paper wrote: “We still have a fearful housing problem, with all the social evils and misery resulting therefrom. No long queues of automobiles, no fine facades, and no richly stocked and brilliantly illuminated shop windows should deceive us about the ugly pictures behind. Despite the enormous economic progress of the last few years, Austria is not yet among the well-to-do of this earth ” . . . "Let us carry the wave of readiness to help which we showed towards the Hungarian refugees, into our own land. Let us, when the appalling need of the neighbour has been alleviated, clear away our own misery! ” What? Misery in the Welfare State, of which the "socialist” Sozial-minister Proksch says: "The Welfare State brings welfare to everybody and therewith guarantees well-being to every citizen.”

Money for the Salzburg Festival

When the “socialist” Vice-chancellor was touring the country in a campaign to get himself elected as federal president, he discovered to what he called his "astonishment” that in addition to the large depressed areas of Lower Austria and the Burgenland, there are “depressed areas” also in Carinthia and in the province of Salzburg which had not directly suffered from Russian depredations and loot. In winter one-third of all insured persons are without work there. The burgomasters who had come to listen to the candidate, told him of their cares and their troubles. "When I am in Salzburg,” said one of them, "I see work proceeding on the Festival Playhouse; it is very nice, but when I come home and see the cows standing knee deep in water, because of the lack of protective river embankments against floods, which turn roads into an impassable quagmire, I ask myself whether there really is no money for us. Every day tractors have to haul out autos stuck in the mire.” (Millions throughout the world might ask themselves similar questions when they read of the astronomical sums spent on armaments, and that a small clique of parasites can live in luxury and idleness in the fine resorts of the world while the people everywhere are grappling with terrible housing problems and sink daily deeper into the quagmire of their misery). Similar conditions obtain in other countries, regardless of whether they are kingdoms, republics, democratic or totalitarian, whether they falsely style themselves Socialist or Communist, or what you will. The ruler of all of them is King Capital, with his retinue of privileged drawers of rent, interest and profit, and leaving to the mass of the people the residue, of poverty and misery. To those who want a distinction to be made between this and the other side of the iron curtain, here is what it amounts to:—

Two Sides of the Iron Curtain

Economically, the iron heel of capitalism treads and exploits the workers in the West as in the East, differences of standards of living notwithstanding. Whether private owners of property and bond-holders of nationalised industries use their wealth for the purpose of living on rent, interest and profit (the surplus-value wrung from the workers), as in the West, or whether all the surplus-value is exclusively collected, controlled and disposed of by a clique of usurpers of power, ruling by means of their secret police and the armed forces, as in the East, makes little, if any, difference to the exploited—the working class. The latter are without property anyway on either side of the iron curtain, and have to exist on the sale of their labour-power to the employers. And on BOTH sides the State disposes, as it thinks fit, of the wealth and the surplus value (exacted either direct from the industries or by taxation), a huge amount of it going, of course, to the maintenance of its coercive machinery: the judiciary, the police, and the armed forces.

Politically, the iron heel of capitalism crushes the critic and the opponent of the powers that be in the East by deportation to forced labour camps, prison or death; to the West by sacking him from his job, and so exposing him to pauperism.

King Capital still rules

Labour leaders and “communists” may prattle of past "proletarian revolutions," of “Declarations of the rights of man," of “social justice." The much boasted “Rise of the working class" finds the workers still on their knees before their master: Capital. He looks down upon them and only smiles a superior smile at assertions that he is supposed to be dead and done. And when last year in Hungary some of his infuriated victims attacked and felled to the ground a monument to one of King Capital’s particularly brutal and obnoxious defenders, thunder and lightning struck the earth, and the world still reverberates from the impact. 200,000 had to flee for their lives and others paid and are still paying, the penalty for their foolhardy desecration and blasphemy, and for their illusions.

No, the “Rise of the working-class" (which should more appropriately be called “the rise of the labour leader") and the socialism of the “Socialist International" has not affected the rule of capital and money. Kings, ex-kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, princes and princesses, Indian and Arabian potentates, big land-owners, shipowners, and other millionaire industrialists and magnates, bishops and popes still live in their sumptuous castles and palaces, leading lives of luxury and idleness. They need not fear for their property and privileges as long as the working-class vote for the Gaitskells and the Bevans, as they did for the Attlees and Ramsay MacDonalds, and their colleagues on the Continent, the Guy Mollets, the Spaaks, the Ollenhauers, the Neeuis, the Schaerfs, and the rest of the lackeys of capital. Labour leaders now contribute their plans and suggestions to the so-called “Disarmament" talks in London and thereby demonstrate to the capitalist class that they are at least equal to, or claim to do better than the other statesmen in an effort to save the big Powers' talks from final breakdown. Like all the other statesmen, the “International Socialists" assembled in Vienna to July did not even mention the Cause of the multitude of problems confronting the world, but tendered advice to the Powers. They “viewed with deep concern the continued tension among the big Powers. A glance at the centres of tension in Europe, North Africa, in the Middle and Far East, confirms in a shocking manner the uninterrupted threat to, and violation of, the principles of self-determination of the peoples, the danger to the holy and unassailable rights of the personality, of freedom and social justice." (Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung, 7/7/1957). We will save the reader from more of the platitudes and claptrap of the Resolution agreed to by this “International Socialist Congress," but what Mr. Gaitskell said in the discussion on the international situation bears repeating and remembering. He called “for a separate agreement not tied to a general disarmament pact, to stop atomic and hydrogen bomb explosions." “It would be wrong," he said, “to make the suspension of tests dependent on a ban on nuclear weapons, although Socialists wanted this too."

So today it is disarmament and atom-control, tomorrow it will probably be a crusade against, or for. Colonialism (with the French “socialist" Guy Mollet for, and the Austrian “Marxist," Dr. Benedikt Kautsky, against), or any other problem facing the capitalist class. Kautsky describes England and France as the “sick men of Europe," and advocates the eradication of the last trace of colonialism, if the “unification of Europe" is to be achieved. Now Germany was unified before the war, America achieved its unification long ago, but has this solved the social problem? Is it really too much to ask of a “Marxist" to try advocating the eradication of capitalism for the solution of its problems?

It is a pity that Kautsky cannot persuade his comrade Mollet to write off the (French) colonial empire, as Holland has done, according to Kautsky, with such conspicuous success that it is “one of the economically healthiest states on the Continent." Millions of natives in the liberated colonies will probably still be looking for the benefits of having exchanged one clique of exploiters (the foreigner) for another set (the native).

Nonsense about India, Japan, etc.

Under the slogan: “ Like Renner, like Korner," the “Socialist Party of Austria" have been boosting one of their leaders. Dr. Adolf Schärf, for the job of Austrian President, and indeed, if these leaders emulate their predecessors in one thing more than in another, it is in betraying their ignorance of Socialism; or, if they do understand it, in betraying the great cause. If the late Dr. Renner asserted that “two of the greatest empires are already being controlled by the working-class," the S.P. of Austria’s vice-chancellor, back from a world tour, reported to the Party conference that:

“In India Socialism had become a matter of course. Gandhi had made the fundamental ideas of democratic Socialism the common ideal of the Indian people.”

“The Congress Party’s programme can be considered as almost socialistic. Even those who do not want to be Socialists, can no longer do without its ideas.”

Dr. Schärf found “big socialist movements in Nepal and in Pakistan"; to Ceylon the Prime Minister is a “socialist." In Burma the government is under “socialist leadership." In Indonesia one million “socialist" votes were polled at the last election.

Japan was also reported to have its tremendous “socialist" movement. One town—Kioto—with 1½ million inhabitants, has a “socialist" administration— like red Vienna.

Israel has its “socialist" Prime Minister, Ben-Gurion, whose party is the “strongest in the land." Emulating the British Labour Party, which brought in the A-bomb, the Israel “socialist" government is now said to be contemplating its introduction also. Although the Austrian “socialist" Vice-Chancellor was one of the chief promoters of the new Austrian army, there has been no suggestion yet of emulating the big brother across the Channel in the matter of A-bombs. They are apparently content with “conventional weapons"—for the time being, at any rate.

Concluding his report, Dr. Schärf said: “In the wide territories of which I have spoken. Socialism is so strong that even classes whose interests are not represented by Socialism acknowledge its superiority, and endeavour to benefit as much as possible by its ideas."

Ignorant of Socialism

The fact that prominent leaders like those quoted see millions of Socialists throughout the world and Socialism having already become a world power, proves that the misrepresentation of Socialism and the theft of Socialist symbols is either so deeply ingrained as to have made those leaders quite unconscious of their fraud, or that they have never at all understood the implications of the great cause. The dilemma which America presents to these pseudo-Socialists would seem to well bear out the point. Here is a country reputedly not only with a standard of living higher than in any “socialist" or "Welfare State” but also with social services on the European pattern, though denying that these things have anything whatever to do with Socialism. It is a policy of mere self-preservation for capitalism, nothing else. So, with a sneer at those "pundits” who would "represent America as purely capitalistic,” Dr. Scharf attributes it all to Socialist influence, although he has to admit that there is no big Socialist party in America.

Socialists could wish nothing better than that the statements that there are already millions of Socialists throughout the world were true, because the end of capitalism and war would then be within sight; but unfortunately it is not so.

A question that invariably crops up at “International Socialist” and “Communist” Party Conferences is the framing of a declaration of principles. A difficult job indeed for parties without principles, and operating with nothing but capitalist reform programmes fraudulently clothed in vague and distorted Socialist language. So the committees appointed to work out a new party programme usually shelve the task and no more is heard about it

Even when these leaders on occasion vaguely declare their aim to be the “liberation of the peoples and man from their dependency on a minority which owns and controls the means of production,” their actual policy is in direct contradiction to any such aim. The real implications of Socialism are completely ignored, so much so that most workers, when told that under Socialism there could, of course, be no buying and selling, will say that they never heard of it, and call it a Utopia. Yet if Socialism does not mean the end of these things, the word would be meaningless. The writer cannot do better than quote here from the leaflet “Introducing the SOCIALIST PARTY of Great Britain,” which says:—

“The aim of the S.P.G.B. is to replace Capitalism by a world-wide social system in which the means of production and distribution would cease to be privately owned and would pass to the whole community. This would bring to an end the present competition for markets and sources of raw materials between the different countries that causes international rivalries and leads to war. Under Socialism goods would not be produced for sale and profit but would be produced solely for the use of mankind. All forms of income derived from property (profits, rents and interest) would disappear. The economic problem to be tackled by a Socialist society would be the problem of organising the able-bodied population to cooperate in producing food, clothing, houses, and all the other articles and services needed for the full life of human beings. All persons would have free access to the things they needed, production and distribution being in accordance with the Socialist principle:—'From each according to ability; to each according to need'.”

"Socialism cannot be brought about inside the Capitalist social system. One social system must be replaced by the other and Socialism is necessarily international.”

Rudolf Frank

(To be continued).

Instructions for M A.'s (Miracle Agents) (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Schoolmaster and Woman Teachers' Chronicle, journal of the National Union of Teachers, can never be accused of harbouring anything that could be labelled “revolutionary” or “seditious” thought; on the contrary, it has always, despite “differences” from time to time with this or that Minister of Education, been the champion of the British way of life; i.e., it supports the system of Capitalism whilst grumbling at the rewards. In supporting Capitalism it often goes to strange lengths. An example of this is afforded in the current issues. There we find a series of articles entitled “Religious Education in the Primary School.” At the time of writing we have reached episode X, entitled “Teaching about the Miracles.”

When we realise that the depository of the Christian religion—the Church—is today, apart from a hard core of “Fundamentalists,” composed largely of “Apologists” of various degrees, one can indeed be curious as to how the question of Miracles can be explained in this day and age so that they do not lose their value in telling. It is the business of the author to do just this. The Rev. writer rushes to the aid of the teacher, to the harassed believer grappling with a situation which is getting increasingly difficult and also to those who have abandoned the struggle as far as Miracles are concerned, merely relating just those Biblical stories in which human virtues are displayed, like sharing one’s raiment with the more unfortunate, or the bravery of little David standing up to a giant

One reads the article painfully. One sees that the idea is to “catch ’em young" (hence the emphasis on the Primary School). Religious belief being, as we are so often told, a matter of faith rather than knowledge, the teacher is expected to abandon his or her true vocation in order to mould the malleable minds of children in such a manner as to fit them into the estate it has “chosen God to place them” (and at the same time make them suitable material for Capitalist Society.)

Consider the grand attack against Unbelief. In true apologetic manner part X of the series defines the word “miracle” as “a wonder,” “something contrary to the laws of nature,” but qualifies this by quoting St. Augustine’s definition as “contrary to what is known.” It then goes on to discuss Old Testament miracles, and actually dismisses them as “pious legends.” One cannot expect the Church to retreat all the time, and so we find that there are first and second class miracles; i.e., those of the Old Testament, done by ordinary men, and those of the New Testament, performed by Christ himself. We feel sure that the poor teacher now feels on safer ground, especially when we read (in connection with miracles first class): “Belief in God is not to be made dependent upon belief in every event attributed to Him.” (We can now hear the teacher breathe a sigh of relief at being able to choose his miracles). We are next told that “a miracle is not so much an inexplicable event as an occurrence which brings an overwhelming sense of the presence of God.” Quite a bit of verbiage this, meaning, one supposes, that a “miracle,” though proven to be a natural phenomenon, can, because of the wonder, awe or curiosity it invokes, be said to prove the “presence of God.”

Many natural phenomena have done this with varying degrees of awe, wonder, curiosity, etc., arising in the mind of the onlooker depending on the understanding of the times, from the rolling of the thunder to the explosions of the hydrogen bomb. Does the hydrogen bomb prove the “presence of God? ”

The “Rev.” writer, knowing what he is up against, says that despite the difficulties teachers have in teaching (about) miracles, younger children (our italics) will accept them naturally, and questions asked will result from curiosity rather than scepticism! So you see, teacher can now get on with her miracle lessons with no fear of attack from her class of five-year-olds!

It is hard to believe that the writer has ever read history. From the time when the Bible was first published in the vernacular, men have read an account of how the world began. It was their only source of knowledge. But in time this simple faith was shattered. Whilst in the Middle Ages learned Cardinals gathered to argue the number of Angels that could stand on a pin head and later, during the reign of Charles I, Archbishop Usher “proved” that it was 4003 years 2 months 11 days and 6 hours from the Creation to the birth of Christ; today we have grown up somewhat, so that even leaden of religion now openly argue the authenticity of miracles, including the Resurrection, Heaven, and so on.

An attempt is obviously being made to capture lost ground, and the young, being defenceless, are the chosen victims.

“Miracles” cease as Nature’s laws are better understood. When no one doubted them they abounded. They were lavished on the world. Now, when more and more deny them, when the Faith is in dire distress; when just a few of the miracles enacted in the desert of Sinai could shake the Modem World to its foundations and bring us rushing back to the arms of “Mother Church"; now, when the least expenditure in Miracles could bring the maximum result—Miracles cease. An attempt is made to keep them alive by means of stories told to impress the imaginative minds of the young.

When mankind finally breaks the last bonds of religion and realises itself as a long, upward progression, shedding its superstitions on the way. then we will have emerged from bondage to freedom. As Socialists we fight the powers “temporal and spiritual.”

We leave you to cogitate over the words of a well-known hymn: “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. God made them high and lowly and ordered their estate.” This, one suggests, would be a fitting hymn with which to end each lesson on “Miracles Made Easy for Children.” Constant attention to the words is guaranteed to immunise the future worker from the virus of Socialism.

W. Brain.

The Last Hottenhot and the First Bushmen (1957)

From the September 1957 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists used to be asked whether it was necessary to wait for “the last Hottentot” to become a Socialist before Socialism could be established. It was not really necessary to answer, for expanding South African capitalism did it for us and swept him in. He probably goes back to his tribe at intervals, but, in general, he is a wage worker like most of us.

Like the rest of us, he, or his children, will eventually be introduced to Socialist ideas, and will accept them. Having no illusions about social or economic equality with his white bosses, he may even accept the ideas with startling rapidity.

There is an even more primitive group than the Hottentots—the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. Living in an arid, almost waterless region, they have acquired many of the characteristics of the camel, being able to consume very large quantities of meat and water when available, and then existing for days, or even weeks, until the next meal is obtained.

So remote are their habitations that little has been known about them until recently. But the pressing need of South African industry for labour has caused this difficulty to be overcome, as reported in the Johannesburg Star of March 1st, 1957:—

"Bushmen, the wild, near-Pygmy tribe of the Kalahari Desert, who have always been considered too backward to learn how to work, are playing an important role in the production of gold at Stilfontein in the Klerksdorp District.

"At this highly productive, two-year-old mine yesterday, I watched primitive tribesmen, fresh from their nomadic life in the desert, sorting out the freshly crushed gold-bearing reef from waste rock with an unerring eye.

"We reckon that since employing Bushmen on this work, not one piece of gold reef has been wasted,’ Mr. J. V. Penberthy, the personnel officer, told me, ‘ Their eyesight is fantastic' . "

The report goes on to describe the delight of the employers with their new source of labour, and the delight of the new labourers at the novelties of capitalism—boots, regular meals and cinema shows. It does not tell us what pay they receive, but it is safe to assume that this is considerably less than that obtained by other non-European workers, low as that is.

A hopeful sign, from the Socialist point of view, is the fact that the Bushmen are quick to “catch on” when a new concept is put to them. When our ideas reach South Africa in any quantity, we do not think the Bushmen will be unduly backward in understanding them.

J. O. B.

A "Done & Dusted" catch up special

It is a sort of a catch up special . . . "sort of" because I'm not including October's finished Standards. That can be a separate post. They deserve their own post.

Usual schtick . . . click on the months for the full issues.

May's "Done & Dusted"

May 1948

May 2026

July's "Done & Dusted"

July 1936

July 2026

August's "Done & Dusted"

August 2026

September's "Done & Dusted"

September 1947

September 1948

September 1962

September 1971

September 1994

June 2026

September 2026

Marching backwards (2026)

Book Review from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

How I’ve Tried To Change The World. By Alexei Sayle. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2026. £16.99

This is the third of Sayle’s entertaining autobiographical meanders and is subtitled ‘… By Walking Down The Middle of the Street Shouting’. Instead of a straight autobiographical approach to the more recent decades of his career, stand-up comedy’s greatest ever shouter has instead chosen to focus on his political activity and this is the thread everything else revolves around. To an extent it works, though it is also a catalogue of failure and frustration, as he largely admits.

His parents were stalwarts of the old Communist Party of Great Britain but the young Alexei moved on to the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), a Maoist outfit he tired of over time and whose internal atmosphere and membership behaviours he has bemoaned, arguing they could learn a lot from some of the practices of Alcoholics Anonymous. Since then, he has been a supporter of most leftist causes from the late 60s, often prominently so. In recent times he has been especially animated by the atrocity in Gaza and appears to have fallen out with a number of friends over it, including others – like him – of Jewish heritage.

As he recognises, ultimately much of this political activity has been futile, though he clearly had his hopes of something bigger and more successful rekindled by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn when he was Labour leader. This soon went the same way of course, though he seems to downplay the inherent contradictions in the Corbynite position (which was always focused on delivering rhetoric on behalf of the oppressed – while never really challenging the capitalist system of markets, profits and competing nation states that creates the oppressed in the first place). As a great supporter of the Palestinian cause, Sayle also underplays the tendency of Corbyn and his allies to focus on single-issues and rely on the belief that an enemy of an enemy must somehow be a friend, often in a way that has demonstrated a huge degree of political naiveté.

Sayle, however, does show some real lucidity at times which is memorable (as he always does in his stand-up and radio shows). Here he is writing about the Arab Spring when mass movements threatened to topple – and often did topple – a series of Middle East dictatorships:

‘There is no greater argument than the failure of the Arab Spring for leaders of protests needing to understand that they absolutely have to possess a political ideology. For them to have adopted socialism or Marxism or anarchism, this providing a way to bring structure to the act of rebelling. For them, in fact, to have a code. Otherwise, you risk your protest ending up like the Black Lives Matter rallies which went from a visceral outcry against state brutality to players occasionally kneeling before a football match for fuck knows what reason’ (p.147).

Elsewhere Sayle also says that he regards Marxism as the best way available of understanding the world around us … even if it won’t necessarily make you happy! Cheers, Alexei.

DAP

SPGB November 2026 events (2026)

Party News from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our general discussion meetings are held on Zoom. To connect to a meeting, enter https://zoom.us/wc/join/7421974305 in your browser. Then follow instructions on screen and wait to be admitted to the meeting.

50 Years Ago: Reformism fails again (2026)

The 50 Years Ago column from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Socialists have always maintained that parties, such as the Labour Party, which seek power within capitalism to try to improve the lot of the workers, end up not by reforming capitalism, but by being changed by it into simply a party of capitalist administration. A statement made by Callaghan to the Labour Party Conference at the end of September well illustrates this.

The Labour Party always used to support the idea that the way to end a slump and unemployment was to increase government expenditure so as to offset the decline in private capitalist investment, along the lines advocated by Keynes. But now listen to what Callaghan says :

‘We used to think that you could just spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you, in all candour, that that option no longer exists and that in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting bigger doses of inflation into the economy, followed by higher levels of unemployment’ (The Times, 29 September).

What a confession of failure! What a condemnation of the policy which Labour has always advocated and claimed as its own!

What a confession of failure! What a condemnation of the policy which Labour has always advocated and claimed as its own!

The experience of being in power during a slump has forced Callaghan to recognize that, in practice, a Labour government has to pursue the same sort of policy as any openly capitalist government, to try to restore business confidence and profit prospects by reducing workers’ living standards and cutting back on social reforms. In short, to accept the logic of capitalism. (…)

Once again the miserable failure of yet another Labour government has confirmed the Socialist case that capitalism can never be reformed so as to benefit workers and that therefore workers should direct their efforts rather to abolishing capitalism and replacing it by Socialism where the means of production would be owned in common and democratically controlled to satisfy people’s needs.

[From the article 'Reformism fails again' by L. B., Socialist Standard, November 1976.]

Action Replay: Wasn’t me, Guv (2026)

The Action Replay column from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

We can take no stance on the charges against Manchester City, allegedly involving sham contracts that may have enabled them to pay inflated transfer fees and wages, resulting in them becoming the dominant force in English (and maybe even European) football. The potential punishments could involve massive fines, relegation, having titles revoked, and the owners perhaps having to sell. City have appealed over the guilty findings, and no doubt the appeal will take months to sort out, so we cannot comment on what the club may or may not have done. Findings of dishonesty can be overturned, as happened at the top level of Turkish football in 2015, after allegations of match-fixing dating from 2011.

But we can say that the sporting world is in no way above cheating. This can apply to individual competitors who take drugs to improve their performance. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, for instance, a sneaky way was employed to get round anti-doping measures, but it was unmasked, and a number of athletes were banned. Cyclist Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France seven times, but had the titles removed after admitting to taking performance-enhancing drugs.

It can also involve cheating at club level. In 2006 Juventus had two Italian league titles taken away when they were found to have manipulated referees. Marseille lost their 1993 French league title after being found guilty of match-fixing. They were relegated from the top flight, and did not win Ligue 1 again till 2010. At a less exalted level, Elgin City lost their 1993 Highland League title after having the date of one match changed so they could field banned players.

Sometimes the cheating comes from outside the sport, with gambling being an obvious source. In 1997 an Asian betting syndicate bribed stadium workers to cause the floodlights to fail at Premier League matches at times when the scoreline suited their profits. They got away with it twice, but on a third attempt the police were tipped off. In 1964 ten Football League players (including Tony Kay and David Layne) were jailed after betting on the result of matches when they had agreed to influence the outcome. One of the most notorious examples occurred in 1919, when some players in baseball’s Chicago White Sox took bribes to lose the World Series, at the behest of a betting syndicate.

So sport, like capitalist society in general, is often not exactly a level playing field.

Paul Bennett

Editorial: Enough is enough is not enough (2026)

Editorial from the November 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Riots and looting in France. Tent camps in Madrid. European governments are having trouble containing their discontented subjects. In Spain the issue was high rents and evictions. In France it started with school students protesting about the teaching conditions but, in the face of police brutality, turned into riots and looting as others joined in.

Under capitalism the excluded majority will always be discontented to one degree or another. There will always be something to be discontented about as capitalism is not a system whose aim is to meet people’s needs and so neglects or meets them only inadequately. If it’s not housing, it’s education. If it’s not education, it’s the cost of living. If it’s not the cost of living, it’s some other aspect of everyday life.

Protest demonstrations express and measure discontent. An intelligent government, with an eye on being re-elected, may judge it politic to concede something. A government that misjudges the situation risks getting what it got in France: riots, running battles with the police, and looting.

As we report in this issue from correspondents on the ground, the demonstrations in France and Spain last month were in no sense revolutionary. Their aim was to get the government to take measures to alleviate a particular problem. A mass demonstration may be a step beyond voting for some politician and then leaving things to them; the protestors are at least doing something themselves. But it isn’t necessarily any more successful.

Some critics of capitalism see the mass demonstration as the best way to get reforms. Others even imagine this is the way capitalism will be ended. We don’t want to get into a discussion about the best way to get reforms, as reforms, however welcome some might be, are not our aim. However obtained, they can only ever mitigate a problem, never solve it which is what we want. What a government can offer is limited by the nature of capitalism as a system whose priority is making profits for those who own and control the places where what society needs is produced.

No more than voting for reformist politicians can mass demonstrations pressure governments into doing something they are incapable of doing. Capitalism can’t be made to work in the interest of the excluded majority. Governments can’t spend money to improve things for that majority at the expense of the profits of the owning class. That’s the nature of the beast. Street protests and riots can’t make capitalism change its spots, and they certainly can’t overthrow it.

Widespread popular democratic self-organisation based on mandated delegates not leaders is the way – but it needs to be conscious organisation to replace capitalist ownership and production for profit by common ownership and production to directly meet people’s needs. Only a democratically organised, socialist-minded majority can do this. It can’t rely on street demonstrations for this but can use the means to hand – the vote – to win political control and employ it to dispossess the privileged ruling class.