An opinion of fact (2023)

From the April 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many a debate is punctuated with a reference to the difference between an opinion and a fact. A fact is said to be an opinion of a higher order: it is an ‘irrefutable statement’. Given that very few statements made in political debates can be said to be irrefutable why is there such a widespread belief in their existence? Certainly, an informed opinion has more value than an uninformed opinion but how do we choose between two diametrically opposed opinions held by those who are equally informed?

A political debate is not a mathematical equation with only one correct answer however much we might wish it to be. In the sciences we refer to empirical study and peer review in deciding the ‘facts’ but in politics, history, economics etc. this is not always so relatively easily ascertained. Of course, many seek to elevate their opinions to the level of facts for purely egotistical and ideological reasons. Political facts do exist such as: ‘racial superiority is a lie’ and ‘the first victim of war is the truth’ but unfortunately not all statements can be so conveniently separated into mere opinions contrasted with superior facts. Let us examine the process involved in elevating certain opinions into facts.

As with most elements of social and political phenomena we must start with economics and the relationship between wealth and power. ‘Public opinion’ is created by the propaganda of the media owned by the parasite class. The sole purpose for the existence of the mainstream media is to create a consensus among the exploited that their exploitation is both necessary and normal. Is the preceding a statement of fact or just this author’s opinion? Obviously, the majority of journalists would agree that it is the latter and that this article and the journal it is printed in represent a minority opinion and are therefore outside the consensus on which the creation of ‘facts’ is dependent. This is how power works – it creates a majority consensus suitable for the needs of a minority.

The first step towards the birth of a political ‘fact’ is to acquire the support of the powerful. In this way it becomes a ‘fact’ that people wouldn’t work without the threat of poverty or that global democracy is too complex to become a reality. The next step demands some superficial level of pseudo- scientific coherence and methodology. Genetic determinism and other theories of ‘human nature’ together with the inevitability of tribal (national) identities fall into this category. Finally, the creation of some kind of authority or establishment to back up the credibility of certain factual information. We’ve all encountered various types of ‘fact checkers’ but their origin must always be ascertained and even then the best we can say for many of their ‘facts’ is that they’ve proved that a statement is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ which falls far short of the metaphysics needed to establish a fact as understood by many.

So what is the origin of this ‘tyranny of facts’? As we have seen, the element of control it provides for those who wish to preserve the status quo is invaluable but this was not always the case and indeed there was a time when such an ideology was revolutionary. We call this ‘the Enlightenment’ and it was at the forefront of the bourgeoisie’s ideological struggle against religion and the old ruling elite. The industrial revolution, with which it had a symbiotic relationship, was in need of ever more precise measurements for continual technological innovation. Precision became a necessity for all machinery and this could only be achieved through the application of mathematics in the creation of universal standards for weights and measures etc.

This fitted neatly into the capitalist perspective as the measurement of the level of profit also depended on similar arithmetical precision. Everything was transformed into numbers and the rule of quantification was absolute. Not only was human labour defined exclusively in terms of wages but even the workers’ role as consumers became commoditised. Today everyone has become part of an algorithm in terms of their purchasing demography. The Enlightenment provided us with the hope of science but also with the curse of human economic objectification. Truth was transformed into an equation.

The perceived relationship between a fact and the ‘truth’ is what gives it such ideological power in the minds of many. Indeed, in science it has given us a very successful insight into the workings of nature but it never represents the whole story of a human’s relationship with themselves, their culture and the nature from which it all originated. It is a fact that Russia invaded the Ukraine but that doesn’t tell us why this happened or how it might have been prevented. It is a fact that the present government’s language concerning ‘illegal’ immigration is reminiscent of elements of 1930’s Nazi propaganda but again that doesn’t tell us why some highly educated people would want to use such a disgusting demonisation of desperate and vulnerable people.

Karl Marx himself was an immigrant who found a last refuge in this country where he laboured for countless hours within the British Museum Library poring over government statistics to transform his theory of capitalism into a thoroughly empirical study of the ‘facts’. He did this not only to counter capitalist propaganda by using its own statistics but with the hope of transforming our lost humanity of alienated labour back into creative meaningful production that is our true nature. The next time someone attempts to trump your arguments with reference to a ‘fact’ you might like to try countering them with the idea that mere facts are superficial compared with an informed opinion. At the very least such a heretical idea might create pause for thought as to the origin and usefulness of such a widely used but poorly understood metaphysical concept.

Wez.

Is socialism counter-intuitive? (2022)

From the October 2022 issue of the Socialist Standard 

There is a TV quiz called ‘QI’ which depends on the fact that correct answers to seemingly mundane and easy questions are almost always counter-intuitive. We live in a world that is not ‘what it seems’. There is nothing intuitive about the foundations of physics (quantum mechanics and special/general relativity) and any rational individual who was entirely ignorant of modern science would suspect the sanity of anyone who tried to explain and maintain these theories as an explanation of natural phenomena. From the time we open our eyes on the world we learn to question what we see and hear. Our senses provide us with basic tools for survival but the images, sound, smell and tactile qualities we perceive can be easily fooled. It would seem that intuition or ‘common sense’ can be very unreliable – and yet we cling to it! There are very few mistakes which we make that deserve a higher degree of self-criticism than those made as a result of going against our ‘instincts’. Social skills rely on our ability to detect deceit, insincerity and danger in others. What significance does this seeming contradiction have for political activity? Is socialism a result of common sense or of embracing the counter-intuitive?

As children we are told, despite all appearances, that the sun does not move across the sky but that we circle it; that we labour under the weight of air pressure and are pulled by gravity; that your immune system can kill you; that what tastes good is usually bad for us (in the long run); that a cannonball and a feather fall at an equal rate within a vacuum; that making some stimulants illegal does not eradicate them; that capital punishment is not a deterrent to murder and that life depends on death. To test your own ability to tell the difference between common sense and the counter-intuitive try answering the question: why is north always on top? Having thought about it you begin to realise that it is ‘merely’ a cultural convention and that the planet, solar system, galaxy and universe have no up or down. The poles of a magnet are not defined by the concepts of top and bottom or up and down but by the simple requirement of opposition. Even the concept of field lines emerging from the north pole of a magnet and re-entering at the south pole is a matter of ‘convention’. Education is an act of unlearning as well as learning.

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that many of those who seek to defend right-wing forms of capitalism rely on ‘common-sense’ answers whereas those on the left more often use intellectual and counter-intuitive arguments. Both of these attempts to defend the indefensible have resolved themselves into ideological cul-de-sacs that rely either on over simplification or over intellectualising. The belief that legitimate political answers are often obscured by the deliberate activities of the leftist intelligentsia is continually countered by the accusation that those on the right over simplify and overlook the nuances and complexities of political reality. To the left the right-wingers seem dull witted and stupid whilst their adversaries despise their seeming elitist intellectualism. Many on the left do seem to think that politics is an intellectual puzzle that can be solved by one pseudo-scientific theory or another. The political right see this merely as a series of high-brow excuses for the manifest failure of leftist policies. Of course, there are many other components of ideological belief systems including tribalism, prejudice, conformism, conditioning etc, but for the moment we are just considering the dialectical relationship between the intuitive and the counter-intuitive which always seems to be present in polemics and to which we return.

Mainstream political debate is directed by the mainstream media. Those who own and control the media are dedicated to ‘normalizing’ the capitalist systems of both right and left-wing regimes respectively. One of the most powerful ways of achieving this is to make production for profit and everything that goes with it like wealth and poverty, rampant consumerism and economic/political inequality seem inevitable and perfectly intuitive given the agreed concept of what constitutes ‘human nature’. The very construct of a political ‘human nature’ is one of the greatest triumphs of both types of capitalist ideologies. To deny its existence is to incur universal disbelief and derision. The existence of human nature is just ‘common sense’. But socialists do deny this (at least in the terms of which it is understood within reactionary ideology where humanity is reduced to an eternal state of acquisitive individualism and the selfish behaviour that this generates) and point to historical evidence which undermines such a malevolent future for our species. Is this just one example which exemplifies the counter-intuitive nature of the case for socialism as a whole?

Two elements are at play here and it is important to differentiate between them. One is the cultural manipulation and subversion of both intuition (common sense) and counter-intuition (reliance on nuance and complexity thus inhibiting action) and the other is the true nature of reality. To non-socialists just about every element of our case is counter-intuitive and seems to defy common sense – and to us the reverse is true. Can the concept of the counter-intuitive help us distinguish between ideology and knowledge? Certainly the practice of subjecting everything that you think you know to a continual critique (Marxism) helps to keep the seduction of certainty at bay. Many of the postmodernist persuasion will tell you that everything is ideological and that any attempt to reinstate materialism is naïve and even reactionary. But it is impossible to ignore the paradigmatic shift potential that accompanies the discovery of a truth that runs counter to our deepest intuition about reality and so subverts the possibility of an initial ideological commitment to it.

There was once a comedy sketch that took place in an imaginary post-revolutionary socialist context where an individual was trying to sell capitalism as an alternative. It was funny because of the intuitive absurdity of such an endeavour within socialism and served as a reminder that perhaps ‘common sense’ within a community of the future would represent the political truth. As ever it is history that, hopefully, will transform the two perspectives into an experience comfortably embracing both when stripped of their present sectarian ideological inertia.

Wez.

A Pleading Capitalist (1974)

From the July 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

We received from a Socialist Standard reader a copy of a statement issued in March 1974 by the Managing Director of IPC Newspapers Ltd. to trade-union representatives, and were asked for our comments. Here is the reply we sent.

Dear Mr—,

Your letter together with Percy Roberts’ statement on behalf of IPC Newspapers Ltd. in his address to Print & Engineering Union representatives in March has been handed-on to my committee and I have been asked to make some comments on the statement.

Firstly I should say that I am not sure of Mr. Roberts’ actual position in terms of ownership within IPC Newspapers Ltd., and as you will see, I have assumed that he does have a stake of some kind and is a member of the capitalist class. It may be that he is in fact a highly paid employee himself, but the basis of my comment will still hold.

I should also point out that I am not in a position to query any of the figures and statistics contained in his statement. I note his very generous offer in the final paragraph to examine the books, but simply have not got the time (and to be honest, the inclination) to take him up. I suspect that most of his employees are in a similar position.

Generally speaking though, whenever a member of the capitalist class wants to “ensure everyone knows the facts” (page 1) you may be certain that the facts he wants his employees to know are those which will form the basis for the defence by the owners against any attempts to increase wages by the workers. This whole statement in fact has been clearly designed for such a purpose. And in addition to the abundance of figures he offers, several veiled threats of redundancies are interspersed to bring the point home.

In the 4th paragraph on page 1 we see the classic appeal by capitalists to placate “rebellious” workers, and to inspire “sensible” workers:

The immediate future is a period of considerable challenge to the industry and to IPC Newspapers. The way in which we work together—management and unions— will decide how successful we shall be.

A Grim Promise

“Succesful” is the key word, and Socialists ask what is meant by it. Success to Mr. Roberts is a bigger profit, success to his workers is specified in items 1 & 2 in his “Implications for the future” (page 8):

1. To maintain the present standard of living of our employees.
2. To give job security to our employees.

It is to be hoped that those reading these two items fully appreciate what is meant. They mean that those employees who are currently beset by such problems as rent or mortgage payments, shortage of money to purchase clothes, furniture, food and the many other essentials of life: Or those who are currently “going short” of these essentials because they are saving to buy a car, or a refrigerator (or any other of the so-called “luxury” items), that these members of the working class, after the success Mr. Roberts refers to, will be in precisely the same position as they are at present.

Should some employees remain dissatisfied with this, Mr. Roberts will doubtless refer them to the graph re-printed on page 7 showing how far up the wage relativities league table they are. Of course this will not change their problems, or their class position in the slightest. It would be interesting to know how much higher up Mr. Roberts, and the members of the capitalist class, would come were they to be included in such a table.

When the worker is promised job security, he is being given the promise that his employer will continue to dictate to him the hours he keeps, the conditions under which he will work and so on. The employer is also promising that he will continue to exploit the worker. This is soon seen as a most peculiar form of success.

A Look at Profit

You may find in your discussions with your fellows that they may concede these points “in theory” but they will want to be “realistic”. Mr. Roberts is clearly hoping that you will see that he too is trying to be “realistic”, he is appealing to the “common-sense” of his employees. He wants you all to be fair with him, and why shouldn’t he? After all he’s just managed to lose £lm.

But Socialists would ask where is this common-sense in working men who continue to vote for political parties representing the capitalist class. It is indeed a strange state of affairs when we live in a society which is capable of producing an abundance of goods for the benefit of all men, yet that production is restricted artificially because a minority of men and women who form the capitalist class, can see no profit at the end of the day. Workers after all produce all the goods and services, they run the capitalist system from top to bottom, and yet they own virtually nothing of the means of production . . . except their right to defend them in times of war, and the right to be subservient to them in times of peace.

The figure which Mr. Roberts places a lot of emphasis on (and quite rightly, as he is the Managing Director) is that of total profit. It appears, though it is by no means made clear, that the figures he quotes (eg: £4,004,000 profit for 72/73) are the gross profits. He goes on to ask rhetorically:

But is £4m a ‘good’ profit on a turnover of more than £60m in the ‘good’ years?

Presumably his employees have enough to worry about already without adding this “problem” to their list. For one thing they should remember that any profit has been created by their own efforts — yet of course, it belongs to the employer (one of the facts that Mr. Roberts is not so anxious for everyone to examine). The employees should not blame themselves too much for only producing a surplus in 1973 of a measly £4m.

The rate of profit for that year would therefore be 6.6% (ie: £4m divided by £60m) and it is true, as Mr. Roberts says, that the Building Societies would have offered a greater % return. However, all industries have varying rates of profit and it is irrelevant for a capitalist to point to other industries where profits are higher for the time being in order to complain about profit rates within his own industry.

Our Practical Suggestion

To be strictly practical, it might be worth remembering that although Mr. Roberts reckons the assets of IPC Newspapers Ltd., have to be “certainly not less than £60m” this sum can only be realized if he can find a buyer. Assuming that there are other capitalists drifting around with £60m to spend, would they purchase his assets? It seems likely, after all his depressing talk, that they would be more attracted by the thought of putting it into the Building Societies themselves!

You might ask your fellow workers how this £60m of assets came to be accumulated in the first place. It is capital amassed over the years by the continual process of exploitation.

Perhaps your fellows would be interested to know the rate of exploitation in 1972/3. Although the rate of profit is 6.6%, the rate of surplus-value (ie. the rate of extraction of unpaid labour) is a far higher percentage:

Wages & Salaries £22,345,000

Profit £ 4,004,000

The rate of exploitation = Profit divided by Wages, i.e. 17.9%.

The Socialist Party of Great Britain as you will probably know, takes no part in supporting the interests of one section of workers against one set of employers, or vice versa. The document which you have sent can only be examined by us for what it is, a shot in the class war. We represent the political interests of the working class as a whole and do not activate for employers to lower profits from 2z to lz any more than we exhort workers to try to attain 4y wages where before they only had 3y wages. An above-average wage in one industry necessarily implies a below-average wage in another. We are opposed to capitalism as a whole, high profits or low profits, high wages or low wages.

Unfortunately it is the belief of many individual workers that the most positive step they can take in life is to constantly struggle for higher wages. It is no end in itself, and while workers persist solely in such a struggle and ignore Socialist ideas, they help to perpetuate capitalism.

Only with the introduction of Socialism will the problems of capitalism end. You might (if you have not already) ask your fellow workers why they do not help to introduce Socialism. If they tell you that they do not think it will work, you may show them that they are already making a social system work, and one which runs against their own interests. Mr. Roberts could testify to this; he had £4m worth of evidence to show for it in 1973. Are your fellows incapable of making society work in the interests of all? We have been asking for some time that they give it real thought.

Yours fraternally,

Alan D'Arcy

for the Socialist Standard Editorial Committee.

Common-Sense or Super-Sense. (1922)

From the February 1922 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some people might argue that there is no such thing as common sense, or sense which is common to everybody, and that, consequently, the term common sense is a misnomer. They are both right and wrong, because two meanings can be read into the term. It is perfectly true that there is no sense common to everyone, but, if we regard the word "common" merely as a synonym for "ordinary" or "common-place" as distinguished from extraordinary, the term at once becomes intelligible, because it is a well-known fact that only a small minority of the people can lay claim to a wide general knowledge. The great majority are more or less ignorant of advanced knowledge and science, and are, therefore, compelled to think and reason on the facts in their immediate environment. The bulk of society are common people and possess only common sense. According to certain apostles of the great man theory, there are in any period of history supermen and men, leaders and followers, intellectual giants who unearth the secrets of nature and publish them to ordinary folk in order that they may know how to live

The most fitting reply to the apostles of such a creed is to ask them if the "great men" are responsible for the mess in which the human race finds itself to-day. Millions of people all over the world dying of starvation while corn is burnt as fuel and fish is spread over the land as manure, millions of workers forced to starve in idleness because the land and tools required by them to produce the necessaries of life for themselves are owned by a small class who will only allow them to be used when profits come to them as a result. In a word, unspeakable poverty in the presence of means and methods that could satisfy every need, could flood the world with a cornucopia of abundance.

It requires very little intelligence, combined with a practical knowledge of modern industrial methods, to see that unemployment, poverty and war are the results of a system of production and distribution based on the class ownership of the means of life, and production for profits; and that a system based on common ownership of the means of life with associated production for use, would not only abolish these evils but would entirely eliminate the competitive struggle for existence, or supremacy, as we know it under Capitalism.

Notwithstanding the simplicity and correctness of the Socialist position the "supermen," with all their knowledge are nearly always the apologists of the system of starvation and murder. They are with few exceptions to be found on the side of the ruling-class, declaring that the world is all right or that it will right itself if only the common herd will submit quietly to their toil and poverty and not attempt to interfere with the things they do not understand ; if they will only consent to be ruled by those who understand the business of ruling, instead of attempting to run or direct things for themselves.

No one could, with truth, deny that many professional men and scientists today are as widely separated from the average man in knowledge and intelligence, as the latter is from the savages ; yet every scientist who has approached the problem of poverty has failed to see the only solution—Socialism, or has purposely misrepresented it in order to mislead the workers and assist the ruling-class in suppressing it. Spencer wrote profusely on sociology, yet failed to observe facts and tendencies under his very nose. Haeckel, Lodge, Wallace, and many others could see no purpose in civilisation beyond the growing power and glory of the ruling-class and the continued servitude of the toiling millions.

Professor T. H. Huxley, in his essay, "Government: Anarchy or Regimentation," though failing to arrive at a solution, saw much more clearly than most scientists the nature of the poverty problem. He says, for instance : "What profits it to the human Prometheus that he has stolen the fire of heaven to be his servant and that the spirits of the earth and of the air obey him, if the vulture of pauperism is eternally to tear his very vitals and keep him on the brink of destruction?" And again : "No doubt, if out of a thousand men, one holds and can keep all the capital, the rest are bound to serve him or die." And yet again: "Individualism, on the other hand, admitting the inevitability of the struggle, is too apt to try to persuade us that it is all for our good, as an essential condition of progress to higher things. But this is not necessarily true, the creature that survives a free fight only demonstrates his superior fitness for coping with free fighters—not any other kind of superiority.''

But although Huxley saw clearly enough the evils of individualism, or Capitalism, like Spencer, he failed to see the remedy. Socialism, as he understood it, was State ownership, as the I.L.P. preaches it to-day; and he, quite rightly, judged this to be no solution. Where Huxley showed his inability to deal with, or understand social questions, was in attributing poverty to over-population. Obsessed with the Malthusian idea that, without competition and war, the human race would multiply until there was not standing room on the globe, he completely forgot that evolution is just as applicable to social science as physical science or biology. Huxley knew quite well that society had evolved from savagery, under different systems, up to the present. A scientific mind should not assume the end of systems when all social history is a succession of systems, but should endeavour to understand from the outstanding features and tendencies of the present system what forces are being generated by the prevailing conditions. Every system of the past is recognised by its class struggle ; feudal barons and serfs, slave owners and slaves, etc. ; to-day it is capitalists and wage-slaves. As all ruling-classes in the past have had to give way to the class below, who struggled against them, and as the working-class today is engaging ever more keenly in the struggle against the capitalist class, there is little doubt that the latter will share the same fate and that capitalism will give way to a new system more in harmony with the interests of the working-class.

Huxley failed to apply the scientific method, but what was even worse for so brilliant a scientist, he allowed himself to be confused by the Malthusian rubbish which had been exploded almost as soon as it was published by Godwin in his book "On Population," and later by Henry George in "Progress and Poverty."

Moreover, there is no doubt whatever that all the people at present living could, by their own labour, satisfy all their wants, if it were not for the fact that the ruling class own the land and machinery of production and will not permit them to be used for that purpose, but only to obtain surplus value for themselves. Even if it were true, however, that population would increase beyond the means of subsistence under Socialism, that would be no excuse for prolonging Capitalism with its wage-slavery, unemployment, starvation, war and many other evils. Capitalism is so obviously a system of robbery—robbery of the wealth producers by an idle class—that nothing could justify its continuance once it became generally understood that all these evils were due to the system and would cease to exist under a sane system where profits were no longer the only incentive to production.

It is often said of those who are scientifically trained that they are more easily imposed upon than ordinary folk, and it would almost appear as if years spent in scientific research left the mind simple and childlike towards mundane affairs. This may be the explanation in some cases, but many scientists are on the side of the ruling-class for the same reason as the professional politician and the parson— because it pays.

Whatever the reason, it is quite obvious that the workers must not allow themselves to be confused or guided by them. The evils of Capitalism are quite plain to every man who possesses average common sense. It needs no great scientific knowledge to see that these evils are due to the system ; nor does it require super men with giant intellects to tell the workers that they can achieve Socialism by first understanding it and then organising as a class to gain political control.

There is nothing in Socialist principles or objects beyond the comprehension of the average worker; but what there is must be understood by them before they can become organised to establish it.

The Irony Of It. (1921)

From the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"It is a strange irony"—so concludes an editorial in the "Daily News" of 13.11.20, under the title of "The Two Paths," wherein is described the ceremonial which took place on the day following the anniversary of the armistice. The writer, playing upon the emotions, remarks:

  "The kings and chaplains and prelates had departed, the pomp and ceremonial ended, and then the people, not only those of London, but from all parts of these islands, drawn as naturally as men lost in a desert, came quietly together and made Whitehall the beating heart of England."

We are not unmindful of the untold suffering and misery which has been inflicted upon the working class of the world as a result of the Great European War. Millions of working-class lives were sacrificed ; shattered constitutions and wrecked hopes are the lot of many thousands of victims who have survived King Capital's carnage. And the class responsible for all this misery—the ruling class of the world—still are the principal figures in the drama of life ; and the working class, doped, dazed, bewildered, still gaze on the players with reverence and awe—a satisfied audience whose emotions are carried along on the tide of a stupefying misconception of life. The working-class conception of life conception of life consists of work and wages. These two things fill their horizon and colour all things else. Their inevitable reward is insecurity of livelihood, poverty and toil. It is for a condition of life like this that the workers have made their sacrifices and given their best to further the interests of King Capital.

One of the greatest tragedians on the social stage—David Lloyd George—on the occasion of one of the numerous rehearsals which are periodically held throughout the land—the Lord Mayor's banquet at the Guildhall—said in an optimistic speech : "The workmen are three fourths of the population and the future of the country depends upon their common sense and their patriotism." ("Daily News," 10.11.20.)

There you see the actor setting the scenery for another drama which will shortly be acted—The General Election. They are rehearsing; they are advertising. They will organise a mammoth campaign. Coalitionists, Liberals, and Labourites will come before you, each blackguarding the other, each representing different sectional interests of the capitalist class. They will cajole, flatter, and trick you into going to the great show. They are prepared to spend millions of pounds in this direction, though thousands may be destitute and starving. They depend upon the common sense and patriotism of three-fourths of the people—the working class.

The term ''common sense" is a vague phrase typical of the foggy nature of most of the utterances of men like Lloyd George, who, we call to mind, coined those mystic phrases, "A land fit for heroes to live in" ; "Let there be sunlight in the workman's cottage" ; "The land shall be a field of waving corn." They reflect the depth of working-class political ignorance and apathy.

"Patriotism" is something more concrete. It is the love of one's country. The country belongs to the master class. Those who own the earth own those who live upon the earth. It should be clear, therefore, you dignified, politically ignorant three-fourths of the population, that you are nothing more than wage slaves—you cannot well be less.

It is a strange irony, therefore, that while you are marching with your grief to Whitehall there should be another army of marchers, as the editorial above referred to points out, the great army of unemployed—men and women denied the opportunity to live, compelled to see those dependent upon them reduced to hunger, reduced even to starvation.

The "Daily News" editorial finishes with heart-tearing sighs and veiled regrets. Hypocritical, maudling, sentimental pathos is contained in those words—"It is a strange irony," because the "Daily News" serves as one of the daily programmes of King Capital's drama, figuring the scenes which tell of the misery and sufferings of the workers—that three fourths of the population upon whose votes so much depends.

How much depends ? Why, the very existence of the capitalists as a ruling class.

The picture drawn above should be clear. The capitalist Press of the entire world is the servant of the capitalist class. Its members know what is behind the scenes, and their function in life is to provide the limelight, the music, and the curtain.

I will conclude with the remark that it is a strange irony that a small minority—the ruling or capitalist class—should retain their privileged position in modern society while "three-fourths of the population" should be compelled as a consequence to live miserable lives, struggling for the mere necessities of existence. Truly it is a strange irony that the working class, by whose labours, applied to the raw materials of mother earth, all wealth is produced, who fight the sectional battles of the ruling class, should be so politically ignorant that they give all power to their enemies when at election times they record their votes in favour of the class who are the cause of all the economic evils mankind is suffering throughout the capitalist world to-day.

Fellow Workers, arise from the depths of your dumb despair. Arise and avenge yourselves for the untold suffering which for so long has been your lot. Rid yourselves of the horrors and nightmares of capitalism. The world and all its fruits stand ready for you to take—are you worthy to enjoy them? If you are you will be with us, helping to organise your class in the Socialist Party, in order that the present social system may give place to the Socialist Co-operative Commonwealth.

Do not run away with the idea that you cannot help, that your weight will not count, that your efforts do not matter. To those who think thus there is a special meaning in Clough's splendid lines:

"Say not the struggle nought availeth,
   The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not nor faileth,
   And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars:
   It may be, in yon smoke concealed,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
  And but for YOU possess the field."

So if you agree that our principles and policy are correct, do your obvious duty and join us.

O. C. I.

Introducing a dirty word (1992)

From the March 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

INTRODUCING A DIRTY WORD

There are lots of things in our lives that we don’t find it easy to talk about. Some of them are even "taboo". But there's one thing which we talk about, all of us, all the time, and never give its proper name because that name is, for most of us, a rather dirty word. That thing is Politics. It is such a dirty word that you could well be ready to throw this leaflet away right now. But before you do, think back for a minute on the conversations you’ve had this week.

What were they really about? Did you complain about the price of something which has gone up again? Did you talk about problems with the Council, or with your mortgage, or with your wages? If you work, did your boss get you down again this week, or was it the fighting in the office? If you’re unemployed, were you depressed because you walked past shops and people who all seem to live on a separate planet? Or was it a row with a loved one over money, or with the kids, or just because you’re so tired and full of stress that anything sets you off?

If your week sounded anything like that, you're not alone. What happens in our lives is not entirely up to us, and when we talk about life we are also making political statements about how we would like things to be. Politics is only a dirty word because the Thatchers and the Kinnocks have made it into a game that you play in parliaments and score off the opposition.

Their games are none of our concern, but our own lives matter, and the politics of our lives must matter to us as well. In the coming weeks we will be putting some leaflets through your door. They will be about politics, but don’t be put off by that. The things that worry you, that may be mentioned above, are the sort of politics we want to talk about. Not party politics, or 'real-politik'. but real life.

COMMON SENSE ISN'T EVERYTHING

What happened in 1066? Well, not the Battle of Hastings, for one thing - that was apparently around 1087. It must have happened to you that you’d believed something for years without question only to find out one day that it wasn’t true after all. Life is full of popular myths that, like the Battle of Hastings, may be interesting to explode but don’t really matter to anyone. But one myth that is still around, and matters rather a lot, is the myth of 'common sense'.

If something is ’common sense', it is true. Many of the ideas we hear through the TV and papers are put in this way. We take them very much for granted. They are what is called "realism". In our last leaflet we talked about the dirty word ‘politics'. Politicians are fond of "realism" and "common sense approaches". Nowadays you don't have to prove somebody wrong, you just call them "unrealistic" or "naive". Politicians have managed to make everybody else’s ideas sound childish and naive. Major and Kinnock, like the good Mummy and Daddy they try to be, know all about 'common sense'. They should, they manufacture most of it.

The problems that we have in our lives, that we mentioned in our last leaflet, don't get talked about by the papers or politicians. That is left to us, on our own, in pubs or among friends. Why do we have to work for bosses? What is the point of saving when inflation eats it all up? Why do people starve when supermarkets throw food away? But it's not common sense’ to talk about things that Kinnock is not interested in.

In the next few leaflets we are going to ask exactly the sort of questions that Kinnock and Major are not interested in. The sort of questions you don't read about in the paper, or hear on 'Question Time’.

Some of the conclusions we come up with might well sound like science fiction, and not common sense at all. But they might also sound just like things you've said yourself in the past. Try not to lose patience with us. Things which aren’t ‘common sense' aren't automatically wrong. We ask you to judge for yourself.

COPING WITH A BAD ATTITUDE

In our last two leaflets we have explained why we think politics should not be a dirty word, and why 'common sense' answers aren't necessarily right answers. We hope you saw what we meant by that.

Here are some examples of this 'Common Sense', and underneath, the feelings, or as they are more usually called the "Bad Attitudes" that a lot of people have about them. 

Common Sense: This is a prosperous country.

Bad Attitude: Where is all this prosperity when you're on the dole or three months behind with the mortgage?

Common Sense: If you want to 'make it', work hard and be thrifty. 

Bad Attitude: Like my parents did, and look at them. Besides, what's the point when some yuppie can make my life’s earnings in twenty minutes on the Stock Exchange? 

Common Sense: Other people are worse off than you. If you've got an ounce of decency you should be grateful, and give to charities.

Bad Attitude: Alright, I can't walk past a collecting box without feeling guilty, but however much I pay, the problems don't seem to go away. If anything they get worse. Why don't the government pay?

Common Sense: Politics is for politicians. I wouldn't fancy trying to run the country.

Bad Attitude: Mind you, for £35 thousand a year plus expenses I couldn't do any worse than them, could I? All they care about is their own power.

If you have something like this 'bad altitude problem', don't despair. There are others like you, not in hundreds or thousands, but in millions. Just think of election-time, when you get to make your own mark for democracy. In spite of all the rousing speeches, the rallies and the broadcasts, many people still don't bother to vote. They obviously think it makes no difference to their lives who is in power and who isn’t. This, we are told, is because they have a bad attitude. Perhaps so. Perhaps, too, if speeches and policy reviews don't matter to them, they should get together and find out what does. They might find out they’ve got quite a lot in common. With each other. With us. With you.

Taken from a series of leaflets produced by our Lancaster branch.

Einstein and common sense (1979)

From the March 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

Watch out, all you believers in common sense. Albert Einstein was born on this day in 1879 and it is interesting to consider the effect of the scientific revolution caused by his theories on the "common sense" view of the world. 

In 1905 (while working in a patent office), Einstein published his first paper on Special Relativity ("On the electrodynamics of moving bodies"—Annalen der Physik). From two beautifully simple axioms (the principle of relativity and the constancy of the velocity of light), Einstein was able to come up with some startling results. One of the best known is the prediction that moving clocks run slow. To quote his original example: "Thence we conclude that a balance clock at the equator must go more slowly by a very small amount than a precisely similar clock situated at one of the poles under otherwise identical conditions". 

Another prediction that violates "common sense" is that the relative velocity of two observers moving directly away from each other, is not equal to the sum of their velocities. For example, if two spaceships move off from the earth in opposite directions at half the speed of light (relative to the earth) then their relative velocity will not be equal to the velocity of light (the answer predicted by classical physics and "common sense") but only 80 per cent of it. The original reactions to these apparently nonsensical theories were mainly hostile. W.P. Magie in his Presidential Address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science dismissed relativity theory, saying: 

"I do not believe there is any man living who can assert with truth that he can conceive of time which is a function of velocity or is willing to go to the stake for the conviction that his "now" is another man's future or yet another man's past."

The hostile reception to his theories meant that Einstein had to work for another four years in the patent office before he got a job as a physicist. 

The first experimental tests of relativity theory (Kaufman, Annalen der Physik 1906) were not compatible with Einstein's theory and favoured rival theories. But Einstein was not unduly worried: 

"In my opinion both theories have a rather small probability because their fundamental assumptions concerning the mass of moving electrons are not explained in terms of theoretical systems which embrace a greater complex of phenomena." (Mach, Einstein and the Search for Reality by G. Holton, p 651/2). 

In other words, Einstein was convinced of the correctness of his theories not because of the empirical "facts" but because of subjective factors such as the simplicity and beauty of the equations. Of course, later experiments revealed flaws in the earlier ones, and gave results compatible with relativity However, the opposition to the theory continued and even when Einstein won a Nobel Prize in 1921 it was only partly for his theory and partly for same comparatively minor work. 

There was also some more fanatical opposition, particularly in Germany and largely on political grounds (partly because he was a Jew and partly because be was thought to be attacking the great German philosophers like Kant). In 1934, twenty five years after the publication of his first paper on relativity, a book was published in Germany called 100 Authors Against Einstein. Typical of the relativity "sensible" attack was that by Professor Strehl: 

"The theory of Einstein is for me a functional deformation of reality, his framework of references, variable space and time coordinates, invariant velocity of light (in spite of variable limiting value) is not to my taste." (Die Naturwissenschaften II (1931) p 234/6). 

The relevant point is that "common sense" is based on generalisation of everyday experience in which bodies move very much more slowly than light, and that therefore the effects of special relativity are negligibly small. Attempts to extrapolate these laws to velocities approaching that of light (300,000 kms per sec) give results which are qualitatively wrong. To physicists working with particles moving with velocities within a fraction of a percent of the velocity of light, the effects of special relativity are so common that the laws of relativity become part of their "common sense". 

An analogy between relativity and socialism should not be taken too literally, but what should be remembered is that the history of science is full of revolutions which violated the prevailing "common sense" view of human nature (humans are innately greedy, aggressive and so on) because this view is based on generalisations made in capitalist society. The extrapolation of this view of human nature to a qualitatively different society — socialism — is therefore completely unscientific. Those people who reject socialism on these grounds are making just as big a mistake as those philosophers who rejected relativity because it violated the internal infallibility of Kant. 

Tony Weidberg