Keeping up with the Joneses (1996)

TV Review from the June 1996 issue of the Socialist Standard

Popular investigative programme 3-D (Thursdays, 7.30 pm. ITV) featured a welcome, if brief piece on conspicuous consumption—that is, consumption of commodities for show. Two families depicted in the programme had undertaken a comparative orgy of competitive consumption in order to impress—and ultimately outdo—their neighbours. The interior designers must have been falling over themselves to get the contract for both their houses, which as the programme demonstrated, are fully decorated and redesigned at least once every twelve months.

This attempt by the two households to "keep up with the Jones’s" has had slightly divergent results. One family has become so obsessed that they have landed themselves in debt to the tune of several thousand pounds and have resorted to the advice of a “money counsellor”. The other family, with both adults unemployed, have amazingly managed to avoid this trap—at least so far—with the wife asserting that if her obsession with bettering her neighbours led them to get into debt, then she would know she had a problem. But nobody on the estate of small semis on which her family live had taken the bait in a major way, and she was forced to admit that if anyone did, then she would indeed be prepared to get into debt in order to compete.

In an attempt to explain this phenomenon 3-D wheeled out an obscure "social psychologist" from one of the educational factories. "A fair amount of competitiveness is inherent in the human condition" was his answer to this enigma of competitive consumption, precisely the type of comment we have become used to on TV, radio and in the press from those who are paid by the ruling class to tell lies for a living. We can assume, if his statement is correct, that rabid competition has been a feature of the human condition throughout history.

But, frankly, anyone who believes that there is something "natural" about the behaviour of such people as the two families featured is seriously misinformed, and that is putting it politely. Is it really being suggested that people behaved in such a way in primitive communist society, which existed for over forty thousand years before the advent of private property and class division? If this is so, then 3-D would have been better employing a social anthropologist to do the pontificating rather than a shrink—then we might have really learned something about the evolution of this behaviour.

Market madness 

The fact of the matter is that such competitive methods of behaviour are not "inherent" or part of our human nature as a species, but are generally socially conditioned and promoted. Humans are capable of behaving in all manner of ways given different circumstances and backgrounds—indeed, it is largely our ability to adapt that has made us such a successful species, by far the most successful on the planet Placed in an environment of private property, effective rationing of resources and opulence amid squalor, then humans are likely to develop competitive traits. In the case of the families featured on 3-D, a type of personality disorder known as compulsive behaviour can develop, in this case stemming from competition for "scarce" resources.

What these families had most in common was their status as typical members of the working class who wanted to be seen as anything but working class. Both had nice homes, but their efforts in this respect were futile—their real status in life was reflected in unemployment and indebtedness rather than in the commodities they were able to consume in front of the hopefully watchful eyes of the neighbours. Moreover—and this is the crucial bit— their lifestyles in no way reflect the lifestyles of the really rich in society they apparently wish to emulate. Their behaviour is a product of their poverty and subservience and makes no sense outside of the confines of a class-divided society based on (artificial) scarcity.

If it came to a real test of conspicuous consumption, the capitalists would be able to win every time because they have a disproportionate share of wealth and power. The competitive behaviour engaged in by these workers is the social equivalent of the little boy playing at war games with this Tonka toys and plastic figurines. Being faced with the real thing would be an entirely different story.

The lesson from 3-D is that consumption in capitalism is rationed for the vast bulk of the population, those who do not derive a privileged income from their ownership of capital. If an attempt is made to live even a fraction as well as the really rich, indebtedness—sooner or alter—will be the result. If not house repossession, social break-up and other calamities.

Socialist values, of course, stand opposed to the notion of conspicuous consumption merely as an expression of competition with other people—in a socialist society of free access without payment to available and generally abundant wealth, such behaviour would not only be anti-social, it would be meaningless. The values of capitalism— bitterness, mean-spiritedness, envy and jealousy as a way of life—would remain only as memories of a social system based on the brutalisation of the many in the interests of the few.

Dave Perrin

Hire Purchase (1955)

From the June 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

“To Have and Have Not”

It is often said that Punch is the great social historian of the last 100 years. Since comic journals thrive on aptness rather than humour, they do in fact provide a minor guide to changes in manners and morals.

A joke that has entirely disappeared now is the one about “the instalments on the furniture.” Continually, in magazines of the 1920’s little boys blurted out that the settee wasn't paid for, and men called to take back the chairs when guests had come to tea—the psychology being that, 25 years ago, to buy on hire-purchase was to have a guilty secret.

All different nowadays, of course. There are even good, wise reasons for instalment buying: for example, if the thing goes wrong the firm will see to it. Hire-purchase is an accepted social fact. Last year, half the radio sets, seven-tenths of the furniture and bedding and vacuum cleaners and TV sets, and nearly all the refrigerators and washing machines sold in this country were bought on hire-purchase. “Cash only” shops are the exceptions now, and very recently the instalment system has spread as far as air travel and holidays.

That is not to say all reprehension of hire-purchase has ceased. Generally, there have been two sorts of objections to it. The one voiced by most working people in the past was strictly practical: “I’m hanging no millstone of weekly payments round my neck,” said the poor, poverty-hardened man in Love on the Dole. The other objection was that to have something before paying for is wrong—apparently a moral view but in fact only cash customer’s attitude. The people who largely held that view were the better-off, professional and black-coated workers; since the war their position has declined, and so consequently has their moral objection to hire-purchase. Many of the “swell” shops, in fact, now advertize hire-purchase facilities.

Hire-purchase trading has gone on for at least a century. Before 1914 it was mainly a hole-and-corner business (nevertheless, plenty of suits were bought at a shilling a week). Its growth between two wars went with the mass-production of cheap luxuries—gramophones, bicycles, radio sets; the first legislation to regularize it in this country was in 1938. The great boom in instalment buying came after the second war, however. Some idea of its extent is given by the banks’ statement of their loans to hire-purchase finance companies. The total in February, 1955, was £30,493,000, compared with £11,188,000 in February, 1954. The sum actually was greater, since many loans for general trading went mainly into hire-purchase; and in the same period several of the companies made capital issues.

Few shops finance their own hire-purchase trading—in fact, only the very big ones. Most of them borrow from hire-purchase credit companies, which often buy the goods themselves, receive the instalments themselves, and leave the shopkeeper as little more than an agent. There are several organizations for checking on prospective buyers. Every hire-purchase customer has his particulars filed (including how he pays); investigators discover all they can about him, and the information is filed for future reference. In America, according to a recent Picture Post article, the files include; “. . . intimate details and frank character assessments. Facts include positions and salaries of all members of a family, bank balances, litigation records, all past time buying deals, estimates of business or professional prospects, value of house or mortgage position, or amount of rent and how paid, local reputation and probably social habits. Police records are included.”

Hire-purchase buying is dear. It has to be. There are the book-keeping and the postage and the enquiry fees and the advertisements (last year the Gas Council and Hoover Products each spent about a quarter of a million pounds on advertizing); the “free” maintenance is really, of course, covered in the cost. The rates of interest range from five to ten per cent. At least, those are the nominal figures: calculated on a diminishing debt they are much higher—over two years, the usual period for furniture, they actually average out at something like 20 per cent. The number of bad debts is said to be small, and hire-purchase firms try everything before resorting to court action, which usually is fruitless for them.

Outside the main stream of instalment trading, there are innumerable related concerns; for example, the cooperative societies’ “mutuality shares,” where vouchers are issued to be exchanged for all sorts of goods. Then there are the clothing clubs, and a host of door-to-door easy-payment salesmen—many of the latter charging rates of interest which are exorbitant even by hire-purchase standards, and having no advertizing or accounting costs to speak of. Incidentally, cars do not figure in hire-purchase as much as would be imagined; most are bought by bank overdraft and re-mortgaging houses.

From the economists’ point of view, instalment buying is simply the form taken by the demand for certain sorts of goods today. Thus, when the number of new contracts fell last year in America, the Government hurriedly urged traders to get things back to normal. And in this country the recent restrictions on hire-purchase were headlined by the Manchester Guardian as “Plans to Limit Demand for Goods.” A fair enough estimate; with the minimum deposit raised to 15 per cent., the demand for furniture has fallen to not much more than half what it was a year ago.

To see hire-purchase as something which—vide Fyfe Robertson in Picture Post—"puts real wealth, which otherwise would not be acquired so quickly, into consumers’ hands and raises living standards,” is to grasp flight appearances, however. It is easy enough to point to all the television sets, but television is only the newest replacement for the piano, and pianos were a far greater luxury in their heyday. Before the wireless era, one cost as much as a television set today—that is, anything between £40 and £70, at a time when money wages were much lower.

But to consider living standards in terms of luxuries is to succumb to advertizers’ patter. The fact is that working people obtain luxuries only at the expense of other things. How can a family with £8 a week get them otherwise? The other things may, of course, be minor luxuries themselves—drinking, pictures, smoking; a small boom in smoking cures has accompanied the big one in hire-purchase. They may, on the other hand, be necessities—food and clothing; or the “solution” for a good many families is the wives’ going to work. Whichever way it is, there is not much to confirm the idea of better, more gracious living for the working class.

“Luxuries” is the wrong word, anyway. There is nothing luxurious about buying clothes by instalments, knowing they will be half worn-out before they are paid for: “pay as you wear” has the sound of eternity. True, furniture is more durable—it is outmoded instead of wearing out in two or three years. A favourite sneer of precious suburban aesthetes is that working people lack taste. An ignorant untruth, as the beautiful little gardens in the dingiest surroundings show; but in any case, there is no scope, for modishness when things are bought over two years to last for 20. Most people, in fact, buy furniture only once in their lives—as the hire-purchase advertisements, with their single-minded appeal to the newlywed testify.

Probably the best example of this sort of thing is the way in which television sets have superseded one another since the war. Each latest model, gaining its owner the maximum of prestige, has been rendered inferior long before the final payment. There cannot be much feeling of luxury about having given up smoking to buy a set with a nine-inch screen five years ago and finding it primitive by today’s 17-inch standards.

The truth is that hire-purchase is a monument to poverty, not a pillar of prosperity. People can buy more things, by whatever method, only if they have more money. For a year or so after the war there was no hire-purchase; it began as the briefly spectacular spending of the gratuity era faded. It is hard to believe that anybody enjoys paying instalments—indeed, these commitments add to the tension of modern living. There is no alternative except going without, however. It is all very well to think people can save up to buy, but it doesn’t work out like that—and in any rase, it means going without just the same. The rise of hire-purchase and the decline of the pawnshop are probably not unconnected.

The average gross wage of male workers today is just under £9; for women, it is just over £5. According to the Chancellor of Exchequer in November last year, there were 8,600,000 receiving less than 96s. a week. Compare those figures with pre-war ones, remembering the cost of living today as 2 1/3 times what it was in 1938. In that year, 63.2 per cent, of the families in Britain received under £5 a week, and 11.8 per cent, between £5 and £10. About the same time, John Strachey did some calculations—slightly tortuous, admittedly—in “The Theory and Practice of Socialism” to show that “the real earnings of the working class in 1934 were only 91.1 per cent., of what they were in 1900.” The only conclusion is that the buying power of working people is much the same as it has always been—small; hire-purchase is the latest manifestation of the smallness.

One other aspect of hire-purchase needs to be mentioned. It helps to discipline the working class. The man with heavy commitments—or the American worker who values his “credit rating”—is the man who must keep his job at all costs. Bernard Shaw’s Andrew Undershaft preferred religious workmen because they were sober and honest and amenable; nowadays his ideal would be the employee buying a dining-room suite. The recent Government Economic Survey mentioned that more than a quarter of industrial operatives worked overtime last year, and it is a sad but fair comment that more than a quarter probably want to work overtime this year, too.

Ours is the age of mass-production. One would imagine it to be an age of plenty, but it is not so. It is a queer reflection that, in this world of science and power, the majority of people have to buy trashy products bit by bit and perhaps abstain from necessities in the process. Profit is often imagined as the greatest incentive to progress; in reality, it is the fetter. The hire-purchase system is a fresh pointer to the outstanding contradiction of capitalism: the inability of a productive system which has industrialized the world to perform the only real function of production—the satisfaction of people’s needs.

Robert Barltrop

Editorial: The Social Ladder. (1906)

Editorial from the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard 

 

“Those who were at the top of the social ladder, or half-way up, must help those who were at the bottom. If they did not do so they must expect that some day the ladder would be pulled away.” W. Crooks, 4/5/06.

The first part of the pronouncement is quite up to the Crooks standard, and assumes, like the statement familiar to every school-boy that “every lad can become a Lord Chancellor if he likes,” that there is plenty of room for everybody on top of the social ladder. Which even the school-boy himself, to-day, recognises as the acme of absurdity. The idea of Society being likened to a ladder at all is confusing. It presupposes that the whole of Society is on the ladder, whereas the fact is that the bulk of Society forms the base upon which the ladder rests. Even social ladders must be planted on something. Only infinitesimal fragments of Society occupy the rungs, fragments which grow smaller by degrees and beautifully less the higher they get. Clearly, therefore, the fragments on the ladder could not help any appreciable portion of the bulk below into a more elevated position because to do so would render the base upon which the ladder rests exceedingly unstable and the position of the fragments most unhappily precarious And even if this were not so it would be quite palpably impossible to assist any notable number on to the bottom rungs already overcrowded, without pushing off some of those already on or forcing them higher; and as the economy of ladders precludes the possibility of any overweight at the top, the fragments of Society already there must be unceremoniously cuffed or pushed off by those forced up from below or the whole ladder must lose its balance and come toppling to the ground. Therefore the main concern of those on top, as well as those on the lower rungs, is to prevent the base from shifting.

We do not think Mr. Crooks is so desperately baffle-headed as not to understand that. As a matter of fact he makes it fairly apparent that he does understand in the last part of his remark. If those who are on the ladder do not help those at the bottom they must not be surprised if presently the ladder itself is pulled away.

Precisely. And the exact difference between Mr. Crooks and ourselves is that we are out to pull the ladder away by inciting the working-class at the base to view it as not less than an unmitigated nuisance at the best and as a crushing burden at the worst, a ladder up which they cannot climb anyhow, while Mr. Crooks is out to inspire the working-class at the base with the idea that the ladder is a great institution up which they may climb if they are good and virtuous, what time he points out to those on the ladder that if they are to maintain their position they must fill the working-class base with the idea that they (the ladder persons) are very sympathetic and only anxious to lend a hand to help them (the working class base) up the rungs. In other words Mr. William Crooks, M.P., like his friend, Mr. John Burns, M.P., is playing a double game.

The Ire Of The Irate Itinerant (2009)

From the December 2009 issue of the Socialist Standard

Television (1960)

From the July 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The institutions and morality of Capitalism reflect the profit motive and thus the interests of the capitalist class. The means of mass propaganda, and thereby the power to put over their ideas are in the hands of the capitalist class (or their agent, the State) in each country.

Whole generations of workers come and go, blissfully unaware that anything is wrong with private property or with the system of working for wages. The real facts of life have to be learned, perhaps from experience outside the influence of the propaganda machine. The Press, Schools, Cinemas, Pulpit, Radio and T.V. do their job so well that most people never realise they are having an outlook foisted on them which is fundamentally opposite to their own class interest.

The structure of capitalism and its institutions rise from and are in harmony with its class-property basis. Land, oilfields, factories, mines, herds of cattle, are among the things which make up the means of production. While these belong to the capitalist class, the wealth producers will work for wages, the goods they produce will be for sale with a view to profit, and human relationship will be dominated by money. While capitalism lasts, so will the false social values it generates. The accumulation of personal wealth will remain the perverted criterion of worth. No wonder that a working class, as yet unaware of their social position as the all important producers, are often seen in large numbers gazing in awed reverence at some of the parasites who live off them. No wonder, in turn, that various forms of escapism and make-believe have become widely popular.

The cinemas, now showing signs of decline, only a few years ago had queues at almost every pay-box. Going to the pictures was the working-class pastime, just as watching “the telly” is today. The world of second-hand thrills and dreams has largely changed its medium.

The fictional cow-boy and detective heroes have different names now, but their function is unchanged. Catching offenders against property, and the idea that punishment is Justice, are as popular as ever.

The land-grabbers, the cattle-thieves, the con-man, and the bank-raider, are still brought to book by the goodies of the F.B.I., the C.I.D. or the Marshal’s Office. The stolen property is always returned to its ’’rightful owner,” with few people to ask how he came to own it.

We are told that it is a sign of prosperity if workers, after a day in the factory or office, can go home to watch television. In fact, this simply shows how dull and monotonous their lives really are. In a world based on production for sale there is so little spontaneous joy in living that the professional laughter man and entertainer are in great demand. Without the artificial stimulations of things like T.V. many people would be at a complete loss. Thus the artificial becomes the real and to escape is a substitute for living.

Some people, of course, only watch the more “sophisticated” programmes, such as plays, and take pride in confining their viewing to the B.B.C. Not having a Socialist outlook, they soak up the same debased set of virtues and vices as the rest. Even plays which mildly attempt to investigate some festering ill of capitalism, such as the plight of the old, housing, juvenile delinquency or war, are totally unable to offer any solution and never give away the correct cause of these things. Instead of blaming capitalism, the workers continue to blame bad leaders, governmental mistakes, dictatorship or human nature. So those who, by not watching commercials think they avoid the money-morality of capitalism, are mistaken.

The commercials, of course, demonstrate the sickening hypocrisy, the false values and phoney morality of capitalism most nakedly. 

In the average week's viewing it is scientifically “proven” and demonstrated that half a dozen different makes of soap powder and detergent wash clothes cleaner, lighter, brighter and whiter than each other. There are about as many brands of oil and petrol which perform great wonders for motorists, with each one said to be better than the rest. There are numerous brands of cigarettes which “everyone” is switching to. Then the “razor boys” have a go with half a dozen makes of safety and electric razors, all of which shave smoother, cleaner, faster, than the others. So the examples could be multiplied.

Of all the scores of different things advertised in commercials, either on T.V. or elsewhere, not once are any of the possible drawbacks or harmful effects mentioned. Exaggeration, half-truths and direct lying are commonplace in advertising. The fact that millions of people watch the same adverts every night (many of which are repeated several times in the same evening) and make so little protest about them, is an unhealthy indication of the general acceptance of capitalism’s low standards. Perhaps Sir Robert Fraser, Director-General of the Independent Television Authority, had this in mind when he said: “Every person of common sense knows that people of superior mental constitution are bound to find much of television intellectually beneath them. ’ (Daily Mirror, 18-5-60.) We do not accept the idea of “superior mental constitution,” but since Fraser spoke generally in high praise of television, one might ask where he fits in? The idea is deliberately planted that unless you wear a certain make of shirt, skirt or cosmetic and own a watch, carpet-cleaner or spin-drier made by a particular firm, you will fail to impress your friends. Your prestige will slip, you will fall behind in the rat-race.

All the* high-pressure sales drives and the subtle persuaders merely emphasise the constant need in capitalism to find markets. Although on the commercials they say that their commodities “are just the thing for you,” you cannot have them if you cannot afford them—or at any rate the instalments. The normal condition of a worker is to live within what his wages can buy or hire. Hire-purchase, or by saving up, are the ways open to him to get anything that costs more than he can spare out of one week's wages. For most workers T.V. means H.P. over a couple of years or a rental or relay. The best that capitalism can do with the immense possibilities of modern scientific techniques is to allow the working class, while living under the threat of a slump or a war,, to enjoy themselves on the never-never. Capitalism denies the working class access to the wide world of real things that make up living. Having to live within the limitations of the wages system, they get things out of perspective and T.V. becomes a substitute for things out of reach.

Production under the profit motive has reduced most work to drudgery. Having taken the joy out of our working life, capitalism would reduce us to passive viewers in our leisure time. Television is just one of many achievements abused by capitalism.

Harry Baldwin

The Passing Show: Cheddington—The Reckoning (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the June 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Cheddington—The Reckoning

In just thirty-two minutes during the morning of April 16th, twelve men were sentenced to a total of 307 years imprisonment for their part in the great train robbery. Seven of the unfortunates received thirty years apiece and even the lowest sentence—on John Wheater the solicitor—was three years. Well might The Guardian describe the sentences next day as “a break from tradition", and point out that even in murder cases, a long term is only occasionally given.

It is no part of our business to argue for either side in the case, or to fall in with the idiocy of Methodist Dr. Donald Soper, who condemned the severity of the penalties but wanted Anglicans and Methodists to co-operate in working out a “Christian punishment". Justice Edmund Davies anyway would have had his reply — “A grave crime calls for a grave punishment"—and could probably quote plenty of Bible references and Christian ethics to support him. Probably, too, the majority of people would agree with him, although not without a sneaking admiration for the sheer daring and ingenuity of the whole plot.

Most of those sentenced said they would appeal, but whatever the outcome of this, it is worth repeating the point we made at the time. Those who practice armed robbery are just as much supporters of private property as any capitalist. The robbers of the Cheddington train, did on a much smaller scale of course, what whole groups of capitalist powers do when they go to war from time to time. There is no basic difference, even down to the detail of carving up the spoils afterwards.

In pronouncing sentence, the judge admitted that the crime in its enormity was the first of its kind in the country, and said “I propose to do all within my power to ensure that it will be the last". Which brings us face to face with the old question: does punishment prevent crime? The judge talked earnestly of deterring others “similarly tempted" but clearly failed to face up to the fallacy in his own argument. The thought of punishment obviously did not deter the men who did the robbery. It is too much to imagine that most of them at least had not weighed the possibility of arrest as one of the risks of the game, and carried on planning it just the same. In fact it has been seriously suggested that the Cheddington venture was financed from the proceeds of previous robberies, and if this is true, the deterrent power of punishment has obviously been sadly overrated 

No, crime is just one of the many facets of capitalist society and neither punishment nor a police force can stop it. For the modern criminal has merely responded to the conditions of a scientific and technological age, himself becoming a technician, mastering the know-how of oxyacetylene cutters, explosives, electrical gear and many other gadgets in the practice of his work. So that most of the time it is a see-saw battle between the police with all their modern means of detection and the boys who seek to outwit them. A battle, after all, between those who already own private property and those who want to take some of it from them. How can this sort of problem be solved by one set of robbers punishing another? The conditions of robbery of any sort must go, and that means the end of capitalism.

Health Charges and Hypocrisy

Perhaps one thing about being a member of H.M. Opposition in The Commons is that you can get away with just that bit more hypocrisy than H.M. Government. After all, the electors won’t blame you for things which go wrong while the other lot are in power and workers’ political memories are notoriously short. Anyway, it is about thirteen years since the last Labour government.

And thirteen years is a long enough time to forget the indignities of Labour rule, to forget that quite a number of present Tory policies had their origins in the years of Labour government, and that the Tories have been no more successful in solving working class problems.

Maybe then you would have missed the point of the statement made in the Commons on April 20th by Mr. Kenneth Robinson, Labour M.P. for St. Pancras North and Shadow Minister of Health. The next Labour government would, he said with a flourish, end prescription charges without making cuts anywhere else in the health service to make way for it. Now does your memory stretch back far enough to recall that the very first charges of this sort were imposed by the 1950 Labour government ? But not a whisper of this from Mr. Robinson.

Such a pledge will of course go down well with pensioners and others, whose plight forces them lo count every penny they spend. At the same lime it gives us an inkling of the contempt in which Labourites as well as Tories hold those who vote for them, the assumption being that a miserable few shillingsworth of pep pills and potions mark the limits of working class ambitions. Ironically and tragically, though, this is pretty near the truth, because working class ignorance means that arguments over crumbs like this can often cause a heated election tussle, while a terrifying problem like nuclear war can be all forgotten.

But health charges or H-bombs, the one thing which does not occur to workers is that they have their origin in the Capitalist system. Stubborn in their political ignorance, they hope to eliminate these problems and leave the cause intact—and that perhaps is the supreme irony of all.

Good Grivas

It’s funny how in the field of statesmanship, supposed enemies of yesterday can become friends of today, and vice versa, depending on the needs of the various ruling groups at the time. History is full of such instances. Stalin after 1945 for example. That was a right-about-turn if ever you saw one. Forgotten were the days when he was a comrade in arms of Churchill and Roosevelt, as the cold war got under way, and more than once the world was pushed perilously close to the brink of another major war. Now the pendulum could be swinging the other way as China develops and Mao becomes the bogyman of the Russian rulers. Then there is President de Gaulle with whom the British government must on many occasions have sworn eternal friendship, but who has been cutting up rough against British interests in Europe and pursuing his own semi-isolationist policies. Will he be the villain of the piece at some future date?

Take a look as the struggle in Cyprus. A few years ago, Makarios was interned in the Seychelles, only to come back later and shake hands over a peace agreement. But the peace was short lived and the British press rediscovers the blood-stained hands of the Cypriot president. Then into the news steps Grivas, another former enemy of earlier years, described by The Guardian of April 13th as “the brains of terrorism”.

General George Grivas was prominent for his direction of the campaign against the British from 1955 to 1959, and waged a ruthless struggle against an equally ruthless enemy, with murderous attacks against soldier and civilian alike. So in your innocence you might be astounded to see The Guardian editorial, again of April 13th, saying this about him:

. . . Whether we like it or not, Grivas is a man of influence, purpose, and decision, and ex-enemies with these qualities have helped us mightily in the past. . . If the General does go back . . . it might not be the worst thing that has happened to the Cypriots lately. The combination of a strong general and a weak president is not usually desirable, but in a country as lawless as Cyprus it can often bring peace more quickly, even if it does not bring justice.

A few years ago no name was too bad for this Grivas as British troops hunted (but never caught) him from one place to another. But times are changing, and with them the whole balance of strategy in the Mediterranean. What’s the betting they'll he pinning a medal on his chest yet?

Status Symbols

The world is full of them, and workers are among their most ardent supporters. What are we talking about? Status symbols of course. In a sane world where things were produced for use, you would expect an outlook in keeping with it. People would have a pride in producing the best at any given time because this would be the only way to give satisfaction to anyone, either in producing or using a particular article. Within Socialism, therefore, we would take great pride in producing things and in using them but not in owning them.

For pride of ownership is one of the false values that arise from capitalist society, where the forces of production are geared to the profit motive, and social approbation for a person is usually in direct ratio to the amount of wealth he owns, not to his usefulness to society as a whole. It is not surprising then that the status symbol has such a firm place in working class affections, and is encouraged by the advertising blurbs with words like ". . . You can be the proud owner of a . . . " But more than that, for many the status symbol is the pie thin crust that conceals the poverty beneath. This is the explanation for the paradox of enormous (mainly second-hand) cars often parked outside the slummiest dwellings, in Windsor a few years ago, over two hundred houses were checked by the G.P.O. and found to have T.V. aerials— but no sets.

Since then, the T.V. craze has slowed down, and people arc beginning to discover that cars are not an unmixed blessing in present frantic road conditions. Anyway, a status symbol loses its purpose if everyone has it so when this happens, the seekers must turn their eyes elsewhere. One certainty is that they will never stop looking. According to The News of the World recently, sun tans are now much sought after, and for as little as thirty shillings you can get your neighbour thinking you’ve just come back from a spell in the south of France. A travel agency in London's West End has started a sun bathing salon with ultra-violet lamps, to acclimatise their clients before they go abroad. Now they find that the majority of those using the salon are not going abroad anyway.

Pitiful, you might think? Tragic would be a better word, and as damning an indictment of capitalism as any. This is the system which never lets us really be ourselves, untrammelled and unashamed, but subjects us all the time to the strain of pretence. For many workers self-delusion plays a part in all this—the vain hope that maybe the pretence will one day be transformed into reality if they can only keep it going long enough and strong enough. Socialism, if it did nothing else, would release us from that sort of indignity at least. 

Eddie Critchfield

Poor but respectable (1947)

From the May 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

For too long the working class have had their strength drained by poverty and economic insecurity. Although harassed and undernourished, they have accepted their condition as being inevitable : content with the reform crumbs that have been grudgingly given after bitter struggles. As yet they know of no alternative.

Their arguments in defence of their position are proverbial, and like schoolchildren chanting the multiplication table, they have repeated the ‘‘catch-phrases” of their masters. “There have always been rich and poor.” “You must have Capital and Labour.” ‘‘Hard work never hurt anyone.” ‘‘The bosses have got the brains.” These phrases have dulled workers' political alertness, because, always hoping to rise in the social sphere by hard work, they eventually discover there is nothing on that road but work and poverty. They do not know the alternative.

Poverty is a social disease which has undermined the health of the working class. The slum dwellers of to-morrow—the suburbanites, think the term poverty refers to the slum dwellers of to-day. They in turn think it refers to beggars and tramps. It is never on their own doorstep. It is always the other person who is poor.

The poverty of sweet suburbia is more respectable than that of the slum areas. They have no bugs. They eat from tablecloths, not newspapers. They have baths, not bowls in which to perform their ablutions. They have a lounge, not a parlour. Their children wear “college” caps and do not “run the streets.” Unmarried expectant mothers have been kicked out of their homes to maintain their family’s respectability. ‘‘ What will the neighbours think?” outweighs consideration for their daughter’s welfare. Respectability knows no bounds.

In sweet suburbia they have a different outlook from the slum dweller. They desire to ‘‘get on” in the world. Being snobs, they try to find out what the other fellow does ‘‘in the city.” It is never called work. They receive a ‘‘salary,” not a wage. They visit the "local” not the "pub.” They wear out their lives trying to keep up appearances, and have been known to go without food in order to do so. Property-conscious, with shoddy clothes and affected speech, they ape their masters in an endeavour to hide their poverty. Their condition is wretched, for they are acting a lie throughout their lives. All have one fear — the fear of losing a job.

Foolish workers! Not only do you produce the wealth which the Capitalist class enjoy, but they control your thinking, and you are content despite your wretchedness, that this should be so. It is true you grumble—that is a safety valve, but animals do not whine and skulk in corners.

One can understand the Capitalist class defending their power, prestige and property. They have got a lot to lose, but you have only your poverty—and how you like it!

You are the toiling millions who produce the wealth of the world, for others to enjoy. As yet, the Capitalist class is not afraid of you, for they have got you where they want you, but when you begin to think in your own interests, they will not be so flagrant. The newspapers will not show a photo of a super ship with its millionaires on board, and on the same page, an offer to the miners of an extra ounce of rationed meat.

Workers, rouse yourselves from your lethargy. Try to understand the world in which you exist. Join with us in working for a society where poverty and degradation will be replaced by comfort and a full life for all.

S. W. C.

Love and Marriage (1956)

From the May 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “Look closely into the homes of those who struggle to keep and educate two children, those whose job depends upon their appearance of affluence. Behind the scenes you will find financial strain, real poverty, self-denial, and at an early age, contraception and all its mental stresses and physical disappointments. It is the spirit of home life and parenthood which suffers. Love itself is starved and often blamed for its own decline. When love goes, anything may go, but worst of all, the most glorious gift of womanhood remains inhibited and immature. The spirit of motherhood is never fully developed; our social system is gradually crushing the most powerful force for real goodness that is known to the human race.”

(From Childhood Without Fear, page 216, by Dr. Grantly Dick Read, M.A., M.D. Heineraann Medical Books.)

Film Review: Jumping the Broom (2011)

Film Review from the July 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Jumping the Broom is a black (and you can bet there’s no pun intended) comedy about class distinction in America’s black community.

Sabrina Watson (Paula Patton) a successful lawyer, from a wealthy family, falls for Jason (Laz Alonso), a Wall Street wiz-kid, whose mother Pam (Loretta Devine) is a postal worker. Tensions flare the day before the wedding, when the two families meet for the first time. Pam feels ultra defensive, especially when she observes the Watson’s home on Martha’s Vineyard, which she compares to the Kennedy compound. When she says grace at supper, the evening before the wedding, Pam sets the tone for the movie by being blatantly insulting.

The crux of the matter becomes her insistence that the ‘Happy Couple’ “Jump the Broom” This dates back to when African slaves were not allowed to marry and jumped over a broom, which was the equivalent of a ceremony.

Mrs. Watson (Angela Bassett) is totally opposed to this on the grounds that it was a slave ritual. She informs Pam that her family had never been slaves and, in fact, once owned them. That blacks themselves, sometimes, had black slaves is a little-known fact of American history. Class distinctions and the hostilities they create reach boiling point, causing family secrets, such as Sabrina’s real parentage, to be revealed. Disgusted with everything, the bride refuses to marry and flees the scene.

This is where the movie, which is Salim Akil’s directional debut, breaks down. When everyone’s been rubbed the wrong way and all hitherto concealed feelings are in the open, it becomes kiss and make up and “lets give the audience a happy ending” time. This is hardly believable of any family in such a previously volatile situation. What is believable is that, if capitalists invest in anything, they will want as good a return as they can get. If it means giving the public an unrealistic ending, they will do so.

There is nothing new about class distinctions based on money, nor hereditary titles among America’s black community. In 1948 when Nat King Cole married Maria Ellington, her wealthy aunt, Dr. Charlotte Hawkins, shunned him because, although wealthy at the time, Cole came from a poor family. Dr. Hawkins, coming from a more prosperous one, had founded America’s first finishing school for African American ladies and boasted of her friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt. When the happy couple returned from their honeymoon, Hawkins paid for a banquet in their honour as she considered it her duty, but refused to attend.

Capitalism is as divisive as it is corrupting whether the community be black, white, red, yellow or any other colour, economics will always cause distinctions between people.

Steve Shannon

Dignity and Impudence. (1921)

"Dignity and Impudence''

From the January 1921 issue of the Socialist Standard

"Dignity and Impudence'' it the title of a well known print portraying two dogs peering from one kennel. One represents a St. Bernard, with heavy jaws and ponderous paws, shaggy mane, and eyes watchful and easy. Calm and powerful there he rests, while between his paws reclines a terrier, sporting in the shadow of the other's strength.

There is something common to both, however, and it lies in the fact that they each depend upon their owner for the means to sustain life.

Now there is an analogy between this picture and the life of mankind in modern capitalist society. Let us, therefore, take a brief survey of the economic conditions of human existence.

In the first place we know that the world is inhabited by many millions of people, with a variety of tastes, habits, and so on. Further, out of this number there is an overwhelming proportion who have something in common. It is that they are compelled to work in order to live.

The capitalist system of wealth production has stretched out its tentacles over the whole world, so that almost everywhere we find these teeming, struggling millions, who not only have to work, but are compelled to work for someone else.

Unless the units of this vast army of workers can find work—someone to employ them—they are cut off from the means of life and must starve, as thousands are doing to-day.

So this vast mass of the world's workers, like the dogs in the picture, have this common character—they are dependent upon some[one] else. They are dependent upon someone who will employ them, in order to get the common necessaries of life.

These "someones," these employers, who are they ? Clearly they occupy an entirely different position from that of the workers. They are the ruling class, the possessing class, the idle class. They have no useful function in society, but live a life of luxury and ease upon the fruits of the labours of the working class—they are parasites on the body politic.

These are the two classes into which society is divided. Let us now examine a particular section of the working class, that section who usually refer to themselves as "brain workers," but are often referred to as the "black coat brigade," in order to complete our analogy with "Dignity and Impudence."

This particular section is made up of types who are dignified and respectable, because they come into close daily contact with their employers. It is their specific function to assist the capitalist class in the direction of keeping their accounts, in order to show exactly how the exploitation of their fellow workers is progressing. The docile humility and faithfulness which distinguishes this particular type of slave seems now to be developing into something like impudence.

The writer has in mind the strike recently called by the Guild of Insurance Officials, because certain of its members were dismissed from the General Accident Corporation for being members of the Guild. The management of the G.A.C. having noted the impudence of this action, record their strong resentment in a letter to one of the dismissed. I quote the "Daily Express," 17.11.20:

  ".   .   .  Moreover, did you for one moment think that any board of directors would agree to the setting up of a joint committee of employees and themselves to consider the merits or demerits of the various members of the staff and their remuneration ?   Such a thing in a commercial business that is run by brains is absolutely impossible." 

One can easily appreciate that it would seriously disturb the atmosphere of dignity in which employers of brain workers have always endeavoured to cloak their slaves, to permit them to organise themselves like common workmen—or like common masters for that matter, for they all do it—for the protection and furtherance of their economic interests. 

Economic forces are no respecters of persons. They grind slowly but surely, compelling even the most stiff-necked to forgo their dignity and examine their conditions of daily life. Therefore it only proves the correctness of the Marxian method when the super-respectable find it necessary to organise for the defence of their economic interests.

In connection with the strike a joint mass meeting was held "to protest against the dismissal by the General Accident of employees who have joined the Insurance Guild, and to vindicate the right of brain workers to combine for mutual protection." Associated with the demonstration were the following organisations:

Shipping Clerical Staffs' Guild
Stock Exchange Clerks' Guild
Commercial Staffs' Association
National Guild of Accountants' Clerks
Scottish Bankers' Association
Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries
Railway Clerk's Association
Clerical Officers' Association (Civil Service)

Representatives of these organisations addressed the meeting, and each endeavoured to outshine the others in their rhetoric.

The black coats, however, must bear in mind that they are, comparatively, newcomers in the trade union movement, and that if progress is to be made the rank and file must get acquainted with the motive force which has compelled them to organise; they must get to understand their class position and the nature of the class struggle which Socialist knowledge makes clear.

When this has been attained, the function of the trade union leader, whose record in other fields is marked by treachery, will be realised.

Leadership implies an ignorant following. An intelligent rank and file require democratically elected delegates to represent them. This is a distinction of fundamental importance to the workers, if they are to achieve their emancipation from wage slavery.

When resolutions were moved by the leaders at this meeting that Mr. Lloyd George should be asked to intervene, and if he was not respectable enough, then the Prince of Wales should be acquainted with the facts, the fitness of these men to "lead" their followers anywhere save into "outer darkness" is utterly disproved. Political parties represent class interests. Mr. Lloyd George represents the interests of the capitalist class, whose interests are diametrically opposed to those of the working class. The Prince of Wales is an estimable young man who knows his job, which is to eyewash the workers in the interest of the capitalist class.

One speaker, however, determined to maintain his dignity at all costs, said "We view the strike method with abhorrence." Of course, "on strike" does not sound a bit respectable, but the strike is the only weapon the workers have on the economic field. The black coats may get more familiar with it in the near future, when the contempt that will be bred of familiarity will, doubtless compel them to look for other methods.

Those other methods are class-conscious political action. And the Socialist Party, with its political object, awaits eagerly that time of understanding.

The action of the "General Accident" was not altogether appreciated, however, by the employing class, because, as the "Daily News" put it in an editorial (19.11.20) : "This is the way to drive the brain workers and manual workers closer together, and both of them towards extremes. Is it worth while ?"

This observation on the part of the capitalist Press is particularly significant, and there is a wealth of meaning and fear hidden in that last sentence, "Is it worth while ?"

After all the pains which the ruling class have taken to impress a certain section of the working class with the respectability of their black coats and the dignity of their calling, and to isolate them from the "lower orders," they have to recognise that their policy of divide and rule is nearly played out.

To salary slaves the lesson should be clear. They must understand that whether they have to work in black coats or overalls they belong to the working class. When they grip this fact they will know the worth of the high-sounding phrases about respectability, gentility, dignity, and the rest of the flattering notions with which their masters keep them in subjection.

The working class are compelled to grovel on the floor of the industrial kennel, and if some of their number assume dignity they are but taking on a pose which ill fits the degrading nature of their existence. Their remuneration, whether it is called wages or salary, is determined by what it costs to keep and reproduce their kind. Like carrots and cat's meat, their energies are bought and sold, and the wage or salary is the price. It may sound undignified, but, nevertheless, it is an economic fact which has to be firmly gripped.

Finally, organisation on trade union lines, no matter how well disciplined the rank and file may be, and necessary as it may be to-day, in order to resist the pressure of the employing class, will not emancipate the workers from the wages system. To achieve this end they must organise into a political party conscious of their class interest, and equipped with the necessary knowledge.

That political party already exists—in the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Study its Object and Declaration of Principles, and then—ACT!

B.

"Middle-Class" Respectability. (1920)

From the November 1920 issue of the Socialist Standard

One hears a good deal about that portion of society yclept the "middle class." In reality the successive class struggles throughout history have wiped out all but two classes, viz, the capitalist class and the working class; but apparently the title "middle class" is still given to those unfortunates (or fortunates as the case may be) who wallow not in luxury or in mud ! Their main function seems to be to keep up the moral tone of mankind and save for humanity its chiefest virtue, Respectability.

To the discerning Socialist the capitalist system is, most of it, naked rottenness, while the rest of it is covered by a thin veneer that only accentuates the filth beneath. The working class, it would seem, do not notice the rottenness, but are deceived by the veneer. This veneer manifests itself in a variety of ways, in conventional respectability, religious and military ceremonies, persiflage, and, above all, in treating as "taboo" the ugly truth !

The shibboleth of the "middle class" is "respectability." It believes itself, on that account, as distinct from and above the working class as the dwellers upon high Olympus are from and above the cowherds of the plains below. It calls its ugly little villa "The Lindens," and marries its daughters respectably, whereas the working class lives in a tenement and very often does not marry its daughters at all, and therein lies the difference.

But when the Socialist comes along and points out that both portions are alike inasmuch as they are equally exploited and robbed by the capitalist class, what a raising of hands and eyebrows there is, what a fluttering in the dovecotes of Suburbia! But it is nevertheless true that the so-called middle-class man is as fearful and afraid for his economic position as any member of society who is forced to sell his power to labour in order to live.

To a very large extent capitalism thrives on this self deception of the "salariat." Most of the apologists of the system spring from this section of the working class. And though some of its opponents are of the "middle class," they have met with their most bitter opposition in its ranks. For why ?

The "middle class" knows that slums exist; it also knows that people starve to death occasionally. It will admit, when its young people are out of the room, that prostitutes abound in lasge numbers in great cities ; that venereal diseases fill hospitals. But then, you know, it is not usual to talk of such things—it is not respectable!

I once asked some young men of this "middle class" at the beginning of the recent war, why it was they rushed to avenge the outraged women of Belgium yet observed without indignation thousands of women forced to sell their bodies on the streets to avoid starvation. I think their answer was to call me a pro-German ! To them and their section fighting Germans was the proper thing to do. But to think why they should or should not never occurred to them.

It is not to be wondered at that the capitalist Press, particularly during a strike, keeps the "middle class " distinct from the rest of the community. But as Marx has pointed out, this section of society is gradually being brought face to face with its true position in relation to the rest of society, and the time is not far distant when "respectability" will have ceased to be a stumbling block in the path of progressive thought. We read now-a-days of unions for the protection of clergymen, bank clerks, doctors, and others who, perhaps unwillingly enough, are beginning to see thst so far as the capitalist system is concerned, there is not an atom of difference between the man with a pen or lancet and the miner or road-mender.

But they should bear this in mind and act upon it too: Capitalism can do nothing for them. There is one remedy only for the evils and discomforts they are up against, and that is the abolition of capitalism and the establishment of Socialism.

Stanley H. Steele

"I've always been respectable" (1953)

From the April 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

The peace of mind of ordinary English people has been disturbed! A widow has been sued for possession of her flat at Bow County Court, on the ground that she was an annoyance to other tenants in the house. The annoyance was visits by a man she intended to marry.

“The thought of a couple living in the house adulterously. perhaps, and certainly immorally—worried them,” said the prosecuting lawyer. When asked “What is your attitude to this man living with this woman?” a tenant of the basement replied, “I take a very poor view of it. I’ve been married 28 years and I’ve always been respectable.”

Counsel for the Defence: “The fact that two people who are sleeping together have no marriage lines, doesn’t make their conduct an annoyance to people in an adjoining flat.”

Judge: “The average women in the East End doesn’t like to have an unmarried woman living as though she were married next door to her. They come here in their scores and tell me so.”

Counsel for Prosecution: “The poorer classes are very often much more fastidious in these matters than the top layer.”

Judge: “We won’t say the top layer. We’ll say the wealthier classes . . . anything that disturbs the peace of mind of other inhabitants of a house is an annoyance. This sort of conduct is something that I am pleased to say in these days still disturbs the peace of mind of ordinary sensible English people."

Making an order for possession, suspended so long as visits ceased, the Judge told the widow, “If you choose to sleep with Mr. —, I can’t prevent it, but you must choose somewhere else!" Or, as a certain Mr. Henry Ford used to say, “The customers can have any colour they like, as long as it’s black."

In such cases is much material for study. The “poorer classes’’ are more fastidious about “marriage lines’’ than the wealthy ones. They are very worried if somebody lives next door as though they are married, when they are not. They are unlike the proprietors of some expensive West End hotels, which provide accommodation mainly for persons not married to each other.

These hoteliers would get “very worried” if their guests were married couples, since then they would be on the way out.

In addition to all their other advantages and privileges (No Taxation or Death Duties, no financial worries, no servant problem, no wrangles about places in the Coronation procession; or what to do with the old ancestral hall, or Kenya or the Soudan) the poorer classes have, as their most cherished possession, their respectability. Come rain or shine, fair weather or foul, nobody can deprive them of this most precious jewel.

Rich men may marry a new film-star every year; even in the basement, we’re respectable.

Neither does this extend to “marriage lines” only, as every inhabitant of those quarters occupied by the “poorer classes" knows; behind those threadbare “respectable" curtains lurks the prying eye, the sharp inquisitive nose eager for the slightest sign of a minor slip or lapse. Let Mrs. Brown forget to whiten her doorstep when the snow is on the ground; how the bush telegraph crackles over the garden wall!

Crammed together in numbers which ants would find uncomfortable, in parts of dilapidated houses at the rate of more than 2½ to one small room; not merely next to each other, but literally on top of each other, dependent upon a husband whose job is so deadly dull and monotonous that a Coronation Tea party is a thrilling adventure, their greatest experience a visit to a cheap local cinema, small wonder that their main pre-occupation is to be “cleaner” “brighter," “nicer" or when all else fails, more “respectable" than the woman next door. “Them mats haven’t been touched these last two days!"

“Marriage lines" is the popular slang term for the Registrar’s Certificate, issued under the Matrimonial Act to persons legally entitled to it. This Act ensures chiefly that monogamy (one wife or husband only) is observed, the breach of this, bigamy, being severely punished as a criminal offence. “Sleeping together" without these “lines," annoys scores of poorer women in the East End, though whether many or few do this, we cannot say.

Though not guilty of infringement of the Matrimonial Act, the lady in question, a widow, had no “marriage lines” for her visitor, which annoyed the other tenants. They, unlike heathens and foreigners, are “respectable.”

These rules of the matrimonial game, or “gamble,” as it is sometimes called, are the result of the growth of private property. Monogamy is essential to ensure that a fortune goes to a man’s own children, it is the maintenance of private property. Since it is a social law of Capitalism, the poor, like the rich, must not flout it openly. Had the lady been rich she would not have appeared in Court, since she would not have rented a flat in Bow.

Neither could she have been sued for possession of her own property. She could invite as many visitors to as many of her houses as she chose. Had her “visitor” been wealthy, he could have invited her anywhere he pleased (yachts are popular) without risking Court proceedings, seagulls not having heard of “marriage lines." As is well known, some very wealthy people still practice what in earlier days, or other places, was commonplace, the maintenance of an “unofficial" harem as an advertisement of opulence.

As long as working class women are condemned to grim, mean little lives of grinding poverty, “respectability” will be a straw to clutch at in face of premature age and hopeless exhaustion. The lady suffered from a lack of what becomes yearly more expensive and unobtainable; personal privacy. This is a form of poverty. The occupants of a typical house of working-class “flats” have about as much seclusion as a professional footballer on Saturday afternoons.

As our “modern conveniences” increase, so our lives become more inconvenient. As if the Atom Bomb, gastritis, influenza, the Floods and the Mau Mau are not enough “disturbance,” that woman upstairs “ has got 'im 'ere again. There’s too many in the house already without her bringing more in.”

In his vastly entertaining account of his stay in the Marquesas Islands entitled “Typee." subsequently authenticated, the American writer Melville, comments wittily on the happy lot of the Polynesian in the 1840s 

    “There seemed to be no cares, griefs, troubles or vexations in all Typee. The hours tripped along as gaily as the laughing couples down a country dance.” He says there were “no bills or mortgages, no lawyers, no beggars, no prisons, no 'proud nabobs’—in a word—no money.” (Page 136, Penguin Edition.)
   “No cross old women, no cruel step-dames, no withered spinsters, no love-sick maidens, no sour old bachelors, no inattentive husbands, no melancholy young men, no squalling brats. All was mirth, fun, and high good humour.” (Page 136.)

To which should be appended “no marriage lines” because there was no private property.

Should the reader be contemplating speedy departure to this haven let us disillusion him. From the introduction we quote, “The modern visitor would find little trace of the life described in 'Typee,' for the population which at one time was 100,000, has dwindled to less than 2,000; contact with whites has brought syphilis, leprosy and tuberculosis," and, may we add. Respectability?

Horatio.

Behind the Dry Statistics (1964)

From the May 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

If there is one person I would very much like to meet, it is the Registrar General.

To most people, I suspect, the statistics which are regularly sucked into Somerset House, to be whirled around there until they come out in the Registrar General’s report, are the dullest things on earth. Yet in fact those statistics can tell a vital, exciting—and sometimes depressing—story of how we live, work, get married, bear children, fall ill and die. What effect, I wander do they have upon the Registrar General?

Does he fume, after reporting the latest lung cancer deaths, at advertisments which say that the only thing a cigarette will give a man is satisfaction—and a nuzzling from a glamorous girl? Does he shake his head over the “with it” younger marriages, and sigh at the shocks and disappointments which the future must hold for so many tender, starry-eyed kids?

What, I should like to know, did he think of the suicide figures in his last report? In the seven Metropolitan boroughs which have a high suicide rate there are also a lot of what are officially called “one person households,” although you and I would call them bed-sitters. Now these two facts may be unconnected; it may be a coincidence that people who live in bed-sitters in areas like Chelsea, Holborn and Hampstead are more likely to put an end to their life than other people. But to anyone who has ever been the person in the “one person household” it must be likely that the opposite is true.

For a number of years I lived in a house in Ealing which was split up into bedsitters. From what I remember of that place, I would never be surprised to hear that one of its tenants had added himself to the Registrar General’s suicide figures. The house was a big, heavy square place with a crumbling, almost paintless, exterior. The hall was moderately pleasant, with what could have been a graceful staircase, but the higher up the stairs you went the darker, the mustier and the more depressing it became. Over everything there was the dead hand of neglect and the hopelessness of a last refuge. Apart from myself and one young Irish girl, the people who lived there were middle aged.

The house was owned by Mrs. Q., an old lady who lived in another, larger, smarter house in the same road where she collected our rents and distributed the weekly parcels of laundry. 1 soon discovered that it was advisable to settle with Mrs. Q., on a Saturday morning; she was fond of her Friday evening glass of port and when she had had too much she be came embarrassingly voluble and difficult to get away from.

Apart from this, Mrs. Q. did not worry her tenants. If she had any complaints about us she would leave querulous notes, written in her shaky hand on ragged pieces of brown paper, on the hallstand. “Will the tenant who is leaving an electricity fire on all days. . . .’’or “One tenant is leaving the bath dirty afterwards. . . .  (I could plead not guilty to this last complaint with an easy conscience—I never managed to persuade the bathroom geyser to work and, after wrestling with it for about a quarter of an hour, used to endure a stand up cold both while the geyser, I am sure, grinned at me from its corroded corner).

There was one room, on the top floor, which Mrs. Q. always kept padlocked. One day I noticed that the padlock was hanging open on the hasp and, unable to resist it, I crept through the doorway. Thick dust was everywhere, over the pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac which lay around. The room was suffused with the odour of decay. On a table was some delicate glassware and a toilet set of solid silver, unused in its hide case. There was also a yellowed picture of Mrs. Q. when she was a young girl, standing beside a stern, upright man with forbidding moustaches and black eyes. Somewhere beneath the rot and the dust there was, I knew, a lot of history in that room—a history of a girlhood which ended to the throb of gunfire and the crunching soldiers’ feet and the collapse of an era. But it suddenly seemed a pity to disturb it and, anyway, Mrs. Q. might come up and catch me. So I came out.

The other tenants, if I may say so, were a curious lot. In the street they were unexceptionally respectable—all collar and tie and sober trilby. But they had some queer ways and not the queerest was their reluctance to come face to face with you in the house. My room was on the third floor and often, as I came downstairs, 1 would see a door on a landing below me open, only to close again as whoever was behind it realised that someone was coming downstairs. I wondered, at first, what it was that made them so afraid to meet each others’ eye indoors—in the street they usually smiled and said hello. But I stopped asking myself that question when I found that I had caught the habit. In the end I was going to ridiculous lengths to avoid meeting my fellow tenants.

Those people were very much alone and by all their standards good job, friends,  marriage they were failures. But they had to put up a show of being busy, wanted. One of them had this so badly that he could not walk down the street without stopping every few seconds to look into his inside pocket, or peer down to see whether his shoelace was undone, or stare up at a passing aeroplane. Perhaps he really had nothing to do and nowhere to go, but the last thing he wanted anyone to think was that he was walking aimlessly down the street.

Some of the tenants used to play the same sort of game in the local Joe Lyons, sitting all evening over the same cup of tea, looking expectantly around them, trying to appear as if they were waiting for someone. But nobody ever came and when the teashop closed they went back to Mrs. Q.’s dismal gas rings.

It was especially bad for them at the weekend and during holidays. Christmas, which they presumably all believed to be a festival of warm congregation, must have been a torture for them. They must have welcomed the return to work, to release them from the agonies of leisure.

Perhaps that house has imprinted too lasting an impression on me. I read T. S. Eliot: -

For I have known them all already,
                                       known them all—
Have known the evening, mornings,
                                                   afternoons.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

And again:- 

One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.

and I am back in the brown walls and the smell of dust, among those miserable, unwanted people who were afraid to face even themselves with their own problems. They sat waiting for them to disappear in the steam of the teashop or tried to hide them in the shadows which Mrs. Q.’s low wattage lamps threw among the junk shop furniture in their rooms. But the problems stayed and were always there to greet them when they came back from Lyons or from the walk around the Common.

Most people, I suspect again, will think that we are over simplifying when we say that Socialism will end such problems. Loneliness, failure, suicide—these, they think, are personal matters with no relation to society at large. But in this they are wrong and the Registrar General’s figures say that they are.

Capitalism today dominates our lives For its own needs it has erected enormous cities, concentrating its means of production and administration into great ugly, airless wedges of bricks and mortar and cramming its hapless peoples into these deserts. It has no interest in these people except when they are working or when they are threatening the smooth profitability of the system by falling ill or by breaking its laws—or perhaps by committing suicide. As long as we turn up for the stint at the bench, or at the desk, capitalism is satisfied. The beauty—if that is the word—of capitalism is that our masters only buy our ability to work, and that for only a certain time. For the rest, nobody need care. Our private life is our own; and while this may have its advantages, in some ways our lives are perhaps too much our own, perhaps too private. Wedged in our own little respectable, private life, we can also be desperately lonely in a city breathing ten million people.

Capitalism has raised respectability—temperance, orthodoxy, subservience—onto a pedestal and it has glorified prosperity. For so many people the ultimate degradation is to become poor, to lose what they call class, to be looked down upon. They struggle to be respectable citizens and to hide their true poverty under their mediocrity. They struggle like this in their semi-detachcd villas on the garden estates. They struggle in the flats and the prefabs and they struggle, too, in the seedy bed-sitters. They are fighting losing battles.

Perhaps it could happen one Sunday afternoon in early Spring, with the sky grey and cold and no leaves yet upon the trees. It has been a long fight, this struggle to appear respectable, occupied, wanted; you have not given up even in the teashop, even under the dull lamp in your room. But this afternoon, somehow, it is all too much. Your head aches. The hot tea is sharp and stale and lies queasily in your stomach. There is no promise anywhere, only tomorrow and tomorrow when you are released back into the office, into the filing and the endless shuffling of papers.

You leave the table and walk in a dream across the Common to the grim house, to the musty carpets, the brown doors and your silent, waiting room. You stand with your back against the door and contemplate the monster of your own reality, squatting in every shadow thrown by the glimmering bulb. Suddenly it is all clear. There is no more need to pretend and it is such a relief. The monster emerges from the shadows and you greet him now because he is a friend. There is nothing left for it but to lock the door, stuff up the keyhole and the cracks around the window, turn on the gas and settle into Mrs. Q.'s broken chair waiting to become another digit in the periodical returns of the Registrar General.

Ivan