50 Years Ago: Down Your Way (2004)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s happening down your way? What are you talking about in the office? Football Pools? T.V.? The cost of living? Marilyn Monroe? Probably. Workers are apathetic about most social questions; and the political parties are finding it increasingly difficult to attract audiences to their meetings.

   

But are the workers really satisfied with present-day conditions? Are you satisfied? Surely not. You’re fed-up with hydrogen bombs, the talk of war, the cost of living, the Labour Party – and the Tories. They both promised to solve your housing problems, rising prices. They promised you peace – whilst preparing for war. Is it surprising that you are cynical and apathetic? That you are fed-up with “politics?” Most people think there can be no solution to all these evils that beset us; and that the present order – or “disorder” of society will always be with us.

   

Yes, you are quite right. “Politics,” that is the politics of running this present system, is a “dirty game.” And we, as Socialists are not interested in playing the game. We know that the various political parties that promise to solve your problems for you are incapable of doing so. We know that the present system of society – capitalism – cannot be run in your interest. That is why we propose that you change it. That is why we want to get you interested, not so much in “politics,” but in society as it is; and in society as it could be, as it must be, in the future. We want you to desire and work for an entirely new way of life (. . .)

   

We socialists are ordinary people. We have studied our society and have come to the conclusion that whilst the present profit-making system remains we will never get rid of the evils of war, insecurity and the rest. We think that only by changing the whole structure of society will we get rid of these problems. Only by making the means of life – the factories, offices, railways, etc. – the common possession of all people, and producing the things necessary to satisfy people’s needs and desires solely for use and not for profit will we eradicate these evils.

   

This, briefly, is our alternative to “politics,” football pools, the “dogs” – and apathy.

   

Think it over.

[From an article, Down Your Way, by Peter E. Newell, December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard.]

Socialism and Psychology. A Materialist on the Human Mind. (1917)

From the August 1917 issue of the Socialist Standard

To the average man the mind is a wonderful phenomenon, something that is past his understanding. Memory, judgment, imagination, and thought are to him miracles. He makes no attempt to study them because they are of the essence of his being, which to him is an unsolvable mystery. But to the scientist the mind is no more of a mystery than are other natural phenomena quite easily understood by the average man.

The scientist is so familiar with the brain—the seat of the mind—that he can mark off to a certain extent those regions that receive the different impressions from the external world, as by sight, smell, hearing, etc. By a close study of healthy and unhealthy minds he has learned the actual regions of the brain that are responsible for memory, judgment, and reason. He can remove a portion of the brain and foretell what faculty will be affected as a consequence.

To the scientist the brain is a physiological organ which he studies in exactly the same way as he studies other organs or phenomena ; that is, by observation, hypothesis, and experiment. The hypothesis is deduced from the facts observed, and the experiment either justifies it, disproves it, or brings to light new facts which modify it.

Every organ of the body (with the exception of those atrophied through disuse) has its function. The function of the heart is circulation, that of the stomach is digestion, and those of the brain nervous co-ordination and thought. If food is lacking or poor, digestion is stopped or impaired. If blood does not flow back to the heart the function of the latter ceases. The brain, without a variety of impressions, which it receives from outside itself, would have nothing on which to think but the fact of its own existence.

The physical make-up of the individual, together with his environment, is the material on which the brain functions, and, apart from the mere physiological process, weaves that intangible thing, the mind. But the minds of no two living beings are exactly alike ; moreover, the mind of every individual undergoes change with his growth. His material surroundings, his physical and social environment, in their perpetual panorama of transformation, changes his mind from the unconscious ego of the embyronic stage up to that degree of intelligence and culture made possible by the stage of social development reached.

The mind is built up by a multitude of impressions and ideas imprinted upon the brain by the material world with which it comes into contact through the senses. It cannot pick and choose the materials for its own construction. It is in no sense free because its material surroundings, its social status, and its inherited constitution determine its line of development. Spiritual fakirs advise the workers to dwell on the glories of a future state ; but that is asking them to dream of a life worth living and disregard the possibilities of the only life they will ever know. It is no consolation to be able to dream of heavenly or earthly paradises in the midst of conditions that seem worse by contrast each time we awake. The evangelist from the South Wales coal pit may break out into exotic perspiration in his efforts to conjure up in his mind the spirit forms that priestly suggestion has convinced him make spirit music in the ethereal blue. But when he comes out of his trance, like a toper out of his bleary sleep, the sordid conditions of his existence reassert themselves, and his mind is once more an agglomeration of the details of mine and slum, where all his time is spent. Even in its ecstatic flight his mind is not free : he only visualised the hypnotic suggestion of his master’s tool.

We are told that there is a far wider difference between a prominent scientist and the lowest savage than there is between the last named and the highest of the animals. But the scientist owes his mental superiority to society. The material comforts and necessities of his everyday life, together with the materials that form the subject of his investigation and experiment, and which give him the opportunity for mental development, are all supplied by the working class. It is an open question whether a colossal intellect is worth striving for, but either way the worker gets no opportunity to reach it. A fully developed mind is as far beyond his attainment as a well-nourished body. But the lack of opportunity to emulate the intellectual achievements of Darwin or Huxley is a flippant irony that shows up fantastically on a background of tragedy.

For while the worker supplies the materials for the mental development of the scientist, and the whole of the ruling class with wealth that permits them to revel in a cultured and sensuous mentality, his mind, besides being imprisoned in an environment of endless toil and want, is stunted for lack of mental food, and artificially twisted into a shape that coincides with capitalist interests, by a huge army of religious fakirs and tricksters. A rational mental development is beyond the reach of the vast majority of the workers, and a healthy, vigorous mind is a comparative rarity.

Take the case of the machine-minder, or the worker constantly performing one operation in a series necessary to the production of an article. Thousands of times in a day he will press a lever or turn a crank, always with the same result as regards the industrial process ; always the same impression stamped on his brain. By constant repetition he works automatically, becoming every day more machine-like in his movements and thoughts. Tiring his mind daily without developing it, he becomes incapable of reason or consecutive thought. His mind, dominated by the machine, has taken over its qualities and become part of the industrial process that pours all wealth into the lap of the ruling class and leaves him—who once possessed a human mind with endless possibilities of development—a skull with vacant eyes staring outwards, and a vibrant clang repeating itself incessantly inside. He is without even a desire for change because it might make thought necessary, and thought is painful to the undeveloped mind.

To the reader it may appeal that an extreme case has been chosen and the most made of it, and that the vast majority of workers are in infinitely better. But is it so?  A little observation among friends and acquaintances will quickly show the material that enters into the average worker’s mind. His conversation is the key to his mind. What is his most serious topic of conversation ? Work. Not one in a hundred can talk intelligently on any other subject. Neither is it work in general that is talked about, but only the experiences and troubles of the individual. Whether he is in the factory or the tap-room the one thing that sways and dominates his mind is his job, the inability of his foreman, the jealousy of his mates, or his own quickness or ingenuity. Work is the all-absorbing topic of the bulk of the workers ; behind all this talk is the working-class mind, fed and trained in the dust and toil of the factory on everything that is mean and sordid that the meanest of all possible systems could generate.

The capitalist politician, self-satisfied and oily, boasts of the privileges and benefits conferred on mankind by modern civilisation. His thoughts are for his own class only. With every want satisfied, their lives a ceaseless round of pleasure, the system, for them, is perfect while it lasts. But for the working class there is nothing but toil and poverty under the system. Unemployment and insecurity produce in their minds that worst of all fears, the dread of hunger for themselves and those dependent upon them

The environment, of the worker being mean and slavish, his brain—a mere sensitive plate—is stamped with those qualities. The physiological problem for the Socialist is, therefore : How to induce the toiler to think for himself on the all-important question, ‘”Socialism versus Capitalism,” while his environment is all the while degrading and weakening his mind. The only solution to this problem is a Socialist party alive to its task and becoming ever stronger as a result of its gradual and steady accomplishment. The working class must affect its own emancipation ; it is, therefore, to the working class that the Socialist Party brings its message.

Knowing, as we do, the apathy and lack of real knowledge that characterises the wage-slaves, we realise that the Socialist position must be clear and easily understood. Confusion must be avoided like the pestilence. The object must be clearly defined, and the reasons, historical and economic, that justify it stated with precision. Only when the worker has understood these can he say with truth that his brain functions in his own interest and is no longer a mere adjunct to the factory, the mine, and the land.

When the Socialist Object has been reached, and these things are owned in common, instead of being the be-all and end-all of the worker’s physiological existence they will be relegated to their proper sphere. They will be used to satisfy our everyday wants instead of being dissipated for capitalist profits. They need no longer dominate, enslave and degrade the mind of a single human being, because, with modern methods and machinery the major portion of our time can be spent in congenial surroundings, in environment that will stimulate the brain, engendering healthy thoughts and a mind serene and dignified.

F. Foan

Editorial: Join the protest (2001)

Editorial from the June 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the electoral circus in full swing the parties have been competing with one another in a seemingly endless round of pledges, promises, scare stories and counter claims. And the longer this circus goes on, the less interest most voters show in it. The news media openly spends more time telling us about “the election” itself – its stratagems and ruses – than about the policies on offer from any of the parties. It is hardly surprising given the paucity of the products on show.

The election is carried out as if the two main protagonists are marketing agencies selling two superficially different (but nevertheless fundamentally identical) management teams. The tools of their trade are the typical marketing techniques employed by corporate business everywhere – “spin”, “positioning” in relation to key target sectors, junk mail and cold calling of those in a targeted market niche, all refracted through the magnifying glass of the “focus group”.

Is it any wonder the electorate react with a cold shrug of apathy? The only time the campaign thus far has come to life was when a manager from one of the competing teams hit an egg-wielding farmer’s boy on the campaign trail in North Wales. Nothing of any significance happened and no great issues were debated as a result but it provided a spectacle for a society that thrives on periodic spectacular events to relieve the boredom and passivity.

Who wants to endlessly discuss whether there’s a £20 billion hole in one of the team’s tax and spending plans or whether the other team will abolish the ceiling on the upper rate of National Insurance contributions when we can watch Thumper give the Yokel a left-arm jab on the nightly news? All the arguments are just froth, of course, anyway – how many can (hand on heart) say that they are definitely always better off under one type of management team rather than the other? Very few and they’re usually the ones with money enough not to care too much either way.

For the rest of us – the majority who struggle along from week to week while the people with real money in society get even more money and the politicians play their games to distract our attention from it – it’s one long yawn. A nagging irrelevance that won’t go away. An advertising war in which we are the collateral damage.

But something interesting is happening if you look hard enough. The serfs in this giant political soap suds war are revolting. Fewer than ever wish to take sides between the teams on offer and the near-identical brands they are promoting. In recent elections for the European parliament, local government and parliamentary by-elections increasing numbers of voters are signalling that they’ve had enough. They’re staying at home, sitting on their hands.

This is an encouraging sign, but is one which is of itself a reflection of the passive mentality today’s market-driven consumer society promotes and which the political process encourages. Far better would be a positive refusal to line up behind the teams on offer, a refusal to join in their pointless games. In other words, a protest.

As socialists, we write in this journal as people who wish to help change the world in a positive direction, not get our bums on seats of ministerial cars of play lap-dog to the rich (and getting richer). So in this election we call on the “silent majority”, unhappy – and even disgusted – by the performance of the clowns in this political circus, to protest by spoiling their ballot papers. In so doing they will be taking part in the democratic forum yet at the same time withdrawing their consent from those who would rule over them in the name of wealth for the few and tedium for the rest of us.

Where no candidate standing for the one genuine alternative to the present system – a world socialist society of free access to available wealth – is on offer in this election, socialists and those in general agreement with our cause will be writing “WORLD SOCIALISM” across our ballot papers.

So our voice will be heard. We will not allow it to be stifled under a welter of mindless political psychobabble. And the more people who agree with us and do the same, the louder the voice and the more effective the protest against the whole ridiculous charade currently being played out before us in the name of our interests.

Voting: is it worth it? (2024)

From the June 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thursday 2 May 2024 saw another round of elections for local councils and regional mayors. They were followed by a media glut of psephological analysis and speculation as to the significance of results.

Claims and counter claims as to the reasons behind outcomes vied with each other. Those who had increased their numbers of elected councillors, such as Labour, the LibDems and the Greens, claimed vindication for their opposition to the present government and called for a general election now. Unsurprisingly this call went unheeded by the Prime Minister and his colleagues, who instead highlighted the odd anomalous result as indicating an underlying trend of support in their favour.

By the following Tuesday there were only occasional references to the election in news broadcasts as Parliament reassembled following the May Day bank holiday. Then it was back to the knockabout pantomime politics in the Commons. It turns out the elections and their reporting were largely, to quote Shakespeare, ‘…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing’ (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5).

Should there be doubt expressed over this sentiment, it is worth considering the extent to which the significance of the ballot was generally considered. A measure of this is the turnout, a factor briefly mentioned in the subsequent reporting. In one Metropolitan Borough Council area the rounded-up turnout figures ranged from 35 percent in the highest ward down to 16 percent in the lowest, with a borough average of 25 percent. Abstention was clearly the winner.

Was this feature due to apathy or antipathy, or perhaps an amalgam of them both? If apathy was the demotivating factor it maybe reflects negative attitudes cultivated by experience of previous voting making little or no practical difference. Antipathy is likely the expression of a cynicism grown from the same circumstances. One is a passive acceptance, the other can manifest as what might be described as bar-room anger, often expressed as vitriolic denunciation of politicians of all stripes and politics in general.

There are those who would denounce both attitudes for not making use of a most valuable asset, the vote. The argument runs along the lines that workers fought, and in some cases died, to secure the vote for working people in general, or women in particular.

Cannot deliver

Democracy, however flawed, is certainly always preferable to tyranny, so the vote is indeed a precious thing. However, accepting this raises a question. If the vote is valuable, why give it to someone you know will not, cannot, deliver on promises made?

Politicians are often fundamentally dishonest, but they can never be in a position to make the really radical changes that would benefit all society. Their problem is that everything people might aspire to costs.

The NHS is a case in point. It has grown from a quite basic level of medical provision at its foundation in 1948, to the hi-tech service it is today, dealing with a vast range of illnesses and conditions quite beyond its scope in the early days. The technology involved now would have seemed almost sci-fi in 1948. But those machines are expensive to develop, buy, maintain and operate. So when a government claims to be spending so many billion pounds more on the NHS than its predecessors, that is accurate.

It does not, though, come close to meeting the continually rising cost of realising actual need, or paying the staff adequately (in capitalist terms). With the result that voters have negative experiences from not being able to get GP appointments to not receiving vital treatment. The only source from which those costs can be met is the wealth owned and controlled by capitalism. Every pound raised rather than borrowed by government, national or local, ultimately comes from capitalism’s wealth, either directly as business taxes, or indirectly via income tax.

People see the problems and seek solutions, and replacing the party in power with another one promising change appears to be an option. Indeed, palliative measures may well be enacted, only for them to be frustrated by the economic demands and realities of capitalism. While voting is indisputably integral to a democratic political process, it is by no means a guarantee. Indeed, ‘democratic’ is often the word of choice in the titles of authoritarian regimes seemingly untroubled by the notion of irony.

The German Democratic Republic (GDR) of the Cold War period made use of institutions apparently modelled on those of its National Socialist predecessor. While the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) serves as a present-day example of the word erroneously used. A country claiming to be both socialist and democratic shamelessly promotes dynastic rule that so far has consisted of grandfather, father and grandson with, it seems, the great granddaughter being prepared for her turn. No doubt to unanimous popular acclaim.

The promotion of democracy is fundamental to the socialist cause, actual socialism that is, not just in name. A worldwide society in which capitalism has been replaced by the conscious action of the international working class, not some self-selected vanguard acting supposedly on its behalf. A society without rulers, dynastic, presidential or otherwise with truly democratic institutions organising the meeting of self-determined needs, rather than the production for profit.

Important but limited

Unless and until capitalism, driven to accumulate capital, has been replaced by socialism, there cannot be a fully democratic society. The present political expressions of democracy – free speech (more or less), universal suffrage (more or less), secret ballots and regular elections for local and national assemblies – are important.

Socialists can and do contest elections, being very much in favour of electors being able to engage with and show support for socialist ideas. Indeed, socialist candidates being able to garner increasing numbers of votes will be an indication that the working class is moving towards making the break with capitalism. However, this will only be realised when the working class develops democratic institutions whereby the ultimate component of democracy, presently excluded from the process, economic possession and control can be achieved.

Unfortunately, at the moment there seems to be no short-term prospect of that happening. So, while the knockabout nature of party politics remains, and the merry-go-round of office swapping continues, socialists must make whatever use they can to put their ideas. Democracy even in its limited form must not be demeaned, but challenged to become a more profound agent of change. Present limitations have been highlighted by the ease with which two Conservative MPs, Dan Poulter and Natalie Elphicke, crossed the floor to the Labour benches. Natalie Elphicke is particularly interesting as she was regarded as being on the right wing of the Tory Party, stepping easily into the centre-left opposition and welcomed by its leader. The promotion of democratic choice between left, right and centre proves to be little or no choice at all.

It is illuminating, however, that even authoritarian regimes often do hold elections, be it well-managed and controlled ones. Voting, it would appear, confers some, if spurious, legitimacy, even when the outcome is so predetermined it would make a political pollster blush.

Passive role

While what are sometimes termed liberal democracies, such as the UK, hold regular open elections with secret ballots, this does not mean democracy has been achieved. The vast majority, the electorate, are subordinated to a very passive role. They play no active part in formulating polices or selecting likely candidates to become their representatives. Rather they are consumers who choose, from a limited range of political products, those they consider best able to administer and manage the state for capitalism.

As for capitalism itself, the electorate have no role in its decision making, no vote as to its operation. It has but one imperative, the ceaseless pursuit of profit, unhindered, as far as possible, by political or social considerations.

The electoral system also serves the prevailing ideological focus on national concerns. Voters are restricted to their limited participation in politics that stop at the borders. Devolution, often mooted as a more localised politics, narrows this focus even more, as do independence movements, such as the SNP. There is no sense of galvanising an international electorate to look beyond borders towards a worldwide politics. And certainly no prospect offered of transcending capitalism by organising a truly democratic movement to socialism.

This does not deprive the vote of its value. However unlikely or distant such a transformation might presently seem, voting must ultimately play a significant, perhaps determining, role in its peaceful and democratic achievement. The vote, therefore, is valuable no matter how cheaply it is presently spent. Refusing to give it away to parties who will not, and cannot, deliver promised benefits in return, is to recognise its worth and honour those men and women who struggled and fought for it. As a resource, spoil your vote until it can be put to good use, but don’t waste it or ignore it.

Dave Alton

Here and There: On Initiative (1933)

The Here and There column from the April 1933 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Initiative

It is a commonplace argument of the apologists of capitalism that the possession of wealth is the reward for and the result of the initiative of its owners. Socialism, they argue, would destroy this initiative and progress would be impossible. Three reports in the Daily Telegraph for January 1st and January 2nd completely upset this claim.

It was stated that Professor Haldane, who was Professor of Bio-Chemistry at Cambridge University, was resigning his position to take up a position at the London University. Some remarkable facts were given of his career. It was stated that he had produced in his own body the condition of certain diseases in order to discover a remedy for them. In doing so he had knowingly and deliberately endangered his own life in order to increase the knowledge of science in the conquest of these diseases.

Yet he does not appear to have had any pecuniary advantage in view.

Another instance was given in an appreciative obituary notice of Dr. Alfred Smith: Dr. Smith was one of the eighteen pioneers of X-ray work. In devoting his life to X-ray research, he fell a victim to X-ray dermatitis. The consequences for Dr. Smith were the loss of a leg, semi-blindness, and physical ruin. Unable to practice in his profession, his life savings gone, he was rewarded with a disused army hut to live in, and 35s. a week from the Carnegie Hero Trust.

The Daily Telegraph also gave the names of twelve others who had lost their lives in the cause of X-ray.

The same newspaper reported the trial of J. Geen, the associate of Factor, the fraudulent company promoter, who had successfully displayed initiative in relieving his fellow capitalists of millions' of pounds. It was stated of Factor that he was an illiterate, who "was even unable to sign his own name without difficulty.

Such are the rewards for initiative. It would be true to say that the ownership of wealth by the modern capitalist class is as much due to initiative as Factor’s millions were due to his academic attainments.

Some Effects of Capitalism

From Wépszava (“The People’s Voice”), the Hungarian Social-Democratic daily, for December 22nd, 1932: —

In 1932 down to December 20th 1,126 women began giving birth to children in the street, and were taken to a hospital or nursing home. 1,126 fearful blows in the face for Hungarian social policy, which does not even take steps to see that new-born children shall come into the world with a roof over their heads! . . . A mother who finds herself lying in the hour of her greatest stress in the filth of the street instead of on a clean operating table, not only feels that society has no use for her, but that her child is born with the chains of poverty shackling its limbs, and to a destiny devoid of hope.

And from The Star, December 22nd, 1932: —

The best study I have seen recently of the psychological effect of unemployment is the vivid report on life in the Austrian village of Marienthal which appears in “Character and Personality.” The 1,500 inhabitants have been workless since a local factory closed three years ago, and are living on 5d. per family per day.

The investigators got at the facts in an ingenious way. Before distributing clothing they called from house to house, inquiring into the need, and in this way secured an insight into the domestic conditions. They also organised sewing classes and made the keeping of household accounts a condition of membership.

The inquiry revealed that the unemployed, having time on their hands, lose all sense of it. They become unpunctual and slowly resign themselves to a state which renounces even the discussion of politics and the reading of newspapers.

After three years the inquiry tabled only 14 per cent. as unbroken in spirit. Of the rest most were resigned to enduring their present state and the remainder broken completely. “heedless of the future as of the present.”

We can imagine all the parsons and priests in the kingdom arising with a great self-righteous show of protests if animals were treated with a fraction of the inhumanity meted out to the unwanted wage-slave.

Incidentally, these conditions and their results on the workers in Austria are a somewhat tragic commentary on the notion held by many woolly headed persons that starvation makes Socialists.

In the House of Commons

During the debate on the Kenya New Lands Trust Ordinance, which deprives the Natives of Kenya of the right to their lands on it being required by the Kenya Administration or White Settlers, Sir J. Sandeman Allen, commenting on the protests on behalf of the natives made by several prominent clergymen, said: “ . . .  If Church dignitaries in East Africa confined themselves to their missionary work and did not try to do anything outside of their proper sphere it would be. better for all concerned.” (Hansard, February 8th, 1933.)

The social influence of the Church seems to be in its twilight. When it interferes in class conflicts, as in the “General Strike,” it is told—in the words of Mr. Baldwin to the Archbishop of Canterbury—to ” mind its own business.” In short, the business of the parson is to console and not to interfere.

The varied attitude of the British Government in foreign affairs makes a somewhat interesting and contrasting reading. Mr. J. H. Thomas, being asked in the House of Commons what there was to be gained in pursuing the policy of the Government in relation to Ireland, replied (amidst laughter): “I have got a few hundred thousand pounds more as a result of the increased duties.” (Hansard, February 9th, 1933.)

On Saturday, February 10th, a wireless debate took place between students of Yale University, America, and students of Cambridge University, England, on the subject of War Debts. The English case was for the complete cancellation of War Debts, thus summarising the attitude of the British capitalist class as expressed through its Press. The reasons given for cancellation were ingenious, and were to the effect that cancellation was really in the interests of the United States of America. Somewhat after the sanctimonious manner of the schoolmaster, who, having punished a pupil, claimed the punishing to have hurt the schoolmaster the most. In Kenya the attitude of the British capitalist class is one of the heavy boot; in Ireland, that of a. bullying braggart; but their attitude to America is—well, sycophantic is a mild word, perhaps Pecksnifian would be appropriate. The reasons, of course, are obvious. Beneath the tender solicitude for backward countries and the polished verbiage of diplomatic documents, there are hypocrisy and greed as crude and as vicious as that which characterised the early days of Capitalism..

Strange Bedfellows.

The Leader, February 7th, 1932, contained an article called “Blasphemous Attacks on Christianity.” Among other books that were quoted was our pamphlet (without reference to its source of publication), “Socialism and Religion.” The Leader is very concerned about these attacks and thinks leaders of the Labour Party, especially ”those who call themselves Christian Socialists,” should do something about it. The Leader is a "tipster’s ” journal, which thrives on the belief among millions of gullible workers that they can get rich quickly and easily from betting and competitions of the kind run by popular newspapers for large money prizes. (Quite recently, a mathematician publicly stated that the chance of winning a prize in one of these competitions was many millions to one.) It is perhaps quite fitting that those who thrive on one form of superstition should feel a brotherly concern for those who foster superstition in another form.

The I.L.P. Finds Inspiration.

During January, letters appeared in the columns of the New Leader from members of the I.L.P. on the subject of “ Religion and Revolution.” The varied views held aptly expressed the confusion of ideas of the I.L.P. on the subject, and ranged from the view that “Christianity is Socialism” to an attitude that more or less approached the Marxist position on the subject. In the issue for January 10th, Dr. John Lewis replies in what the Editor of the New Leader describes as an “able contribution” to the discussion. Dr. Lewis's reply is a typical piece of I.L.P. shuffling. He evades the essential points in the letters from critics of Christianity, and, like Paton in his reply to a similar discussion on "Parliament and Democracy,” attempted to placate and satisfy all the diverse elements that make up the I.L.P. Christianity, he says: —

. . . .Takes on a totally different form according to the period, and at no period is it a mere reflection of a static economic order. . . . At periods of crisis in which we are mainly interested, religion splits. One part sanctifies the obsolete; one part champions the new order.

Which, as historical summary, is fairly accurate. But his conclusion, based on the above, is as follows: —

To-day religion inspires, for the first time, a movement which can achieve its ideal by building a classless society, and finally overthrowing the exploiters.

Dr. Lewis's view, which he attempts to support with Marxist formulae, is that the demand for Socialism by the workers will express itself in a religious form inspired by Christianity. Dr. Lewis is, of course, entitled to his peculiar views, but to pretend that these are the views of Marx is sheer misrepresentation of Marx's explanation of religion. Had Dr. Lewis gone one step further he might have discovered that the forces which, in the past, determined that Christianity took on a “totally different form according to the period,” also determined the decay of Christianity in Capitalist Society. So much so that, for all practical purposes, Christianity is dead so far as the workers are concerned. It is almost a certainty that if Christianity ceased to be taught in the Schools and subsidised by the State, it would quickly take its place in the museums of antiquities.

It is an interesting explanation, however, that the I.L.P.'s latest pose as a “ real revolutionary party ” is so inspired. This is a new angle on the decisions of the Bradford Conference, which was perhaps a waste of time.

Harry Waite

Letter: But What Can I Do? (2007)

Letter to the Editors from the February 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

But What Can I Do?

“But what can I do?” How many times do you hear that or similar phrases from people too overwhelmed by the enormity of the task that they can’t see the wood for the trees?

Socialism isn’t going to be born overnight, that has long been agreed. It’s going to be a long uphill struggle by those with enough conviction against the million and one forces stacked against it, and I’m not talking about the forces of the imperial armies or the might of the transnational corporations, I’m talking about the likes of your brother-in-law who can only see as far as the next pay day and a six-pack in front of the TV, or the woman at work who can’t understand that you won’t buy a lottery ticket because winning the jackpot won’t exactly mean you beat the system. Life can get tedious explaining the same old obvious thing to yet one more sceptical punter, however, if we don’t………?

This is about one of my bêtes-noires, which is, why do so many people drink Coca  Cola? (insert your own pet-hate here.) Not only does this company have a terrible track record for union busting around the world even going so far as to be involved in killings by private militia, for depriving some Indian villages of water and poisoning wells through over-extraction in others, but it’s so full of sugar and junk that it tastes horrible and it’s harmful to health to boot.

All the restaurants, cafes and bars in the tourist areas close to here offer Coke or Pepsi whichever concession is dominant in the particular vicinity and it follows that their other soft drinks and bottled water are purchased through the same concession. In towns and villages outside the tourist areas it is unusual to be offered bottled water at restaurants, coffee houses, bus station cafeterias and the like.

Water comes in a jug from the tap. Village water here is clean, unadulterated and abundant. Many townfolk can be observed stopping at their favourite spring by the roadside to stock up with several days’ supply of what is considered the best drinking water. In the towns where chlorine etc is used in the public supply local shops deliver large containers of natural spring water (the preferred option) to homes and businesses.

In our very local favourite restaurant which served water bottled by the Coca Cola Co. here in Turkey (acknowledged in letters so small as to require both good light and good eyesight to see it and which has been guilty of union-busting here too), we would ask for a jug of village water from the tap, – no Coca Cola bottled water for us thankyou!

Over time and with a few more Turkish lessons under our belt we painstakingly explained our position to a number of employees and to the owners. One tack they understood and warmed to was that there are a number of small local water bottling plants, soft drink manufacturers and fruit juice companies (for the environment generally speaking local is better than national and national better than international). Very soon we noticed the presence of a local company’s bottled water on the tables in place of the  earlier offence to the eye and the conscience. And my water from the tap now tastes  even sweeter.

We’ve had similar results with another restaurant we patronise, up in the mountains by a fast-flowing river. All the food served here comes from within just a few miles and now that includes the bottled water too.

So, 2 down, 999,998 to go. A drop in the ocean? Yes. A message in a bottle? Maybe.

Janet Surman, 

Turkey.

Does voting matter? (2024)

From the January 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every four or five years, you get to vote for some well-meaning individual, who promises to cure unemployment, poverty and homelessness. After that, you have no control over them, no power to influence events. Tony Blair once said that you are at your maximum power when you vote. If this is the most power you have, it’s not a lot, is it?

Real power lies in the hands of the owners of the wealth in our society, the capitalists. They control the decisions that affect us most: what food to grow, what houses to build, what clothes to make. They do so on one principle: no profit, no production. Our needs come second to profit.

Voting for a party that works within this principle cannot address the problems of our community. Any party that promises this or that tax or law is leaving this principle intact, and the capitalists in charge. So a vote for them – Labour, the Tories, the Liberals, the Greens, the Nationalists, etc – is a wasted vote.

Maybe you don’t vote at all. Maybe you think voting is a waste of time because it doesn’t change anything. Certainly, we’d agree with you that a vote for Labour, the Tories, the Liberals or the others is a waste of time.

It’s a waste, particularly, if you leave it there, at the voting, at the nose counting, and take no further part until the next election. Democracy means much more than a cross on a bit of paper; it means organising, debating, discussing and examining the world around us to work out how to change it for our benefit. Democracy is too important to be left to the professionals.

We’d argue, though, that it’s still a waste of time unless you see that inequality of wealth means inequality of power. That as long as a minority own society, it must be run in their interest. Labour, the Liberals, the Tories, none of them want to do anything about that, they’re content just to beg the owners of our society for some scraps from the table.

There is, though, an alternative. You can join with your fellow workers with the aim of taking control of society, in which we do all the work anyway, and begin running it directly for our mutual needs. You can have the power of membership in a democratic organisation that does not seek to take power on capitalist terms, but just seeks to abolish this rotten system. You can use your vote to show others where you stand, and proclaim your opposition to capitalism.

That is why we campaign for the common and democratic ownership and control of the wealth of the world. If you do that, you can make democracy and equality mean something, and change the world so that it is run for your benefit, not the tiny minority’s. We’re asking you to join us in that campaign.

Beyond cynicism (1995)

From the December 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The battle against capitalism seems to me to be an impossible task. You say socialism can only be established by the majority wanting it—this is true but capitalism will never let that happen. They control television, media and education and they are experts in propaganda tactics. Leaflets, posters, talks, meetings, etc. are not powerful enough. The capitalists know this and that is why they let you operate.

If socialism did spread here in the capitalist western world and the capitalists saw it as a real threat they would stamp it out immediately, by any means necessary, remember they have everything to lose. But they wouldn't even need to take any drastic measures, it would only take a few propaganda programmes on TV and a few articles in the tabloids anyway. The majority are easily manipulated, conditioned and controlled.

The majority are not even concerned with politics or life on a global scale, most people are more concerned with materialism, wealth, sex and violence. I know I must sound like I lack faith in the human race but I must admit I do. When do you realistically think socialism on a global scale can come about? Are we talking decades or hundreds or thousands of years?”

This doleful missive of defeatist pessimism has been sent to us by a reader from Surrey. It is fair to assume that he is not consumed by high expectations for the future. In this he is not alone. Most people today are hopeless, in relative degrees of dejection about the future of society. They have come to expect the worst, and all too often experience worse than the worst that they expected. We who are socialists, filled with a passion fed by understanding that history does change and the future can be different and better, would be foolish to ignore the political sighs of such Jeremiahs as our correspondent. For hopelessness itself is the enemy of positive action and the anticipation of failure to build a decent society makes real such failure. The cynics should not be ignored or sneered at as fools. Negativity is not answered by the constructive intones of derision, but on the basis of scientific logic and historical vision; nothing less will do.

This has been a century of cruelly extinguished hopes. The embarrassed blushes of those who applauded the “justice” of the Stalinist purges and heaped praise upon the state-capitalist hell-holes which posed as “socialist states” will not conceal the false faith in the Religion of Leninism which pseudo-socialists promoted, so distorting everything that the real hope of socialism offers; the workers who rejoiced gullibly in 1945 as British industries were nationalised as “public utilities” have had to see how in half-a-century the profit motive, which was always built-in to state-managed capitalism, has crushed the hopes of the public who were tricked into thinking that industries belonged to them; those who believed that scientific reason would culminate in a rationalised capitalist system this century have had to watch in sheer horror as millions of humans were pushed into the gas chambers and the gulags, as bombs of unimaginable destructiveness wiped out whole cities and populations, as the gross inhumanity of the mass torture of millions through slow starvation has proceeded while food is destroyed lest profits fall. To cultivate boundless optimism amidst the ruins of hope and the realities of capitalism’s manifest evils is not a task for the faint-hearted.

False hope of piecemeal reform

What has been the most pernicious lie of this century? It is that hope for the future lay in the gradual, imperceptible, but certain amelioration of capitalism through the process of reform, The false hope of piecemeal improvement of an essentially cancerous system captured the imaginations of millions, exhausted their energies in the reformist struggle to humanise the profit system, and then left them dumbed by frustration. Whether the changes were to come through the division lobbies of Westminster or by gaining control of local councils or trade union committees or by humanitarian slogans or empty “green” appeals for a nicer, gentler world, the system which puts profit before need has persistently spat the hope of humane capitalism back in the face of its advocates. The progressive enthusiasm of millions has been stamped out in this way.

Dare we imagine how different it would have been if that energy—or even a half or a tenth of that energy—which has gone into reforming capitalism had gone into abolishing it? With a movement great in number, if still a minority, how much stronger would we be if our fellow workers had not experienced that bitter disillusionment of failed reformism and the indignity of abandoning principles for the sake of short-term gains? Should we who struck to undiluted socialist principles— the world for the workers with production solely for use, and nothing less—be the ones to bow our heads in defeat when the policy of Reform, not Revolution, has so miserably failed?

Yet how easy it is to step out of the shadow of reformist frustration and commit the two errors of our hopeless correspondent. First, deny that workers are intelligent enough to ever see through their own oppression and exploitation. Claim that they are suckers and suckers they will forever be. Second, attribute to the small class of parasites who now own and control the earth and its abundant resources huge powers of persuasion and coercion. Imagine that the capitalist will eternally have a confident smile on his face and you can be sure that he will. These are not verifiable observations, but the sigh of a battered wage-slave who begs to be persuaded that his miser)' for the future is unfounded.

Is it really true that workers will put up with this system forever? One percent of the population in Britain alone own a quarter of the marketable wealth and five percent own more than half. In several other countries the statistics of class inequality are more stark; in all modern nations do such figures of class division apply. Will the overwhelming majority of the world’s population forever consent to live and die for the profits of a small minority? We know that the workers of the world form the overwhelming majority of the population, and we know that it is the workers’ intelligence and hard work which keeps society going (from the building site to the operating theatre), and we know also that it is the nature of human intelligence to explore ever more and expand ever further.

Indeed, the propaganda of those who have a vested interest in workers’ political ignorance has been remarkably successful so far, but against what has it had to contend? The organised voice of principled socialists has been so small that the fraudulence of religion and the misinformation of education and the trickery of the tabloids have had an easy run. This will not be so when the considerable numbers of those discontented under capitalism move from self-defeating schemes to improve the system to a scientific movement to remove the system. The history of organised socialists is even shorter. It is a mistake to deduce from such limited experience that workers will never apply their intelligence to removing the cause of their problems. It is not a case of having “faith” in humans, but of learning from history that humans are characterised by a tremendous ability to adapt their social environment to fit in with their need to survive in greater contentment.

Seeing through the lies

Will the capitalists be able to stem the flood of working-class socialist consciousness by simply putting an article in the Sun or running a scare story about socialists on the TV? It is precisely when the socialist movement is growing that such tactics will be counter-productive. The more lies an intelligent human is told the more he or she will rebel against the liar. It is now, at a time of majority political ignorance, that such tactics may work, not when workers are getting up off their knees. Take the example of the Christian religion in Britain: for years it dominated the minds of peasants and workers because the victims were ignorant and therefore scared to criticise; once criticism began the efforts of the religionists to defend their mumbo-jumbo by accusing materialists of gross depravity and claiming that they had never stood for nonsensical beliefs (which they always had) led them into even greater discredit.

As for the claim that the capitalists might use violence to stop the establishment of socialism, well they might, but what chance would they stand against a conscious movement of well-organised workers? Killing its opponents is hardly likely to win converts to the cause of capitalism; on the contrary, it will create ever more dedicated enemies. What evidence is there that the armed forces and police, who are only wage slaves in uniform, would allow themselves to be used to murder their brothers, sisters, parents and friends whose sole crime would be to stand for a world in which nobody would be so degraded as to have to become a state killer or a cop? The suggestion that the simple alternative to such class war would be for the capitalists (many of whom may come to realise that they as humans have much to gain from a society of humane equality) to publish a few articles in the tabloids and thereby wipe out the political intelligence of the entire movement which has threatened them is an incredible scenario. Sure, those who are deluded can be made more deluded by the media of delusion-making; but can a whole movement which is so strong that the media needs to attack it be forced to regress intellectually as a result of the cunning efforts of the Murdoch press?

Evidence of history

The cynical loss of faith in humanity is not a matter upon which socialists can offer consolation to our dispirited correspondent. Our expectations are not based upon faith. Faith is a substitute for reason. The question of historical change is not a matter of optimistic or pessimistic moods, but of examining real material social relations. Are the relations of contemporary society in line with how we could live, given the development of the forces of production to a level where we could produce enough goods and services of a high quality for everyone— indeed, for several times the cuncnt population of the world? Clearly, these are outmoded social relationships. Wage labour and capital are obsolete obstacles to the realisation of decent and materially satisfied lives for all of us.

The evidence of history, as Marx so ably explained, is that when there is a conflict between the forces of production and the relations of production the latter fall in line with the former. Production for profit is out of date, it is harder and harder for defenders of this system to think of policies to make it sound attractive or even workable. That is why all political parties supporting capitalism now speak more than ever with one voice: the unconfident monotone of the ideologically bankrupt. Production solely for use is long overdue. Socialists do not believe that the pattern of historical development will be different in our own age from the long past when those with an interest in change have ultimately opted for change.

Of course, the socialist transformation of society is different from all previous ones. It must be the work of the majority acting for themselves by themselves. There has been no shortage of diversions along the way. Pitiful has been the wasted energies of workers who, instead of uniting uncompromisingly for the socialist alternative, have gone for reformist or statist or other futile options. But such is history: we socialists are made of stronger stuff than those who would give up on the entire human species just because the greatest change in human history' has taken a few decades being talked about but not yet enacted.

And how much longer must we wait? Our correspondent, thousand-year diary in hand, seeks to know the date of victory. He is already an expert on the dates of failure. No doubt he had counterparts in South Africa who told black workers that it would take decades—nay, centuries—before they would win the vote. And surely the bar-room dissident in Bucharest, Moscow or Prague who suggested that with force of numbers the workers could deny power to their state-capitalist dictators was regarded width more than the occasional cynical sneer. How easy it is to plot a prosperous future for this misery-causing system; to be sure, nobody will mind and nobody will care if such banal hopelessness proves prophetic. There are no prizes for predicting that the future under capitalism will be lousy. But the prize to be gained by transcending the rut of cynical inaction is the world and its abundant wealth which will be ours—the property of all—as soon and as long as the majority cease to be in mental bondage to the illusion of the impossibility of their own freedom.

Steve Coleman

Down your way (1954)

From the December 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

What’s happening down your way? What are you talking about in the office? Football Pools? T.V.? The cost of living? Marilyn Monroe? Probably. Workers are apathetic about most social questions; and the political parties are finding it increasingly difficult to attract audiences to their meetings.

But are the workers really satisfied with present-day conditions? Are you satisfied? Surely not. You’re fed-up with hydrogen bombs, the talk of war, the cost of living, the Labour Party—and the Tories. They both promised to solve your housing problems, rising prices. They promised you peace—whilst preparing for war. Is it surprising that you are cynical and apathetic? That you are fed-up with “politics?” Most people think there can be no solution to all these evils that beset us; and that the present order—or “ disorder ” of society will always be with us.

Yes, you are quite right “Politics,” that is the politics of running this present system, is a “dirty game.” And we, as Socialists, are not interested in playing the game. We know that the various political parties that promise to solve your problems for you are incapable of doing so. We know that the present system of society—capitalism—cannot be run in your interest. That is why we propose that you change it. That is why we want to get you interested, not so much in “politics,” but in society as it is; and in society as it could be, as it must be, in the future. We want you to desire and work for an entirely new way of life.

In the world today the means of producing the things we need and desire do not belong to society as a whole: they are owned by quite a small section of the community—the capitalist class. Most of us own none of these things. All that we as workers possess is our ability to work. And our employers only employ us in order that 'they make a profit. After all, that is why they are in business. Such is the nature of capitalism. Now, without going into a great deal of detail at the moment, we can say that it is this state of affairs—the private ownership of the means of living and production for profit—that is the basic cause of most of present-day problems. That is why we want you to get interested in our ideas; why we want you to cease being cynical and apathetic. Instead of putting your trust in politicians and leaders—until you get fed-up with them!—we suggest you do a little thinking for yourselves.

We Socialists are ordinary people. We have studied our society and have come to the conclusion that whilst the present profit-making system remains we will never get rid of the evils of war, insecurity and the rest. We think that only by changing the whole structure of society will we get rid of these problems. Only by making the means of life—the factories, offices, railways, etc.—the common possession of all people, and producing the things necessary to satisfy people’s needs and desires solely for use and not for profit will we eradicate these evils.

This, briefly, is our alternative to “ politics,” football pools, the  "dogs’’—and apathy.

Think it over.

Peter E. Newell

US elections: capitalism or capitalism? (2020)

From the October 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

America is at the cusp of deciding the nature of its future, or at least it thinks it is. It has two scarcely distinguishable options, Democrat Joe Biden and incumbent Donald Trump. The Trump presidency has already had an effect on America that will long outlast his second term, should he get one. The wildfires sweeping the West Coast have had fuel thrown upon them by the rapid destruction of what little environmental regulation there was before Trump. Nominal wages have gone up steadily over the last four years, but cost of living has been growing faster, far outstripping the growth in wages. This is to make no mention of the coronavirus crisis – the United States has seen an exceptionally high death rate – almost 200,000 cases as of writing. Liberals often wax lyrical about the death of ‘American culture’. While Trump’s campaign has undoubtedly had a palpable effect on the way political issues are discussed, how it is a death of American culture is unclear. Indeed, the liberals’ biggest failure was to miss the fact that the seeds for the Trump victory were sown by the Democrat presidencies. And this is the mistake they are repeating in 2020.

Popular populist

The shock from liberal commentators four years ago has still not worn off. The first term of Donald Trump’s presidency is coming to an end – and liberals are still in such disbelief that he might get a second. There is no attempt to empathise with the many working class Americans who voted for Trump – an immense irony, given editorials in the liberal press such as ‘When A Heart Is Empty’ (New York Times, 10 September). In it, David Brooks, a noted moderate conservative, writes, ‘[Trump’s] is not an intellectual stupidity. I imagine Trump’s I.Q. is fine. It is a moral and emotional stupidity. He blunders so often and so badly because he has a narcissist’s inability to get inside the hearts and minds of other people. It’s a stupidity that in almost pure clinical form, flows out of his inability to feel, a stupidity of the heart.’ How do we square this with the fact that Donald Trump won in 2016? Liberal commentators will struggle to.

The truth, contrary to Brooks’ charge of ‘emotional stupidity’ is that Trump has managed to win the hearts and minds of a huge amount of the American working class. How? By going against the establishment. Trump has criticised Hillary Clinton for being a Wall Street shill and a criminal, the Democrats for throwing America into war after war, and the mainstream media for consistently marginalising swathes of views – particularly those favoured by workers. The thing about these claims is that they are all correct. His Twitter, laughable as it may be, is so obviously not ghostwritten. It is unprofessional, direct, unpretentious – one might even say it is, in a rather odd way, down to earth. Trump has not taken himself to be entitled to votes. On the other hand, Joe Biden said to a black voter who was on the fence that, ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.’ Odd, coming from someone who thought desegregation would lead to his children growing up ‘in a racial jungle’, and that ‘poor kids are just as bright and talented as white kids’. If these comments had come from Trump, they would be plastered on every headline. In this case, the liberal media tries to pass it all off as a joke (Washington Post, 22 May). It is precisely this difference between the Democrats and Trump that has led to the polarisation seen in American politics – the working class has realised that the Democrats have done nothing for them. The elitism and political careerism of the mainstream Democratic party has become an unmissable stain on their campaign.

Liberal elite

Of course, Trump’s greatest success is that he has managed to convince working class Americans that he represents them. Sure, he has pointed out some of their issues, but the policies he has put in place have done nothing to resolve them. Perhaps this just goes to show how out of touch the Democrats are: even lip-service to the American working class is more than they have done. This might be the backbone of the Trump strategy – if you convince enough working people, but also evangelicals, racists, and so on, you can garner enough of the vote to go back to serving your real constituency: the capitalist class. Trump’s policies have been mostly typical rightwing corporate welfare, combined with a sort of protectionism that hasn’t been seen in a while. Trump may be marking the end of the neoliberal world order, replacing it with something that could even more straightforwardly be described as American hegemony.

This is actually not entirely accurate: Trump has been forming close alliances with some of the world’s most ruthless dictators, notably the Brazilian Jair Bolsanaro, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist in Trump’s cabinet, has become somewhat of a left-wing bogeyman, uniting nationalist and right-wing leaders worldwide, including Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage in the UK. Something bigger is at work, and it is keen to captivate ‘the masses’. Populism has become a political slur thrown around by liberals that describes this phenomenon. Socialists understand that there is a political and economic elite, whose interests are opposed to those of the workers. It’s clear why liberals, the elite in question, want to deny that this is the case. The rightwing has managed to capture the same sentiment but their claims about who the elite is differ from ours immensely.

The Democrats had a left-wing populist candidate – indeed, one who was popular with some Trump supporters: Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders was the most radical mainstream American politician by far, drawing on a tradition that has been left mostly untouched since Eugene V. Debs, one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World. American social democracy could have tried to win the election by tapping into the anti-establishment sentiment that has taken hold of the workers. Of course, the mainstream Democratic Party, as a representative of capital (no different to the Republican Party) would rather have Trump than Sanders. Shenanigans in the election process were conducted accordingly. Even Trump pointed out that the alternative left-wing candidate, Elizabeth Warren, was only in the running to split the Sanders vote.

There is clear discontent within the American workers: particularly the youth. The majority of millennial Americans are not afraid of the word ‘socialism’; in fact they prefer it to ‘capitalism’. Liberals are keen to point out that they never lived through the Cold War, and that this might explain their lack of hostility to socialism. Or, it might be that thirty-year olds have lived through four recessions. For a great liberal hero, liberals seem remarkably unkeen to listen to Adam Smith: ’No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable’. Yet, the Democrats, based on nonsensical concerns of ‘electability’ keep advancing centrist candidates, who are just grist to Trump’s mill. The Democrats ran the electability experiment with Clinton. It failed. Yet they are trying it again with Biden. The workers feeling so disenfranchised that ‘did not vote’ makes a significantly higher category than either Trump or Clinton votes in 2016. Perhaps if ‘did not vote’ amounted to a vote for no president at all, the country would be better off.

At any rate, the election draws near. If Trump manages to secure another victory, the consequences for the environment will be disastrous. One would hope that working class Americans will have seen through the ruse, but as long as the mainstream opinions are strictly limited to Democrat and Republican, there is going to be little progress. A socialist might reasonably worry that the age-old choice between socialism and barbarism is being made, and that the people are choosing barbarism.

MP Shah

Bored with politics? (2006)

From the October 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politics is not just about the antics of career politicians – or at least doesn’t have to be

If you ask people “what is a party?” they are likely to reply something along the lines of “a group of people who want to get elected”. If you then ask them why they think these people want to get elected, the reply, if they’re feeling charitable, will be “to do things for the country” or “to help other people”. If they’re not feeling charitable, they’ll say “to help themselves” or that “they’re just in for what they can get”.

The truth – both as to what people think and what politicians want – will be something in between. Since up to 70 percent of people turn out to vote at elections and vote for politicians and their parties, they can’t really think that all that politicians want to do is to line their own pockets or further their own careers. They must be giving them some credit for wanting to do more, otherwise they’d be exposing themselves as fools for voting for them. And some politicians can show that they genuinely want to help other people, while at the same time of course making a career and some money for themselves.

Being a politician is a sort of profession, like a lawyer or a doctor. A politician’s trade is to get into parliament or the local council to run the administrative side of capitalism. To do this, they must get elected and, to get elected, they must promise to do things for people; they must find out what’s worrying people and then promise to do something about it.

This is why parties don’t need principles. Or, put another way, they only need one principle (if it can be called that) and that’s “get elected”. In the past some parties, the Labour Party for instance, used to campaign to try to win people over to their point of view. Not any more. Today politicians just promise people what they want to hear.

Although Blair, Mandelson and New Labour earned themselves a reputation for cynicism by the way they raised this to a fine art, actually the best practitioners of this have been the Lib-Dems, who’ve long had “focus groups” to tell them what to promise people in some area they’ve targeted. Now the Tories under Cameron are practising this in a more serious way too.

This kind of politics – which is dominant today – rests on a number of assumptions and has a number of consequences.

1. It accepts the status quo. It accepts capitalism and seeks merely to work within it. Politics becomes a question of choosing the best capitalism-management team from amongst competing groups of politicians.
2. Politics becomes a profession. You vote for a politician to do something for you and you reward them for the service by voting for them.
3. Politics becomes an activity in which only a minority – the professional politicians – participate. Most people’s only involvement in politics is, literally, once every few years when they go and put an X on a ballot paper. Then they go home and let the person elected get on with the job.
4. Elections become more and more a sort of referendum, a plebiscite on the record of the outgoing government or council. People’s participation in politics becomes simply giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the outgoing administration. If they don’t mind what they’ve done, they vote them in again. If they’re not happy then they vote in some other lot.

Politics becomes a spectacle in which people are just passive spectators watching the goings-on of politicians. The media – especially TV – play to this, presenting politics in between elections as a soap. But it is not even a good spectacle. It’s boring and the actors are all second and third rate. It doesn’t work either. Nothing seems to change and nothing does change. The same old problems continue, with the professional politicians only being able to tinker about and patch things up a little.

The end result is that politics in seen as completely boring and that people don’t want to know about it, except in the few weeks before a general election. People know that voting doesn’t change anything and that the only power they have is to vote the Ins Out (or In again) or vote the Outs In; to change the management team, while their day-to-day lives are unaffected and unchanged.

No wonder people become apathetic, resigned and cynical.

A different politics

Can things change? Yes, they could but it’s not going to be through conventional politics, only through a quite different kind of politics. A politics which rejects and aims to change the status quo. A politics which involves people participating and not leaving things up to others to do something for them.

Besides involving people surrendering their power to act to others, conventional politics is based on the illusion that what happens depends on what the politicians in power do; that politicians really do control things; that politics is in the driving seat. But this isn’t the case. It is the way society is organised to produce things that is the main factor determining the way we live and what happens – and what doesn’t happen. In other words, what is important is the sort of social and economic system we live under, not which party of professional politicians controls the government. That’s why changing governments changes nothing.

The present system – capitalism, with its class privilege, production for profit and coercive state machine – is by nature incapable of being made to serve the common good; as a profit-making system it has to put making profits before meeting people’s needs. Before we can think about achieving a better world, it must go. What is needed, as a framework within which to solve the economic and social problems we now face, is a classless society where productive resources are held in common, where there’s production to satisfy people’s needs and not for profit and democratic administration not government over people. In a word, socialism (in its original sense).

When more and more people realise this they will begin organising for it, in the places where they work, in the neighbourhoods where they live, in the various clubs and associations they are members of, but, above all, they will need to organise politically. Who says “politically” also says “political party”. So we are talking about a “socialist party”.

Unfortunately so associated has the word “party” come to be with conventional politics that many people (including our anarchist critics) imagine that we, too, are proposing just another organisation of political leaders for people to follow; that we’re saying “vote for us and we’ll bring in socialism for you”. But we’re not. By “socialist party” we mean a party of people who want socialism, people organised democratically to win control of political power for socialism.

Obviously, a mass socialist party like this does not yet exist, but it is our view that, for socialism to be established, it should. Without having any delusions of grandeur, we try to organise ourselves today in our small party in the same way we think that a mass socialist party should organise itself: without leaders and with major decisions being made democratically either by a referendum of the whole membership or by a conference of mandated delegates and other decisions by elected committees. The “socialist party” would be a mass movement of people who wanted socialism, not a party of professional politicians or a party of professional revolutionaries or even of people who wanted to serve the people.

The same goes for participation in elections (since a mass socialist party would contest elections). Here too, we try to anticipate how we think a mass socialist party, when it emerges, should behave. Its candidates should not seek to be leaders, separate from those who vote for them, but should be standing as delegates to be mandated by those who want socialism. This is why when we stand in elections all we advocate is socialism. Not reforms of capitalism, not promises to do things for people, as the conventional parties do.

If you want a better world, you are going to have to bring it about yourselves. That’s our basic message. It’s no good following leaders, whether professional politicians or professional revolutionaries. In fact, following anybody (not even us) won’t get you anywhere. The only way is to carry out a do-it-yourself revolution on a completely democratic basis. Democratic in the sense that that’s what the majority want. And democratic in the sense that that majority, rather than following leaders, organises itself on the basis of mandated and recallable delegates carrying out decisions reached after a full and free discussion and vote.

That’s what politics can be, and should be. And has to be if things are ever to change.

Adam Buick

Politics of Apathy (2007)

Book Review from the September 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why We Hate Politics. Colin Hay. Polity Press.

Colin Hay is a Professor of Political Analysis and has produced a book typical of the academic genre – tightly argued and well referenced if somewhat dense, and at times, abstract. His main focus is that politics is ‘an increasingly dirty word’ and he sets out to examine why.

In fairness, some of the information he presents is rather good, especially in the earlier chapters where he looks at trends in political participation within the major developed states of the world, identifying and seeking to explain declines in voter turnout, falling membership of political parties and prevalent attitudes towards democracy and participation as sampled in opinion polls. He notes that somewhat paradoxically, just as traditional political participation has declined in recent decades, so have attitudes towards democracy as a form of running society improved, with less anti-democratic sentiment than in earlier times. This seems to be because while parliamentary democracy may not be perfect, any known, established alternatives to it (e.g. dictatorship from the far left or right) have proved to be even less attractive propositions.

While just over three-quarters of people in Britain consider democracy to be the ‘best form of government’ this means – rather worryingly – that nearly a quarter would prefer something else (e.g. dictatorship), but this is one of the highest levels of anti-democratic sentiment still existing in the Western world, in distinction to the Scandinavian countries, Germany and Japan, for instance, where pro-democracy sentiments are almost universal.

Rather like a bourgeois economist, Hay examines contemporary attitudes towards politics and political participation in terms of demand and supply. He argues that most writers examining this problem have focused principally on the demand side of this equation, in that they have been content to analyse the declining ‘demand for political goods’ amongst the electorate as manifested in voter turnout, political party membership and so on. When turnout declines the blame is apportioned to the voters, not the purveyors of political goods and services like the politicians and spin-doctors, who seem content to market themselves as competing branded versions of essentially the same product.

He argues that this issue of political supply – and the problems associated with it – has largely been ignored. The supply side essentially constitutes ‘changes in the content of the appeals that the parties make to potential voters’ and ‘changes in the capacity of national-level governments to deliver genuine political choice to voters’. Interestingly, unwitting support for this ‘supply-side’ view of political decline comes from the politicians themselves, who seem increasingly keen to abdicate responsibility for the running of society and for the political choices involved in this. In this respect, Hay’s piece de resistance is a quote from Blair’s old lieutenant, former Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer:

‘What governs our approach is a clear desire to place power where it should be: increasingly not with politicians, but with those best fitted in different ways to deploy it. Interest rates are not set by politicians in the Treasury, but by the Bank of England. Minimum wages are not determined by the Department of Trade and Industry, but by the Low Pay Commission . . . this depoliticisation of key decision-making is a vital element in bringing power closer to the people.’

While Hay seems to imply that this is a dereliction of duty by politicians that has led to even more cynicism from the public, it is just as much an admission of their practical failure to create worthwhile change or improvement through active intervention. After all, if there’s little or nothing you can do, then why not (under the guise of being ‘democratic’) effectively hand over the supposed ‘powers’ concerned to someone else? Then they can, at least, take any blame that is due from a weary and sceptical public.

Dave Perrin

“There’s nothing we could do” (1991)

From the September 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Most nights, the Northern Ireland News on television has something to say about employment. If the news is good, if new jobs have been “created", the accompanying picture usually includes a group of people, sometimes with the Minister himself present. These are not the people for whom work has been created, of course; these are people drinking champagne because. the voice-over tells us, they have arranged for other people to work. The exercise is called “job creation".

But this “job creation" is a funny business. When the capitalists who have come to Northern Ireland to make a profit are being entertained by the Minister and an army of job creators, when the corks are popping and the actual number of millions of pounds being contributed by the government (to enable the new entrepreneurs to get going in a rent-free factory) is being announced, everybody present is happy. Well, two or three hundred jobs, in an area where there might be 60 or 70 percent of the local population unemployed, will be widely regarded as a joyful occasion.

Of course, the two or three hundred jobs will not be created overnight. Oh no, no. You see job creation doesn't work like that.The two or three hundred jobs are for the future . . . say in five years time. The Minister knows that, and so do the job creators. But there will, maybe, be twenty or thirty jobs immediately—if they can get people to come off the dole to work for that sort of money.

The reverse of this job creation business takes place too. If the economic climate is not too bad, we can have job creation and the redundancies and sackings on alternate nights—which is good for the television company's Industrial Correspondent. Unfortunately, the one doesn't balance the other; which probably explains why, despite all the job creation, the skillfully-adjusted unemployment figures continue to increase and are now a province-wide 20 percent.

Job losses

The other night the busy Industrial Correspondent told us that a local firm, in an area of chronic unemployment, was “getting rid" of 260 workers and that most of the remaining 300-odd workers would be going on to a three-day week.

The company, James Mackie and Sons Ltd. used to employ 9.000 in its hey-day. Its textile machinery was exported throughout the world. But the world has changed; the place of the intricate machinery and the highly-skilled craftsmen who produced this machinery has been taken by electronic chips and. somewhere else, in a contracting market, there are workers who take even less than the low pay paid by Mackie’s in Belfast.

It was a family business. But the family is OK. The millions they got from the American company which took over the firm a few years ago will be working for them and saving them the inconvenience of having to work for themselves. The workers whose labour created that for which the American company paid millions . . . well, they're just redundant.

When the take-over was announced a couple of years ago. there were about 900 in the Mackies' employ. The new owners entered negotiations with the unions; 300 jobs would have to go in order to secure the jobs of the remaining 600.

Nothing very unusual in the story, even if we mention that the Minister and the job creators were also deeply involved doing their best for the new owners. Nothing unusual, indeed. Men and women walking out through the heavy iron gates for the last time. Men and women, thirty years, forty years, fifty years and without hope or promise for the future.

In a sane society it would be a good story. A story showing us how progress had made it unnecessary for working men and women to go into what is still a dark. Satanic mill. A story depicting how. away from the priorities of the market and the profit system, human beings could use science to emancipate themselves from drudgery and dangerous tasks. Unfortunately we are not living in a sane society, and the thing that these workers feared more than their slavery was the poverty that would accompany their emancipation from drudgery.

A reporter spoke to five workers. All complained that the media had learnt about the sackings before they had. All complained that the Company had failed to advise the unions. All expressed their fears for the future. And all ended their comments by making the same point, each in a different way but covered in a short sentence: "there's nothing we could do".

Paradox

Of course, it is the people and the institutions of capitalism, who tell us that we live in a democracy, where we, the people, are the source of all power, who also manage to promote the notion that there is nothing we can do. It's a formula for all situations: there is nothing we can do about poverty; about war and violence; about slums. In a word, about capitalism.

It is the working class which not only produces the goods and services required by people in capitalism but also carries out all the utterly wasteful administrative and other functions made necessary only by the casino economics of capitalism itself. Yet we have this paradox of a class which runs society from top to bottom within a system where its majority status should give it political and, thus, ultimately, economic control, accepting the tyranny of democratic powerlessness.

The paradox is explained by the political success of capitalism's institutions: its educational system, its class system, its political system and its control over the means of communication. These are the means by which we are conditioned to accept the idea that there are those intended to be leaders, those entitled to position, to wealth and privilege, and those who, if they display the required aptitudes, will be allowed to work for a wage or salary. Properly processed through this machinery of acceptance, most workers—and, ironically, especially those who boast that they live in a free and democratic country—will accept the idea that "there is nothing we can do".

The belief that we, the working class, are powerless to change society in our interests is a fundamental bulwark of capitalism's wage-slavery. The more skilful of capitalism's defenders are conscious that there is nothing that can be said in favour of an economic system which, through a complex process primarily intended to enrich a minority, creates such terrible problems for the great majority in our world. Such apologists, rather than attempting to defend the indefensible, concentrate on attacking those who offer an alternative form of social organisation. Essential to their apologia is the promotion of the idea that the working class is incapable of changing society.

If it was true, it would be the epitaph of freedom.

Richard Montague