Running Commentary: Thatcher and Socialism (1987)

The Running Commentary Column from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thatcher and Socialism

On January 31 1987 it was reported in the Daily Telegraph that Margaret Thatcher had made a remarkable statement. She hoped for a further term of office so that she could finally eradicate socialism from Britain. Knowing Thatcher's track record we see in this utterance a deliberate attempt to mislead the electorate. Socialism, as we are continually pointing out, has never existed anywhere and, in any case, it could not exist in one country. It has to be worldwide.

Thatcher always tries to give the impression that she is thoroughly honest and sincere, but we are not impressed for this is all part of the plan to hoodwink the voters. What we have is capitalism and socialists are doing their best to persuade the working class to get rid of it and replace it with a worldwide system of common ownership.

Capitalism, by its very nature, cannot run smoothly. It is teetering on the edge of another war. The EEC are at loggerheads with one another and with America. The wars in Iran and Afghanistan are helped along by outside nations anxious to sell their latest war equipment and to test its efficiency in the same way as during the Spanish Civil War. States not at war see battlefields as opportunities for making a profit.

Gorbachev has stated that he prefers the capitalism of Thatcher to that of her Labour opponents. Will we now see a split in the Thatcher-Reagan camp and a closer relationship between Thatcher and Gorbachev? Strange things happen in the world of capitalist economics. Understanding the nature of capitalism suggested during the last "war to end" war that economic friendship might result between Britain and Germany; after the war we saw German troops training in Wales and the British supplying the German Air Force with the top secret Tornado fighter-bomber.

All this chicanery has nothing to do with the working class except that we are called up to defend this ridiculous system when the economic struggle develops into war.

The solution to this is in the hands of the working class. All that is needed is the political knowledge to apply it.

Bed and Breakfast

Sorry— but you're probably too late for this year.

No, we're not referring to two weeks in Blackpool or Ramsgate. As package tours abroad are now often cheaper than holidays in Britain, you're probably still OK for your summer holidays.

Unless you're heavily into wheeling and dealing in shares, you won't know that "Bed and Breakfast" is in fact a way of making a quick buck. The law allows you to take a tax free profit of £6,300 on shares and unit trusts; after that tax is payable at 30%. Therefore the wise ones sell shares/unit trusts tonight, making their tax-free profit, and buy them back in the morning — hence "bed and breakfast". You can carry on like this indefinitely. The only slight risk you take is the (unlikely) possibility of a sharp rise in the price of those shares/unit trusts between the evening of selling and next morning when you buy them back. Mind you, there is another snag. Allowing for a return of, say, 20 per cent, to make that tax free £6,300 you need to have £31,500 to invest in the first place. "Bed and breakfast" prices are, we are sure, a problem which does not bother many of our readers.

Wanna Buy Some Shares?

Anyone who achieved a distorted concept of their class position through sinking a couple of hundred quid — which in many cases they had to borrow — into shares in privatised state industry could learn from the great Guinness scandal what it actually means to be a member of the other class in society.

The Sunday Times of 8 March 1987 published an account by Ivan Fallon — who has written a book about the affair — of the sort of money which changed hands during the Guinness takeover battle for Distillers:

• Gerald Ronson, owner of the Heron group, invested £25m in Guinness shares, for which he was to receive a "fee" of £5m from Guinness.
• Ronson's "adviser", Tony Parnes, got a "fee" of £3m. Jack Lyons, another "adviser", got £2m.
• A subsidiary of Ephraim Marguiles bought 2.8 million Guinness shares and another subsidiary was paid nearly £1.5m for "work" in connection with the Distillers takeover.
• The Bank Leu in Zurich bought £50m worth of Guinness shares, apparently with money supplied by Guinness.
• The American Meshulam Riklis bought £30m worth of Distillers shares and invested £60m in Guinness shares.
• Lord Spens bought £75m worth of Guinness shares for clients of the merchant bank Henry Ansbacher.

Distillers was seen as ripe for a takeover because as it was organised it was not exploiting its workers, or applying the capital accumulated through their exploitation, to the maximum benefit of its shareholders. It was failing to meet an essential requirement of capitalism — maximised profit. It needed the sort of regime which Ernest Saunders had introduced into the Guinness empire; in his first two years as Chief Executive he sold or closed down 140 companies which Guinness had taken over in a vain effort to staunch the fall in its profits. The potential profits from a revamped, asset-stripped Distillers were enticing enough to attract some huge investments and some very rich capitalists.

Beside this operation, the scale of working class share buying is seen in its true proportions. Workers are not the authentic investors; they are not the owners of capital. That is the role exclusively of the capitalist class, who exploit the workers, who assert their privileged standing through capitalism's laws and its coercive state machine but who are prepared to break those laws if they see it as being to their immediate advantage to do so.

They pay richly to those who have the job of managing their operations. Ernest Saunders, before he was exposed and fired, was "earning" £370.000 a year and living in a country house worth £500,000. He is reported now to be exhausted. There is no information about the condition of the employees of the companies involved, whose labour was responsible for amassing the huge sums of money which were so skilfully deployed.

Aids for extra profits

One way you might like to consider making that tax free £6,300 is to invest in Japan. However, according to Warburg Securities, just any old investment won't do if you really want to get rich quickly. As "we expect awareness of Aids in Japan to continue to increase sharply” their recommendation is simple: buy Sagami Rubber and Fuji Latex — used, of course, to make condoms. "We expect unit growth should pick up as the Aids threat becomes apparent": strong demand "may also facilitate price increases" — the law of supply and demand operating . . .There are also strong recommendations to buy Sumitomo Chemical and Inabata Sangyo. who distribute Wellcome's AZT drug, and Fujirebio. who start marketing their diagnostic kit in April. These “should be the continuing focus of investor interest as further Aids victims inevitably come to light". So now that you know, there is no excuse for you not to make that tax free £6.300. After all, if you want to get rich quickly you can’t have scruples or consider the finer ethical niceties.

To All Readers (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

You may be aware that Islington branch of the Socialist Party are putting forward a candidate for the forthcoming general election. Obviously an immense amount of background work is necessary if we are to seize this chance of putting our case across.

This is an ideal opportunity for people who are unable to attend branch meetings regularly to get involved. Volunteers are urgently needed to help in any way they can — envelope addressing, leaflet distribution. door-to-door canvassing and so on.

Even if you can only spare an hour or two a month, or are unable to get out and about in the constituency, please get in touch with Cliff Begley at head office to offer your services. Your support and help will seldom be of greater value than during this pre-election period.

A matter of timing (1987)

From the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

A long holiday on a remote island is recommended to anyone who is not obsessively interested in speculation about the date of the next general election. Until the Prime Minister ends the agony by naming the day we shall be harassed by political correspondents picking over the latest opinion poll, by the pollsters asking their irrelevant questions and by politicians whose speeches have taken on the urgency and concentration which was once supposed to influence the thoughts of prisoners on the eve of their execution.

No member of the Cabinet can relax for a moment because everything they say. everything they do. everywhere they go, will be minutely scrutinised for clues. The hysteria has already extended beyond the political field. Take, for example, the recent marriage of failed trainee accountant and rally driver Mark Thatcher to a millionairess from Texas. This union of two heavily-moneyed parasites. a boring and unremarkable event, could not avoid being an element in the speculation about the election. Had the rich and happy pair, it was asked, been rushed to the altar by Tory Party planners to soften Margaret Thatcher's image as the Iron Lady by making her a prospective grandmother?

Of course this might be all just clean fun, to keep the media hacks busy between the end of the Wapping dispute and the announcement of the next royal pregnancy, were it not for the reasons why the timing of an election is considered so important. Indeed, in some cases the outcome of an election is said to have been decided by the day chosen for it. In 1970, for example. Wilson's government was widely assumed to be on course for a third term of office. The original slim majority of 1964 had been enlarged in 1966, in an election fought on the slogan You Know Labour Government Works — which should have been enough to frighten away millions of voters. The local elections of May 1970 were encouraging for Labour and the polls predicted a victory for them at a general election. Apart from that, Ted Heath was some way behind Wilson in the grubby contest to appear as the sort of leader workers admire, to tell them what to do. to blame them for the politicians' impotence to deal with capitalism's problems and generally to exploit their political naiveté. Wilson's ambition to purge the Labour Party of its professed objective of social revolution and instead establish it as the alternative government of British capitalism, seemed close to achievement.

George Meddemmen

There had, of course, been one or two problems — like economic and financial crises — but these are faced by all governments. There had been battles with the workers — notably the seamen — over wages and conditions of work. Living standards had been persistently threatened through rising prices; but these had been prominent features of British capitalism since Labour first won power in 1945. The Wilson government had carried on with providing the British armed forces with the nuclear power of super-annihilation; they had supported the American government's ugly struggle in Vietnam and, aware that the British capitalist class had large investments in Nigeria, and got ten per cent of their oil from there, they backed the Nigerian government's genocidal war against Biafra. It was, as they say, not a pretty picture but neither was it untypical of the necessary actions of the governments of capitalism. The British working class, it was predicted, were satisfied enough with Labour s record to give them another spell in power.

But Wilson, who was supposed to be a master of timing, got it wrong, which led to three years of Tory rule under the despised and derided Ted Heath. At the time the surprise result was attributed partly to the publication, just before polling day, of some statistics which showed that British capitalism was not doing as well in competition with its foreign rivals as the Labour government had hoped. Few things are so likely to undermine the workers' confidence in a government as the suspicion that they are not looking after the interests of the ruling class as competently as they might. There were other factors, not the least of them the bewildered disillusionment which six years of governing capitalism had stimulated in the Labour Party. At times the Party seemed on the verge of disintegration, with the spectacular defections among leaders such as George Brown and Ray Gunter and with the Party at large rent apart over Biafra, Vietnam, nuclear weapons, the unions and so on. Under this pressure Wilson, who had once been lauded as Labour 's man of magic, became exposed as a trickster.

It was apparently even more difficult for the next Labour Prime Minister, James Callaghan, to fix the date for his one and only attempt to hold on to power. Callaghan's government had been in continual trouble, trying to hold down wages in a series of battles with striking workers — notably the firemen in the winter of 1977. In mid-1978 the unions gave notice that enough was enough, that the pressure from lower paid workers could not be contained much longer. The sewage workers, lorry drivers, local authority manual workers and hospital employees came out in a series of much-publicised strikes which ruined Labour's strategy of wage restraint through the co-operation of the unions. Some of the strikes were supported by workers not directly involved in a dispute but who joined a picket line anyway. How badly the government were shaken was evident when Callaghan — who had risen to power through the unions and who was once, briefly, regarded as a left-winger — said in the Commons:

 I assert very clearly that everyone has the right to work and everyone has the right to cross a picket line. It is not a sacred object and I hope they will do so. (Guardian, 24 January 1979). 

In the same speech he stated, no doubt to an appreciative audience of Thatcherite Tories, that the expenditure limits fixed by the government could not be exceeded and that for private industry the "ultimate discipline" was that workers could lose their jobs — which must have been confusing to anyone who took seriously his mouthings about the "right to work".

In October 1978, in a speech in which he was expected to announce the date of the election, Callaghan committed himself to hanging on into 1979. He must have been hoping that things could not possibly get worse. That was the time when the present economic recession was gathering momentum; under that Labour government unemployment went up — doubled — between 1974 and 1979, from about 600,000 to about 1,200,000 and their response was the established one of cutting back on investment. Labour's Chancellor, Denis Healey, thus gained the reputation as the originator of Thatcherite monetarism. Class society and poverty, after five years of Labour government, was as evident as ever. There were still, as Callaghan himself admitted:

   . . . men and women struggling with low pay, mothers stretching the household budget to make ends meet, youngsters in search of a job . . . patients queuing for a hospital bed or families without a decent home . (Foreword to Labour s 1979 election programme, The Labour Way Is The Better Way).

As it happened the choice of date was taken out of Callaghan’s hands when a defeat in the Commons forced him to call an election; for some time they had clung to power through sordid compromise deals, at first with the Liberals and then with the Nationalists. At least, he might have reflected, he could not be accused of turning victory into defeat through bad timing and the leader of so unpopular a government, which was duly cast aside by the voters, needed whatever consolation he could get.

It was simpler for the Tories in 1983, if we are to believe Cecil Parkinson, who masterminded their campaign. In an article in the Guardian (24 November 1986) Parkinson wrote that Thatcher chose the 1983 polling day after the Tory leaders had spent a day discussing the last local election results and studying two opinion polls they had taken in key marginal seats. It was, he said, a matter of common sense — and nothing is more beloved of politicians, for common sense justifies every human excess of capitalism, from nuclear annihilation to mass starvation. And of course Tory common sense paid off — in spite of millions unemployed and all that meant in terms of even more desperate poverty, in spite of the fact that the numbers living at or below the official poverty line had increased by millions between 1979 and 1983, in spite of the tightening of the screw on those still in work, in spite of the slaughter of the Falklands. . . .

George Meddemmen

It is, to put it mildly, depressing that millions of workers should vote for political parties who indulge in such blatant, cynical manipulation, whether Labour’s attempts at subtlety or Tory common sense. In 1979 Callaghan delayed polling day in the uncertain hope that workers were so foolish and irresponsible that only a few months were needed for them to blot out the miserable memory of his government and then, perhaps, be ready to fall for some vote-catching gimmick. Thatcher in 1983 should have been surprised that deeper poverty and the jingoistic hysteria of the Falklands had not destroyed her chances. But she saw that workers actually seemed hungry for more of her style of capitalism and she took the opportunity to exploit this.

If the analysts have got it right — if it is true that a few months' difference in polling day can affect how workers vote — the whole exercise is exposed for its futility and irrelevance. A working class who value their vote — their power to change society — so lightly will continue to vote for capitalism, switching from Labour to Tory and back again or even perhaps, to the Alliance. They are not about to make any fundamental change in society, to eliminate the disfigurements which capitalism brings. Such swings are brought about through the most trivial changes in capitalism, such as a set of trading figures; basically the system does not change. The problems we face now, which are the raw material of election promises, are those which have been faced by generations of workers and they will be eradicated only through social revolution.

Because capitalism does not change fundamentally. neither does the case for its abolition. We know why socialism must be established, and how, and who will do it. The one remaining question is: when.

Ivan

Swansea election campaign (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

This is the year Swansea Branch has felt strong enough to contest its first election. Since a number of the branch members are concentrated in one particular ward of the city — Uplands — we decided, at the end of 1986, to field a candidate in the May 1987 local elections. The branch elected Gareth Thomas as candidate and I was elected to act as his agent.

In early February, with the aid of the new Print facility at Head Office, we produced 5.000 copies of a preliminary leaflet and put this through every letter-box in the ward. The leaflet, which is reproduced below, outlined the Party's ideas in a way that we hoped would be clear to people hearing them for the first time. We wanted to give it some local interest as well so we mentioned the Singleton Hospital issue — the transfer of the local hospital's casualty service to a hospital many miles away and the protest and outrage this has provoked throughout the community. The leaflet related this to the lack of real everyday democracy in present-day society.

Leafleting was harder work and took longer than we thought. But in the end we covered the lot down to the last multiple occupation and all 10½ thousand voters in Uplands Ward would have had the chance to read what we're about.

We'd already approached the local paper and they'd shown an interest. Brian Walters, one of their reporters, interviewed Gareth and was very cooperative. He did a pretty fair write-up a couple of days later together with a photo of Gareth he'd insisted on taking. Gareth had made the point to him that we didn't go in for personalities; it was the ideas that counted and we only wanted people to vote for us if they understood and agreed with the socialist case. He seemed to get the message and did mention it in his report but he still included a fair amount about Gareth himself. Like any journalist, he was anxious for a bit of what's supposed to make newspapers sell — "human interest". He told Gareth to keep in touch with him and suggested to him that the Labour Party wouldn't be too pleased to have its "socialist" thunder stolen in the ward.

He turned out to be right. After we'd written round for debates to the other parties in the ward (Labour. Tory. Liberal. SDP, Plaid Cymru), we heard through a reliable inside source that our letter had been discussed at a meeting of the Uplands ward Labour Party and that an angry Militant member had suggested that they take up our challenge to debate and "expose" us. Our source, who knows our case well, replied that they couldn't expose the Socialist Party as we had nothing to hide. Apparently his counsel prevailed since we've heard nothing. But there were, so it seems, further mutterings about trying to get us for breaking election law by spending too much money on our campaign (that's a joke) or starting it too early. If they've taken the trouble to look into it. they'll have found out by now that we did our homework before we started.

So far. the only written reply we've had from our opponents has been a letter from the Conservatives (they usually win the seat) who were lukewarm about a debate but said we should ask them again nearer the time. But even if none of them take up the challenge. we're still going to hold our own election meetings in a local school and a community centre in the days leading up to the election.

We've had a certain amount of feedback from our first drop of leaflets, part good and part bad. A few phone and letter requests asking for information and literature, a woman enquiring what our attitude is to homosexual men living together as married couples and one of our leaflets sent back with unpleasant things written on it.

Our next task is to deliver to houses 5,000 free back copies of the Socialist Standard with a handbill stapled to the front of each. The handbill reminds people of the previous leaflet and invites them to read the magazine. In bold black letters it's headed TO READ OR NOT TO READ? THAT IS THE QUESTION and it ends with the slogan we've adopted for the whole of our election campaign "Vote For Yourself For a Change - For a Real Change". A group of members from Bristol Branch are coming over to help us give out the Standards since their bulk and weight will make it a bigger job than the leaflets. We're also hoping for help from other branches for the doorstep canvassing we'll be doing and for the final drop of literature — our election manifestos. We'll be putting out the manifestos in the last week to remind people — if they didn't know already — that a Socialist Party candidate is standing, that he's arguing for something quite different from the other candidates and that they should vote for themselves for a change — for a real change.

Howard Moss

Vote For Yourself For A Change (1987)

Election Statement from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

A Real Change

In Uplands Ward in the Swansea Council Elections (May 7). there will be a candidate representing the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

Our candidate, Gareth Thomas, will be putting forward the case for a society of free access, a society without buying and selling, money and wages, employers and employees. This is what Socialism really means. Over the years it has been changed and distorted in many different ways so that in most people's minds Socialism now means either the kind of dictatorial society that exists in Russia, or state intervention in industry and housing, or the promises of social reform, full employment, higher wages, etc. that come from the Labour Party.

But Socialism means none of these things. It means a society in which everything is owned in common and in which people democratically take all the decisions that affect their lives. The situation at present is that these decisions are left to a government which, whether right or left wing, can only act in the interests of the profit system and of that small minority of the population (about 10 per cent according to official statistics) who own most of the wealth and who, through the profits they make, don't need to work for a wage or salary in order to live.

Local issues and wider issues

We realise of course that this is a local election and that the other parties will be fighting it on "local issues" or on the "personality" of their candidates. But this is not our way. Our candidate is solely there to represent our ideas. He will not be kissing babies or making vain promises. He will be pointing out that "local issues", when looked at closely, are invariably wider ones. The Singleton Hospital issue, for example, may seem local but it is really an issue about whether people shall make their own decisions on matters that concern them or whether those decisions shall be made for them from on high for political or money-saving reasons.

Gareth Thomas will also be pointing out that most of the problems, whether local or wider, which most of us experience (poor public services, not enough money, dissatisfaction at work, anxiety and stress, etc.) derive from the fact that we have extremely little control over our own lives. We are made unable to exercise control both because our personal resources are limited (lack of money) and because important social decisions are out of our hands (lack of democracy).

Do you trust leaders?

The Socialist answer to this is for people not to put their trust in leaders but to take steps themselves, peacefully and democratically, to bring about a free access society without the use of money or any such thing where we all take freely what we need from the abundance of goods and services which with modern technology we are capable of producing. A society where we organise things for the benefit of all not in the interests of a wealthy few.

This is an entirely practical proposition once the majority of people want it. The Socialist Party exists to help spread the idea and to encourage people to establish a society which will put it into practice.

Our election campaign

Between now and May 7 you will be receiving further material from us through your letter box. In the near future we will deliver a free back copy of our monthly magazine, the Socialist Standard. We hope you will read it. And if you find you agree with our ideas (but only if you agree), we will be asking you to vote for Gareth Thomas on May 7. We also hope you will come to the public debates we shall be trying to arrange with the other political parties nearer the time of the election. We will keep you informed.

Cartoonish Politics (1987)

From the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bye-Elections (1987)

Rosie Barnes

From the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Greenwich groan

There is one way in which the SDP/Liberal Alliance, self-proclaimed mould breakers of British politics, are set rigidly in tradition. Whenever they win an election they elevate the result into an historic event which will change the face of politics.

So it was in Greenwich where Rosie Barnes, ex-Labour Party and straight out of the Posy Simmonds mould of a Blackheath liberal, won a by-election famous for making an issue over whether the Labour candidate's father had been a drunken wife-basher. Another enduring tradition ensures that elections should concern themselves with such irrelevant nonsense.

The Alliance claimed their victory was evidence that the working class are fed up with the established two party system and are looking for another way, a third party. This does not square up with another well used Alliance ploy, to encourage people to vote "tactically" to keep one party out rather than let another one in. Tactical voting — if it ever happens — could be used to the benefit of the Labour and Tory Parties; it does not indicate any disillusion with the two party set-up but a strong revulsion against one or other of those parties. And there is nothing new, or mould-breaking, in that.

In any case it is the depth of negative thinking to argue that workers should vote for a party they don't really support rather than another which they like even less. That is a cynical misuse of workers' political power to change society. The Alliance, which is a re-arrangement of the failed leaders and policies of other capitalist parties, is bound to feed off the cynicism and disillusion which those failures have nurtured.

The two Davids, then, offer nothing that is new or hopeful. On economic policy they deal in the same sterile ruses of trying to make British capitalism more profitable by holding back wages. On war weapons they concern themselves with trivial debates about which method of mass annihilation they favour.

The authentic mould breakers of politics aim for a fundamental change — for a different social system with none of the desperate social ailments which are the stuff of capitalist politics and of the parties, like the Alliance, which seek power to run the system.

. . . Truro Tremble

In Truro, "tactical voting" had a different meaning for the Alliance. There they urged voters to support the candidate of their choice — because they always assumed they had victory in their pockets. The big issue was the "Cornishness" of the candidates with the Labour man. who comes from decidedly un-Cornwall-like Hillingdon in West London, upstaging the rest by speaking Cornish. A famous victory for the Liberals, they say; a typically cynical and irrelevant contest, we say.

Reluctant anarchists (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In January our Newcastle Branch invited the local Anarcho-Syndicalist group to take part in one of a series of debates and forums, with a title on the lines of "Socialism or Anarcho-Syndicalism: How Can Workers Achieve Freedom?" The branch pointed out that as a democratic, leaderless socialist group they are committed to the free exchange of ideas with others who are interested in changing society. The invitation was sent after a member of the Syndicalists' editorial group had attended several of the Branch meetings, had taken part in lengthy discussions and claimed to share our aim of a classless, moneyless society based on common ownership.

This was how the Anarcho-Syndicalists replied:

Dear SPGB.
 
  I have been asked to inform you that the Syndicalist does not wish to take part in the type of public debate as you propose. While believing that public meetings are a major part in the growth of revolutionary ideas we do not, as anarcho-syndicalists, wish to take part in the political power struggle of the left vanguardist parties and have no intention, either now or in the future of participating in the type of political competition to see which theoretical and "politically correct" ideas will prevail under such circumstances. 

  We are however willing to discuss our ideas with any member, or any of your associates, that are interested in the ideas of anarcho-syndicalism on a personal level. If you would wish to further this conversation as we have stated please contact us at the above address. 

  Due to the short amount of time you gave for a reply this decision was reached at an Editorial Group meting and will be put to our Full Business Meeting in March. Though the decision will most certainly stand.

As our Newcastle group comments, the reply shows the Anarcho-Syndicalists' complete lack of willingness to be open about their political ideas in a forum of members of the working class. This lack no doubt leads to their undemocratic practices in decision making, as evidenced in the final paragraph of their letter. Notwithstanding, the Newcastle Branch will continue their propaganda work, including regular challenges to their opponents.

50 Years Ago: The depression is over (1987)

The 50 Years Ago column from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The depression is over and prosperity is here once again. This is the good news discovered by politicians, bankers and captains of industry and passed on to the workers in speeches and articles up and down the country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr Neville Chamberlain, in a speech at Birmingham on January 29th said that the Midlands are "enjoying a greater prosperity than had ever been known in the history of living people". (The Times. January 30th. 1937.) Mr Colin Campbell. Chairman of the National Provincial Bank. Ltd., in his survey of the country's affairs at the annual meeting of his bank, sees "prosperity firmly based on well-distributed purchasing power". (Economist, January 30th. 1937.) Indeed, the bankers and economists are becoming alarmed at the comparative shortage of skilled labour and consequent ability of the workers to secure wage increases. The question occupying their minds is when the next slump is due to break and whether by any means they or the governments can prevent it.

It need hardly be said that the prosperity which so impresses the spokesmen of the propertied class is the prosperity of that class, hence their view that higher wages due to scarcity of labour is an "evil".

[From an article "This Prosperity", Socialist Standard, April 1937.]

Socialist Correspondence Club (1987)

Party News from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

In 1983 a Socialist Correspondence Club was formed with the aim of breaking down the sense of isolation felt by many socialists across the world. Since then the number of participants in this project has grown substantially and now includes readers of the Socialist Standard in America, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Ireland, Mauritius, New Zealand, Poland and Zimbabwe.

The club's membership list is now being updated. Would readers who wish to join please contact the co-ordinator. Louise Cox c/o Head Office. SPGB. 52 Clapham High Street. London SW4 7UN. stating their name and address, and most importantly, any specific interests they may have e.g. Victorian history, cycling. Dire Straits etc. The deadline for all letters is the end of July 1987. Those already on the list are asked to advise of any change of circumstances.

Shortly afterwards a complete list of members will be sent to all participants for each to decide with whom to start a correspondence. If you want to join please don't delay. And if you know anyone who might want to join, tell them about it! It costs absolutely nothing (except your stamps) but any donations to party funds would be most welcome.

Political Notes: Union Bashing (1987)

The Political Notes Column from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Union Bashing

The government has recently published a green paper (discussion document) entitled Trade Unions and Their Members which outlines phase four of its union bashing programme. Having whittled away at the rights of trade unions to engage in industrial action, and dictated how they should constitute themselves and run their affairs, the latest proposals are primarily concerned with bolstering the rights of individual trade union members against their unions. The intention is to provide legal protection to trade union members who refuse to take strike action, even though that action has majority support as expressed through a ballot of the whole membership. The Green Paper states:

  Every union member should be free to decide for himself whether or not he wishes to break his contract of employment and run the risk of dismissal without compensation. No union member should be penalised by his trade union for exercising his right to cross a picket line and go to work.

And to ensure that the rights of individual union members are so protected, it is proposed that a special commissioner for trade union affairs be appointed by the government to provide advice to trade unionists wishing to take legal action against their union.

The language of the Green Paper is that of "rights" and "freedoms", but it is individual rights that are to be protected at the expense of the collective rights of the unions themselves. The only strength that unions have comes from their collective strength and ability to remain united when involved in industrial action in defence of wages and conditions of work. The rhetoric of "rights" and "freedoms" disguises the government’s real purpose which is to undermine trade unions by helping to create divisions within them. The fact that some of the proposals contained in the Green Paper are concerned with the democratisation of trade union organisation — such as the proposal for secret ballots for elections of union officials — should not blind us to the fact that this is not the real reason for this latest round of trade union laws. It is up to workers themselves to ensure that their unions are democratic and that governments do not interfere in the internal structure and constitution of trade unions.

Teaching Teachers a Lesson

Another blow was struck against the trade union movement with the passing of the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act, which completely removes from teaching unions the right to negotiate with their employers (local education authorities) about pay and conditions of work. Instead the Act imposes a pay settlement and contains provision for the appointment of a committee which is to be responsible for advising the Minister for Education on teachers' salaries and conditions of employment. The minister will then decide whether or not to accept the recommendations of the committee.

The teaching unions will play no part in this process since the Act only states that the unions can be consulted on the Advisory Committee's recommendations. So in other words the government, acting on the advice of a body appointed by, and responsible to, itself will be able to decree what teachers should be paid, how long they must work and so on. And this from a government that claims to be committed to the "free market"!

Teachers have once again voted to take strike action in protest at this erosion of their union rights. However, in taking further industrial action they may well run up against other restrictions on the right to strike. The government and the media will undoubtedly try to present teachers as irresponsible, unprofessional and even in breach of the law. The fact that the government, in passing this Act. is itself in breach of the International Labour Conventions is likely to go unnoticed.

Unemployment Tactics

The government offers two tactics for dealing with unemployment: job training schemes and financial support for small businesses. Since the usefulness of the former depends on sufficient jobs being available when people are trained, even the most complacent of government supporters can have very little confidence in this remedy. The president of the Confederation of British Industries in his New Year message for 1987 was certainly not over-optimistic about future trends in employment: he "warned of fewer jobs in manufacturing in 1987" but thought that "demand for labour by service industries should more than offset the loss to bring about a slow but steady fall in unemployment of about 100.000 over the year".

However, the government has shown its determination to support small businesses by making David Trippier the "Minister of Small Firms”. One of his jobs is the encouragement of investment in small firms by insurance companies and the controllers of pension funds. Barely one per cent of their huge financial resources, he claims, are being used to back small companies.

  Given that their total funds were estimated at £170 billion in 1983, and taking account of the 100 per cent rise in the FT share index since 1983 this is a national disgrace. . . . I can't believe that they would be taking too big a risk by investing up to 2 per cent in the smaller companies which are not quoted on the Stock Exchange (The Times 2 February 1987).

Under the present economic system, capital flows to those areas of the economy where the prospect of profit is greatest, for maximising profit is the very basis of our economic system. David Trippier has been given a thankless task indeed, but it could be worth quite a few votes.

To Fit the Crime?

If anything excites the gutter press more than a horrific rape it is a horrific rape for which the rapist receives a comparatively light sentence.

So we should not be impressed when newspapers like the Sun report (they would probably prefer the word expose) sexual offences, in a mixture of relish and indignation. while at the same time they publish girlie pictures with captions like this:

  Sexy Sammy Fox simply shines — as she gets set to make you and your partner BULLIONAIRES.

This merchanting of distorted femininity — superficially inviting but actually unreal and unattainable — is good for sales but not for sexual harmony. Deliberately and cynically, it preys on the repressed and malformed sexuality which is ail too often evident in offences like rape.

The Ealing vicarage rape case — particularly brutal and horrifying — was all the gutter press could ask for. It also gave a few publicity-crazed MPs the opportunity to get themselves a bit more media exposure. Notable among these, seizing his chance like the pro he is, was the local Member Harry Greenway, who annually shows how he rates women by arranging to have himself photographed clutching some haplessly smiling contestants in the Miss World festival of female degradation.

Punishment freaks on the right wing like Peter Bruinvels — who wouldn't mind the job of hangman if capital punishment is ever brought back here — were in sympathy with feminists and left wingers in outrage at the Ealing sentences. It was, they agreed, a simple matter to reduce the incidence of rape — dish out harsher sentences to the rapists. Clearly, there is need for a few words from another point of view.

The Ealing sentences were short only by the standards of the English courts, which are notorious as among the most punitive in Europe. The sentenced men are likely to suffer grievously at the hands of their fellow prisoners. They are unlikely to learn anything about how capitalism with its poverty, its slums, its repression, its cynicism, discourages people from trusting or caring for each other. What sort of attitude does the Sun. for example, encourage men to adopt towards sexy Sammy Fox?

The mock horror in the press at a judge who seemed to set property at a value higher than human beings was particularly sickening for these same newspapers ardently support the capitalist system which operates on exactly that principle. What else was the Sun saying, when it gloated over the slaughter of hundreds of Argentinian workers when the Belgrano was sunk?

The outcry over "inadequate" or "lenient" sentences encourages workers who are afraid or disturbed about what they see of capitalism in the 1980s to think they can leave the remedy to politicians to introduce harsher laws and to the judiciary who will impose them. Crime springs from the roots of capitalism and. contrary to the hysteria of the gutter press and vote-obsessed MPs. it will not be eradicated through punishment.

Business as usual

The Tower Commission's report into the sale of arms to Iran by the United States has left the way open for things to continue pretty much as usual. The Commission concluded that the (unelected) National Security Council. from which the policy apparently emanated. on the whole does a good job; that the decision-making processes are basically sound; and the President, although incompetent. is a good guy at heart. Ronnie has gone on television to put things right with the "American people" by admitting that he goofed and his popularity ratings seem to have recovered as a result. Nancy gave Don Regan the boot and a new Mr Clean has been brought in as the White House Chief of Staff. No doubt, as a consequence of the continuing investigation by Senate and House of Representatives committees, a few other people will be asked to resign. There may even be a few prosecutions and the self-styled Rambo, Oliver North, may, with luck, be certified insane.

What is unlikely to happen is large numbers of people in America asking the question why, in a country where there is a long history of shady deals by politicians, covert activities by those responsible for "national security" and deliberate attempts to conceal what is really going on — and all this in a country which boasts of its democratic political system — why is it that the majority continue to grant power to the minority?

Testing to Destruction (1987)

Book Review from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Poisoned Reign. French Nuclear Colonialism in the Pacific by Bengt Danielsson and Marie-Therese Danielsson (Penguin Books 1986)

On 10 July 1985 the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up in Auckland harbour by two French agents. This act might appear to be surprising, considering the fact that both France and New Zealand are members of the "free world". This book tells the story of how successive French governments, including the "socialists" who changed from opposition to support, have been determined to use French Polynesia for nuclear weapons testing and not let any opposition get in the way.

The post-war years saw the great European empires in decline. When the French were being kicked out of Algeria, they were on the lookout for an alternative nuclear testing site to the Sahara. French Polynesia seemed the best bet — its islands are spread over an area the size of Europe and the 120,000 inhabitants were easy-going and the French had been manipulating them for years. The fact that the South Pacific is rich in food, metals and oil was another reason to maintain French dominance.

Other countries at this time were also testing nuclear weapons — the British at Christmas Island, the Americans in the Marshall Islands, the Russians in Siberia, and the Chinese in parts of Mongolia and Tibet. None of them showed much concern for the effects this would have on the local population.

When the French nuclear testing programme was announced in the early sixties the local people were mostly opposed to it. But this opposition was ineffective — the islands were run from France and the various institutions available to the islanders, to have a say in their affairs, were powerless. The authorities used various methods, devious and oppressive, to neutralise this opposition.

On 2 July 1966 the first French nuclear bomb was exploded above Moruroa Atoll. The French President, de Gaulle, was there to observe. He had made many flowery speeches claiming a great regard for. and affinity with, the Polynesian people, who were the first overseas territory to recognise the Free French during the war and who had sent a battalion to two world wars.

The French nuclear authorities, when dismissing the dangers of the tests, had said that the bombs would only be exploded when the wind was blowing east, away from the inhabited areas. This was despite the fact that winds in the South Pacific can blow in many different directions during the same day. However, when de Gaulle was there the wind kept blowing straight towards inhabited areas. Rather than keep the General waiting, the bomb was exploded anyway. The fall-out reached as far west as Fiji and Samoa. Islanders in the vicinity of Moruroa were given advice on how to protect themselves They were told not to drink rain water or eat fish for a while. This advice was not particularly helpful as this is precisely what the islanders exist on.

The nuclear programme had other effects on the islanders. Many of them were needed to work on the project. They were enticed to Tahiti by high wages only to end up in slums around Papeete, the largest town. They had to endure filthy conditions and crime, prostitution and drunkenness all increased sharply. As most of the work was needed at the start of the programme, when this finished they found themselves unemployed and unable to get back to their islands, as they had been promised.

By 1974, 42 French nuclear bombs had been exploded in the Pacific skies. Due to pressure from other Pacific countries and environmentalists the French government decided to continue its testing underground. They still used Moruroa. despite the fact that a Pacific atoll is one of the worst possible sites. The rock is thin and brittle and the many tests carried out almost certainly caused radioactive leakage and contamination of fish, plankton, shells, dams and squid regularly eaten by the local population.

The extent of the pollution caused by these tests and their resulting effect on the population can only be guessed at, as the authorities engage in the usual practice of secrecy and cover up. No reliable health figures are published and safety standards certainly appear lax. Much of the nuclear waste was dumped on the north of the atoll and washed away by several cyclones and tidal floods which have become more common in recent years. Some of these tidal waves will have been caused by explosions blowing out the side of the atoll, spilling out its radioactive muck. The fact that by 1985, 115 French nuclear devices had been detonated in the Pacific along with 106 American and 21 British, does not bode well for the future health of the islanders.

The authors tell the story of the French nuclear programme well, but their analysis of why it took place, with stories of politicians' duplicity and pride is weak. They clearly disapprove of French attempts to keep up with the superpowers and be independent and are sad that French public opinion doesn't seem to care. Unfortunately, the fact that any capitalist government exists to defend its national interest, and will develop whatever weapons it can to do this, with scant regard for the effects on people, escapes them.

There was a statement recently from a French government spokesman that they might stop nuclear testing at Moruroa as even they think that the atoll cannot take any more blasts. The underground rock is apparently in a very fragile, unstable condition. This will come as a relief to the people in the Pacific, although others had better watch out — the spokesman said they were searching the North Atlantic for an alternative.

Ian Ratcliffe

Letter: "The poisoning of the Rhine" (1987)

Letter to the Editors from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Comrades.

Carl Pinel does not, unfortunately, quote the source of his figure of 30 tons of poisonous chemicals "accidentally" released into the Rhine. ("The poisoning of the Rhine", Socialist Standard February 1987 p.265).

According to the New Scientist (13 November 1986) Sandoz, the superpolluters involved, admitted the amount to be 1,300 tonnes — including 934 tonnes of pesticides and 12 tonnes of compounds containing mercury.

But this is merely one incident, spectacular in itself, in a steady routine of pollution in the name of profit. In the same month BASF leaked 2,000kg of herbicide from rusted pipes; Giba-Geigy spilled chemicals into the Rhine on the day prior to the Sandoz incident, didn't tell anyone, and were only discovered because the journey of the Sandoz chemicals was being monitored; Hoffman LaRoche leaked toxic liquid methyl vinylketone from its Sisein (Switzerland) plant; the German state of Hesse claimed that the chemical giant Hoechst spilled 50kg of chlorobenzol into the Main, a tributary of the Rhine on November 22.

Clearly the Rhine is an open sewer. By the time it reaches the sea its daily load of pollutants is a staggering 60,000 tons (40,000 tons of salts. 16,000 tons of sulphate, over 200 tons of iron, and thousands of other poisonous products). At the height of public concern over the pollution of the environment it was reported that the city of Basle (home of the Swiss chemical industry) dumped its sewage direct into the Rhine, and that many other cities downstream only had mechanical sewage works. Prior to European Conservation Year (1970) Hoechst were spending a mere £5m per year on anti-pollution measures compared to £30m paid in dividends. Bayer's dividend for one year equalled what they spent against pollution over 15 years. (Figures quoted in the "European Business Magazine" Vision, October 1971.)

The argument that capitalism pollutes because of its need for profitable trade, and will continue to do so, was underlined at the time by the following comment from Vision (December 1971)

  . . . complicating the pollution control issue are the likely repercussions on international trade. It is difficult enough to ensure uniform application of anti-pollution standards (and hence equal sharing of costs) within national frontiers; how much more difficult it will be internationally once a number of major trading nations have set up differing standards.
  . . . German firms facing tough legislation governing pollution by their products — as well as in production processes — thus claim their competitive position is being unfairly prejudiced by costs not imposed on their foreign competitors . . . Bayer's annual report for 1970 claims that such costs are already reducing the competitiveness of German industry.
  . . . pollution control means eating into profits. And business is about profits . . . Firms can only afford and will only be willing to act against pollution so long as their competition does the same.

Fifteen years later the problem remains — and the solution is still socialism.

Fraternally

Gwynn Thomas,

Welling. Kent

Reply:
The source of the figure of 30 tons was the Independent 10 November 1986.

Editors

Filing a Complaint (1987)

From the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Access to Personal Files Bill which is going through Parliament at the moment, is intended to give individuals the right of access to files which contain personal information about them. However, the extreme reluctance of the state to loosen its grip on information has meant that the Bill has been steadily diluted as it has gone through Parliament. It is not a government Bill and so cannot command the automatic support of a majority in the House of Commons as a result of MPs being told how to vote by the Party Whips. So although the Bill is supported by back-bench MPs from all parties, its sponsor. Liberal MP Archie Kirkwood, has had to do a deal with the government to ensure Tory support and the Bill's safe passage. As a result, the legislation will only provide right of access to housing, education and social work files and not medical, employment and immigration files or credit records, as was originally intended. It is proposed to establish, in addition to access to paper records, the right to amend files where information is shown to be incorrect and to provide payment in compensation for any hardship which might have been caused by the holding of the inaccurate information.

For anyone concerned about the use and abuse of information this must represent a (very small) step forward. However there are good reasons for believing that the impact of the new legislation will be even less than is commonly thought. Firstly, in order to gain access to information about yourself you must be aware that a particular agency has a file on you. This is by no means always the case. For example, some employers pay money to a right wing organisation called the Economic League which provides information about prospective employees. In particular they will inform the employer of a worker's trade union activities and political views. If an applicant for a job. whose name is passed to the Economic League for vetting, is thought to be "subversive" or an active trade unionist, then the League will recommend to the employer that that person should not be employed.

Where does the Economic League get its information from? Some of it is passed to them by police in the Special Branch; some is rumour and hearsay; much of it is inaccurate, defamatory and highly damaging. In most cases people will be completely unaware that an organisation like the Economic League has a file on them. They might simply be mystified at their continual failure to get jobs that they apply for. But even if they did know such a file was being held they would have no right of access to see that file, since the Economic League is not covered by the new legislation.

Some computerised files containing personal information are already covered by the Data Protection Act which comes into operation later this year. This Act. passed under duress in order to comply with European standards on data protection, provides minimal access to computer files on payment of a fee. (The Access to Personal Files Bill also requires individuals seeking access to files to pay a fee to the local authority holding the information). It was partly to plug the gaps left by the Data Protection Act that the new legislation was introduced. If not. the absurd situation would have existed where, if a housing authority had computerised its filing system then individuals would have a right to see their files (under the Data Protection Act) whereas, if records were kept on paper they would have no right of access. However, because of the limited categories of files covered by the Access to Personal Files Bill, such anomalies will continue to exist especially in relation to medical records.

Why should this be of any concern to workers? Why does it matter that the state and various private agencies collect information on us which they put into files? After all much of the information collected is intended to benefit us: by enabling the NHS to give us better health care; to enable a local authority to assess our housing needs; to allow a social security officer to assess our entitlement to benefit. It may be true that much of the information which we pass on about ourselves is collated by agencies whose main purpose is apparently benign — providing welfare, education. health care and so on. But this is not the only reason it’s collected. After all, just think for a moment how much information about yourself you are obliged to provide simply in order to claim housing benefit for example: how many rooms there are in your home; who lives with you and what the relationship is between you. details of your income and employment; what kind of heating you have and so on. Why is it all necessary?

It's necessary because housing benefit, like many other benefits, is means-tested. This means that you have no right to benefit but instead you've got to prove that you are a genuinely ' deserving'' case —that you fall within a certain category of claimant. It's not enough for you to say that you don't earn enough to pay the rent; you've got to prove it. So that's one reason why state agencies collect so much information — so that they can ration benefits in such a way that only certain groups get it. In other words giving all this information about yourself might help you to get benefit, but on the other hand, if you give the "wrong" answers then you will get nothing.

What is more worrying than the use of information to ration scarce resources is the fact that in many cases you may think you are supplying information for one purpose — getting a driving licence for example — when in fact that information is also being passed on to other agencies without your knowledge. So the information which you supply to the DVLC to get your driving licence may well find its way back on to the Police National Computer or Special Branch files and then on to the files of organisations like the Economic League. Similarly information given to the NHS or a housing authority might be passed to immigration officials looking for people who they believe have stayed in the country longer than for the period stipulated on their entry visa. So, while it is extremely difficult for us to gain access to information about ourselves held on official files, there may be few qualms on the part of state agencies about passing on personal information to others without our knowledge.


More information could lead to better provision of services designed to meet our needs. As anyone who has tried to claim housing benefit will know, this is very far from the case at the moment since the aim of the system is not meeting people's needs but rationing resources. The fact that countless officials collect information about us to which we have no right of access is worrying because we know that it can be used in such a way as to enable the state at least to control us and at worst to coerce, threaten or punish us. This is not surprising. In capitalism much of this information is collected by the state, and the main function of the state is to protect the interests of the capitalist class. One way of doing this is to exercise social control through apparently benign state agencies — schools, social services, social security. . .  A necessary precondition for the exercise of social control is information — knowing what the working class is up to, especially those labelled as "deviant " or “subversive". If effective control cannot be exercised through these "soft" control methods then there are still the more punitive methods of the police, prisons and security services. There is nothing new about these forms of state coercion. What is new is the effectiveness of information technology and surveillance methods which permit more people to be controlled in more areas of their lives. Neither the Access to Personal Files Bill, nor the Data Protection Act will do anything to alter the fundamental inequality of power that exists between individuals and the state in capitalism.

Janie Percy-Smith

Short Story: The Armchair (1987)

A Short Story from the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

It was a very beautiful chair. People did not believe that he had made it himself. They asked how much it cost. Only their children understood. They always asked to sit in it and he always let them. Parents stood aside and smiled wryly, as if apologising. But the children knew what Karel's chair was for.

His hands were old. He could not make things any more. People knew that he was poor, and that he could not afford to eat well or keep his house warm. They offered to buy the armchair at a low price. Karel smiled and shook his head. They did not ask again. They knew it was Karel's chair. But they let their children visit him.

He had a strange accent. The children asked if he was a Russian spy. He nodded gravely and they shrieked. He showed them his woodworking tools and told them the names. Some of them tried to make things. On his mantelpiece was a collection of animals with the children's names cut on them. Terry said: "It's s'posed to be a horse. It's for if I ever go away". He put it into Karel's hands. It was the first thing he had ever made.

One day Rosie cut her hand badly, and had to go to hospital. After that the children did not come any more. Karel sat in his armchair and smoked his pipe and waited. They did not come. Only the ticking of the carriage clock disturbed the silence.

He stroked the arm of his chair. It was old and darkened walnut. His fingers ran idly along the engravings, feeling the wood twist and writhe under his skin. It could be a blind man's chair. The leather upholstery was scented and soft as vintage port, the back smooth and caressing. But for the sighted there was the inlay. The swirling flows and florets of mother-of-pearl had a luminous rainbow sheen which danced and flickered in the firelight and gave life and power to the grain. Slowly the fire died. The room grew darker. In the gloom Karel dozed.

He had come to England in 1926, the year of the General Strike. He was young and excited, anxious to start work, eager to use his hands to carve and chisel and polish, ready to pass on his dead father's skills. First he found work on the docks, later on a building site. For three years he did only heavy labouring, and made enough to live. Then he was made apprentice to a cabinet-maker. It was what he had waited for. He soon earned respect for his craftsmanship and his pay was raised. He began to receive commissions to make furniture for the wealthy families of the area. Although there was a slump and very little work, these families had more money to spend than ever, and he often praised his good fortune in having a skill he could sell at such a time. With time he became well-known. His furniture appeared at auctions and fetched high prices among the rich. But he never became wealthy himself. The market was very small. Most people could not afford such luxury, and he made only small profits on what he could sell. The wealthy knew his situation and often wrangled with him over his price. Sometimes he even had to sell at a loss.

In 1953 he gave up and went back into paid employment as a joiner. He was obliged to use pine and cedar, and thin veneer, and to work to deadlines. The furniture he made was mediocre. He did not bother to initial it. The owners of the firm came round for inspections. They knew nothing about wood. They asked instead how long he was taking, how much material he wasted, how many he could produce in a week. Karel worked on. disheartened.

He calculated that he earned approximately fifteen per cent of the final price of each table, and twelve per cent of each chair that he made. He did not have the energy or the heart to make things at home, and so when it became necessary to have a table of his own, to replace one which was worm-rotted, he was obliged to save for five weeks in order to buy one of those which he made at work in four hours. The humour of this did not escape him. One day, after work, he passed in front of an antiques shop and saw one of his own chairs for sale. It was one he had made at the request of a writer in 1938. He remembered it. The writer had asked grandly for a work of art. Karel had taken six weeks over it, and then the writer had been furious at the expense, demanding a lower price or no sale. In the end Karel had sold it for cost. Yet it was a magnificent piece for all that. It was priced at seventy pounds. Karel stared at it for a long time. Then he went into the shop and gave the owner a deposit of thirty shillings. Every month he returned with another thirty shillings. It took him four years to pay. In those four years something went out of him. He never made anything of his own again.

When he came to retire the firm were very nice to him and the manager made a little speech. All the employees had an extended tea-break and he was presented with a carriage clock and a solid silver wine goblet. They shook his hand and wished him luck and hoped he would not forget them and would come back for visits. He said he would like that. Then he was on the street and alone. He clutched the goblet and the clock tightly all the way home, and then he locked the front door and drew the curtains and sat in his armchair and wept quietly.

The chair creaked a little under him. He woke up. The fire was nearly out. The children had not come. He stared into the darkness. He sighed and stood up wearily, his hand went up to stroke the wooden figures on the mantelpiece. Pain seized him momentarily, in the silence he could almost hear their shouts and laughter. The children understood. They knew what things were made for. He breathed hard. There was life in the crude cut of their figures, life and vitality and perhaps even joy. And there was a kind of beauty and truth in the creation of things for their own sake, to be used and loved and perhaps abused but still loved. Karel's chair had been sold for the last time. It should not have been made for sale, but for love. And it was. His heart jumped. He went to the light and switched it on. He was dazzled. He caught at his breath. The first thing he saw was the table he had made and bought from work.

He stared at it, a sense of distaste growing inside him. It did not belong here, in the same room with the armchair and the animals. His chest felt constricted. Pain stabbed at him. It did not belong here! He went over to it, grasped the edge in both hands, and began to lift it up. The table weighed very little. He dragged it to the doorway and manoeuvred it through. His breath came in short gasps. He wanted to sit down. The table stuck fast in the doorway. His strength seemed to ebb away. He realised that something was happening to him. He became frightened. His chest tightened as if in a vice. He could not move the table. He walked unsteadily through the other door into the workroom and found a small hatchet. His legs shook. There was a ringing sound in his ears. He stumbled over to the table, swung the hatchet down. The shock ran up his arm and made him gasp as the wood splintered and flew. He struck again, and then again. His eyes clouded over. He could not breathe. He dropped the hatchet and staggered over to the armchair. He fell sprawling into it. The blood pounded in his temple and behind his eyes. He did not have the breath to cry out. His hands went down to the arms of the chair, gripped them hard. His back arched in pain and then his body doubled over, fingers searching in the carvings and grooves of the chair-arms, groping in panic for help. Hideous laughter seemed to burst all around him. Toneless music deafened him. The room turned grey and dull. He tried to look round at his animals, at his chair. They had become empty and lifeless. All the colour had fled. He could scarcely see them. There was nothing left. His mind began to race. He knew what he had done, what they had all done. There was no escaping it. Only the children understood. But money would teach them not to understand. It would make them forget. It would stop them listening. It would stop them looking. It would stop them loving anything for its own sake because it had the power to beat them and trample them and starve them until they they learned to care more for cost than for life itself. And he had not understood that. He was like the children. Only the grown-ups understand the world they have made. He did not fit. His chair did not fit. That was the real truth.

The room seemed to tilt away from him. His hands froze on the edges of the chair. His head rushed as though in a strong wind. He knew that his heart had stopped. His face was a white mask, but somewhere in his whirling brain a smile flashed momentarily. He did not belong. His animals and his armchair and his love, they did not belong. It was all alright now.

Paddy Shannon

Playing the game (1987)

From the April 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

There has been criticism for some time that today professional football is run as a business; winning is everything because it brings in the money. If that means boring or aggressive behaviour on the field, that’s hard luck on the punters who have paid to come and watch. No longer do butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers, because of a real interest in the game, use some of their accumulated profits to support the local team with no expectation other than that they should do well. Apart from a few exceptions like Elton John who still funds Watford and looks for no financial return, those who now invest in football clubs do so for profit. If a club is successful, with regular gates in excess of 25,000, there is money to be made. Obviously there is only room for a few at the top and with talks of a Super League the atmosphere might get even more rarefied.

Then a new way of making profit was discovered. Crystal Palace sold part of one of their terraces as a site for a supermarket. Although, after hostile publicity, they "consulted" their fans and decided not to go ahead with a suggested merger with Wimbledon. they are also getting rent from Charlton FC whose fans were not consulted on the move from the Valley, and many of whom consequently voted with their feet. After all, shareholders expect to make a profit; players' and staff wages and running costs have to be paid. Television and changing lifestyles mean the days of mass attendances at all but a few clubs are gone. According to the March 1987 issue of the consumer magazine Which attendances have dropped from 33.6 million in 1957 to 16.5 million in 1987.

Recently there has been a well publicised, much more cynical effort to milk the game. Third Division Fulham were in a bad way in May 1986. Its chairman. Ernie Clay had sold the club's movable assets - its players. He also agreed with Kilroe, a property development company, that part of the ground should be used for building luxury flats with a guarantee that football would continue on the ground. Still £6 million in debt, he sold the club and ground as a going concern to another property developer Marler Estates, whose David Bulstrode became chairman of the club.

Shortly after taking over Bulstrode assured a meeting of supporters that Fulham would remain at Craven Cottage for two or three years although his company did intend to build a new stadium and eventually develop the ground. By assuring the local council of this, he persuaded them to refuse permission for the Kilroe partial development, the obligation for which Marler had taken over in the deal.

There can't be many people who don't know what happened next - a sudden announcement, only weeks after that undertaking, that Fulham were to be killed off in a merger with another local club. Queens Park Rangers, whom Marler had just bought. Presumably QPR's ground is not at present suitable for development although the BBC are due to build new offices nearby - perhaps then a hypermarket will seem more profitable on the site than a First Division football club! The Fulham ground at Craven Cottage would be completely built over in a luxury development.

But even property development whizzkids are not infallible. Bulstrode had overlooked two things. The first is the peculiar affection in which Fulham - that unfashionable and not particularly successful club - is held, even by many who have never been there. The second is that, if changes are to be made in Football League structure, they must be agreed by the League management - in effect chairmen of the major clubs, who have their own axes to grind.

Roy Hattersley, Jimmy Hill and Malcolm MacDonald.

The Players' Union saw the proposals as the thin edge of the wedge, throwing players out of work. So the League, the FA. and the Players' Union lined up with irate supporters of both clubs. Here was a story good for the media; not many could resist the banner headline FULHAM SOLD DOWN THE RIVER. Apart from demonstrations a protest meeting was called at Hammersmith Town Hall. The deputy leader of the Labour Party thought it a good platform on which to join the local MP Nick Rainsford and various football notables. Nevertheless, apart from the local council's promised refusal to grant planning permission for the development, Marler still thought they'd get away with the basics of their plan and prepared to ride out the storm.

But then, to defend himself against accusation of a sudden sell-out. Jim Gregory the present chairman of Queens Park Rangers stated he had been negotiating with Marler since September 1986. This threw an entirely new light on the matter. Not only was Bulstrode clearly shown to have lied both to the council and to supporters, but his co-director at Fulham, Robert Noonan, as well as the chairman of Walsall FC Terry Ramsden, had in the past few weeks considerably increased their share-holding in Marler. Marler's share price rose dramatically on the announcement. But insider dealing is the current dirty word, signifying the unacceptable face of capitalism. Previously unmoved Tory MPs suddenly expressed concern for their image and the silence of Sports Minister, Dick Tracey even worried his colleague David Mellor. Suddenly Bulstrode began negotiating, his only expressed condition is that the buying consortium must be genuinely interested in football and guarantee the continuation of the club. But quite clearly they're all playing a quite different game to football.

Eva Goodman