Mr. Brown goes to town (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. W. J. Brown, M.P., in an Evening Standard article (15/3/46), "What Price Utopia?”, says Darwinism reduces man to a non-moral unrestrained biological process (unproven, of course) and has served to justify the barbarities of capitalist anarchy and the Marxian "Class Struggle.” Also Marxism is merely its application to the political field. Such trivialities are a commonplace of anti-Marxist propaganda, but Mr. Brown is as useful as anyone else to provide the means for restating some Marxist essentials.

His unsupported contention that Darwinism is unproven implies that its partner in crime, Marxism, is likewise. “David” Brown thus kills two ”Goliaths” with one stone. True Darwinism has been implemented by further research, but Darwin’s evolutionary principle of organic life—with overwhelming evidence—remains to-day the touchstone of biological science. Further, it would be a strange theory of evolution in which the theory itself failed to evolve.

Mr. Brown’s non-moral allegation exhibits abysmal ignorance as to the scope and function of the scientific method, which is a discipline of general and impersonal facts, and no more relevant to the scientist’s personal bias than pipe-fitting is applicable to a plumber’s politics. Scientific investigation is ethically neutral and no more impugned than the activity of bricklaying, regardless as to whether that activity assists in building a church or a brothel. Ethical consideration of those institutions, like other things, is a matter of social evaluation. Science as a social result is subject to social motivation, which depends on the nature of the society. In this profit-motive society, science serves to increase wealth productivity and is a social instrument for increased working-class exploitation.

In like manner is the birth and growth of scientific ideas integrated into the prevailing social structure. A closed feudal economy, with fixed hierarchical status, and where men prayed to be kept in their station of life, would have made an evolutionary conception of life impossible, even unthinkable. An early capitalism needed science, and "the reign of scientific law.” Moreover, in its quest for markets it opened up the world, and vast unknown tracts of land with unknown animals and plants, which hitherto would have made it impossible to generalise about life, could now be explored. The practical triumphs of capitalism also brought into being a leisured section who could devote time to intellectual and scientific pursuits. Thus Darwin was handed on a well documented and detailed classification of Natural History. Geological science also expanded in this expanding world and gave Darwin those vast time periods needed for the presentation of his cosmic drama. And because mid-Victorian capitalism was still expanding, what more natural that the capitalist class should, with mid-Victorian complacency, view it as the best of all possible worlds and see in Darwin’s scientific theory their own social projection as "the fittest to survive.” But the first expanding bloom has withered, and in the sombre deepening of modern capitalism’s insoluble contradictions and conflicts the theme of scientific apologetics is replaced by mysticism and miracles; virile confidence gives way to doubt and even despair, unconscious credos, perhaps, of a doomed social order.

Is there a parallel, then, between Darwinism and Marxism? The answer, is only in so far as they both reveal the same ordered pattern of evolutionary development. Purely biological considerations, however, do not hold good in social relationships. Society is not a biological organism, but a social organisation into which men consciously enter into relationships for a given end. The development of society is not a result of man’s biological adaptation of his own organs to a natural environment, but the development of productive tools—for he is the only tool-producing animal- in a "social environment.” The enormous material advance which this tool-producing ability has made possible gives to social development its unique character. The laws that explain this unique development constitute Marxism.

Marx did not invent the class struggle, he traced it to its objective source and found it was not located in the consciousness of men but in the relationship in which they stood to each other in the division of wealth. If, for instance, you have at different periods slave labour, then the feudal windmill, and later the modern power plant, then not only will you have different methods of wealth production, but a correspondingly different division of classes of owners and non-owners in the distribution of wealth as between master and slave, feudal overlord and serf, capitalist and wage dependent. The different methods of production create then their own type of economic structure, and economic struggle over the participation of the fruits of labour. This will not only profoundly affect men’s lives, but through their lives, the social institutions and ideas of the period. Productive activity and social institutions, however, do not exist apart from or prior to each other, for all these activities are found in any period as an interrelated and interacting living whole, each exercising a mutual influence on the other. Thus politics influences religion, education, law and economic struggles, and is in turn influenced by each. But the economic factor or the way men live in order to reproduce their kind constitutes the central structural factor of social life. and forms the preponderating influence in social development. The functioning of the methods of wealth production and the changes that arise in them provide the key to the driving force of social development.

The significance of changes in the instruments of wealth production is seen especially in modern societies, and in the course of development a stage is reached where the forces of production come into conflict with the relations of production, which means that the method of distributing income arising from class ownership and control does not permit the fullest expansion of the productive agencies, or as Marx says: "From forms of development of the forces of production the relations of production turn into their fetters.” The class, then, that suffers from the existing operation of wealth production must seek to strike off these fetters and secure the widest possible expansion of these productive forces in their own class interests. To-day the wealth-producing but non-owning class, the working class, merely receive, the value of their labour power, or the average sufficiency of things necessary to sustain and restore their working capacities. All over and above what they produce goes to the owners of the wealth-producing agencies, the capitalist class, in the form of surplus value. The struggle of the workers to maintain or improve existing “standards” and the desire of the capitalists for greater profits produce the mutual antagonism of class interests in the participation of the social product. The capitalist class will then seek to improve the productive efficiency of the workers as an incentive for greater profit. But on the basis of income distribution, inherent in capitalist society, certain results ensue. Working class consumption of available wealth is limited by their wages, which is a fraction of this total available wealth. The consumption of surpluses in the hands of the capitalist class and its retainers is restricted by physical limitations. This tends to lead to heavier investments of the residue of these surpluses, in industries making productive goods, rather than consumption goods. This, however, ultimately leads to greater productive efficiency and consequently to a greater quantity of commodities being thrown on the market. A point is finally reached where effective demand ceases or, to put it another way, no purchasers can be found. Overproduction then results. It must not be thought that this is under-consumption of what the worker needs, for that is merely determined by the value of the commodity he sells—his labour power. Moreover, workers' wages always tend to be higher in the boom which precedes the slump. It is his under-consumption in relation to what he produces.

To produce for use, however, would undermine the very foundations of capitalist society. To turn out wealth to the fullest extent of existing plant capacity would normally invite, comparatively speaking, a “standstill” over night. For that reason its monopolistic class character compels it at one period to restrict and destroy the wealth so lavishly produced at another. For the working class it must ever remain the system of organised scarcity.

But the working class, to secure the greatest expansion of productive forces, must become a self- conscious independent political force, having as its aim the replacement of the existing system by one based on its own economic interests. For that reason it must seek through existing agencies the control of the State, which, because of its own control of the armed forces, provides the ultimate physical sanction for all social authority. This is our own historical justification as a political party. The struggle between the working class and the capitalist class is, however, the last historic form of fundamental social antagonism. With the abolition of private property in the means of production, it is no longer a question of who shall enjoy the fruits of ownership, but the vesting of ownership in the hands of a community of free producers for satisfying the needs of society as a whole. The State itself, as an instrument of class domination, likewise disappears and is replaced by “the administration of things.”

The class struggle is not then an eternally imposed necessity of “Nature red in tooth and claw." Even within capitalism working class resistance seeks to limit the system's rapacious and degrading effects. In its final outcome the class struggle establishes universal co-operation, thus constituting the greatest progressive human force in history.

Mr. Brown's diagnosis of our troubles as a Cosmic sadness, and deep frustration, haunting and troubling man's soul, and his remedy a return to the faith of the past, with its conception of the Fatherhood of God, brotherhood of man, and duty towards our neighbours, might further suggest that there is no place for morality in the Marxist critique. That is a denial of Marx's own dictum, “ that men make history.” What Marxism denies is the relevance of an abstract classless morality in a class-divided society. Class conflicts generate moral conflicts. The shining swords of moral truths often reveal the camouflaged weapons of class interests. A system productive of class conflicts, racial hatreds, fierce national rivalries, and even though still war-exhausted can yet contemplate the final "atomic” catastrophe, "where only the stars will be neutral,” turns such alleged categorical imperatives as the brotherhood of man, love thine enemy, etc., into ghostly and grisly caricatures. There is a morality, of course, as old as man's social instincts, but each class struggling towards political maturity gives its own significance to moral concepts in accordance with its class aims. Each class then fashions its moral code. Against the "ruling” morality largely divorced from social practice, and tending to become an ethical game whose rules are politely admitted in theory, but ignored in practice, an increasingly politically conscious majority will oppose with a higher moral code, based on higher social objectives. The moral idea becomes then an indispensable feature of working-class emancipation. With the growth of class knowledge grows the moral indignation to finish with this sorry scheme of things—forever. Morality by itself cannot, however, in a class society, provide a common ethical denomination to which some general social goal is referable. Reduced to a social abstraction, it merely seeks a change of heart, but class needs are alone capable of changing a social system and realising in practice what the moral ideal merely contemplates. Because Socialism has an economic basis its ideals, nevertheless, lose none of their greatness, or impoverish in any way the rich field of human experience. It is in the struggle for what is attainable that men are motivated by that deep sense of urgency arising from deep social needs, and it is this which gives to their actions its intrinsic human character. Likewise, the brotherhood of man and duty towards our neighbour will, when based on democratic co-operative economic equality, cease to be a vain ethical plea and become integrated into the social practice—"From each according to his capacity, to each according to his needs.”

Mr. Brown’s own remedy is grotesque. He proposes to retain the man-eating tiger, capitalism, and convert it into a playful pet as well, while in the moral atmosphere of the jungle he would expound the ethics of the Bible class. Like many others, Mr. Brown sees no economic problem, only a religious and psychological malaise. He thus appears to have become a neurotic victim of his own views. Having no solution for the future, he seeks salvation in the past . . . for him everywhere the horizon looms dark and menacing . . . it is the Socialist who sees on the skyline the classless commonwealth.

Ted Wilmott

Editorial: Palestine, the Arabs and the Zionists (1946)

Editorial from the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

As Socialists we are determined to end for all time the exploitation of one class by another. We sympathise with all the victims of capitalism, the exploited workers and peasants, the men and women robbed of loved ones or maimed in capitalism’s wars whether in the "victorious” or the vanquished countries, and the hundreds of thousands of homeless refugees. Among the latter are many Jewish people who seek escape from their present miserable plight by leaving the European countries where they have known much suffering and sorrow. Some among them would go to any country that offered them refuge, but most of the governments, faced with problems of housing shortage and threatening unemployment, not to mention the prejudice that still greets “foreigners," are more apt at expressing sympathy than at welcoming refugees. In one instance, that of Austria, where the Government has welcomed the application of 2,000 Austrian Jews to return to Austria from Palestine, the opposition comes from local authorities, the mayors of twenty-two principal towns having jointly protested for "economic reasons" (Manchester Guardian, 15/7/46).

Other Jewish refugees look only to Palestine for refuge, and some of these Zionists have as their declared aim to make Palestine a Jewish State. They are, in short, "nationalists," looking to solve their problems not by abolishing capitalism, but by creating one more national state in a capitalist world of national states and empires. Zionist nationalism, as such, is not different from the other nationalisms and we, as Socialists, are opposed to them all, British, Russian, American, Polish, Indian and the rest. The most that could be said for nationalist movements where directed against alien rulers was the argument that, with alien rule ended, it would be easier for the workers to grasp the fact that their enemy is capitalism, whether the capitalists are aliens or not. It is, however, clear, from the experience of the last half-century, that the exploiting class of each country finds it about as easy to set the workers against the workers of other countries as it was to set them against a foreign ruling class. It is only necessary to look at the national antagonisms stirred up between the workers of the countries of Europe to see how illusory was the old belief that when Czecho-Slovaks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Poles and others were freed from their respective foreign oppressors they would live amicably side by side. To the Socialist, what has happened is not surprising. What are called nationalist movements are essentially the movements of capitalist groups striving to drive out foreign exploiters so that they can mount the vacant saddle. Having achieved that aim capitalism continues to range one national group against another in the competition for markets and the endeavour to secure lines of transport and communications, sources of raw materials and strategic frontiers.

The spokesmen of nationalist movements do not in the main declare their capitalist objectives. British capitalism talks of bringing peace to the Middle East, or of helping the Jews and Arabs. Actually British Imperialism is in Palestine for reasons of Imperial strategy and to protect oil interests in that region, doubly important now that the base in Egypt is being evacuated and since, in recent years, enormous and cheaply accessible reserves of oil have been discovered in the Middle East Alongside the imperialist or investment interests of Britain, U.S.A., Russia and France in the Arabic-speaking countries a new factor is becoming of increasing importance. Among the 40 million Arabic-speaking peoples the old social structure and ways of life are being broken down by the development of communications, by trade, and by the growth of the petroleum and other industries. Capitalist industrialisation is making headway and with it its usual expression, nationalist movements.

It is against this background that the demand is made for the settlement of Jewish people in Palestine, with the usual irrelevant arguments so beloved of all nationalisms. The Principal Rabbi of the Federation of Synagogues, Kopul Rosen, writing to the Times (13/7/46), claims that those who work for the return of the Jewish people to Zion, "whether they be Zionists or non-Zionists, are fulfilling not a secular ambition, but the Divine will as revealed in the visions of Israel's prophets." Moslem Arabs can, of course, invoke a like Divine mission.

The spokesmen of some Zionist groups talk in a less fantastic but more threatening tone. In August, 1944, David Ben-Gurion, a Zionist leader, made the following belligerent declaration:—

"We shall go to Palestine in order to become a majority there. If need be we shall take the country by force. If Palestine proves too small . . . her frontiers will have to be extended."

(Quoted in Manchester Guardian, 3/7/46.) 

Such threats to crush Arab resistance and to annex neighbouring territory can, of course, be paralleled with statements of a like belligerency by some Arab nationalists. Like all stirring-up of nationalist antagonisms, these statements hinder development towards Socialism, the world’s only line of progress. Even on the short view of helping the homeless refugees their wisdom is more than doubtful. The Arabic-speaking lands claim that their record in the treatment of Jewish minorities is better than that of most countries. It is certain to deteriorate if the situation moves towards civil war in Palestine, for the reason, among others, that the Arab nationalists see behind the entry of Jewish refugees something else, invasion by more and more Anglo-American capital seeking to control the developing industries of the whole Middle East. 

If we had a Socialist world the population in all countries would welcome men and women rendered homeless by some failure of resources in the land they lived in. There would be no problem. Only capitalism and its wars, and the prejudices it engenders, make it a problem to-day, but at least the organised workers in all countries should have the insight and the humanity to realise their obligation to make it clear that they are willing to receive refugees. If unemployment is the fear, it is a mistaken one. Unemployment is a by-product of capitalism and is not caused or, in the long run, even aggravated by immigration.

On the vital question of the welfare of the working class and the Socialist Movement, we urge all workers, Jewish, Arab and others, to recognise their common interest in standing together as a class for the overthrow of capitalism. There are no circumstances justifying working-class support of capitalist governments or movements, including those that masquerade under the name of nationalism.

The Power of the Radio (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

(A reader of the Socialist Standard sends us the following letter, which we publish for the interesting points contained therein.—Ed. Com.)

It must be obvious to everyone that those in control of the Radio exercise a tremendous power over public opinion. During industrial disputes this influence is very pronounced.

Whatever may be said to the contrary, the negative attitude of the B.B.C. towards Marxian teaching is a powerful weapon in the hands of our opponents. This unfortunate circumstance is difficult to overcome. The B.B.C. refuses to grant permission to the S.P.G.B. to broadcast and we are forbidden by law to operate a broadcasting station of our own. The argument advanced against such a proposal is, of course, that if everyone was allowed to set up on their own, chaos would ensue upon the ether. That appears reasonable on the face of it. But why should one side be given the sole monopoly?

The only reply to this is that it is the law of the land, and the reply to this is that as the working class, if the franchise is not a fraud, hold a political majority, hence they like things as they are. However, we must take into consideration that the working class are sadly handicapped. As children they receive their education from schools that support capitalist ideology, every channel of knowledge is polluted, the Press, Pulpit, the Cinema, and now this super force, the radio, gets at the working class night and day. We ask you, fellow workers, how long are you going to stand for this state of affairs, that your champions in the cause of your emancipation are denied the elementary right to free expression of opinion.

F. L. Rimington

Notes by the Way: “You, too, can be a Capitalist" (1946)

The Notes by the Way Column from the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

“You, too, can be a Capitalist"

Under the title “You, too, can be a capitalist for £2,” Mr. Quintin Hogg, M.P. (Daily Mail, 4/12/45), let himself go at the expense of those who are guilty of “spreading the downright falsehood that nearly all property is in the hands of a few rich men.” Mr. Hogg’s years at Eton and Oxford do not appear to have taught him either arithmetic or logic, for his attempted refutation was built up on the assertion that any worker who has about £2 can buy one share in Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., and thus become a "capitalist.” It is true that there are large numbers of workers who have small shareholdings or deposits in the Savings Bank, but this is no answer to the often-demonstrated fact that nearly all property is in the hands of a comparatively few rich men. Daniels and Campion, in their analysis of the ownership of accumulated wealth, showed that over 80% of it is owned by a small group numbering less than 6%. ("The Distribution of National Capital,” 1936.)

Mr. Hogg chose Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., for his example. It happens that the Economist (5/12/1936) analysed the shareholdings of that and nine other large well-known companies. The result was revealing, but it does not help Mr. Hogg. True, I.C.I.’s 43,589,538 ordinary shares are held by 124,690 shareholders, but 80,000 of them had small amounts of less than 200. At the top was a handful of big shareholders (17 to. be exact), who owned over 4,000,000 shares between them, an average of about 250,000 each. At the present price of the shares these 17 own between them over £9 million. If Mr. Hogg wants something to get his teeth into let him try to find among the company’s 100,000 workers how many own 250,000 shares, or even 250.

Another interesting analysis was recently made by the Financial Times (16/2/46) into the Bolsover Colliery Co. The Financial Times was anxious to show that when the Labour Government take over the mines they will be dealing with large numbers of small shareholders; but their inquiry also disclosed that there were 33 shareholders with more than £10,000 each, their aggregate holding being £773,000. The 60 largest shareholders own about £1,000,000 between them.

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No More Rich Men?

The idea has been put around that the war has destroyed the big fortunes of the rich. Many Labourites, Mr. Bevin included, have swallowed this and deceive themselves into the belief that, somehow or other, Labour Government is incompatible with the existence of a wealthy minority. They could learn something by glancing at the wills published in the Times and other newspapers. In a period of two weeks from June 30th to July 15th particulars were published of 26 wills, each of them over £50,000. The total for the 26 was well over £5,000,000; an average of about £200,000 each. Several were over £500,000: - Mr. Douglas Charrington, £608,959 (Times, 2/7/46); Mr. W. M. Fraser, £650,000 (Sunday Express, 30/6/46); and Mr. W. Barnett, £576,383 (Times, 1/7/46).

The lucky heirs, even after payment of death duties, will be quite a long way removed from Mr. Hogg’s "capitalists” at £2 per head.

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Political Parties and Foreign Money

In the House of Commons on June 6th, 1946, the Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, stated that documents captured during the war included a letter written in 1935 by the Italian Ambassador in London, which contained reference to subsidies given by the Italian Government to the British Union of Fascists amounting to £60,000 a year. The Italian ambassador expressed the view to Mussolini that the money was wasted. He called it pouring money down the drain, and claimed that with one-tenth of the amount he could produce a result ten times better.

Sir Oswald Mosley issued a denial, in the terms: — "This statement is categorically denied by those responsible either for the policy or the finances of the British Union,” and he demanded that the Government state how, when and through what accounts the money was paid. (Times, 7/6/46.)

The working class should certainly be interested in the sources from which political propaganda is financed. Figs don’t grow on thistles; big business and capitalist governments do not finance propaganda that is going to help the working class to emancipate themselves from capitalism.

Whether the money comes from abroad is not the only question. From the working-class standpoint Sir Oswald Mosley’s receipt of funds for his New Party (before his Fascist days) from big industrialists was just as damning.

Readers of the Daily Worker (7/6/46) will have noticed that the Communist organ featured the Home Secretary’s statement about Mosley, but said nothing about the charges made against the Communists in the past of having received money from abroad. On two occasions Tory Governments published official reports on Communist money, one, in 1926, "Communist Papers,” and the other in 1928, "Communist Funds.” One statement in the latter was that on July 5th, 1927, and December 21st, 1927, payments from Moscow were made to the Communists totalling £10,330.

Apart from the Official Reports, the late Mr. Walton Newbold, writing in “Forward” (10/7/1926), after he had ceased to be a Communist M.P., admitted that his election expenses "were defrayed in the main from the funds of the Communist International, and originated in Moscow.”

For many years rank and file Communists indignantly denied the charges, until in May, 1928, the Communist Party published what it called “A Frank Statement,” though it wasn’t very frank. It explained that the Communist Party was a national section of an international party, "paying its financial contributions to its international headquarters and receiving assistance in return from time to time for different phases of its national work.” The “Frank Statement” did not include a statement of the relationship between the amounts flowing outwards as contributions and the amount flowing in as assistance, which would no doubt have been much more interesting.

No objection could be taken to a working-class organisation at the outset being helped by workers in another country to get on its feet, but that is a very different proposition from continuing year after year dependent to a considerable extent on subsidies from abroad. A healthy working-class party can depend on the willing work and contributions of workers in the country where it operates and will, of course, have its policy democratically controlled by its own members. The Communist Party of Great Britain was never in that position, its policies, including innumerable sudden somersaults, having been marked by a never-ending subservience to the Foreign policy of the Russian Government.

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Phillipine Independence—American Model

All imperialisms run true to form, though this does not prevent the apologists for each from throwing brickbats at the others. British capitalism gave “independence” to Egypt in 1936, but kept troops there. Russia negotiates a “friendly” agreement with Persia by which Russia gains control of oil wells in the north of the country, but took the precaution of keeping an army of occupation there until the Persian Government had accepted Russian terms. America has just given “independence” to the Phillipines, but one of the terms of the agreement is to be that “more American troops will be kept there than were stationed before the war. Moreover, the naval establishments will include at least one base for a battle fleet, whereas the pre-war American strategic system provided for no battle-fleet base west of Pearl Harbour.” (Economist, 6/7/46.)

The reason is the familiar one of strategic interests. By moving her base right up to the China Seas the United States becomes, as the Economist points out, “a Great Power of East Asia, as otherwise it would not be.” The old base, Pearl Harbour, in the Hawaii group, is several thousand miles nearer to U.S.A.

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Conflict in the German Social Democratic Party

The removal of the Nazi régime has brought the suppressed political parties into the open again, but only to uncover the deep dissensions existing within their ranks. Under Russian tutelage, not to say dictation, the Social Democrats have been merged with the Communists in the Russian Zone. In Berlin itself the Social Democratic Party escaped that fate but is now faced with a split. One group, represented by Karl Gerber (who has resigned his office as one of the three joint chairmen), favours modelling the Party on the British Labour Party. They have no use for "old-fashioned” Marxism, and, according to the Manchester Guardian (6/7/46), Gerber holds that much in the Marxist conception of the class struggle is out of date.

Of Gerber’s view all we need say is that events will show that the class struggle is still a reality, and the only old-fashioned thing about the business is the belief held by those like the British Labour Party, that the class struggle can be abolished under capitalism.

The other group is described by the Manchester Guardian as wanting “to maintain an orthodox Marxism,” but the fact is the German Social Democratic Party never was a genuine Socialist Party. Some of its prominent men declared themselves Marxists, but the membership as a whole were not Socialists and had little understanding of Socialist principles. If, now, there is a group that seriously wants to start building up a Socialist party they will have to recognise that they cannot hope at present to be more than a small organisation. If they have retained the old worship of numbers at the expense of Socialist understanding they will go the same way as the old Social Democratic Party.

Edgar Hardcastle

Appeal to Overseas Readers (1946)

Party News from the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

With a view to establishing contacts with Socialist groups and individuals in Continental and other overseas countries who are interested in the S.P.G.B. case, we invite readers of the Socialist Standard abroad (and also readers in this country who are in touch with such groups or individuals) to communicate with the Overseas Secretary, S.P.G.B., Rugby Chambers, 2, Rugby Street, London, W.C.1.

It is proposed to send literature explaining our case and, where possible, to send a Party representative to address groups seeking further information.

Executive Committee

S.P.G.B.

Contradictions of Capitalism (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Indeed the contradictions of Capitalism are many and sometimes amusing to the Socialist. According to The People (May 26th, 1946), Scotland Yard is detailing specially qualified detectives with “an easy manner, Savile Row clothes, the ‘old school tie' and plenty of money in their pockets,” to destroy a network of fashionable gambling dens in London and the suburbs.

These gambling dens are not for the working class, but for the amusement of the idlers, and bright young things of the master class. Perhaps they are frequented by colliery owners, since, as Captain Peter Thorneycroft, Conservative M.P., said in the debate on the Coal Nationalisation Bill (29/1/46)

   ‘‘The coal owners can now go into honourable retirement. The burden of responsibility is lifted from their shoulders.
    “They can now sit back and draw State income from their inalienable Bonds.”

Perhaps they are sitting back in these gambling dens—thanks to the Labour Party.

And while one section of the capitalist class squanders its wealth, accumulated from the toil of the working class, the capitalist class as a whole maintains as an integral part of the State machine the Police Force, which concerns itself with protecting the capitalist class as a whole and also sections of it from their swindling neighbours.

Indeed, when our masters behave in such a manner one can well understand why the Christian soul-savers preach the Brotherhood of Man and the ten commandments.

This is but a simple example of the contradiction of a system of society whose fundamental contradiction is the ownership, by a small section of the community, of the wealth produced by the co-operative and associated effort of the overwhelming majority in that community.

This fundamental contradiction, source of many secondary ones, will be solved by socialism, which removes the fundamental contradiction by the revolutionary replacement of the present system of society by a new social order, wherein the wealth produced by the freely associated efforts of the whole community is owned by the producers and distributed according to needs of the individual members of the community. In short— Socialism.

D. A. Hawes

Are Scientists Free? (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the first atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, it awakened many workers to a new interest in scientific discoveries. They have been forced to realise, as never before, how intimately these discoveries affect their daily lives. A a result of this, a spate of “Science for the Masses” articles has appeared in the popular press. Those written by John Langdon-Davies are a regular feature of the Daily Mail.

One of them, “Science Can’t Stay Chained” (6/5/46), reveals a state of mind in the writer that must be typical of many scientists to-day. It is becoming more and more evident that once a discovery has left the laboratory it enters the sphere of power politics and commercial interests. Such has been the fate of atomic energy and penicillin. Of course, there is nothing new about it. It has been going on ever since capitalism came into existence. To-day we are witnessing the culmination of that process, and the scientific worker has no more control over his product than any other member of the working class. This is true of the scientist who is not already employed by some private industrial concern, or by the State, an increasingly rare specimen nowadays.

Mr. Langdon-Davies is very worried about it all. "Scientific discovery is being mishandled,” he says. "The danger is not what the scientists are doing, but the use being put to their work by half-educated politicians.”

As an example of the scientists’ loss of freedom, he mentions the recent case of Dr. May, who was sentenced to ten years penal servitude for revealing secrets of the atomic bomb. Mr. Langdon-Davies is not aware that the degree of education attained by politicians, like the grammatical errors of scientific writers, is quite irrelevant to the issue. These men are the servants of the capitalist state machine. They must serve the interests of the class it represents; interests that have slight regard for human rights, including the ‘‘right” of the scientist to share the fruits of his research with his colleagues in other lands.; interests that must continue to dominate society, so long as it is based on private ownership of the means of life.

Mr. Langdon-Davies reveals that penicillin is a monopoly of Britain and America. Referring to the recent fulminations of the Minister of Supply on the subject, he remarks: “He did not tell us that penicillin production is being kept a secret, just like the atomic bomb . . . if the French want to save babies from blindness, or the Russians to reduce the ravages of venereal disease, or the Norwegians to combat pneumonia, they must start their penicillin researches almost from scratch, or, of course, buy from us or the Americans.”

Again, "Penicillin is a joint concern between certain private firms and the Ministry of Supply ” and “will soon be sold to the taxpayer at a profit to somebody.”

Where stands our humanitarian scientist in relation to all this? However disinterested he may be in his efforts to alleviate human suffering, when the results of his research have become a commercial proposition he has no further say in the matter.

If we turn to the industrial field we find many examples of this. One of the earliest was the famous safety lamp, which, we are told, has been a great boon to the miners. Sir Humphry Davy refused to take out a patent for this invention; claiming that his sole object was to serve the cause of humanity. Did it make the pits safe for the miners when it was introduced? Quite the opposite. "Deeper and more dangerous seams were worked, and accidents actually increased in number.” (See "The Town Labourer,” by J. L. & B. Hammond, p. 25.) Nowadays, the introduction of safety devices in industry often results in a speed-up of machinery, thus forcing the operatives to work harder than they did before.

To return to Mr. Langdon-Davies, his solution to the scientists’ political problems is anything but scientific. He speaks vaguely of some form of public control, "or, at least, reference to public opinion,” whatever that may mean. Remove the secrecy and we shall all be happy. He doesn’t tell us how all this is to be done in the face of capitalist rivalries. He does not tell us because he cannot (and neither can anyone else).

The title of the article we have been discussing has greater significance than the writer intended. It is true that Science, or rather the immense productive forces that Science has released, cannot remain for ever chained and confined by the capitalist control of production. These forces, continually strive to break the capitalist fetters that bind them. Economic crises and war are the results of this strife, and it will one day force the scientists, along with the rest of the working class, to adopt the only possible solution, the abolition of private property and the establishment of a society where the needs of men and women will be the sole criterion for the production of goods and services. A society where scientists will be free to pursue their studies without restraint, secure in the knowledge that their discoveries can no longer bring disaster on mankind. In a word, the Socialist solution.

Bernard.

A Socialist Message to the Workers of All Lands (1946)

From the August 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nearly 100 years after Marx and Engels, in the “Communist Manifesto,” 1848, appealed to the workers of all lands to unite for the overthrow of capitalism and the inauguration of Socialism, the workers of the world still stand divided by national frontiers. Socialism has not yet been achieved and the capitalist class are still strongly entrenched in possession of property and power.

Large numbers of workers now realise that capitalism cannot provide comfort, security and peace to the populations of the world, but much has yet to be done before mere discontent with capitalism can be transformed into an understanding of the need for replacing capitalism by a social system in which the means of production and distribution shall be commonly owned and democratically controlled by the whole community. Much of the discontent of the working class, instead of being directed to the building up of political parties having Socialism as their aim, is being frittered away uselessly in “Labour” parties aiming to reform capitalism by democratic means or in "Communist” parties which have the twofold object of furthering the foreign policy of the Russian Government and of introducing state capitalism under dictatorship.

Neither in aim nor in method does the Socialist Party of Great Britain or its companion parties in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United States of America fall into either of these two camps. The S.P.G.B. and its companion parties hold that the sole aim of the genuine Socialist movement is and must be to achieve Socialism; that this can be done only when a majority of the workers have become Socialists; that the road to Socialism is by gaining control of the machinery of government by democratic, parliamentary means; and that the Socialist Party, while extending the hand of fraternity to the workers of all lands, must on principle refuse to ally itself with the parties of capitalism, whether they openly avow themselves such or whether they pursue the aim of capitalist reform under the name of "Labour” or “Communist.”

Many of the adherents of reformism and advocates of State capitalism and dictatorship give lip service to internationalism, yet, like the British Labour Party on the one hand and the Communist Party on the other, are prepared to lend themselves to the furtherance of capitalist imperialism. Socialists can have no part or lot in capitalism and imperialism, whether of the British, the Russian, or any other variety.

Unlike those parties, which degrade the name of Socialism, the Socialist Party of Great Britain and its companion parties have an unbroken record of loyalty to Socialism and working-class internationalism in peace or in war. In the Great War, 1914-1918, and in the World War, 1939-1945, the Socialist Party of Great Britain stood by the principles of Socialism and proudly proclaimed its refusal to give support to capitalist war. Repeating the historic words of our manifesto issued in August, 1914, we say now as in the past:—

    "Having no quarrel with the working class of any country, we extend to our fellow workers of all lands the expression of our goodwill and Socialist fraternity, and pledge ourselves to work for the overthrow of capitalism and the triumph of Socialism.”

True to our international Socialist principles we seek contact with Socialist workers in other countries who take their stand on the same principles, with a view to setting on foot at last a genuine Socialist International free from the national prejudices and compromise policies that up to the present have hindered the march of the Movement.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE,

S.P.G.B.