Letters: Religion (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Religion

Dear Sir,

I believe Socialists who attack religion are acting against the interests of the people and against the establishment of Socialism.

I am referring specifically to your article "Catholics In Confusion" in the April Socialist Standard. Of course there was much in that article which is true—where it describes the evil doings of some clergy— but evil doings are not religion they are just evil doings.

The point is that true religion is pro-Socialism and anti-capitalism. The Bible is very anti-usury which is the corner stone of capitalism.

Did not Jesus knock the rich money-lenders? He was in fact a Socialist as every decent religionist must be.

By all means knock bad religionists but praise the Socialist principles in true religion—such as brotherly love and compassion. There are many good Socialists who believe in God—for example the Rev. Hewlett Johnson, the Red Dean. Indeed I would go so far as to say that to be a sincere believer in God one has to be a Socialist.

To be an out-and-out materialist is getting a bit old-fashioned. Universities (even in Russia) are devoting part of their efforts to research into such things as telepathy and prediction and even survival of the human soul after bodily death. 1 have had cast iron proof of such things as telepathy, prediction, yes and even survival.

There is no irreconcilable conflict between Socialism and religion.

H. Horwood,

London, N.W.9.

Reply:

Mr. Horwood claims that his is the true religion but so do the clergy whose "evil doings’' he condemns.

Usury is not the cornerstone of capitalism; it is only one branch of capitalism's structure which derives its unearned income from the surplus value produced by the working class. The basis of the workers' exploitation is not usury; it is private ownership of the means of wealth production.

Even if we accept the Bible story of Jesus turning the money-lenders out of the temple it does not alter the fact that the basis of religion belief in the supernatural and a life after death is directly opposed to Socialism.

The religious person accepts the conditions in this life because he thinks that there is a better life coming. His philosophy explains society in terms of "good" and “evil"; the Socialist explains it in means of society's economic development.

Dr. Hewlett Johnson is a well-known supporter of capitalism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. These countries are run by dictatorships which show little brotherly love and compassion to their political opponents.

Universities have been studying telepathy, life after death and so on for a very long time. Up to the present, despite all the investigations, there is no scientific proof whatever to support the claim that such things exist.

There is no reason to believe in the existence of a supernatural. This is the only life which we know of and Socialists work to make it the best possible, by establishing a humane world: In this, one of the barriers we meet is religion.

Editorial Committee.

Letters: Then and now (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Then and now

Recently I was presented with a bound volume of the Socialist Standard for 1911/1917. Reading of the events of those far-off days gives one a weird feeling of having been here before.

Of particular interest is the leading article of July 1911, which stated the attitude of the SPGB to the strike of the British Seamen's Union. The tangible and known enemies of the seamen were clearly the Shipmasters (the owners), the Liberal government and all their agencies. But their intangible, unknown enemies were their own leaders, officials. Labour M.P.s who were knifing them from behind.

Now the 1966 strike of the National Union of Seamen was certainly not premature—the last one, 55 years ago, seemed to have dispirited them thoroughly and laid them under a spell which lasted right through two major wars, through two “Brave New Worlds" and through all the intervening years of "good" and bad times.

From Australia it appears the seamen again had the usual open enemies to face as well as the Labour government and the TUC. Yet it must be conceded that this is the very set-up the seamen in particular, and the working class in general, so vigorously support.

Peter Furey, 

Melbourne, Australia.

The Arms Industry: From Bazil Zaharoff to Ray Brown (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The affairs of arms manufacturers and their agents have for many years been a fertile field of investigation for social reformers who look for the cause of human suffering and social chaos in the activities of evil men. The recent appointment of Ray Brown to the new government post of Head of Defence Sales, for example, let off a storm of protests by government back-benchers. An old bogey was raised in a question by Labour M.P. John Rankin: —

Is my Right Honourable Friend aware that the appointment of Mr. Brown seems to be similar to a former appointment, that of Sir Bazil Zaharoff, who earned a reputation in this country and in the Labour movement for his nefarious practices which were widely condemned by every member of the Labour movement?

A brief study of the development of the arms industry over the last hundred years will show the points of similarity.

The second half of the 19th century was a period of rapid technical advance in armaments. The industrial revolution produced the coal, iron and steel, chemical and mechanical engineering industries which were to make this possible. The Industrial Revolution was itself part of the development of a society where antagonisms made arms production a necessity.

For about 300 years naval warfare had changed little. It was fought in wooden sailing ships carrying bronze cannons with the winds and human energy as their only sources of power. Between the Crimean War and the end of the century great changes took place. Steam powered, armour-plated ships built with rifled steel guns capable of hurling shells of three-quarters of a ton many miles with great accuracy. Armoured plate became thicker and tougher as the guns became more powerful. At the end of the century the torpedo shattered the supremacy of the battleship. On land similar advances were made by artillery. In small arms the machine gun, developing from hand operated models to the Maxim automatic, gave the infantry far greater firepower. The railways also made it possible to deploy men and war materials rapidly.

The great technical development of the advanced countries and the consequent rapid increase in production provided not only the wealth, but also the source of frictions which were to make increased arms expenditure necessary. One result was the intensified rivalry in the search for markets for the increasing volume of commodities. There were many chances for the weapons to be proved in battle; the American Civil War, Franco-Prussian War, Boer War, Russo-Japanese War and so on until the First World War.

The great arms manufacturers were drawn into the industry by the prospects of greater profits. The steel and heavy engineering industries were in the second half of the 19th century plagued by fluctuations in the demand for their goods. Expansion during boom time and prospects of bankruptcy during slumps made it urgent that their activities be diversified. The British government, in order to have the latest technical developments incorporated in the weapons of its armed forces, placed orders for components such as gun barrels with the Sheffield steel makers and later for the complete guns. It was in this way that pickers came into the industry. Their activities grew as they took over a shipyard at Barrow and the Maxim Machine Gun Company. By 1914, Vickers had grown to an international combine, whose products ranged from complete battleships to machine guns. Armstrongs, a general engineering firm in north-east England, also became a giant of the arms industry. Krupp in Germany and Schneider in France were their main rivals.

Like any other commodity, armaments were—and are—made to be sold profitably. Governments were usually the customers and the industry's sales methods were tailored to suit the markets. The major manufacturers had well staffed branch offices in the capital cities that offered the best prospects of sales. These offices were private diplomatic missions in close contact with the government; some were reputed to have greater knowledge of local politics than the official embassies. Where local conditions demanded it, bribery and corruption were used.

Zaharoff, whose early life was spent in the Balkans, started his career in the arms industry as the Balkans agent for the Anglo-Swedish firm of Nordenfeld. Among their products was the first commercial submarine. His first success was the sale of one of these to the Greek Navy in 1877 followed by an order for two from the Turkish Navy. This was the start of Zaharoff’s reputation for playing one nation against the other; for exploiting a rivalry which already existed. Zaharoff was well equipped for his job; he was fluent in several languages, a great charmer, had a wide knowledge of the world and politics, all of which he applied with great success to his job. He quickly became Nordenfeld's agent for the whole of Europe.

In this new capacity Zaharoff was up against Maxim’s, whose machine gun was far superior to Nordcnfeld's. Zaharoff tried every dirty trick in the trade to win orders for his firm but they were of no avail against the superior product. The result of the clash was the merger of the two firms with Zaharoff looking after the sales and Maxim's the technical details. Later in the 1890’s, Vickers took them over and it was with Vickers that Zaharoff reached the height of his career. His activities look him all over the world, negotiating orders wherever the demand occured.

Vickers at this lime obtained large shares in a number of overseas arms companies including some in Spain. Italy and Japan, as well as contracts to manage the government dockyards of Russia and Turkey. Other international activities included membership of a syndicate of British, French, German and American firms to divide territories and profits and to pool patents for armoured plate; licensing a German firm, Deutsche Wallen, to manufacture and sell machine guns with shared profits in certain markets; an agreement whereby Vickers made and sold Krupps time and percussion fuses. There were also gentlemen’s agreements with Armstrong to avoid clashing in foreign markets.

It is probable that Zaharoff had a hand in negotiating many of these agreements, which were, after all, normal business arrangements. He was also credited with controlling sections of the foreign press and of getting into the confidence of the world’s leading politicians. His tactics included philanthropy; grants to set up aviation studies at one university, financing literary prizes and establishing homes for disabled sailors. It was rumoured that he was one of the richest men in the world and had control of the world's armament industry. When he died in 1936, he left only £1 million which is far from making him one of the richest men but very good for a salesman.

The First World War caused the expansion of the arms industry so that a large part of world industry was geared to supplying the combatants. The war provided the incentive to develop Switzerland’s aluminium and hydro-electricity generating industries: Japanese industry prospered greatly and expanded. The opposing forces faced each other with international armaments. 'The world's navies were clad with Krupp’s patented armour plate. The armies used machine guns operating on principles developed by Maxim. The torpedoes were Whitehead’s design.

Once the war was over the accounts had to be settled. Krupp’s and Vickers were in dispute over royalties on fuses and Vickers and Deutsche Wallen were in dispute over royalties on machine guns. Business, in other words, as usual.

The ending of the war produced the very situation—the slump—which the arms makers had tried to safeguard by joining the industry. Their activities had expanded continuously for many years during the pre-war arms race and during the war had expanded much more again. In Britain, there was a boom in engineering and ship-building for two or three years after 1918, then the slump came with production and prices dropping drastically. Both Vickers and Armstrong had tried to diversify their activities into a wide variety of products from locomotives to sewing machines, but to no avail. By 1925 they were both in great difficulties and outside experts were called in to advise. The two firms were merged and Vickers-Armstrong struggled on for many years before another arms race restored their profits.

In the slump, these two mighty firms were powerless. Their best salesmen could not revive the market. Their close contacts with the great politicians and military leaders of the world could not help them. In fact, capitalism mastered them and not the other way round.

Various efforts were made by the League of Nations to regulate the arms industry but with little success. Many hooks were published during this period exposing the arms industry. They were useful in showing the workings of the industry but their solutions limited to such useless measures as nationalisation and international commissions to control sales. Disarmament conferences were piecemeal affairs, trying to limit the number of battleships and cruisers, weapons which were on the way out.

The arms race before World War Two was concerned with aircraft, tanks, armoured cars and submarines. The industry became more subject to government control. Instead of setting the pace with design and innovations, it became more and more dependent on working to government specifications.

The Second World War saw the introduction of some of the war material with which we are familiar today—electronics in radar and rocket guidance, rockets and the atom-bomb.

The atom-bomb could only be developed by governments; it required far greater resources than any private firm could muster. The IJSA was the first to produce it, over a million men being involved in this project. In spite of the greatest secrecy about its production, there are now five countries openly making this weapon. The main rivalry since the Second World War has been between the USA and Russia. There has been a continuous high level of spending on arms, including a race in the production of nuclear weapons and the aircrafts and rockets to deliver them. This rivalry is now carried on into space.

The expense of this development can only be borne by the giant nations such as the USA and Russia. The former great nations are now left well behind.

Since the war the international arms trade has continued. The Nato and Warsaw Pact alliances provide large markets, as do the new independent countries many of which spend over 30 per cent of their budgets on so called defence. For all the government control, the internationalisation of the industry is still there. The British Hawker Hunter and Canberra aircraft and the American F104 have been built in many countries. The Russian MIG fighter is built not only in Warsaw pact countries but also in India.

The arms trade has continued to flourish but the British capitalists’ share of it has declined steadily. Russia and America now oiler a far more attractive range of goods and are also better organised to take advantage of the market. Russia’s triumphs include breaking into the Egyptian, Cuban. Indonesian and Indian markets. Private enterprise USA is also showing the way by having a government sales organisation with Henry J. Kuss in charge under the title of Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Logistics Negotiations. Kuss is a career Civil Servant and The Observer (15.5.66) reported, “Last year he was given a medal by McNamara for selling 9,000 million dollars worth of arms since his appointment in I960.” He also forecasts a booming market. “Mr. Kuss was recently quoted as saying that over the next ten years about 100,000 million dollars would be spent in the free world outside the United States on military hardware." (Financial Times, 22.12.65).

This brings us back to Mr. Ray Brown and his job of expanding Britain’s arms sales. Despite such promising markets, only £125 millions of British arms are being exported each year. The Labour Government are hoping that an increase in exports will help to solve their balance of payments problem. At present, Mr. Brown must he a little confused with his job. as there are certain promising markets out of bounds: South Africa and Spain, for instance. The conditions for sale to America must be hard to swallow: no doubt the Labour conscience would he calmed if the arms were only used for peaceful purposes like strike breaking or quelling riots.

And this brings us back to the agony of the Left. Mr. Rankin sees a similarity between the roles of Zaharoff and Brown. Of course there is: the only difference being that Zaharoff worked for Vickers and not (as Mr. Rankin thought) for the Government. The conditions of 1966 may require different selling techniques to 1906 and, as men, Zaharoff and Brown may be as different as chalk and cheese but the essential features are the sun. Weapons of war are made to be used and their effects will be the same whether gentlemen or rogues sell them or whether it be governments or private firms that employ the salesmen.

Joe Carter

Armaments: The economy of waste (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Anybody who is under any illusions about the priorities of this social system need consider only one fact. In the current financial year the British government, which claims that it cannot “afford” all sorts of things like roads, houses, hospitals and schools, is planning to spend £2,172 million on armaments.

We should be clear that this sum has been arrived at after the government have ruthlessly cut back expenditure, have abandoned many projects—such as the TSR-2—which their predecessors agreed to and have planned to withdraw from several areas overseas. In other words, £2,172 million is not an extravagance; it is an economy.

As we may expect, it took a Labour government to do it. One of the problems facing the British capitalist class in recent times has been the size of their arms bill, and the way this bill increased year by year. Taking the figures of “defence” expenditure at four yearly intervals from 1957/8, we get this picture: £1,483 million; £1,600 million; £1,837 million. At present British armaments spending is running at about seven per cent of the Gross National Product.

When Labour came to power in 1964. they resolved to do something about this situation. Perhaps some of their pacifist members actually expected them to stop spending money on weapons—Mr. Emrys Hughes, M.P. for South Ayrshire, for example, who seems to devote debates on “defence” to unrelenting sniping at speakers on both sides. Like this:

Mr. Amery (then Secretary of State for Air): I understand that there are some who would prefer slavery to death—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Survival.

Mr. Amery: -- and if the Hon. Member cares to represent them, that is his affair.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Survival.

And like this:

Mr. George Wigg: There are in the community only a given number of men who like service in the Armed Forces of the Crown—

Mr. Emrys Hughes: And getting less.

Mr. Wigg: That may well be. I do not believe that it is, but that depends on one’s point of view—

Mr, Emrys Hughes: It is common sense.

But of course Labour had no such intentions. All they wanted was to hack out an armaments policy which fitted the realities of Britain's standing in 1966 world capitalism, and to make sure that the ruling class got value for every penny they spent on the Armed Forces—intentions which, applied to any private firm, would bring a smile to the face of the dourest accountant.

So Harold Wilson instructed his Minister of Defence, Denis Healey, to set himself to applying the principles of what is called, in a new jargon, cost effectiveness. In his younger days, Denis Healey was considered to be a far-out Left Wing extremist, but he had no difficulty in reconciling himself to the unexceptional!y capitalist principles of his new job.

For a long time he laboured and then, in February this year, he brought forth the results—the Defence Review for 1966. This piece of work provoked a storm of hostility. The Tories professed themselves furious that Healey had decided against building a new aircraft carrier; the First Sea Lord, Sir David Luce, virtually resigned on the issue. The Defence Minister for the Navy, Christopher Mayhew, also threw up his job, protesting that “. . . the basic mistake of the Defence Review has been . . . giving the armed forces too large tasks and too few resources.”

That storm, which made the headlines for a day or two at the time, quickly blew itself out. Today, Mayhew is almost forgotten. And who now remembers Sir David Luce?

The first thing the Labour strategists had to take into account was that, for British capitalism, things are not what they used to be. Gunboat diplomacy may now be a bad joke but at one time, when Britain was the world's greatest power, it worked. Of course that was long ago; since the First World War, British influence has steadily declined and now any political party which tries to run British capitalism must always remember that they are administering a second rate power.

Today, the great disputes of world capitalism involve the United States and Russia. The world is divided mainly into two spheres of control; all others, like the British or the French, are minor affairs and have to play a supporting role. This unpalatable fact has been faced by De Gaulle, in his policy of joining with other European states in a French-dominated alliance. It has been faced since the war by all British governments, although the Conservatives have sometimes had trouble in selling the idea to the blue-nosed colonel elements in their ranks.

Britain's economic decline has also meant that the ruling class can no longer support a large peace time armed force. Compulsory military service would be an expensive affair, as ' well as a diversion of manpower from industry, which already carries a burden of labour shortage. The result is that, when the commitments of the British forces have been met, there has often been no reserve of men for movement at short notice to flares-up in Africa and similar places. To try to bridge this gap, British soldiers have sometimes been taken from Germany in an emergency.

The Labour government saw all this and they said that it was not good. They have decided, in the words of the Defence Review, that there are certain “. . . political commitments we must give up or share with others (and) limit the scale of military tasks which may be imposed by the commitments which remain.”

In practical terms, this means that British forces will be withdrawn from Aden in 1968, from British Guiana and South Africa in the near future, and reduced in the Far East as soon as possible. The bases will be replaced by “staging posts”—islands like Gan and the Cocos which will have minimum facilities such as an airstrip, fuel tanks, a wireless station and so on.

This should lead to other economies; very often in the past, bases like Cyprus had to be held by military force against the wishes of a large part of the population. There is unlikely to be any similar problem with the staging posts; the most dangerous inhabitants in the Cocos at the moment are the fierce land-crabs with which the place abounds.

The staging posts will be in the area known as East of Suez, now under British control by permission of Washington, which has its own problems of stretching manpower and resources. Britain will operate East of Suez on a policy of interdependence — of joint military operations within political alliances. The Defence Review talked about ". . . allies and friendly countries who have military requirements similar to our own." Many other countries have had to give up their colonies in recent years. The empires of France. Belgium and Holland, for example, have since the war crumbled into a mass of independent states.

By their policies, the Labour government plan to reduce arms spending so that by 1969/70 it represents six per cent of the Gross National Product—£2,000 million a year at 1964 prices. (Although six per cent of the GNP forecast by the National Plan for 1970, at 1964 prices, comes to £2,463 million). The government claimed that their plan amounts to a 16 per cent reduction on what the Tories would have been spending by 1970, although Mr. Mayhew, in the sort of flash of clarity which is sometimes given to politicians who have left office, said in the debate on February 23 that £2,000 millions was “an artificial figure.”

Whatever the truth of this—and if what Mayhew said is true this would not be the first time a government has based its calculations on sheer guesswork—the fact is that it is impossible for anyone to forecast what defence, or any other, expenditure will be in five years’ time. These things have a habit of getting out of hand—according to The Guardian of June 15, the foreign exchange cost of the British military effort in Malaysia is 30 per cent more than Denis Healey forecast last August. And who can forecast what other conflicts lie in the future? Who can say that there will not be another Korea in the next five years? Or that the Vietnam war will not engulf this country as well?

And even after Labour's economy drive, armaments are still gobbling up an enormous amount of money. Apart from what the British government spends, a lot of industrial effort is devoted to making weapons for sale to the governments of other countries, which also have a big arms bill. (The United States spent about $46,000 million in 1965). The market for weapons is, to use a term which is perhaps inappropriate, cut-throat. Governments know this, and employ their salesmen to sell the products of their armaments industries through international alliances like NATO. In Britain the level of government spending makes what is called defence the biggest industry.

When we compare this colossal industrial effort to the puny attempts which are made to deal with human problems of the world—when we consider, for example, that according to a UNICEF official in India 80 per cent of the population have to live on less than 1s. 9d. a day, we get an insight into capitalism’s miserable inability to provide a world fit for people to live in.

To recognise this is not to join the charity-mongers who divide their time between protesting about the effects of capitalism and to supporting the capitalist political parties at election times. The basic priority of capitalism is the production of wealth for sale and from that a lot more follows—economic competition, international rivalry, war and armaments. It is simply impossible to have the one without the others.

It was never difficult to foresee that weapons would grow into destructive monsters. Nuclear weapons are only a stage in the development of the war machine; we can be sure that there is more to come. Denis Healey, when he was in opposition, said in the House of Commons that “. . . the West must have atomic weapons as long as the Russians have them.” Presumably this also means that if the Russians— or some other country develop something more powerful than nuclear weapons, we shall have to have those as well. This is what is called, in Healey's language, sensible strategy. Other people might call it something else.

The British armed forces exist, just like those of other countries, to protect the property of their master class; to protect their overseas interests, investments and areas of control. At the moment British investments abroad total about £11,000 million. It was as part of the attempt to protect the bit of this total which is in Rhodesia that the aircraft carrier Eagle, and the other British warships, were recently in operation off the east coast of Africa.

South Africa, which is Britain’s third largest market, has nearly £1,000 million of British money invested in it: India has £450 million. Incomes from investments in other parts of the world are now running at these annual levels:

                              £ million

Far East 70

Middle East ... 200

Australia and NZ 70

Europe                    35

Americas ... 115

Africa             110

The Defence Review said of all this:

. . . we have important economic interests in the Middle East, Asia and elsewhere . . .

and

When . . . instability leads to open war, it may imperil not only economic interests in the area, but even world peace.

We can put it another way. With such mighty interests at risk, capitalism sees it as perfectly reasonable to spend a mere £2,000 million a year to defend them. And of course politicians can always produce acceptable arguments to justify this spending; they rarely have much difficulty in convincing the working class that, no matter how much they may regret the situation, no matter how much they prefer to spend money on cancer research, or defeating famine, or building hospitals, if a foreign power takes over “our” oilfields, “our” markets, “our” investments, we shall suffer a fate far worse than merely dying of cancer.

The numerous mouthpieces of capitalism persistently claim that it is a social system founded on honour, humanity and efficiency. But try an experiment. Take a piece of capitalism, put it in a test tube, put in with it the catalyst of human interests and observe the reaction. The result is undeniable. Capitalism makes honour of betrayal, humanity of murder and a veritable economy of waste and destruction.

Ivan.

Finance and Industry: What is an incomes policy? (1966)

The Finance and Industry column from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is an incomes policy?

Last month we examined the wealth of people at the time they leave this world and found, in the majority of cases, that they had little to leave. Could it be that working on the basis “you can’t take it with you" they had the wealth at one stage, but had frittered it away on a merry-go-round of solo, scotch and sex? Alas, the answer, as they say in the best American war films, is negative.

For our evidence on this point we again turn to the report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue for the year 1964-65, where we find the table of personal incomes for the year ended 5 April. 1964, on page 82: —

It is difficult to understand how so many people enjoy such affluent pursuits as Continental holidays and motor cars, until it is realised that of 12,780,900 married men included in the above table 36 per cent of them send their 4,592.000 wives out to work.

We do not intend to join the argument here as to whether the place of a wife is in her home. But the evidence does suggest that there is a large number of families who might be homeless if the wife did net bring home that additional pay packet.

There arc some ladies of course who are not even bothered by the thought of losing their job because of the Selective Employment Tax as they are already in the £20,000 per year class.

What can a government armed with an “incomes policy" do about such incomes? If words were the answer it would all be resolved by now. But the words have to be translated into actions that are consistent with capitalism. And the only thing consistent about capitalism is that the few will continue to exploit the many—just as long as the many are prepared to stand for it.

Them and us

One thing abundantly evident from the previous item is that we still live in a world of them and us. The wide disparity of incomes coldly tabulated in columns of figures can be confirmed upon examining the dual quality of commodities produced, even those satisfying such basic human requirements as a house to live in.

The latest occasional bulletin issued by the Co-operative Permanent Building Society is an analysis of the 2,802 people to whom they advanced mortgages, during the quarter December, 1965-February, 1966, to purchase new dwellings. From the survey Mr. Average emerged as 28 years of age, producing a deposit of £846 toward a house costing £3,864; and earns £24 14s. 0d. per week from which to pay a mortgage of £20 9s. 0d. per month for approximately 25 years.

As two-thirds of these workers were buying homes for the first time they were probably pleased to get them before the increase of “hundreds of pounds” threatened by the National Federation of Building Trade Employers in response to the government's proposals to raise the standards required of building and house equipment.

If this is how some younger members of the working class are trying to acquire a piece of the property-owning- democracy—and you will notice there is a prejudice against the older ones—how does the enemy fare?

The London Evening Standard carries a property news page, and on July 7 it had items on the following which might be of interest to you. A fifth-floor flat overlooking Hyde Park; the owner. Val Parnell, only asks £37,000. Are you a top executive fed up with commuting and want to move back into London? Your solution is in course of erection at Enismore Gardens, price range £35,000-£68,000. Perhaps you are only a younger executive, then unfortunately you must commute to the riverside at Chiswick, mooring fees are £13,000-£I8,000. Did you enjoy canvassing for the Socialist Party of Great Britain in Hampstead at the last election? Then you will be sorry you missed the eight bedroomed house sold recently for £40,000 by Sir Arthur Porritt, the Queen’s surgeon.

Do you still think there is an equality in poverty?

146 Shopping days to Christmas

Most newspapers make claims on the earnings of their readers in the scramble to attract advertising. And although many products are advertised in most newspapers there are some which only appear in those papers generally thought to be read by the higher income groups.

In case you missed the Sunday Times of July 3, we would like to bring the following to your notice, which might be of some help when preparing your present list for Christmas.

Firstly, Dupont have a new range of lighters selling at £10 I5s.-£165 and they even boast that “a few people can afford a Dupont."

Secondly, if you are fed up with the old plastic salt and pepper pots used  by your mother-in-law, nip along to Gerrard, the crown jewellers; they have a silver set for £44 10s. Or perhaps she would prefer the sauceboat for £24 10s., the sugar dredger for £25 or the coffee pot for £101 10s.

When you go, please don’t show your working class origin. Don’t ask for trading stamps.

Ray Guy.

The Passing Show: The Lady and the Tramp . . . and all that (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Lady and the Tramp . . . and all that

Ryde on the Isle of Wight on one of the many disappointingly wet and blustery days of an English summer. Holidaymakers sit disconsolately in the numerous Egg and Chip cafes, or gaze gloomily from the seedy seafront shelters at the unfriendly grey sky, bored stiff.

But there is one man who seems quite indifferent to the weather or to the unfriendly stares of some, who no doubt resent the smell that clings about him. He is a tramp, a caricature of a human being, with a mane of iron-grey hair and big blue eyes, whose battered clothes are secured about him with strips of tape and lumps of coarse string. There on a low wall he sits in the open, doggedly reading an old copy of The Times.

In a pub that evening, a brassy haired woman expresses her disgust at the mere existence of such people, and listening to the talk, you learn that this one is always on the island, wandering from place to place throughout the year. Unlike many tramps, though, he is by no means penniless because (or so the story goes) his family pay him enough money to keep him out of their way.

But what the lady in the pub overlooks is that there are a few thousand like him in Great Britain alone (and the number is growing) and she probably never stops to ask herself why this is so. Perhaps she feels that he is an affront to her meagre dignity, or perhaps he is an uncomfortable reminder of the loneliness that is always stalking in the background for all of us under capitalism, so that no one knows just when it will engulf him.

Tramps, it has been said, are what they are because they cannot face the harsh realities of everyday life in the modern world. So they take to the road and go on the run from it all, rarely staying long in one place, alone with their rags and their thoughts, objects of a mixed pity, fear and resentment from the population in general, and condescension from the “do gooders" in particular.

There’s certainly something to be said for such a theory, though of course it does not go far enough, and misses out a very important fact. Our man in Ryde notwithstanding, the mass of tramps are very poor—a lot of them from the very lowest income groups in the working class—and it is one of the big factors which makes them turn and run. For them, loneliness is not new by the time they start their wanderings, and in many cases it is a choice of near-destitutions, static or mobile. To sleep under a hedge with newspapers for bedclothes, or alone in a damp and dingy room with crumbling walls and vermin for company— and the worry of finding next week’s rent. The loneliness of their lives is theirs in ample measure, of course, but as one vagrant said to a survey interviewer, “it’s not so bail when you're out in the open . . . Four walls bring it home to you . . .” 

But don’t go making the mistake that loneliness is for tramps only. It is fast becoming a really big problem of the sixties. Armand Georgés in a little booklet Modern Loneliness has estimated that there are over four million lonely people in Britain and it is a terrible fact that it affects all age groups, from children to “senior citizens”.

This booklet is not a very satisfactory work and barely skims over the problem, but it does at least touch on the causes, such as: —

The uniformity of council house estates . . . the demands of work and economic difficulties produce a feeling of boredom and boredom is the first symptom of the the disease . . . 

Seventy years of age, he lived in digs. When he became ill he went into hospital, but although he recovered he still remains there because his landlady will not take him back. She has let his room . . .

Mr. Georgés admits that loneliness “cannot penetrate useful work and emotional stability" but further than this he doesn’t go, perhaps because he is vaguely aware of the difficulty of attaining these conditions in the world of today. So he contents himself with suggestions of more clubs, meeting places, etc., and a government “ministry for the aged".

So let us say what we think of the problem. Loneliness, boredom and emotional strains are a product of private property society, and modern capitalism has brought them to a terrifying pitch. It has been said that we are all on our own in capitalism and it is not difficult to see why. In such a set-up, we are all thrown into ceaseless competition with each other so that satisfactory contact between human beings is a rarity.

The problem is accentuated in the big towns, of course, where the narrow and unfulfilling lives of workers is so much in evidence, like the couple above. And for those who are lonely, the very bigness of the towns, crammed to capacity with other humans (mainly workers) though they are, restricts their chances of ever belonging anywhere. It is a poverty in human friendship and contact, a direct result of poverty in the means of life from which most or us suffer.

Sing something simple

An old copy of the Gibraltar Chronicle dropped out of a file the other day and promptly found its way into my pocket. It's dated Nov. 9th, 1949 and what do you think appears on the front page? Well, among other things is a bold headline: “T.U.C. leaders will fully support Govt’s policy". There follows a report of the T.U.C.’s decision in London “after seven weeks of anxious discussion” to “give full support to the Labour Government’s policy of greater production at less cost". This, by the way, was after the devaluation of Sterling—with its effect of price increases—yet still the T.U.C. was prepared to recommend an "even greater effort to keep demands for higher wages under restraint . . .”

Well, it's old news now. but it does us no harm to look back a few years and see the similarity between ideas then and now. The T.U.C. seems to have learned precious little in the past seventeen years, if a statement by their general secretary George Woodcock is any guide:

If in the early days you can emphasise increased productivity or prices or social justice as the main objectives, you are just kidding yourself. You can, as we are doing, get some degree of incomes restraint, rough and ready and unscientific though it is. You can expect to do that quickly. The other things will take time.

Did 1 say that little had been learnt? If a minus quantity, of knowledge were possible, Mr. Woodcock and the T.U.C. would certainly have it.

Bigger and better bedbugs

When we were kids my parents waged a long and largely futile battle against bedbugs in our poky terraced house in London. Fumigation, creosote, and even blow-lamps all had a temporary effect only, and there they were as thick as ever in a week or two. Wc got rid of them eventually because for some months during the blitz, we didn't use the bedrooms. I suppose they all died of starvation, or went looking elsewhere.

Now what do you think of a Guardian report of June 6th? The U.S. is planning to use bedbugs against the Vietcong. But these will be specially bred for the purpose and won’t be starved to death so easily. Just look at this revolting account.

". . . Plans are based on the fad that bedbugs scream with excitement at the prospect of feeding on human flesh. So what Mr. McNamara's whizz-kids are up to is trying to produce a sound amplification system which would enable the G.l. . . . to hear the anticipatory squeals of a captive bedbug as it detects the Vietcong lying in ambush ahead . . . A large and hungry bedbug will . . . register the presence of a man some 200 yards to its front or side while ignoring the person carrying it in a special capsule".

When we have pointed to the brutality and degradation of capitalism’s wars, understandably we have tended to stress the bigger horrors like nuclear bombs, but it is perhaps the so-called smaller things like this which illustrate the depths to which men sink their dignity in the cause of the profit motive.

Gaspers

Comrade Mao Tse Tung is the greatest genius of our lime. Rarely has history seen such a revolutionary leader as Mao Tse Tung . . . (Peking People's Daily 15.6.66). '

There is not and never was a man in the world of so varied, so rich, so fruitful and so omnipresent a genius . . . (Tribute to Stalin, by Moscow Radio. May Day 1951),

Mr. Robinson said . . . he would prefer a bigger building programme for the (hospital) service . . . but the amount of money available had to depend on the economic progress of the country. (Guardian 25.6.66).

The very idea of auto sales and auto profits has been built on a pile of corpses. (Ralph Nader, author of Unsafe At Any Speed, Guardian report 15.6.66).

In the foreseeable future, the only alternative future to an incomes policy is higher unemployment. (Guardian editorial 5.7.66).

I have never fell humiliated (T .U.C. General Secretary George Woodcock 5.7.66).

Eddie Critchfield

Manchester Evening News and an oddment (1966)

Party News from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Since the war the Socialist Party of Great Britain has contested the 1945 (1 candidate), 1950 (2), 1959 (1), 1964 (2) and 1966 (2) General Elections as well as four by-elections. We feel that this justifies our claim to be a serious political party and to be treated as such. For a time the papers used to describe our candidates as “Independents" when reporting results. After our protests this practice has now died, out as far as the national dailies are concerned but it still appears to exist in some provincial backwaters.

In reporting the results of the last election the Manchester Evening News described our candidate in Hampstead as an "Independent". A member living in Manchester immediately wrote to the editor pointing out this mistake only to get the reply that "we classify all sorts of ‘oddments' under the general title of "Ind." Our comrade wrote again. This time the reply suggested that a news agency was responsible. The matter was then taken up by our Executive Committee.

As it appeared that the news agency had in fact ’referred to us not as “Ind" but as "SPGB" a letter was sent to the editor of the Manchester Evening News demanding a correction. The letter for publication read:

"When publishing the General Election results on 1st April you stated that H. Baldwin was an Independent in the London Constituency of Hampstead. This, of course, was not correct. Mr. Baldwin stood as a candidate for the Socialist Party of Great Britain (the SPGB), an old established political Party, founded in 1904 and is, in fact, the only Socialist Party in this country”.

The letter was published on 8 June minus the “of course” and the last eleven words.

Letter: Russia & China (1966)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia & China

Dear Sir,

You state in your journals that China and Russia are state capitalist countries but this is different to what Engels had to say on capitalist countries:—

Active social forces work exactly like natural forces, blindly, forcibly, destructively, so long as we do not understand, and reckon with them . . . and this understanding goes against the grain of the capitalist mode of production and its defenders . . . With this recognition, at last, of the real nature of the productive forces of today, the social anarchy of production gives place to a social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community, and of each individual (Socialism, Utopian and Scientific).

With Russian and Chinese plans for production this would surely mean that they are in no way capitalist.

Harold Brown, 

Carshalton, Surrey.

Reply:

It is true that we deny that Russia and China are socialist and describe them as state capitalist. We say this because we see in these places the basic features of capitalism, namely, class rule, production for sale and the wages system.

We don't of course believe that a quotation from Engels can settle anything. Even so we can't see how Mr. Brown's quotation helps this case at all. In the passages he quotes Engels is saying what socialists have always said: under capitalism where production is for sale anarchy reigns as it is the market and not society that controls production. As soon as the means of production are commonly owned production for sale is abolished and replaced by production for use. Production for use, by its very nature, involves planning for the various needs of people, both as individuals and as a community.

Mr. Brown implies that in Russia and China "social anarchy of production” has been replaced by the "social regulation of production upon a definite plan, according to the needs of the community and of each individual". We must ask him to prove this since what socialists mean by anarchy of production is the results of production for sale. And production for sale has most certainly not been abolished in Russia and China.

In fact in the passage following where Mr. Brown ends his quotation, Engels, discussing distribution in a socialist society, makes it quite clear that he is talking about the abolition of production for sale:

Then the capitalist mode of appropriation, in which the product enslaves first the producer and then the appropriator, is replaced by the mode of appropriation of the products based upon the nature of the modern means of production: upon the one hand, direct social appropriation, as means to the maintenance and extension of production—on the other, direct individual appropriation, as means of subsistence and of enjoyment.

Direct appropriation means what it says: people (and society) get what they need not by buying them but by taking them directly.

Is this so in Russia and China?

In a later passage Engels is just as explicit:

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organization.

Has commodity production (that is, production for sale) been done away with in Russia and China?

We think we have shown that the passage Mr. Brown quotes from Engels does not mean what he takes it to mean. We can only suggest that he reads the excellent socialist pamphlet that Socialism, Utopian and Scientific is once again, this time more carefully.

Editorial Committee.

New pamphlet on racism (1966)

Party News from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A new Socialist Party pamphlet, entitled The Problem of Racism, is published this month. The previous pamphlet on this subject The Racial Problem, published in 1947 has been out of print for some time. The Problem of Racism is not just a revision it is a completely new pamphlet. In 1947 it was the Jewish Question that was prominent. Today it is the Colour Question. This change is taken into account in the new pamphlet which examines the colour question in Britain, America, South Africa and Rhodesia. There are chapters too on the scientific theory of race, the historical origins of racist theories and on African nationalism.

There is an unfortunate error. The reference on page 41 to Guyana should, of course, be to Guinea.

Pamphlet obtainable from Socialist Party (Dept. SR), 52 Clapham High St, London, SW4. Price 1/6.

Correction (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our attention has only just been drawn to an error in the Socialist Standard for October 1965 (Page 155) where the total increase of production since before the war was wrongly printed as “5 per cent”. This should have been "60 per cent”, the figure already given in the Socialist Standard for January 1964. (Page 10).

Old myths refurbished (1966)

Book Review from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards by T. Cliff and C. Barker (introduction by Reg. Birch). 136 pages. 2s. 6d. Published by London Shop Stewards Defence Committee.

The authors' purpose in this book is to explain why an incomes policy exists, why the workers should oppose it and why the shop stewards are the key to the achievement of "Socialism". But, as will be shown, they are not really aiming at Socialism and their belief in the Shop Steward Movement is built on faulty observation of the conditions of capitalism and on failure to distinguish between "militancy" and Socialist understanding. Above all they do not face up to the fact that the act of revolutionising the social system requires control of the machinery of government by a Socialist working-class. They attack the political and industrial leaders of the workers but not the idea of leadership: what they want is different leaders. They are not consistent in this and in some places they appear to be arguing for self-reliant action by the workers and not "leave it to their leaders", but elsewhere we are told that the shop stewards are the "natural leaders".

The particular target of their attack is full-time trade union officials because these officials do not support the shop stewards and unofficial strikes—"the majority of the union bureaucrats cannot be depended on any more".

There are some trade unions in which the full-time officials vote on the Executive Committee and others in which the full-time officials have no votes, but there is no evidence in this book that makes any practical difference to the policies of the unions.

The authors argue that the shop stewards and factory committees are the militants, held in check by the national executives but they have overlooked the reasons why unions have full-time officials and the conditions in which factory floor militancy vanishes.

In the early days unions had to fight to secure that the union officials could get recognition to negotiate with the employers, who much preferred to deal direct with the workers in their employ. It was to prevent sacking and victimisation of workers on the factory floor that unions demanded the recognition of the union official who could not be directly intimidated.

Cliff and Barker argue from post-war British history that it is the shop stewards and factory committees which are most active; but they have failed to draw the right conclusions from the almost complete destruction of the shop steward movement after the first World War, although they report it:

  By about 1920, with a rise in unemployment and an enormous offensive against the working class from the employers, the shop steward movement that had been born during the war was as good as wiped out.

When unemployment is heavy the shop stewards and factory committees are most vulnerable: faced with the sack they have no choice but to become passive, or, as has happened, become the instruments of the employers. Guillebaud, in his The Works Council (Cambridge University Press 1929) showed how, in Germany, although the works councils were set up by law and flourished when unemployment was low, they collapsed when unemployment became heavy in 1923. Then it was the National unions which alone could offer some protection of the workers and of the works councils themselves.

Extravagant claims are made for the shop steward movement in this book. They are given the credit for the big increase in the number of strikes in the years 1959 to 1965 and they are said to give us "the possibility of the rebirth of a revolutionary working class movement".

It is true that the number of strikes, except in mining, has increased (but why leave out the strikes in the mining industry which have fallen heavily?). But the authors should look further before drawing conclusions. If they took account of the numbers of trade unionists they might have to conclude that, measured by the numbers of strikes, the workers were more "militant" at the end of the 19th Century. But it is in any event a shallow view. Many factors influence the number of strikes—a sharp rise in prices for example and prices have been rising faster since 1960, after which most of the increase in the number of strikes has taken place. Attempts by employers to introduce new working conditions (shifts for example) may also be a factor.

And the authors should also take a look at the results of the strikes. After taking into account the effect of rising, prices, average hourly earnings have been rising by a smaller percentage as the number of strikes has increased.

And they forget that in favourable conditions unions can sometimes gel results by threatening to strike but not needing to do so.

It is when they write about "revolutionary aims" and socialism that Cliff and Barker are most confused and obscure. They claim to want socialism but tell us that the greatest problems facing the workers at the present time are incomes policy and trade union legislation. Why isn't the achievement of Socialism the greatest problem?

They talk of the "rebirth of a revolutionary working class movement", but why "rebirth"? When was the British working-class organised in a revolutionary movement for Socialism?

And why should the shop stewards' movement have any such consequence? They admit the obvious fact that the factory floor struggles are "essentially private fights, particular to workers in one shop or one factory".

They mention that one activity which strengthens the hands of the shop stewards is that they maintain control over the distribution of overtime!

How do these narrow struggles give birth to Socialist understanding?

Even the authors' opposition to the Government's incomes policy betrays that they do not aim at Socialism with its necessary feature of the abolition of the wages system for they talk in terms of opposition to "an Incomes Policy under capitalism". Is there then to be an incomes policy under their "Socialism"?

They attack George Brown's plan because it envisages a relative decline in nationalised industry and ask "What about good old Clause Four?"

Clause Four is the clause in the Labour Party constitution which commits them to mass nationalisation or state capitalism. So what, from the Socialist standpoint, is there "good" about Clause Four.?

Cliff and Barker also note that the government is "by no means the best employer", so why do they want more nationalisation?

The authors are very coy about the Socialist movement they want to see. It is to be the "the mightiest socialist movement yet in the history of Britain". It is to come out of the Shop Stewards' Movement and is to be "a new socialist movement". May we ask what is the name of this new party and what is its object?

Reg Birch, who writes the Preface, likes the rest of the book but not the talk about the increase in the number of shop stewards automatically leading "the development of a Socialist movement"; but he is equally coy about the name and object of the political party of his choice.

After all, the three of them agree in holding up the Shop Steward's Movement as the movement of revolutionary promise. So why can't they tell us about the new society they seek? Is it really Socialism or only Clause Four capitalism that they are after?

And as the authors urge the workers not to take a "deep interest in parliament" what is their political party going to do?

It would be interesting to know what the three of them were doing at the last General Election. Were they urging the workers to vote only for Socialism? Or were they supporting one or other of the parties of capitalism, the Labour Party and Communist Party for example?

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: The Irish question fifty years ago (1966)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

But if Ireland has been a hunting ground for ambitious politicians, it has also been the home of ignorant and superstitious leaders. Catholic priests and Protestant clergy have used their influence and authority lo foment religious strife, which had no existence till after the Union. The Catholic priests were so deeply involved in the political game that they helped to collect the forty thousand pounds that Parnell squandered on himself and Mrs. O'Shea. Everyone knows the methods of the Protestant clergy: how the orthodox Church bolsters the Tories and the Nonconformists buttress the Liberals and both assist to rope in the workers to the support and sanction of capitalist government.

The Irish movements of the eighteenth century, the “white boys" and the “oak boys", etc., were movements of the workers. Sometimes they were directed against the middle men and sometimes against the tithe system, though not often the latter. They were secret organisations and the Government found it extremely difficult to deal with them. But when they developed into an open volunteer movement, widely extended, and holding Congresses at Dublin and elsewhere, the Government quickly permeated it with their tools and agents and subverted it to their own uses, finally incorporating it in the regular army. Since that time the working class of Ireland has never succeeded in organising for anything without the help or interference of capitalist tools or agents. The Fenians were robbed by Isaac Butt and outwitted by Parnell. All their organisations from the “Land League" to the “Ulster Volunteers” or the “Molly Malones", have been composed of workers bluffed and cajoled by political prostitutes and adventurers . . .

The latest blunder of the Irish working class is in the support given to the Sinn Fein Movement which seeks to establish a republic, with the examples of France and the United Slates before thcm proving conclusively the futility of such an experiment to abate their ever-growing poverty.

From the Socialist Standard, August 1916.

The Job of Governing (1966)

From the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the last two general elections, the Labour Party was able to present itself as the party who would “get Britain moving”. Trading on the sense of weary failure that inevitably attached itself to the Tories, the Labour party came forward with an air of dashing modernity. Despite the note of appropriate caution, “this was not going to be easy”, they left no doubt that they were the people who would sweep away “tired toryism” and ring in an era of fast moving progress. They spoke in racy terms about rising incomes and expanding social services against a background of technical development and high productivity. In fact we have found that the so-called incomes policy has meant nothing more in practice than a continuous government attempt to prevent wage and salary increases. As for the free deployment of society’s technical resources, we find that it is as crippled as ever it was. The only things which are recently new in the Labour government's management of capitalism are red baiting and the legal intimidation of trade unionists.

Under Labour, capitalism is limping along from crisis to crisis in much the same way as it always has, and for the immediate future, there is no prospect of it doing anything else.

During the recent elections, the Socialist Party of Great Britain said that nothing could come of the optimism generated by the Labour Party. We knew that the post election periods would be times of creeping disillusion. This is not because the Labour Party has no genuine desire to do something about social problems, but because the ideas they have about how to deal with these problems are mistaken ones. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the Labour Party can even correctly define the nature of these problems.

Reforms v. Revolution
It is worth recalling the debate that went on during and before the first years of the existence of the Labour Party and the Socialist Party of Great Britain. In those days the parties were nearer to each other in the sense that they shared a clearer understanding of the phraseology that both parties used. Those who were active in the Labour Party and I.L.P. argued that through a process of reforms, including nationalisation, capitalism could be gradually abolished. The very least that was claimed for this reformist programme was that as an expression of a mass working class movement it would achieve a more equal distribution of wealth throughout society.

This argument embodied many disastrous errors. One of these errors was the denial that Socialism presupposes a majority of Socialists. It was enough, they thought, to have a government whose intentions were right. Another error was in thinking that capitalism was susceptible to the kind of manipulation and control that their argument assumed.

The Labour Party has moved a long way from talking seriously about Socialism. Its public speakers cannot utter the word “capitalism” without obvious embarrassment or as a slip of the tongue.

The Labour Party frankly cares more about votes than it does about ideas. It has on more than one occasion achieved power, but power to do what? The only power the Labour Party has is the power to run capitalism, and even then not in the way the Labour Party would like, but largely in response to the economic and international pressures bearing on them. The abiding anti-climax of Labour Party politics is that as a party it has achieved the power that its early members dreamed of, but the power they have is worthless. This situation is inherited directly from their mistaken ideas about capitalism both past and present. It is one of the ironies of history that the Labour Party, the social springboard of which was the working class, should now manage a system which can only be damaging to the interests of the working class. They may have once set out to tame capitalism, but in fact capitalism has tamed them.

The Seamen's Strike
One of the most recent examples of the way the Labour Government is running capitalism against the interests of workers was the role played in the Seamen’s strike. From the very beginning of the dispute, the government, apart from one or two hypocritical references to the “real grievances” of the Seamen, in fact supported the stand of the shipowners throughout. The effect of the government’s stand was at all times to encourage the shipowners to resist the Seamen’s demands. This attitude was even carried to the point when during the strike the government look the initiative from the employers in resisting the Seamen. The fact that the government justified its stand around such dubious concepts as the “national interest” and their so-called incomes policy, has no bearing whatever on the clash of interests that was involved.

The Seamen found what working men have always found, that in the hard economic reality of their struggle, they were confronted not only by the employers, but also by the state, this time in the form of a Labour government.

“The Incomes Policy”
Even if the ideas of the Labour government about an “incomes policy” are not consciously dishonest, they are completely impracticable. Under Labour government management, there was to be an even rate of growth with productive output steadily expanding. They envisaged stable prices. They envisaged an overall productivity rate of 4 per cent, per year. Related to this steady increase of wealth, they saw rising incomes for every section of the community and expanding social services, hospitals, schools, roads, etc. Listening to its speakers, it was always possible, particularly at election times, to take a brief trip in the Labour Party dream boat.

The reason the Conservative government during its thirteen years of office, or any other government in the past, failed to achieve these controlled results from the economy was not due to their lack of intention or technique. This government will also fail. They are naive to think otherwise. They will of course blame this in part to a “scramble for higher wages”. The absurdity of the government’s position is that although they manage a system that is dominated by commercial competition and the pursuit of narrow economic gains whenever the moment is favourable, they expect people to behave as though this were not so. They wish in fact that capitalism would not be capitalism. Even so, there is no evidence whatsoever that restraint on the part of workers in pursuing wage increases would in any way affect the cycle of expansion and contraction inherent in capitalist economics. The real result of the government’s so-called “incomes policy” is that it always comes down on the side of the employers in the struggle over the division of wealth.

“The National Interest”
One of the more confusing ideas that gains renewed currency during industrial conflicts is the spurious myth of the “national interest” Though the effect of appeals to national loyalty on the course of a dispute is very doubtful, it is one of the means by which governments attempt to show up strike action in a bad light. The phrase “against the national interest" carries with it the implication of a small group of men holding the community to ransom over narrow selfish ends. Significantly, it is always strike action that is “against the national interest". It is never relatively low wages or intolerable working conditions.

At its best, the idea of a “national interest" turns a blind eye to the realities of capitalism, that is, class divided society. Within an economic set-up based on exploitation and dominated by commercialism with intense competition within slates and between states, there can be no such thing as a community interest. There is the individual's struggle to get what lie can out of life. There is the endless battle between trade unionists and employers over wages and conditions. There is no harmony of mutual interests, either national or otherwise.

At its worst, the talk of a “national interest" is a cynical attempt to persuade under-privileged men to set aside their demands in favour of social ideals that capitalism by its very nature could never achieve.

The vindication of Socialist theory

The policies of Labour governments have shown the correctness of the Socialist stand during the early debates. Events have shown that the fundamental problem of capitalism that is the social production, but private expropriation of wealth, cannot be altered by a programme of social reforms. Experience now shows that any government landed with the problem of managing capitalism, regardless of its determination to achieve change, must shape its policies to the economic requirements of the situation they find themselves in. In the case of the Labour Party, these economic pressures, both domestic and international, will make a mockery of whatever aspirations the Labour Party is now left with.

The problems of the Labour government are not the legacy of Tory mis management. In the wake of its own inevitable failure, it will leave to the next Tory government the same kind of mess. What the Labour government is really up against is the anarchy of capitalist production and that endless war of economic attrition, the class struggle.

Current Political Dangers

The Labour Party has nude a great deal of its ability to control capitalism, yet its programmes have not even begun to get off the ground. Wilson & Co. will go on banging their heads against the brick wall of capitalism with mounting frustration. In view of all that is expected of them and what they expect of themselves, their failure will become desperate. In politics, a desperate failure is a dangerous failure. The red-baiting episode during the Seamen's strike together with the penalties of imprisonment of trade unionists embodied in the Prices and Incomes Bill arc ominous signs. It is possible that the government may tempt to go much further in creating a general atmosphere of intimidation and victimisation. If indeed this happens, it will he the vile fruit of erroneous theories.

In a recent debate in the House of Commons, as a rebuke aimed at one of his party. Mr. Wilson said “You know, some of us have the job of governing". The remark was intended to separate the “responsible" from the irresponsible, but in fact it expressed everything that is wrong about the Labour Party and the Labour government. For his own party’s ability to deal with social problems, Mr. Wilson could not have chosen a more succinct epitaph.

Pieter Lawrence

News In Review: Sour Rent Act (1966)

The News in Review column from the August 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sour Rent Act

Speaking in Salford on June 12 Labour M.P. Frank Allaun complained that the 1965 Rent Act had "gone sour on us." In other words it wasn't working as expected. This, of course, is nothing unusual for Acts to reform capitalism, especially in the field of housing. The evidence that has accumulated for over a century points to only one conclusion: there is no solution to the housing problem within capitalism. Lack of adequate housing is just one of the many problems that capitalism causes for workers. Since capitalism is the cause it is futile to pass Acts to find some solution within capitalism. There is no such solution. Such Acts are doomed to failure from the start as they try to do the impossible.

Socialists have always said that reform measures can’t be taken at their face value as they don’t always work as intended or they give rise to new problems. Labour’s Rent Act is an interesting confirmation of this. Although this Act was not intended to cut rents, those who voted Labour can be excused for thinking so. After all, had not Labour fought the 1957 Tory Rent Act tooth and nail in Parliament? Had they not pledged themselves time and time again to repeal it? Since the obvious result of the Tory Rent Act was to lead to rent increases ‘‘repeal’’ could justifiably be taken to mean "cut rents.” In fact, the aim of Labour's Act was to fix a "fair” rent—what the rent would be if supply and demand were equal, a formula bound to justify increasing controlled rents. Rent Officers and Rent Assessment Committees were appointed to work out these "fair” rents.

Now Sir Sydney Littlewood, the president of the Greater London Rent Assessment Panel, turns round and tells his Labour critics that they "did not understand the Act they had passed,” saying that they had the mistaken idea that the object of the Rent Act was to curb rents. The object was, he said, to find a fair rent.

No wonder Frank Allaun is annoyed. But those who have been cruelly deceived by Labour have much greater reason to be. They've been taken for a ride by Labour once again.

Vietnam - a reminder

Some time ago Harold Wilson startled the world, stilled a revolt in his Party and got a lot of Publicity, by suggesting a Peace Mission from the Commonwealth Prime Ministers to settle the war in Vietnam.

A lot of people thought this was a dazzingly good idea.

But what happened?

The mission never went to Vietnam— it never, in fact, went anywhere.

Its members never met between themselves, let alone met the belligerents of Vietnam.

Some of the members of the Mission —for example, Nkrumah—are no longer Commonwealth Prime Ministers.

In other words, Wilson’s dazzling idea was an historic flop.

Meanwhile, the war goes on.

There will be no prizes for the next futile, vote-cadging suggestion.

Rebels too late

Few things have more searingly exposed the futility and absurdity of Labour’s so-called left wing than their “revolt” over the government’s policies on prices and incomes and Vietnam.

In all the fuss over the revolt, it seemed to escape notice that, not for the first time, the rebels were rather late.

The Prices and Incomes Bill was first introduced during the lifetime of the last government; the version which caused Frank Cousins to resign his Ministry is actually milder than the previous one.

On Vietnam, the Wilson government always made clear their support for American actions, including the bombing of the North.

In other words, the present government are simply carrying on the policies of the last. But in between there was the general election; that was the time for the rebels to make their disagreements known.

They might even have resigned from the Labour Party and fought on an independent platform. But they had probably all studied the fate of the Radical Alliance in Hull North.

So what did they do?

Well here are extracts from the election addresses of two of the Vietnam rebels:

  Hugh Jenkins (Putney): . . .  we need a longer period of office, with a more secure majority, so that we can get on with the job.
  Sydney Bidwell (Southall): If you . . . intend to vole Labour again . . . may I warmly thank you in advance and urge you, in the name of our just and common cause, to make absolutely sure you use your vote.

No word of dissension disturbed the orthodoxy of these addresses. Hugh Jenkins was hanging so firmly on to Wilson's coat tails that he embellished his address with a picture of the Leader, pipe and avuncular expression and all.

There was plenty to protest about last March but the rebels held their tongues. And their seats.

De Gaulle in Moscow

Statesmen do not visit each other to exchange expressions of mutual respect.

So why did De Gaulle go to Russia?

French policy is now based upon acceptance of the fact that the days of independent glory, when France was a world power, are past. They ended in the mud on the Aisne and in the graveyards of Verdun.

For a long time, France took her new place in the world as a paid-up member of the American gang—a complaisant signatory of the NATO Pact, of the EEC and so on.

De Gaulle signified the first important change in this. Under him, French policy has been to solidify Europe into an area independent of both Russia and the United States, but dominated by France.

Hence the opposition to British membership of the Common Market. Hence De Gaulle’s famous visit to West Germany—and now his trip to Russia.

This last expedition probably followed from the French withdrawal from NATO, of which West Germany is still a member. Germany may yet become a nuclear power, may yet revive her expansionist ambitions.

For about a century Russia has been France's counterweight against German expansion; this fact has not been changed by two World Wars and a lot of bloodshed.

One of the significant things about De Gaulle’s visit, however, was the way in which the Russians reminded him, delicately, that they are more than a European power.

Russian interests and influence now extend all over the world—and they will fight for them world-wide if they are threatened.

So De Gaulle had to face another reality. After the usual cloak of meaningless communique had been thrown over the visit he came home, and the disputes and intrigues of capitalism's world conflict continue.

Escalation in Vietnam

In Vietnam the American bombers spread their wings wider and more lethally as the weeks go by. This is escalation, an ugly word the use of which is almost obligatory when anyone is talking about the war there.

Vietnam is not the first war to have escalated. The First World War developed with a terrible speed, on an almost predetermined course, into something so bitter and destructive that it changed the world for good.

The Second World War escalated— and in a way if is still escalating—from simple high explosive bombs, and High Commands solemnly declaring their intentions of protecting civilian populations, to the fireballs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This development went step by step, as the war became fiercer and more desperate. Each stage was justified by the commanders to their own consciences. It was an inexorable process; it showed up the fact that the development of wars is a one-way affair; they never escalate downwards.

This leads us to the heart of the matter. As long as society accepts war. as long as it accepts the system which gives rise to war. it can have no logical objection to the effects of war.

There is no such thing as a humane war, or a controlled war fought to rules. War is its own master, with its own momentum and its own rules. 

The demonstrators, some of them incensed at the killing of children and other non-combatants, carry their banners and get themselves jailed. None of them protests against the cause of it all.

None of them, however sincere, are near the heart of the matter.

Poor Harold Wilson

Poor Harold Wilson, everyone is after him.

He has been stabbed so many times from behind that his back must resemble a kitchen collander.

Even before Wilson became Prime Minister, Aims of Industry and the Economic League were busily knifing him, with their anti-nationalisation campaign financed by private industry.

Then during the 1964 election he received another thrust between his shoulder blades from Hardy Spicers, who were apparently forcing their workers out on strike so that everyone would rush out and vote Tory.

The prospect of anyone voting against him was so agonising a wound for Wilson that he promised to expose the murderous activities of private industry in an enquiry after he was in Number Ten.

Nothing more was heard of this idea; perhaps Wilson was too busy because no sooner was he in office than the Gnomes of Zurich were at work with their daggers, threatening all he had planned.

And now the latest political flick-knife boys are the Communist Party, the '‘tightly knit group of politically motivated men" who apparently also stir up strikes but who have not yet thought of getting together with Hardy Spicers.

Perhaps some seamen remember the many trade union leaders who. from political motives, tried to force the Attlee government’s wage freeze down their members’ throats.

Perhaps some of them reflect that, like all its predecessors, the Wilson government is failing to deliver the goods as promised and must find excuses for its failure.

Perhaps, in other words. Wilson’s desperate search for a scapegoat will help some people to see through the dirty, futile game of capitalist politics.

Old Tricks

One of the legends concerning Zaharoff, the ‘‘merchant of death," was that he acted as mediator in one of the South American wars at the turn of the century and helped to arrange a truce. He then sold arms to the two sides and a few months later when they had been delivered the fighting restarted. Part of this story could be re-enacted in the near future. The Times reported on 10 June:

The pro-Government Karachi newspaper Dawn reported that the Soviet Union has offered to sell arms to Pakistan on the same terms as she already sells to India.

It may be remembered that the recent war between India and Pakistan was followed by the Tashkent conference, at which Russia played the role of peacemaker. The fighting has stopped for the time being but the cause of the conflict remains. The conflict over Kashmir and other issues originating from private property society are still there. Increased arms spending by both sides provides attractive markets for the world’s arms makers.

In recent years Russia has broken into one market alter the other with its arms. So why not Pakistan? After all, business is business, and in his recent budget Pakistan’s Finance Minister. Mohammad Shoaib. announced that defence spending would increase from 1,360 million to 2,250 million rupees.

The interests of the Russian and American rulers require peace in this area. It is also vital that opportunities for profitable trade should be taken advantage of. This is just one of the many contradictions of capitalism. Zaharoff made a living by taking advantage of them when he could. Heads of state, pledged to look after the national capitalist interest, are forced to act in contradictory ways. Like talking peace while cashing on the arms market.