Socialism and Planning Part 2: ‘Feedback’ (2019)

From the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

Socialism and Planning: The Need for Feedback

Last month we explained why socialism could not possibly be organised on the basis of ‘society-wide’ planning – that is, a single vast plan encompassing everything. Though the numerous production (and distribution) units would obviously all be engaged in planning, the overall pattern of production would be unplanned. Meaning it would be the emergent outcome of many different plans. What would ensure these plans co-ordinated to produce a coherent outcome is something called ‘feedback’.

Any large scale, technically advanced society requires information in the form of feedback to function. ‘Feedback’ is an attribute of dynamic systems, when the ‘outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop’ (Wikipedia). In this way the system is able to adjust its behaviour to accommodate changing circumstances.

The market is a good example. A contraction in the market for frozen fish fingers, perhaps because of some scandal concerning contaminated fish stock, causes a drop in prices and a decline in profits, resulting in some factory closures and reduced output. Here the relevant information takes the form of market prices. However, there is another kind of feedback system that operates alongside market prices and is, in fact, of far greater significance inasmuch as any kind of large scale society (including capitalism) utterly depends upon it. This is the feedback intrinsic to a ‘self-regulating system of stock control’.

Here, the basic information takes the form, not of prices, but of physical quantities – for example, counting the number of cans of baked beans stocked in your local supermarket. This is called ‘calculation-in-kind’. The supermarket simply tracks how many cans have been removed from the shelf – these days this is often computerised – and calculates the quantities needed to sufficiently replenish the stock to meet future demand, (taking into account the rate at which it is being depleted). That automatically triggers an order for fresh stock from the suppliers.

The beauty of the system is that any shifts in the pattern of demand can be picked up and almost instantaneously responded to, given the power of modern computer technology. This is precisely the kind of feedback system a socialist society can make full use of, enabling it to monitor and respond to the fluctuations in the demand for any conceivable kind of good produced in that society. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. This system already exists and functions today under our very noses.

Misunderstanding socialism

In a chapter entitled ‘Understanding the Market’, Norman Barry lists three possible ways of ‘organising a society for the production of wanted goods and services’ – altruism, central command and the market:

  Altruism presupposes that individuals, without either the incentives of personal gain or fear of punishment, will satisfy the wants of others in a system of generalised reciprocity. It is now generally agreed that this places impossible burdens on a fragile human nature and on human knowledge. In a large society, even if people were uncommonly well-disposed towards each other, how could they know what others’ wants were? In fact altruism is only conceivable in very small communities where there is broad agreement about ends and purposes (The State or the Market, 1991)

Since socialists reject both ‘central command’ and the ‘market’, it would seem we are left with only ‘altruism’ with all the limitations Barry imputes to it. However, his argument is plainly wrong on two counts.

Firstly, to take his point about not being able to know what other people want, this is simply not true. It seems to naively assume that to do that you have to directly ask them what they want. Now it is certainly true that customer surveys and the like can provide useful pointers when it comes to product innovation and design but it would be impractical to canvas the entire population; only a small sample is required. It is also unnecessary since, as we have seen, the great bulk of information concerning individual wants in a socialist society can be acquired indirectly in an aggregated form via the aforementioned procedure of stock control. Since this is an open-ended procedure, the question of the size of the society is completely irrelevant.

Secondly, regarding his point about motivation, it is misleading to suggest that socialism would be a society based purely on altruism. For sure, people can and do behave altruistically and a socialist society will draw abundantly upon this very human quality of feeling concern for the wellbeing of others. Barry equates this altruistic concern with a ‘system of generalised reciprocity’ but fails to properly comprehend what that means. Yes, it denotes helping others out of concern for their wellbeing without expecting any direct or immediate return (what is called a quid pro quo transaction). However, it emphatically does not mean there is no expectation whatsoever of these others reciprocating in due course. It is not purely altruistic in that sense – as the very word ‘reciprocity’ itself suggests.

Actually, ‘generalised reciprocity’ denotes a system of moral, (rather than economic) transactions, governed by the ethos that we should all contribute to the common good rather than free ride on the contributions of others. It implies a generalised expectation that we help each other rather than just one-sidedly sacrifice our own interests for the sake of others. As such, this is a fair description of the kind of social dynamics that would operate in a future socialist society. It is not something completely unfamiliar to us today or necessarily confined to only small scale face-to-face societies. Even under capitalism, there are plenty of examples around. Indeed, the internet itself has been compared to a gigantic ‘gift economy’. (http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Gift_Economy)

Ironically, the accusation that socialism ‘places impossible burdens on a fragile human nature’ in assuming humans should expunge any concern for their own interests – can be thrown back at critics like Barry himself. If according to the market ideology they embrace, individuals are purely driven by self-interest, then why do the great majority today put up with a social arrangement that so demonstrably works against their interests? Why permit a tiny owning class to accumulate vast fortunes at their expense? Clearly, it is not out of self-interest that workers allow this to continue.

Economic calculation

Apart from enabling us to respond to the ever-changing pattern of consumer wants, feedback in the form of a self-regulating system of stock control will also facilitate the efficient allocation of resources by ensuring these are allocated in a way that economises most on those that are least abundant. Here, we are alluding to the ‘Law of the Minimum’ formulated by the 19th century agricultural scientist, Justus von Liebig, who demonstrated that the total output of a crop is determined, not by the total amount of resources available for plant growth but, rather, by the scarcest resource or ‘limiting factor’ – for example, nitrate fertiliser. Increasing the supply of this input would then mean some other input becoming the limiting factor – perhaps, irrigation water. The point is that it is entirely possible to grade all the relevant inputs required to produce a given output in terms of their relative availability and determine the degree to which this constrains output.

In 1920, the Austrian economist and prominent opponent of socialism, Ludwig von Mises, published a tract called ‘Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth’. In it he set out to prove that socialism was impractical since, without market prices, it would be unable to make the economic calculations needed to efficiently allocate resources. As he put it:

  It would be evident, even in a socialist society, that 1,000 hectolitres of wine are better than 800, and it is not difficult to decide whether it desires 1,000 hectolitres of wine rather than 500 litres of oil. There is no need for any system of calculation to establish this fact: the deciding element is the will of the economic subjects involved. But once this decision has been taken, the real task of rational economic direction only commences, i.e., economically, to place the means at the service of the end. That can only be done with some kind of economic calculation. The human mind cannot orientate itself properly among the bewildering mass of intermediate products and potentialities of production without such aid. It would simply stand perplexed before the problems of management and location. It is an illusion to imagine that in a socialist state calculation in natura can take the place of monetary calculation. Calculation in natura, in an economy without exchange, can embrace consumption-goods only: it completely fails when it comes to deal with goods of a higher-order. And as soon as one gives up the concept of a freely established monetary price for goods of a higher-order, rational ownership of the means of production, rational production becomes impossible. Every step that takes us away from private ownership of the means of production and from the use of money also takes us away from rational economics.

Mises could not have been more mistaken. His unwarranted belief that calculation-in-kind could apply only to consumption goods and not ‘higher order’ production goods stems from a peculiar blind spot at the very heart of his ‘economic calculation’ argument. This is the taken-for-granted assumption that the allocation of these higher order goods would be undertaken by a single planning authority acting on behalf of society – what he meant by his ‘Fuhrer principle’. As we saw last month, that means establishing, in advance, production targets for each and every one of the millions of different production and consumption goods in the economy within a single giant plan.

However, what that does is to eliminate the very possibility of a feedback system and, therefore, a means of efficiently allocating resources. If, instead, you had a polycentric system of planning in place this would permit such a feedback system to come into play and thus enable you to rationally allocate resources in the light of known stock levels.

Contrary to Mises’ claim, calculation-in-kind is applicable not just to consumer goods but ‘higher order’ production goods too. Thus, if a particular consumer good, M, consists of three components, X, Y and Z, it is entirely possible to calculate how much of M we can produce, given the available supplies of X, Y and Z. If there were sufficient supplies of X and Y, but not enough of Z, to meet the demand for M (thus making Z the ‘limiting factor’ in this example) you then have two options if you want to fully satisfy the demand for M. Either you modify the ‘technical ratio’ (discussed in Part One) involved in producing M so as to reduce the quantity of Z needed or you divert supplies of Z from other end uses. This latter option would entail ‘opportunity costs’ that can be readily quantified in terms of the reduction of output for those other end uses.

In either case, the Misesian claim that socialism cannot resort to economic calculation to efficiently allocate resources is refuted. What remains to be done is to establish the social priorities to guide resource allocation (which Mises conceded was possible) and, also, when to switch resources from one end use to another depending on supply and demand – neither of which strictly relate to the question of ‘economic calculation, as such.

The first boils down to a question of society’s values. Establishing a hierarchy of production priorities (perhaps informed by concepts like Maslow’s famous ‘hierarchy of needs’ model) might, for instance, entail classifying different consumer goods according to a rough-and-ready ‘points system’ to guide resource allocation. The second, concerning when to switch resources, could make use of such indices as the rate of take up of particular lines of stock or planning tools like consumer surveys. In neither case is pinpoint accuracy required; what matters is that the general thrust of decision-making broadly moves in the direction society deems desirable and that we have the means of ascertaining what society desires by fully utilising all the available means of communication.

Mises never really grasped this way of looking at socialism because he was too fixated on the idea that it would be a system of society-wide central planning. However, as we have seen, that precludes the very possibility of feedback so crucial to the refutation of his entire theory.

Robin Cox

Rear View: Republicans or Democrats: same difference (2019)

The Rear View Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘The Democratic platform is a political omelette made of stale eggs.’

The 2020 ‘… candidates’ divisions laid bare in feisty TV debate’ (bbc.com, 27 June) resulted in much hot air. The so-called Democratic Socialist (a tautological misnomer) Bernie Sanders added his reformist 50 cents on ‘issues’ such as Medicare, student loans, and taxes. Unsurprisingly, neither he nor the other would-be mis-leaders spoke of the urgent need for a world of free access and production for use where the best education and healthcare would be available for all. And all this without taxes, which might at first glance please Donald Trump. He actually provided the best summary of the debate by tweet the same day: ‘BORING!’

‘The Republican stands for the system as it is; the Democratic Party for the system as it was; the Socialist Party for a new system, the Socialist republic.’

This remains true, although the past for some of today’s Democrats is New Deal America under President Roosevelt. Between the years 1933-36 a series of reforms were introduced as a result of the Great Depression. The Democrats of the time favoured more government intervention, which contemporary Republicans opposed. The Workers’ Socialist Party of the United States, today’s WSP (US), commented: ‘Economic developments are producing conditions that make the case for Socialism more strikingly clear than was possible in the past era of rampant individualism, and collectivistic ideas of sorts are floating around and being discussed in the most unlikely circles. But in the building up of a sound and powerful party of Socialists… a very great amount of work remains to be done’ (More about Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’, Socialist Standard, August 1934).

‘In the light of experience, why should you vote for either the Republican or Democratic parties?’

Indeed, and as true then in 1908 as today. War and poverty remain as does the boom and bust cycle of capitalism. Prior to FDR’s election in 1933, our US-based comrades wrote: ‘It should be clear to all workers that the working class, if they are to escape from the misery of capitalism, must first understand their class position, and must then build up a Socialist political party for the purpose of capturing the powers of government in order to introduce Socialism’ (Socialist Standard, October 1932).

‘This is the only solution of the economic problems of the working class. All else will leave them wage-slaves still’.

The Democrats and Republicans want the 99 percent to take yet another spin on the reformist misery-go-round. Sanders has voted with the Democrats 98 percent of the time. Let us put his qualified support for $15/hour into context:

• 1865: ‘Instead of the conservative motto, A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, Abolition of the wage system’ (Marx, Value, Price, and Profit).
• 1928: ‘Earning a wage is a prison occupation’ (Wages, DH Lawrence).
• 1965: Workers still ‘don’t realise that they can abolish the wages system’ (Socialist Standard).
• 2019: $15/hour by 2024? (Sanders’ Raise the Wage Act).

‘You workers make everything and the capitalists have everything.’

A recent study shows that the richest 0.00025 percent owns more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans (commomdreams.org, 10 February). Wealth is the product of human labour, acting upon nature-given materials, that is capable of satisfying needs. We work, they take and pass on. Some of today’s capitalists have many centuries of legalised theft behind them. The richest families in Florence got a head start and have been at it for the past 600 years.

‘If the workingmen are to be emancipated, they must emancipate themselves.’

If the quotations above seem dated yet strangely relevant, it is because they were made by a founding member of the IWW and former Democrat Eugene Debs on the US presidential campaign trail in 1908 for the (now defunct) Socialist Party of America. Notably he also said that year: ‘The capitalist system under which we live has about run its historic course, and on every hand we see unerring signs of a change. It has begun to write again its record of bankruptcy and failure, of idleness and distress, of despair and death.’ And: ‘There will be no trouble about the necessities of life when the working class takes over the machinery. They will have all the best food they need, the best homes that can be built, the best schools — no child labor, no grinding toil — and all the beautiful things will be for everyone’ (Source: LINK).

Alright up to a point (2019)

Book Review from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Many Not the Few. An Illustrated History of Britain Shaped by the People. By Sean Michael Wilson and Robert Brown. Workable Books. 2019. £9.99.

This is a primer, in the cartoon form of conversations between a retired trade unionist and his granddaughter, of working class, or rather lower class (since it starts with the Peasants’ Revolt), history, aimed at those new to trade unionism and ‘labour’ politics. Wat Tyler, the Levellers, the Diggers, Peterloo, the Chartists, the match girls’ strike, they are all there. When, however, it comes to the twentieth century and the formation of the Labour Party it becomes tendentious; which no doubt explains why it comes with a preface and recommendation from Jeremy Corbyn.

However, Corbyn might be embarrassed (or maybe not) by the anti-EU and pro-Brexit stance taken at the end. This, no doubt, is due to the ‘history adviser’ being Doug Nicholls, a frequent contributor to the Morning Star and first chair of Trade Unionists Against the European Union. There is a mysterious reference to a ‘Worker’s Liberty’ website on page 109, odd because if that’s to the trotskyoid AWL they are anti-Brexit. In any event, dragging in Brexit will date the book and, besides, has nothing to do with working class history.

Adam Buick

Cooking the Books: Use value and exchange value (2019)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

In June the media discovered an interview John McDonnell had given last September. It was immediately seized on by the campaign to depict him, Corbyn and even the Labour Party as ‘Marxist’. Interviewed by Aaron Bastani and Ash Sarkar, according to the Times (24 June), ‘the shadow chancellor discussed how Karl Marx’s work could help people to alter their priorities, and how the “use value” rather than “exchange value” of goods should dominate the way people think.’

Marx did distinguish between ‘use value’ and ‘exchange value’ and McDonnell is correct to say that ‘what we have is a society dominated by exchange value’ (novaramedia.com/2018/09/27).

However, Marx was not the first to make this distinction. The two terms were introduced by Adam Smith who wrote:

  ‘The word VALUE, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called “value in use,” the other “value in exchange”’(The Wealth of Nations¸ Book 1, chapter IV).

Marx pointed out, on the first page of Capital, that to have exchange value a product had to satisfy ‘human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants, whether, for instance, they spring from the stomach or from fancy, makes no difference.’ So, a ‘use value’ is something that at least some people consider useful. This was, wrote Marx, socially determined but ‘to discover the various uses of things is the work of history,’ ie, not of economics.

Both he and Smith were interested in what determined a product’s ‘exchangeable value’. Both concluded that it was related to the amount of labour-time required to produce it from start to finish. What gave a product of labour exchange value was that it had been produced with a view to being sold. The word both used to describe such a product was ‘commodity.’

Marx’s Capital opens: ‘The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities”.’ Capitalism was a society in which the products of labour, including the capacity to work of the producers, took the form of commodities. But Marx was not interested simply in what determined the exchange value of commodities but above all in how ‘a society dominated by exchange value’ worked.

He first noted that, where the producers’ capacity to work was also a commodity, this resulted in them producing other commodities with a greater exchange value than that of the one they had sold to their employer for a wage, the difference being ‘surplus value’, the source of profits. His conclusion was that capitalism was a society dominated by the imperative to accumulate more and more exchange value, derived from profits and embodied as use values in buildings and instruments for producing more wealth and surplus value, at the expense of producing use values to satisfy people’s needs. Exchange value was more important than use value.

McDonnell, who clearly is acquainted with Marx, is right to want to encourage people to think about this. But it is unclear what he thinks should be done. Marx saw the only way out as a society in which there was no exchange value because use values were not produced as commodities, as items for sale, but for people to take and use. McDonnell seems to want a society in which commodities are still produced but in which use value prevails over exchange value. A laudable aim but, as Marx showed and experience has confirmed, unachievable. Where there is production for sale with a view to profit, the making and accumulation of profits will always come first.

Pathfinders: Blackout in Sudan (2019)

The Pathfinders Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blackout in Sudan

Last month’s BBC Panorama shock exposé of anti-semitism in the Labour Party created quite a stir, but also left a lot of people wondering why the BBC has not chosen to do an equivalent exposé of the rampant and well-documented islamophobia in the Tory Party. Balanced unbiased news reporting, in line with the BBC’s own charter? Corbynistas will be fuming about a stitch-up, and not without reason.

The BBC is probably more balanced when reporting overseas conflicts in which the UK government has no direct interest. BBC’s Africa Eye has provided some decent coverage of the Sudan uprising, including a fascinating video report which, in another kind of stitching, put together a patchwork of over 300 phone videos of the June 3 slaughter in Khartoum, when the military junta’s special forces opened fire on peaceful protesters (‘Sudan’s Livestream Massacre’, BBC News, 12 July ).

The report made the point that, while phones can’t stop bullets, the near-ubiquity of mobile phones means that the world has eyes everywhere, and no junta can keep its massacres a secret anymore. Not that public exposure will necessarily deter a ruthless regime, however in the globalised trading era it’s bad advertising which makes a country look weak and unstable, and will deter foreign investment.

If the military rulers in Sudan expected a massacre to clear the streets and stop the protests, they were right, but not for long. Within a fortnight the protests were back, and bigger than ever. The junta responded by shutting down the internet, forcing protest organisers to rely on text SMS or land-line telephone, a fiddly and expensive business which could reach only a fraction of its target audience. But while the blackout impeded the protesters, it was catastrophic for the Sudanese economy, costing hundreds of millions in lost trade. Was this nevertheless a pyrrhic victory for the junta, the BBC wondered later that month (‘Has an internet blackout killed Sudan’s revolution?’, BBC News, 21 June ). No, as it turned out. In July the military rulers climbed down and acceded to partial civilian rule. The point to take from this is that while modern communications technology is a wonderful force for democratisation, it can always be censored or shut down, and so should not be relied upon. But none of that matters if the courage and determination of workers is strong enough, as in Sudan.

This is your capitalist brain on drugs

Drug firm Pfizer has discovered that its own arthritis treatment drug Enbrel also seems to cut the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by up to 64 percent (New Scientist, 15 June, p7). Great, you might think. Over to Pfizer to start cranking out Enbrel by the container load.

Oh but wait, says Pfizer. Actually, our patent on this is due to expire soon, so we won’t be proceeding with this.

What, you say, you mean you’re not going to make any?

Pfizer shakes its head.

But a 64 percent risk reduction – are you kidding? That blows every other Alzheimer drug out of the water!

Sorry, says Pfizer, no can do. If we don’t make the profit, we don’t make the drug.

But surely you can get your patent extended, you insist. Old drug, new use, it’s been done before.

Yeah well, says Pfizer, we don’t really believe our own data anyway.

Alright, you argue, run proper clinical trials then.

Pfizer bites its lip. Thing is, trials cost, and we’ve all lost a packet on failed clinical trials before. All previous Alzheimer’s trials have failed, which is why all the major drug firms have closed their Alzheimer’s research units. Basically it’s a huge money sink.

Well, you ask in increasing desperation, can’t you get government funding to cover this?

Pfizer smiles. Yeah, good luck with that. Voters want low taxes more than happy granddads.

Well, can’t you release the patent and let another firm make the stuff then?

Pfizer looks shocked. But that wouldn’t be fair – it’s our drug!

Alzheimer’s affects 37 million people worldwide. But capitalism says no.

Why not make a cystic fibrosis drug instead? Drug firm Vertex charges £100,000 a year for the treatment Orkambi, which the NHS won’t pay for, so kids die (New Scientist, 15 June, p9). But because Vertex doesn’t have a valid patent in Argentina, a local firm is producing the drug at the bargain rate of £23,000 pa. Vertex is furious, of course, claiming that their sale price is a fair reflection of the billions they sank into R&D. Meanwhile the parents of kids with cystic fibrosis have been forced to create a ‘buyers club’ in order to buy wholesale and get the cost down further, a move clinicians describe as ‘a desperate act’.

Patents in capitalism are intended to reward and defend intellectual effort and financial investment. But the flip side is that patents also kill people either by setting unaffordable prices or stopping production at source. In socialism you might get the kudos for an invention, but you wouldn’t get a patent.

This is your capitalist brain on dregs

Two bumper harvests in Brazil have flooded the international market with so much coffee that the price farmers can get has plummeted to below $1 a pound (BBC News, 11 July ). Since coffee is a cash crop that farmers sell instead of growing food they could actually eat, when the price hits the floor farmers will turn to other cash crops or else subsistence. Add in the number of farmers also going bust or abandoning farming, and you’re looking at a massive scaling back of future coffee production. Enjoy that cappuccino while you may, because in a few years’ time you might only be able to afford re-boiled dregs. How can a good harvest turn into a disaster? That’s capitalist ‘logic’ for you.

Paddy Shannon

The Destruction of Nature: by Anton Pannekoek (2019)

Anton Pannekoek, 1908

From the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish this translation of a recently uncovered article written by Anton Pannekoek in 1909, not only for its contemporary relevance but also to show that Marx and Engels were not the only socialists to be concerned that capitalism was upsetting the basis of humanity’s participation in the Earth’s ecosystem.

There are numerous complaints in the scientific literature about the increasing destruction of forests. But it is not only the joy that every nature-lover feels for forests that should be taken into account. There are also important material interests, indeed the vital interests of humanity. With the disappearance of abundant forests, countries known in Antiquity for their fertility, which were densely populated and famous as granaries for the great cities, have become stony deserts. Rain seldom falls there except as devastating diluvian downpours that carry away the layers of humus which the rain should fertilise. Where the mountain forests have been destroyed, torrents fed by summer rains cause enormous masses of stones and sand to roll down, which clog up Alpine valleys, clearing away forests and devastating villages whose inhabitants are innocent, ‘due to the fact that personal interest and ignorance have destroyed the forest and headwaters in the high valley’.

The authors strongly insist on personal interest and ignorance in their eloquent description of this miserable situation but they do not look into its causes. They probably think that emphasising the consequences is enough to replace ignorance by a better understanding and to undo the effects. They do not see that this is only a part of the phenomenon, one of numerous similar effects that capitalism, this mode of production which is the highest stage of profit-hunting, has on nature.

Why is France a country poor in forests which has to import every year hundreds of millions of francs worth of wood from abroad and spend much more to repair through reforestation the disastrous consequences of the deforestation of the Alps? Under the Ancien Regime there were many state forests. But the bourgeoisie, who took the helm of the French Revolution, saw in these only an instrument for private enrichment. Speculators cleared 3 million hectares to change wood into gold. They did not think of the future, only of the immediate profit.

For capitalism all natural resources are nothing but gold. The more quickly it exploits them, the more the flow of gold accelerates. The private economy results in each individual trying to make the most profit possible without even thinking for a single moment of the general interest, that of humanity. As a result, every wild animal having a monetary value and every wild plant giving rise to profit is immediately the object of a race to extermination. The elephants of Africa have almost disappeared, victims of systematic hunting for their ivory. It is similar for rubber trees, which are the victim of a predatory economy in which everyone only destroys them without planting new ones. In Siberia, it has been noted that furred animals are becoming rarer due to intensive hunting and that the most valuable species could soon disappear. In Canada, vast virgin forests have been reduced to cinders, not only by settlers who want to cultivate the soil, but also by “prospectors” looking for mineral deposits who transform mountain slopes into bare rock so as to have a better overview of the ground. In New Guinea, a massacre of birds of paradise was organised to satisfy the expensive whim of an American woman billionaire. Fashion craziness, typical of a capitalism wasting surplus value, has already led to the extermination of rare species; sea birds on the east coast of America only owe their survival to the strict intervention of the state. Such examples could be multiplied at will.

But are not plants and animals there to be used by humans for their own purposes? Here, we completely leave aside the question of the preservation of nature as it would be without human intervention. We know that humans are the masters of the Earth and that they completely transform nature to meet their needs. To live, we are completely dependent on the forces of nature and on natural resources; we have to use and consume them. That is not the question here, only the way capitalism makes use of them.

A rational social order will have to use the available natural resources in such a way that what is consumed is replaced at the same time, so that society does not impoverish itself and can become wealthier. A closed economy which consumes part of its seed corn impoverishes itself more and more and must inevitably fail. But that is the way capitalism acts. This is an economy which does not think of the future but lives only in the immediate present. In today’s economic order, nature does not serve humanity, but capital. It is not the clothing, food or cultural needs of humanity that govern production, but capital’s appetite for profit, for gold.

Natural resources are exploited as if reserves were infinite and inexhaustible. The harmful consequences of deforestation for agriculture and the destruction of useful animals and plants expose the finite character of available reserves and the failure of this type of economy. Roosevelt recognises this failure when he wants to call an international conference to review the state of still available natural resources and to take measures to stop them being wasted.

Of course the plan itself is humbug. The state could do much to stop the pitiless extermination of rare species. But the capitalist state is in the end a poor representative of the good of humanity. It must halt in face of the essential interests of capital.

Capitalism is a headless economy which cannot regulate its acts by an understanding of their consequences. But its devastating character does not derive from this fact alone. Over the centuries humans have also exploited nature in a foolish way, without thinking of the future of humanity as a whole. But their power was limited. Nature was so vast and so powerful that with their feeble technical means humans could only exceptionally damage it. Capitalism, by contrast, has replaced local needs with world needs, and created modern techniques for exploiting nature. So it is now a question of enormous masses of matter being subjected to colossal means of destruction and removed by powerful means of transportation. Society under capitalism can be compared to a gigantic unintelligent body; while capitalism develops its power without limit, it is at the same time senselessly devastating more and more the environment from which it lives. Only socialism, which can give this body consciousness and reasoned action, will at the same time replace the devastation of nature by a rational economy.

Zeitungskorrespondenz N° 75, 10 July 1909,

Original German, and a French translation, can be found here:

http://pantopolis.over-blog.com/2019/07/anton-pannekoek-la-destruction-de-la-nature-1909.html

Material World: Nobody should own the Earth (2019)

The Material World Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our Euroelection leaflet came to the attention of Lesley Docksey who referred to it in an article on ‘Why Do We Think We Own the World?’:

  ‘Most political parties (barring the alt-right) will claim some desire to help protect the environment, by which they mean ‘manage’. Take this example from a Socialist Party’s leaflet, with the headline ‘There is only one world’: “… the world’s natural and industrial resources must become the common heritage of all humanity so that they can be used to directly meet the needs of the world’s population…” How did ancient man arrive at this attitude, this arrogance that became the rule so precisely displayed in Genesis?’ (London Progressive Journal, 8 June ).

Is the Socialist Party as guilty as accused in that we share the same beliefs as Old Testament fundamentalists that God gave the Earth to humans to dominate?

If Docksey looked deeper into our case she would have found that we advocate common ownership, which can be defined as a situation in which no person or group has the right to exclusively control productive resources. The word ‘ownership’ can be misleading in that when we transfer to all members of the society the power to control the production of wealth, where no one is excluded from the opportunity of controlling and benefiting from the access and use of the means of production, then the very concept of property is redundant, the sense of exclusive possession has become meaningless.

This is exactly what she seeks when she later says in her article ‘…Is it too late to ditch our rigid world view, our superiority, our belief in our ‘right’ to own and control our world?’ She then asserts ‘…There is only one thing that makes humanity truly exceptional; our desire to own and control everything, partnered by our horrible ability to destroy what we try to control…’

We don’t share her pessimism. The species homo sapiens, unlike other animals, possesses the ability to change its needs, technologies and social relations. Culture allows humans to adapt to a new or changing environment much, much more rapidly than any evolutionary biological adaptation through natural selection ever could. The behavior of other animals cannot develop in the same way that humans can. This cultural change is one of the distinguishing features of our humankind.

However, there is another aspect to her article when she declares that ‘… For far too long, humanity has regarded itself as ‘outside’ Nature…’  She certainly never learned that belief from socialists. Here are the views of a couple of nineteenth-century socialists.

Marx pointed out that capitalist farming is unsustainable because it inevitably starves the soil of nutrients. It is nothing less than ‘an art, not only of robbing the labourer, but of robbing the soil’ (Capital, Vol 1, chapter 15). And he wrote bitterly that: ‘In London they can find no better use for the excretion of four and a half million human beings than to contaminate the Thames with it at heavy expense’ (Capital, Vol 3, chapter 5).

Engels issued this ecological warning: ‘Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel out the first.’

He added: ‘At every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside of nature.’ And went on to explain, ‘…but that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws’ (Dialectics of Nature, chapter 9).

Yes, humans can manage – be stewards of – our environment’s ecosystem just as well as some of our antecedents did. We have the knowledge to do that. It is the profit system, not some trait of human nature, that prevents us doing this.

Marx recognised too that humans are part of nature: ‘Man lives from nature, ie, nature is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.’ He said that socialism would bring ‘the unity of being of man with nature’ (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844).

So, no, socialists do not see communal property as conferring any right to rape the land and ravage natural resources. Here’s Marx again:

  ‘…Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, [good heads of the household] they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition’ (Capital, Vol.3, chapter 46).

ALJO

Eye Witnesses (2019)

Book Review from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Peterloo: Witnesses to a Massacre, Polyp, Eva Schlunke and Robert Poole:  New Internationalist £11.99.

On 16 August 1819, around 60,000 workers gathered in St Peter’s Fields in Manchester to demand an extension of the franchise. They came, men, women and children, from all over Manchester and surrounding areas. Many joined up in contingents of local people who then marched together several miles to the centre of the city. Part of a much wider reform movement, they had come to hear ‘Orator’ Henry Hunt give a speech, but primarily to support a wider franchise and to have an enjoyable day out with their friends and neighbours.

The ruling class, who resisted any reforms, had of course made preparations for the meeting. The local yeomanry, a private militia of the wealthy, were there, also the 15th Hussars. Under instructions from the magistrates, the police attempted to arrest Hunt, but when they were unsuccessful, the mounted yeomanry were sent to help. Not properly trained, in many cases drunk, and with freshly-sharpened sabres, they rode into the crowd, attacking people at will. The Hussars then arrived, in some cases restraining the yeomanry but in others adding to the confusion and crushing. At least fifteen people were killed, perhaps eighteen, and over seven hundred injured. The authorities arrested many of the organisers, including Hunt, who was sentenced to sixteen months in prison.

This book, with illustrations by Polyp, was edited by Schlunke on the basis of evidence and information assembled by Poole. There are some narrative captions by the authors, but the majority of the text is taken verbatim from reports by direct witnesses, whether reformers, journalists or establishment figures. This lends the story a vividness that is added to by the graphics; not everyone likes graphic novels or histories, but here the format does provide an impression of a continuing series of events that brings home to the reader the violence and desperation of the day. A major of the Hussars is quoted as saying, ‘I was very much amused to see the way in which the volunteer cavalry knocked the people about’, while a reporter stated, ‘There were individuals in the yeomanry whose political rancour approached absolute insanity.’ Shortly before he died as a result of being beaten, one ex-soldier said, ‘At Waterloo there was man to man, but at Manchester it was downright murder.’

The authorities reacted not just by prison sentences but also by terming the events a ‘riot’ and blaming the crowd for what happened, as they had supposedly attacked the yeomanry. Yet journalists such as John Tyas of The Times, who was no supporter of reform, agreed that no stones or whatever were thrown at the yeomanry, so there was no justification or provocation for their violence. The Six Acts passed later in 1819 were intended to clamp down on further mass protest. The propaganda war continues today, such as in arguments that not enough people were killed for it to really constitute a massacre. An appalling article by Dominic Sandbrook (Mail Online 24 August 2018) played down Peterloo’s significance and claimed that, compared to the violence of the French Revolution, it ‘was not even a sideshow’. Moreover, it was ‘almost certainly an accident’. But, while it is arguable to what extent there was an advance government plan to attack the demonstrators, the events of 16 August have to be seen in the context of both previous and subsequent state repression aimed at keeping workers in their place.

The bicentenary of Peterloo is being marked by a number of events and exhibitions in Manchester (see peterloo1819.co.uk). This book provides an excellent account of what happened and why it remains important.

Paul Bennett

Same Difference? (2019)

The Wood for the Trees Column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

One of the less used items from within the dialectical toolbox is the sameness/difference duality. Its paradoxical nature is highlighted in the much used retort: ‘but that’s like comparing apples with oranges’; a phrase often used to emphasize the inappropriateness of a particular analogy. This kind of critique always insists on difference rather than similarity, a familiar feature of contemporary ideology, but sometimes what is important about apples and oranges is that they are both fruits.

During a discussion about narrative structures within literature and films I found myself more interested in the idea of the ‘meta-structure’ of the quest storyline. From The Epic of Gilgamesh and The Odyssey through The Morte D’Arthur to The Big Lebowski , Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter stories we see many similarities. Indeed the rise of ‘genre’ entertainment has led to an expectation of formulaic similarities within the modern audience. An objection to this approach to understanding narratives is that it can overwhelm the subtle aesthetic differences that make the telling of the tale meaningful to a contemporary audience. So a balance is needed to produce an insightful and relevant critique of any art form; or, for that matter, of just about any experience.

Consumer capitalism attempts to surround us with novelty; it continually proclaims to have reinvented the wheel. On the supermarket shelves we see what appears to be an endless variety when in fact beneath the bright packaging we find much the same ingredients. The ability to see hidden realities beneath superficial facades has always been celebrated as one of the highest human intellectual achievements – with the scientific adventure being the supreme example. 

A great danger of being surrounded by hyperbole is that the truly new and important can be overlooked. This is where a dialectical approach can be a powerful help. Political ideologies come and go with great rapidity: ‘monetarism’, ‘neo-liberalism’, ‘the third way’, ‘Leninism’, ‘Trotskyism’, ‘populism’ etc, all proclaim to be something new and different but for a socialist they are just a tired repackaging of capitalism.

Hence we emphasize the sameness of such ideologies and not whatever subtle differences may or may not exist. Our perspective is purely pragmatic – will these ‘new’ ideologies substantially change the lives of working people? Upon consideration, using the methods explained above, we have reached the conclusion that such minor variations of the capitalist system cannot and will not change the lives of the majority for the better – and, thus far, we have been proven correct in our conclusions.

It might be surprising to some that, given the bitter and destructive nature of the class struggle, we do not emphasize any substantial difference between the vast majority and the tiny parasitic minority in terms of their humanity. The Left love to demonize the individual capitalist as evil and greedy – which he or she might be – but what is important here is to emphasize that they are trapped in their role just as the working class are trapped into making the lives of the rich possible. Obviously the economic concerns of the rich are very different from those of us who have to sell our labour power to them in order to exist but as human beings they also share many of our anxieties albeit in a different form. Life and death, physical and psychological well-being and human relationships dominate their lives as much as they do ours.

Given the social nature of our species the rich can suffer loneliness (the continual doubt about the possible monetary motivation of friends and loved ones) and the alienation born of privileged social exclusion and the continual quest for more wealth and power that provides status within their peer group. With this in mind we focus our critique on capitalism and not on individual capitalists. We stress the difference in economic and political terms and emphasize sameness in relation to our shared humanity and its deepest needs – a dialectical insight and balance is achieved.

The decision whether or not to emphasize one or other of these elements present in all political ideas is wholly dependent on historical development; for instance given the dominant mode of production in Russia in 1917 (agrarian and feudal) the sameness of the political and economic interests of the minority bourgeoisie (immanent) and the working class (future) at that moment in history made it imperative that both these minority classes worked together to overthrow the autocracy of the Czarist regime.

Had the Mensheviks the wisdom to reject participation in the then raging First World War the Bolshevik coup d’état would most likely never have happened and Russia would probably have progressed to a more traditional form of capitalism. The Bolshevik insistence that their regime was a form of socialism, and the acceptance of this by many intellectuals, is testament to the dangers inherent in wrongly emphasizing the difference of the social origins of a new elite and their confused statist economic experiment rather than insisting on the sameness of authoritarian structures inherent in all forms of capitalism from the perspective of the overwhelming majority.

Wez

Strictly Marxist (2019)

Book Review from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

William Morris’s Utopianism: Propaganda, Politics and Prefiguration. By Owen Holland. Palgrave Macmillan. 300 pages. 2017.

This is an important book that shows that Morris was not a ‘utopian’ in the sense of wanting to set up small-scale intentional communities run on cooperative or communistic lines. This is what Marx and Engels had called in 1848 in the Communist Manifesto ‘duodecimo editions of the New Jerusalem’, as advocated – and to a certain extent practised – by Charles Fourier, Etienne Cabet, Robert Owen and their followers. Morris was a utopian only in the sense of being the author of a utopian novel about a future communist (or socialist, the same thing) society and how it came about. Even in News from Nowhere, there is a criticism of ‘utopian socialism’ as when Old Hammond says of Fourier’s ‘phalansteries’ that they were a ‘refuge from destitution and little more.’

In his purely political writings Morris was even more critical, accusing those who set them up of opting out of the struggle to establish socialism on a society-wide basis. Holland quotes from a book review Morris wrote in Justice (10 July 1886), the journal of the Social Democratic Federation, that ‘although these communities were experiments in association, from one point of view they were anti-Socialistic, as they withdrew themselves from general society—from political society—and let it take care of itself.’ Holland goes to quote from a lecture Morris gave in 1894 entitled Why I am a Communist in which he said that ‘such experiments are of their nature non-progressive; at their best they are but another form of the Mediæval monastery, withdrawals from the Society of the day, really implying hopelessness of a general change.’

What Morris favoured was socialists staying in capitalist society and propagating the need for revolutionary action to change the basis of society to the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life, the same criticism that Marx and Engels had made of those they encountered in the 1840s who argued for setting up intentional communistic communities.

In the book as a whole, Holland places Morris’s ideas in the context of late Victorian society, as in his examination of Morris’s views on the ‘women’s rights’ movement of the time and the peoples of the ‘backward countries.’

As a socialist Morris was of course opposed to all oppression of women, but he seems to have thought that women were better, if not naturally, suited to doing certain kinds of work (such as serving food, as in News from Nowhere) and unsuited for others (such as working down coal mines or at night). Not that the feminists of the time (now known as First Wave Feminism) campaigned for the ‘right’ of women to work at night or down the mines. They were more concerned about their property not passing to their husband if they got married. Many, Holland notes, saw the way forward for women in terms of individual personal development rather than a change in the basis of society.

Adam Buick

Cooking the Books: Monopoly money (2019)

The Cooking the Books column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

In June Mark Zuckerberg announced that in 2020 Facebook would launch its own ‘digital currency’. Since Facebook is the F in the GAFA group of US technology corporations that are widely criticised for harvesting private information for profit and/or not paying enough tax (the others are Google, Apple and Amazon), suspicions, not to say conspiracy theories, immediately arose that there must be some ulterior motive, one beyond making more money that is. Even Ed Conway, Sky News Economics Editor, had an article in the Times (21 June) headlined ‘Facebook currency will help it rule the world. Mark Zuckerberg’s new move is designed to make his company more powerful than any country’.

Is there anything in this? Or is it just sensationalism or the usual left-wing practice of selecting particular capitalist corporations or groups of capitalists to blame for things rather than the capitalist system as such or even the far-right delusion that the Jews are out to rule the world?

What is being proposed is an international payments system based on blockchain technology. This is a technology that allows any transaction to be both uniquely digitalised and unable to be tampered with. It was the basis of the Bitcoin scheme devised by the so-called crypto-anarchists. But the Libra, as the Facebook money is to be called (the same as the l in the old l.s.d.), will be different from Bitcoin in several key respects.

First, it will not be that decentralised but run by a central board on which other corporations, such as Paypal, Visa and Mastercard, participating in it will be represented alongside Facebook.

Second, it will be linked to a bundle of state currencies (dollar, euro, yen, sterling, etc) so that, unlike Bitcoin, its value can be stabilised so it can be used as a means of payment.

Third, it won’t be secret. Secrecy is not built-in to blockchain technology but was something added by the crypto-anarchists for Bitcoin to avoid states knowing who the payers and payees were.

Fourth, it will be profit-making. The corporations participating in it are aiming to make a profit out of the fees charged to users.

Those using the service – in theory all of the 2.3 billion Facebook users – will be able to open an account in Libra by converting their state currency into it and using this to pay for goods and services in any part of the world (except China where Facebook is banned). It is rather surprising that the banks themselves have not come forward with such a system. They may well be forced to now. Even the state central banks might have to,

That this is a bid by Zuckerberg to become the ruler of the world is complete nonsense of course. For that, he would have to control armed force, which he doesn’t. And his scheme will be subject to the control of states. They are bound to introduce regulations to stop Facebook money being used for currency speculation, money laundering and other dodgy dealings, just as they have done with Paypal and the others and would love to do with Bitcoin.

Ellen Brown, the US anti-banker theorist, has suggested (‘Facebook May Pose A Greater Danger Than Wall Street,’ Truthdig, 25 June) that what should happen is that the international payments system be run as a public service by ‘democratised’ central banks. That’s to miss the problem. It, too, would be a colossal waste of information technology that could be more usefully employed, in a needs-oriented world, in organising the logistics of ensuring that everyone on Earth had access to what they needed when they needed it – without payment.

Proper Gander: Mistaken Identity (2019)

The Proper Gander column from the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Tucked away on BBC3 is a worthy, if a little rushed, drama which aims to explore and explain how people can come to adopt far-right views. The Left Behind follows Gethin, a young man living with his sister, along with her husband and child, in a run-down Welsh community. The family is threatened with eviction from their rented home, and approaches the council for help with finding other accommodation. A new housing development is being planned, but the family realises that a place there won’t be within their financial reach. When they become homeless, the council doesn’t place Gethin with the others in temporary accommodation, as he’s not classed as a ‘priority’. So he ends up sleeping rough, alongside his father who fell into homelessness after losing his job. Gethin works whatever shifts he’s given in a fast food joint, which isn’t enough for him to have either enough money or enough fulfilment in his job. His gang of friends live similarly precarious lives, with little prospect of anything changing for the better. They blame their situation on immigrants and Muslims, who they believe have taken ‘their’ jobs and houses. The gang’s growing nationalist, far-right views push them to extremes against a local family who run a halal butcher shop.

The Left Behind’s writer, Alan Harris, based the script on research by sociology professor Hilary Pilkington, who has studied what motivates people to espouse far-right beliefs. At only an hour long, the drama doesn’t have time to go deeply enough into the reasons, but it tells a sadly plausible story. It’s set in a community where most people have to struggle on a low income with the threat of homelessness, and research suggests that these circumstances can breed support for far-right views. The play’s director Joseph Bullman says that a feeling of ‘hopelessness’ drives people to the far right. ‘Most of those people, when you read the studies, live ultra-insecure lives in ultra-low wage jobs and they can’t have a narrative for their lives. They feel humiliated, excluded and left behind’ he said at the film’s premiere (www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-48723274). Someone who feels hopeless is likely to believe that they have no power or influence, especially over their own lives. A misguided way of compensating for this is by trying to get power over other people, shown in the drama through the gang trashing and then burning down the halal butcher shop. The gang, and their real-life equivalents, scapegoat Muslims for their own and society’s problems. Prejudice against Muslims is a common route for people who adopt far-right views, as found by Professor Pilkington’s research. It’s easier to blame another group (especially if they look a bit different) than to understand the economics behind issues like low-paid work or the housing shortage.

It’s a complete myth that Muslims are prioritised for social housing or jobs. Those who hold this misguided belief don’t seem to bother asking themselves why religion would be used as a criterion for shortlisting, whether for a home or a job. Councils and companies just don’t work like that. Right wing falsehoods get stirred up by social media, usually as mis-spelt rants on message threads. People of similar views reflect and reinforce each others’ beliefs, an ‘echo chamber’ based on ignorance.

Islam, and other religions, should be criticised for their tenets and practices, but challenging this ideology in a legitimate way requires evidence and rational arguments, best delivered calmly. The far-right takes a stereotypical, alarmist view of Islam, a false starting point which isn’t likely to lead to a reasonable debate. Threats, abuse and violence are used because their arguments are so weak.

Nationalism goes with far-right views. In the drama, the gang talks of ‘standing up for Britain’, which rests on the wrong assumption that Britain is theirs to defend. It’s a case of mistaken identity. The far right, whether as a group of alienated young people or political organisations, see divisions between people in nationality, culture and ethnicity. The real division in society is between the minority who own and run things and the vast majority, of whatever nation, culture or ethnicity, who have to cope as best they can with their circumstances. Unfortunately, the play only hints at the reasons behind the bigger picture.

Where the research behind the script comes through clearest are the scenes with Gethin arguing and pleading with the council housing officer. Their replies of ‘we have a limited number of properties and we have to prioritise people’ and ‘there’s only so much we can do’ must have been said thousands of times in real-life council offices. The other characters representing some sort of authority tend to hide behind bland, hollow turns of phrase when challenged about the system. For example, the councillor at a public meeting about the out-of-reach housing development uses ‘I understand your frustrations’ and ‘I will be working my hardest to take that forward’. Even the manager of the fast food caff pretends his zero-hours-contract staff are ‘associates’ who ‘facilitate our customers’ needs’.

The scenario shown in The Left Behind shouldn’t make us jump to the conclusion that living in poverty automatically leads to being a right-wing numbskull. And while the drama may describe how some people sink to the far right, it’s certainly not the only route. Abhorrent racist and nationalist views are obviously also found among the rich and the reasonably well-off, with different causes. What anyone in the far right has in common is not seeing the real reasons behind society’s problems, and using this to encourage harmful divisions between people.

Mike Foster

The Police: Bourgeoisie’s Boot boys? (2019)

From the August 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

During the 1984/85 miners’ strike it was the police who were the state’s storm-troopers in its assaults upon strikers. The brutal treatment they dished out to the pickets to intimidate them and their families caused an outcry. It drew attention to the extent that the capitalist class would use the powers of the state to protect its own interests. The criminal law was enthusiastically applied against the miners even though their picketing was not an offence.

Those who have been on a protest march and been on the receiving end of a truncheon will share the same perspective as the persecuted miners, that the police are the hired thugs of our class enemy. The police are a class creation. We should know that the police were created by the ruling class to control the working class, not help them. They’ve continued to play that role ever since. We don’t want better policing. We understand only too well that they do not work for us and they never have. We want to get rid of the police in their current form entirely, and we want to live in a world where a repressive force is not necessary.

Among many communities there exists a lack of confidence in the police and little trust in their accountability. The police have come to be regarded by many on the Left as impermeable to socialist ideas, yet the fact remains, however, that the police are made up of members of the working class who, too, are required to sell their ability to work in whichever way they can. Like any other wage slave, the police have to do what their employers – the state – order them to do. The Socialist Party does not seek to pick on the monkey but targets the organ-grinder. The Left see the police as the enemy, but why single out one section of the working class as the source of our problems? The Left advances the idea that any attempt to establish socialism democratically and peacefully through the constitution will result in the police being used, along with the armed forces, to suppress that movement.

This argument assumes that police have economic and political positions apart from the rest of society and hold pro-fascist sympathies. However, members of the police force usually live in the community and seek its approval and respect and will often turn a blind eye to the law if it is in conflict with what the community thinks is right. For sure, many in the police hold obnoxious political opinions, but consider just how often these reflect the prejudices of other workers. The personal views of the police will not change until the way most people think changes and the indoctrination that many of our fellow-workers have suffered is undone. Our case is that those in the police share much the same attitudes as other workers and when these workers understand and desire the socialist alternative the same ideas will be accepted as much by the police. The police are as susceptible to socialist ideas as any section of our class.

Police strikes

That police are subject to the ideas prevailing in other sections of the working has been illustrated recently in other countries such as Bolivia (2012), Brazil (2008/2013), Argentina (2013), Portugal (2013), Iceland (2015) and Ireland (2016) where police have been protesting against their conditions or going on strike.

We have seen similar occasions even here in the UK. In 2008 and 2012 industrial action of sorts took place when police held protest marches. In 2007 police officers in Britain were banned from taking strike action or even discussing it. However, this year the rank and file voted overwhelmingly to explore the option of lobbying for full industrial rights if their claims were not met. ‘The feedback from our members is that we are rapidly approaching the situation where they want to bite back,’ a spokesperson said. ‘If we are to be treated no differently from other public sector workers, we need to explore whether we should have the same rights as other public sector workers.’

A hundred years ago, in 1919, police shared the heightened discontent of other workers.

In the US, Boston police officers went on strike on 9 September. They sought recognition for their trade union and improvements in wages and working conditions. The strikers were called ‘deserters’ and ‘agents of Lenin.’ All of Boston’s newspapers called it ‘Bolshevistic.’ The police strike ended on 13 September, when Commissioner Curtis announced the replacement of all striking workers with 1,500 new officers, who were given higher wages. The strike proved a setback for labour unions. No police officers in the US went out on strike until July 1974, when some Baltimore police, estimated at 15 to 50 percent of the force, refused to report for work for several days as a demonstration of support for other striking municipal unions.

As mentioned in May’s Socialist Standard, Winnipeg’s City police were supportive of the general strike there and were all dismissed for expressing support and for not signing a loyalty pledge not to take part in the strike.

In Belfast in 1907, the local police had mutinied against their instructions to safely escort blackleg strike-breakers during the dock-workers dispute which then led to their own pay rise demands. But as always there was a high price to be paid for that militancy. When the police union was outlawed by the Police Act of 1919 a national strike was called despite the fact that less than half the police were members. In Liverpool 932 out of 1256 struck. Riots took place where looters fought with soldiers and special constables, while a battleship and two destroyers steamed from Scapa Flow to Merseyside. The strike collapsed and every single striker was dismissed, never to be reinstated. Besides unemployment it meant eviction from a home and loss of pension.

A second police strike started on 31 July, 1919. It was a disaster. Only about 1,000 men struck in London, all of whom were instantly dismissed, and although a bitter struggle continued for some time – for example, strikers broke into the Islington section house to force the inmates to join them, eventually being forcibly ejected – the strike was absolutely crushed, and along with it the Police Union.

There were numerous arrests during the strike, and there were even a couple of sympathetic stoppages – of railwaymen at Nine Elms, and the tube motor men. One other interesting feature of the dispute was when Inspector Dessent of Stoke Newington Station, the only Inspector to strike, formed his men up in a body and marched them to the main strike meeting at Tower Hill.

The sacked men never got their jobs back, but many of them became active in the labour movement. After the defeat, the Herald League’s paper, Rebel, noted a large influx of new members from the Police Union. Tommy Thiel, on whose behalf the first strike had been fought, joined the Communist Party, as did a number of others. A local striker, Henry Goodridge, joined the Labour Party and eventually became Mayor of Hackney. Another Islington man, Sergeant William Sansum, who had been arrested and bound over during the 1919 strike, was arrested again for his support of the General Strike in 1926. Sansum, by this time a boot salesman, got three months in prison.

There had been considerable support for the 1919 strike from the labour movement, but many supporters, looking back on police harassment, or police inaction while they got bashed by jingoes, felt a bit awkward – to put it mildly – with their new allies.

Anti-social behaviour in socialism

If, in a socialist world we do have an organised body akin to the police, then this must be a service working in the interests of the people and be there to protect the people and society against a handful of dangerous individuals, not be there to protect a few individuals against society like the police force which we have under capitalism today.

We don’t take the totally utopian view that there will be no anti-social acts whatsoever and everybody in socialism will be angels. Crimes of passion could still take place. There will still be traffic ‘police’ ensuring safety on the road but it may be undertaken by car break-down rescue or highway maintenance patrols. There may well still be a formal trained organisation for crowd management at public events but they would be more like the stewards we have now. Psychiatric services have certain compulsory powers to prevent self-harm and harm to others for those with mental health problems – those involved can see how their work can be adapted and applied when cost is no longer an issue. Likewise those currently in the prison industry may raise alternative possibilities for those classed as a risk to society but with no treatable psychological disorder. Maybe some council departments will exercise ‘policing’ roles on antisocial behavior, just as they do now by mediating between feuding neighbours or sound abatement complaint squads in regards to noisy partying. Some form of detective/forensic department might well still remain to investigate what antisocial acts occur, but they would be more like accident investigators, sleuths in tracking down the culprit or cause, specialist Sherlocks. Either way, the coercive role of the police would be redundant, and the riot shields and batons would disappear into museums to stand alongside the swords and suits of armour.

ALJO

For a contemporary account of 1919 police strikes, see the June 1919 Socialist Standard: