Surprising indeed! (1910)

From the October 1910 issue of the Socialist Standard

OFFICIAL CONFESSION THAT THE LABOUR EXCHANGE IS A BLACK-LEGGING INSTITUTION.

The following from the Daily News of Sept. 10 so completely substantiates the worst we have said of the Labour Exchanges that we are constrained to publish the whole item.

 

“SURPRISING LETTER.”

 

“Bradford Labour Exchange and trade disputes. 

(From Our Own Correspondent)

Bradford, Thursday Night

“At to-day’s meeting of the Bradford Trades Council the following letter, issued to employers in Bradford and marked ‘Private and confidential,’ was read :

“‘Dear Sir,— Since the Labour Exchange opened on Feb. 1st, 1910, there have been two disputes in the woolcombing industry. During the progress of both unfortunate occurrences some employers applied to the Labour Exchange for men, and in both instances we were prepared to help them all we could in accordance with the regulations of the Labour Exchanges Act. May I appeal to you that, as matters have now resumed their normal course, that I may be favoured with your orders for men, women, boys and girls ?

“It seems to me there will be work-people whom it will be beneficial for you to get from us, and seeing that we are prepared to help your trade during troublesome times, I believe some reciprocation of our efforts may be shown by you giving instructions to your foremen to apply to us for labour now that trade has resumed the normal course. I may state that we have all kinds of textile workers registered here, and many other classes of workers. If you care to avail yourself of this genuine offer to help you, I should be glad to place the entire services of the Labour Exchanges at your disposal.—Secretary.’

“The letter was not discussed.”

————————————–

It seems the good I.L.P’ers and trade unionists of Bradford were too dumbfounded to even talk about it. These much-lauded institutions that (through the enumeration and classification of the unemployed) were laying the foundations of the Socialist Commonwealth, according to the very practical statesmen of the I.L.P., turn out to be what we have always said they were. “One of the measures that may engage the attention of Parliament is that concerning Labour Bureaux—which again is typical of the true Liberal policy of serving the masters. Labour exchanges, when controlled by the Government, directly or indirectly, become recruiting offices for blacklegs.” So ran the warning to the working class in our issue of March, 1909. No gift of prophesy was required to perceive what would be the upshot of this “palliative.” Merely a little of the much despised “Socialist theorising” based upon the facts of capitalist society—that was all.

What then, were the facts bearing upon the creation of and administration of Labour Ex­changes ? Are they not that working folks in order to live are compelled to sell themselves piecemeal ; and may only do this when non-workers—capitalists—can make a profit on the deal ? That further, the workers seek the highest possible wages and their employers the highest possible profits, and as a consequence, share a relation of now subdued, now open hostility ? That through the Liberal and Tory parties, and their general control of Government, the employers effectively control these agencies for the sale and purchase of labour-power ?

Our bit of theorising, the correctness of which is amply proved by the above cited news item (without detailing the cases we have previously published), simply consists, then, of the “one and one make two” calculation that, with the purchasers of labour-power in control, the Exchanges must inevitably be used in the interest of these and against the interest of the sellers—the wage-workers. The whole thing is simple enough, and one must be blinded indeed by the love of popularity or by capitalist claptrap, if one does not see through it. Here are a staff of managers and clerks anxious to keep their jobs and consequently forced to do the bidding of and seek to ingratiate themselves with the powerful ones of the earth—with those who have the dispensing or withholding of jobs and favours. What wonder, then, that they do all that they can to assist the employer when he is abandoned by his workpeople ? What wonder then that they hunt up blacklegs and strike-smashers and act as procurers for the masters ? 

The employers make their little calculation too. Say they to themselves, “If hands register at the Labour Exchanges it is because they have a difficulty in getting employment. These people are in a bad way and only too glad of a job below the rate of wages prevalent. We’ll pay these people accordingly.” And they do, too ! as many poor, struggling working men and women have found to their cost.

True, as Mr. D. J. Shackleton pointed out at the Trades Union Congress, you can’t expect the Exchanges to be run to deal with 11 million workers as though they were seeking the best possible conditions for 2 million trade unionists. Well, hardly ! no more than you can expect the average labour (mis)leader to explain honestly the workman’s position when he is virtually pleading for strike-breaking agencies founded by and administered for the exploiting class—when he is defending his place and pelf.

For remember that Mr. Shackleton, like the rest of the Labour M.P.s, “Socialist” or otherwise, owes his seat in Parliament to the Liberal support he gets—and earns and pays for by-leading the workers to slaughter.

Fellow workers, how much more of this devilish game are you going to stand ?

J. H.

Notes by the Way: Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution (1936)

The Notes by the Way Column from the July 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

Another Communist Travesty of Socialism A Flaw in the Russian Constitution

The Daily Worker of June 16th published in full the new Constitution of Soviet Russia. It is a lengthy document containing much that will interest those who wish to follow developments in that country. Two small paragraphs, however, will tell Socialists almost as much as the rest of the Constitution. They are articles 12 and 118. The first contains the statement: —

In the U.S.S.R. the principle of Socialism is being realised: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.”

The second says that “Citizens of the U.S.S.R. have the right to work—the right to receive guaranteed work with payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.” 

Those who know nothing of Socialist principles and who (like the Daily Worker) can see nothing strange in describing the Labour Party as "socialist,” will find these principles in no way remarkable; payment in accordance with the quantity and quality of work is, after all, the declared principle of every capitalist undertaking. Socialists, however, can only be amazed at the impudence of the Communists in trying to pass off as a principle of Socialism "to each according to the quantity and quality of his work.”

We have heard of another, quite different, principle: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

Perhaps the Daily Worker will tell us why they have produced this corrupted version and on what ground they describe it as socialist.

Pigs “Better Housed and Fed” than Proletarians

Sir Benjamin Dawson, Bt., Chairman of the Bradford Central Division Conservative Association, recently alarmed his political associates by making a speech on the condition of the workers in Bradford. It happened thus: he read an advertisement asking for “coals for the poor and aged,” and he was surprised that such things could be necessary in view of the progress we are supposed to have made in the past forty years. So he made a tour of inspection.

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.’’—(From a pamphlet reproducing the speech.)

Sir Benjamin, as a mark of his sincerity, rushed off to the Conservative Association, told them what he had seen and what he felt, and offered to resign his chairmanship.

He went on to make some other pertinent remarks about the fact that poverty exists in the midst of plenty, and that those who have money can get what they want and where they want it— on top of Mount Snowdon if they so desire.

Nevertheless. Sir B. Dawson makes a common error in saying that "the cause of these terrible conditions is poverty, and poverty arises from unemployment.''

For years the S.P.G.B. has combated the false doctrine that only the unemployed are poor. Poverty exists for the employed worker as well. Consequently, Sir B. Dawson's remedy—shorter hours, so that the unemployed can be absorbed into employment—is no remedy at all, even if it achieved its first purpose of removing unemployment. Even if all the workers were got back to work, they would still be poor. Moreover, capitalism would continue to create more unemployment by introducing still more labour-displacing machinery.

A Hero of the Home Front

Mr. J. H. Thomas, war-supporter, did all of his fighting on the home-front, which gives an odd flavour to a remark in the Times editorial on the passing of Thomas: “He faced the emergency of war without flinching . . ." (Times, June 3rd, 1936.)

Quite a lot of us can face other people's wars without flinching.

A Question to a Labour Councillor

Speaking at a Conference of the Socialist League on June 1st, a Mr. F. R. Levy, of Stepney, said that he is a member of a council with sixty-five Labour members out of seventy.

The majority of them do not know the first little thing about Socialism or what it stands for. They are either out for a career or are there because some friend of theirs wants a job.—(Manchester Guardian, June 2nd, 1936.)

Mr. Levy went on to urge greater care in the selection of Labour candidates, which misses the most important point about the whole matter, that is, the character of the vote behind the elected delegate. There will be no progress towards the conquest of power for Socialism until the electorate is Socialist, when it will give a mandate for Socialism. If Mr. Levy desired to help Socialism on he could begin now by fighting elections on one demand only—Socialism. We know it is safe to say that the whole of the Labour candidates, at Stepney and elsewhere, do nothing of the kind. Instead they solicit votes on a programme of reforms of capitalism, thus delaying the day when the workers will realise that their only salvation is in Socialism.

Mr. Chamberlain*s Understanding of Capitalism

Mr. Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a speech in Parliament on May 20th, made two admissions of interest to Socialists. The first was an admission that capitalism will in due course produce another trade depression.

. . . . I accept the broad principle that these things do work in cycles, and I have to look forward to the time when we may expect in the natural course of things that trade activity will diminish instead of increase.—(Hansard, col. 1266, May 20th, 1936.)

(It is worth noticing how Mr. Chamberlain unconsciously identifies capitalism with nature, and says “in the natural course of things" when he should say “in the capitalist course of things.")

The second point (col. 1,263) discloses the way in which a capitalist financial expert views expenditure on old-age pensions, unemployment, etc. Another M.P. had said, “Why not raise wages and scrap the expenditure on the social services ?" Mr. Chamberlain replied as follows:—

I did not quite apprehend how my hon. Friend thought it would be possible to provide that the rise in the wages of the workers could be so general, widespread and universal as to give them the equivalent for the social services they would lose.

Mr. Chamberlain here admits the Socialist contention that social services are an alternative to wage increases, and his references to "spreading" explain why the capitalists prefer the method of social services. A wage increase will be largely spent by the workers on satisfying the immediate needs of themselves and their families, and still leave the capitalists to provide for the destitute and for the big increase of unemployment during times of crisis. In other words, the social service method is cheaper.

French Capitalists Provide German Armaments

The following is taken from an article in the American Industrial Worker (April 18th, 1936), written by Pierre van Paassen: —

France is arming Germany! Her munitions makers, like those of other lands, know no fatherland but profit.

If Herr Hitler felt strong enough March 7th to defy the world, tear the Locarno Treaty to shreds and install himself on the Rhine with heavy artillery, monster tanks, mobile forts of steel and bombing planes, this was made possible by the French mining trusts.

Seventy-five per cent. of the steel in Germany’s artillery and other war equipment comes from France. Seventy-five per cent, of the shells and bullets which are going to kill French soldiers or the soldiers of nations allied with France in an eventual war with Germany are of French origin.

An average of 60 freight trains loaded with iron ore left France every day in 1933, 1934, and 1935 for Germany. The rate of export is even higher in 1936.

An expert, Paul Allard, has figured out that of every two shells Germany fires off in the next war, one will be of French origin. That is to say, one out of every two shells fired by Germans to kill Frenchmen in the next war will represent a profit to the Comite des Forges, the great French steel trust.

The Co-Operative Movement Admits Defeat

The Co-operative movement is not only fundamentally different from the conceptions of such pioneers as Robert Owen, but even the restricted aims it set itself are now seen to be unattainable. The latter-day notion was that the co-operative trading and manufacturing organisations could beat the private capitalist traders on their own field and thus gradually drive them out of business.

The controllers of the movement now know that this is impossible. At the recent congress of the Co-operative Union a delegate stated that “after ninety years of co-operation they still had only ten per cent. of the retail trade in the country and only half of that trade was placed with the Cooperative Wholesale Society. Only one-third of that was manufactured in their own factories." (Daily Herald, June 4th, 1936.)

A still more amazing confession of failure is an advertisement issued by the C.W.S. itself, in the June issue of The Clerk. It is an appeal to readers when shopping at Co-operative stores to insist that articles purchased came originally from the Co-operative Wholesale Society, and not from a private wholesaler or manufacturer. In other words, the retail Co-operative stores are refusing to buy Co-operative goods themselves, doubtless to a great extent because they can make a bigger profit by handling the better-known products of private manufacturers.

Illusions about Russia, Sweden and France

For years the Bolsheviks complained, with good reason, that the capitalist Press was filled with reckless or deliberately lying statements about conditions in Russia. It would appear that many Communists decided that the best answer to one lie is another. Consider, for example, the following utterly untrue assertion about Russia, which appeared in the Daily Worker (June 1st, 1936), from their own Moscow correspondent: —

In the U.S.S.R. Socialist society has been built.

This is untrue, and the Daily Worker knows it.

Another ridiculous statement, this time about Sweden, was made by the City Editor of the Daily Herald on June 8th, 1936. Mr. Francis Williams there tells us that the administration of capitalism in Sweden by a Labour Government is an instance of “ Socialism in action."

There is this difference between Mr. Williams and the Daily Worker, that Mr. Williams just does not know any better.

A third statement, about France, was made by Major Attlee, leader of the Labour Party. Writing in the Daily Herald (June 15th, 1936), he said: —

There are many people who have maintained until now that Socialism could not be introduced without bloodshed. The French Government is showing that it can.

All three statements are entirely without foundation, and such lies or ignorance do untold harm to Socialism.

The Friends of J. H. Thomas

The Daily Worker (May 25th, 1936) celebrates the eclipse of Mr. J. H. Thomas by telling us that they always knew he was a friend of the ruling class and an enemy of the workers, right back to 1926, 1921, 1919 and 1911—the dates of various noteworthy betrayals.

All of this may be true, but will the Communists now tell us why they persisted in playing Thomas’s game by telling the workers he was a fit and proper person to have their votes and represent their interests in Parliament after 1911, after 1919, after 1921 and after 1926? Even after the General Strike the Communists continued this policy, and mentioned J. H. Thomas by name as one of the Labour M.P.s they would not oppose. (See Communist Review, February, 1928.)

Saving the Girls from Vice

Reynolds' News, advocate of the stupid policy of trying to improve capitalism with reforms instead of abolishing it, neatly gave its whole case away in its issue of May 17th, 1936. It published an article on “Soho’s Vice Racketeers,” and demanded instant action to stop landlords from drawing high rents from brothels. This is how the article ends: —

Fifty years have passed since W. T. Stead aroused the sleeping conscience of the nation by his Pall Mall revelations of “The Maiden Tribute." The M.P. who takes the lid off Soho now will startle the British nation even more.

So fifty years after one reformer reformed London, the position is more startling than ever. So let’s pretend to reform it again.

In reformist circles this is known as progress! 

The Half-Brotherhood of the Sea

The building of luxury liners for plutocrats, while the bulk of the population is underfed and miserably housed and clothed, is a mark of the rottenness of capitalist civilisation, and the way the reformists from Labour to Fascist have rushed in to praise it is a mark of their essentially reactionary attitude. The maiden voyage of the “Queen Mary” led the Daily Herald to publish a sticky editorial about the “comradeship of the sea which transcends national boundaries.” (May 28th, 1936.)

So little does the sea differ from the other i fields of competitive profit-seeking that the very next day the Herald published a fierce attack on the Russian Government for carrying timber in Russian and other non-British ships, "in which wages are lower than those of the British and Scandinavian ships which used 'to handle most of the trade.” (Daily Herald, May 29th, 1936.) The Herald calls it “blacklegging on British shipping and undermining its wage standards,” and adds that it “is not going to be quietly tolerated.”

Surely this is not comradely language to use towards fellow seafarers?

And while we are on the subject, what about the T.U.C.’s policy of excluding coloured seamen from British ships, even coloured seamen who are British subjects? The Indian Labour movement has long protested against this still less comradely attitude.

This Jewish Business

The attempt by German Nazis and British Fascists to explain everything under the sun by reference to the 400,000 Jews in Germany and the 350,000 in Britain (fewer than one per cent. of the population) leads them into curious situations. The German doctrine of a pure, noble, non-Jewish, Nordic race, made even Mussolini laugh. He pointed out that the originators of the idea of a “chosen race” were the Jews themselves. Mussolini has never hesitated to employ Jews as his Ministers and assistants. In Austria, where he finances and controls the "Heimwehr,” a Fascist movement, one of his principal allies and friends is Otto Mandl, who is also political adviser to Fascist Prince Starhemberg and owner of the great Hirtenberg Arms Factory. Mandl is a Jew. (See Evening Standard, October 21st, 1935.) Not for that reason, but because he is a typical capitalist, he supplied arms and munitions both to the Nazis and to the Heimwehr, although they were fighting each other.

In England, Sir Oswald Mosley’s organisation attacks the Jews, and is in turn attacked by Lieut.-Col. Hutchison’s organisation for being the friend of Jews. Truth, published by Hutchison's “National Workers’ Party of Great Britain,” shows a photograph of Mosley speaking at Birmingham Town Hall on September 25th, 1931, at a meeting of the New Party. “ On Mosley’s left is Kid Lewis, Jew boxer. . . . Forming a trio, arm-in-arm, is Mr. W. E. D. Allen, son of David and Sarah Allen, nephew of Samuel Allen; some time M.P. for Belfast. . . . Behind Allen is Peter Cheney, another Jew. . . . The lawyer employed by Sir Oswald Mosley and the Blackshirts is Mr. St. John Hutchinson, whose daughter, in 1935, was converted to Judaism, and married a Rothschild.”

One of the queer errors into which such nonsense betrays its adherents was illustrated in a recent issue of the Blackshirt, which saw fit to comment on The Socialist Standard being sold at a meeting by an individual in whose features the sharp-eyed Fascist thought he discerned Jewish characteristics. As it happens, the individual in question is indeed of mixed stock—pure British “aryan” mixed with Italian; not a trace of Jewish  blood!

But enough of all this rubbish. Individuals are the product of a variety of moulding forces, and the environment of a segregated Jewish group doubtless plays an important part, but dominating all sectional environments is capitalism, with its class divisions and the exploitation of one class by another. The struggles of the exploited to compete with each other for employment, and at the same time to resist the employers, are more important in determining the individual’s conduct than the fact of being Jewish or Gentile.

The only really useful contribution towards ridding society of the unpleasant characteristics of exploiters and exploited is to strive for the abolition of class ownership of the means of production and distribution, and this the Fascists are not doing. What they are doing is to provide a political cloak (or rather, a shirt) under which individuals can promote private vendettas and commercial rivalries against Jews. Most of the anti-Jewish activity is' of the kind mentioned by the Manchester Guardian's Warsaw correspondent: “Many peasants attack Jews merely for looting their shops rather than for other reasons." (Manchester Guardian, February 10th, 1936.) The remainder is mainly blind discontent with capitalism misdirected by Fascists into these useless channels.

Edgar Hardcastle

Leeds and district Open Air Meetings (1937)

Party News from the August 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

'L. Davis' was Lew Davis. He was a member of the SPGB from Leeds who joined the Central Branch of the Party in May 1937. He lapsed his membership in January 1947.

Socialism and the Housing Problem (1945)

From the August 1945 issue of the Socialist Standard

Bomb Damage and The Housing Shortage

Several million houses have been damaged by bombs and rockets during the war. but the problem of slums and overcrowding did not begin with the war. There was vast overcrowding and housing shortage between the war, and before 1914. Under capitalism there has always been a housing shortage for the poor—but not for the rich. The Earl of Shaftesbury, nearly 100 years ago, was carrying on a campaign to “solve” the working-class housing problem. Speaking in the House of Lords in April, 1851, he gave figures about the deplorable housing conditions in London.

Starting in 1851, Acts of Parliament were passed and succeeding governments repeatedly inquired into the problem and promised to deal with it: but it has never been solved. A well-known housing authority, Mr. Harry Barnes, in his book, “Housing” stated that in 1911 he found “the housing position worse than at any time since 1801.”

Writing of the position in 1923. after the Great War, he said : —

“The housing shortage of to-day is not something that comes like a bolt from the blue . . . but is rather the slow accumulation of a century, suddenly and terribly increased by the conditions arising out of the war.”

The governments went on promising to build houses, but still the problem was not solved. Sir E. Simon, former Lord Mayor of Manchester, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, stated in 1931 that the shortage was getting worse.

“According to all the available evidence there has on the average been no reduction whatever in the terrible overcrowding in the slum areas; the houses are steadily deteriorating; the position of the slum dwellers is worse than it was 10 years ago.” (Letter to the Times February 12th, 1931.)

PIGS BETTER HOUSED THAN WORKERS

It was in 1936, before the bombing of the present war. that Sir Benjamin Dawson, Chairman of the Bradford Central District Conservative Association, declared that his pigs were better housed than some of the workers. He examined the houses in his constituency and declared :—

“When I had finished my tour, I felt thoroughly ashamed of my country, thoroughly ashamed of the National Government, and thoroughly ashamed of the Conservative Party.

“The pigs on my farm are better housed and fed than some of the people I saw that day.”

Make no mistake about it, none of the parties of capitalism (Tory, Liberal, Labour) can solve the housing problem of the workers

LIBERAL, TORY AND LABOUR PROMISES

Since 1851, when the first Housing Act was passed, many other Acts have been introduced by Liberal and Tory Governments and by the Labour Governments which were in office 1923-24 and again in 1929-31. None of these measures have done more than touch the surface of the problem. The workers’ housing problem is not due to shortage of building materials or shortage of building workers. In 1933, for example, a quarter of the building workers were out of work. The workers endure slum dwellings, overcrowded houses, houses badly equipped and unhealthy, because they are too poor to afford anything better. The housing problem is a poverty problem. The rich are not victims of the housing shortage. All through the years of insufficient accommodation for the workers, the rich have been able to afford their spacious and luxurious houses, often having a town house and a country house as well.

RENTS AND WAGES

There is much talk of building houses to be let at rents low enough for the workers to afford, though Mr. Charles Boot, President of the Federation of Master Builders, declared early this year that houses will never again be built at pre-war prices and that rents will go up (News-Chronicle, January 12th, 1945). Even if rents do not go up, but go down, the problem will still remain. Rents fifty years ago were much lower than they are now, but there was just the same overcrowding and slums. Under capitalism the pressure of unemployment enables employers to keep wages down to the amount just about sufficient for the workers to live on. If rents are reduced, wages will fall also and still the workers will be unable to afford decent and spacious accommodation; quite apart from their worsened position when unemployed.

PREFABRICATED HOUSES

One of the remedies now offered for the housing shortage is the building of small and cheap “prefabricated” dwellings—as a temporary measure. “Temporary” is likely to become permanent and it is only the workers who are to have the “benefits” of these houses. The rich will continue to get what they can afford to pay for, as soon as the wartime control over private building is relaxed.

SOCIALISM IS THE ONLY REMEDY

Under capitalism the best housing, like the best of everything, is within the reach only of the propertied class, the owners of the land, factories, railways, etc. The working class, who own little or nothing and have to live by selling their mental and physical energies to the employers for wages, will continue to live in poor houses, and suffer discomfort and ill-health through overcrowding. Only Socialism will remedy this by making the means of production and distribution the common property of the whole community. Only then will resources be made available for building decent accommodation for all. Houses will no longer be built for profit, but solely for use.

There is no other way of solving the housing problem.

SPGB Branch Directory. (1907)

Party News from the January 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

I don't usually make a habit of posting the branch directory from the Standard on the blog but I thought I would make an exception this time 'cos of the information at the bottom about contacts outside of London. As you'll note the SPGB in 1907 were still largely concentrated in London (and Watford), so it's interesting to note that there were members as far a field as Liverpool, Bradford (a hot spot for the ILP), Birmingham and Burton.

By the end of 1907, the SPGB did have a branch in Manchester.

SPGB Meetings (1944)

Party News from the November 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Editorial: Life’s a riot (2001)

Editorial from the August 2001 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the summers of 1981 and 1985 inner-city areas across Britain erupted in an orgy of violence and destruction as mass rioting returned for the first time in decades. In St Paul’s in Bristol, in Brixton, Toxteth, Moss Side and Handsworth, dispossessed and frustrated black and white youths looted shops, attacked the police and burnt down buildings in a sequence of events that shook the Thatcher government. Home Secretary William Whitelaw toured the battle-strewn streets like the Queen Mother during the blitz, only even less popular than she’d been. Michael Heseltine was despatched by Thatcher to Liverpool (when the two of them were still on speaking terms) to sort out a regeneration package for the city and for the riot-torn Upper Parliament Street area. It was a mini-renunciation of her free-market idealism – and was brought about by the sort of pragmatic attempt to buy off social discontent more typically associated with reformers of the centre-left.

The far left at the time – somewhat stronger in those days and certainly taken more seriously than now – liked to call the riots ‘uprisings’. It was wishful thinking of the type they are specialists in, as the disturbances in question did not have quite that sort of focussed, political dimension to them. They were in fact the directionless expression of frustration and bewilderment at rising mass unemployment, inner-city poverty and the type of crushing boredom associated with social decay rather than the stirrings of a potential revolutionary vanguard.

Fifteen, twenty years later, and the riots are back. In truth, of course, they never entirely went away. As violent crime has risen so has serious disorder in towns and cities across Britain. What is most noticeable about the most recent spate of riots though is the numbers of youths involved and the magnitude of the destruction caused. It is the sheer scale of events in Oldham, Burnley, Bradford and elsewhere that immediately leads to direct comparisons with the riots of the eighties.

There is another obvious comparison with the riots of the past too: “race”. In 1981 and 1985 the majority of those taking part in the disturbances were black youths from inner-city areas with large black populations. The rioters were not first generation blacks, but second and third generation, born and brought up in the UK but even more powerless and disenfranchised from mainstream social, economic and political life than the bulk of the rest of the working class. Theirs was a rebellion against the police who harassed and intimidated them and implicitly against a culture that still insisted on seeing them as outsiders.

This time around the rioters have been second and third generation UK Asians feeling the same sort of social exclusion and powerlessness felt by black youths in Britain before them and typically residing in some of the most deprived council wards in the country. Their rebelliousness has been given an added dimension by the intimidating presence of fascist and racist organisations – particularly the British National Party – in towns and cities where they are most heavily concentrated. If there was relatively little involvement by far-right groups in the riots of twenty years ago, the same could certainly not be said this time, with the provocative and violent activities of fascist gangs being the catalyst for some of the most serious events, most notably in Burnley and Bradford.

In Burnley it was alleged by elements of the white working class that Asian areas in the town had received preferential treatment from the local council and other agencies responsible for handing out regeneration monies. In Bradford local white youths complained that Asians were treated with “kid gloves” by the police, for fear the police be labelled as racists.

Viewpoints such as these are rarely the product of genuinely held grievances. Asians in Burnley live in the same type of slums by and large as many white workers do in the town; and in Bradford claims of harassment by the police are far more likely to be made by Asian youths than white youths. Instead, these ideas are in essence the product of a situation where the existing poor fear being made even poorer through the close presence of even more of their number. If the ‘new poor’ in question have a different colour, different religion and different culture from the majority, the suspicion and distrust is all the easier to justify.

One thing is certain: whatever the precise causes, the rioting that has been taking place is unlikely to get either the Asian or white youths involved very far (unless a police cell for the night is the extent of their ambitions). If New Labour do what Thatcher did and throw a little money in the direction of the affected areas as a token gesture, that will be something (as it was in Liverpool); but the laws of the market dictate that just as one hand gives so the other takes away – probably in the form of lost investment and business shut downs (again as happened in Liverpool).

Tony Benn has said that rioting is the oldest form of social protest and in that he may well be right. But there is no point in white and Asian youths protesting about the other’s allegedly preferential treatment and conducting running battles in front of the TV crews each evening. Any meaningful action has to be democratic and organised and based on the recognition that white and Asian youths have far more in common than they have that divides them. They would both do well to recognise that as the poor and excluded they are kept poor because the rich are rich. For it is only then that they can formulate actions based on where there interests truthfully lie – and in fundamental opposition to those who have really gained from keeping them in their subject, inferior position all along.

50 Years Ago: Why the Workers Save (1991)

The 50 Years Ago column from the June 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Times (April 21st 1941) published an article based on first-hand knowledge of the workers’ attitude towards the Government savings campaign. The writer comments on the fact that many workers save in order to be able to face the anticipated depression after the war. “A majority of the working-class expect hard times after the war,” he writes, and quotes a Bradford weaver, who said : —

“I think there’ll be a big slump. I was in t’last slump; it was a terrible time. People didn’t save anything. I was always telling them, if it’s only two or three shillings, don’t spend more than you need. If it’s anything like the last, God help them.”

The naive writer of the article is rather surprised to learn that the attitude of the workers towards saving is not like that of the capitalist: —

“It is only in a very few instances that a working man is putting by money as a form of capital accumulation, which will eventually enable him to invest in property or become a small trader. Most often saving is a form of insurance against known contingencies : marriage, sickness, death, unemployment, old age, hard times . . . even at the poverty level families frequently save, at the expense of their elementary subsistence needs . . . ”—(The Times, April 21st, 1941.)

In short, the capitalist saves out of his superfluity in order to accumulate capital; the worker saves out of his insufficiency in order to protect himself against capitalism and the capitalist.

[From the Socialist Standard, June 1941.]

Wool-pulling. (1924)

From the April 1924 issue of the Socialist Standard

The game has nothing in common with leg-pulling. Authorities differ as to which is the older, and there is a marked difference of opinion as to their exact origin, but that need not concern us. Baudelaire attributed laughter to the satanic influence in man, and as leg-pulling is usually aimed at promoting laughter, this game seems possessed of a very antique parentage. On the other hand, wool-pulling was not known by that name until the invention of the American language. Was it not to one of the American Presidents who attended the post-war conferences, that the advice was tendered, “Don’t let ’em pull the wool over your eyes?” Whether they did or not is beside the point. Suffice it that the Americans have invented a phrase much more living and vivid than our own terse “spoof” or “codology,” neither of which are dictionary words.

But without spending any more time in profitless research, let us direct our gaze to Bradford, where the wool comes from. This is not necessarily the wool that is used in obstructing the vision, but as you will presently perceive, the Bradfordians are not unacquainted with the practice. Doubtless, inspired by those disinterested, high souled patriots who advise us by poster to ”drink more milk,” to “eat more fruit,” to ”own your house” and what not, they hired a large space in the Daily News, on February 21st, in which, to tell us to insist on buying Bradford products. Everyone can help,” they said in heavy leaded type, ”to reduce unemployment. If the, purchase of a foreign-made article causes unemployment in Great Britain, then to the price paid for that foreign article must be added the cost of maintaining the resulting unemployment.”

There is much more, of course, in the advertisement. British prosperity, British interests, national safety, relief of taxation, full production, and all the usual tags of the wool-puller are utilised. We are assured that “the greater the demand by the home trade, the greater is the opportunity for successful competition in foreign markets.”

Simple, isn’t it! You buy British goods only and thus bankrupt the foreigner. Having reduced him to a beggar, “the greater is the opportunity for successful competition in foreign markets.” Then, obviously, the home unemployed should be an ideal market for the home manufacturer. Of course, there is more in the argument than this. The British worker, like any other worker, buys what his wages permit him to buy. As his wages are determined by the cost of living, he can do no other. In point of fact, he does precisely what the Bradford manufacturers do. The best answer to their case is contained in the same issue of the Daily News. And it concerns Bradford itself.

  “The decision of the Bradford Corporation Electricity Committee to accept the tender of a Belgian firm for the supply of four machines, has aroused some feeling. The Belgian firm’s tender was for £l3,000, whereas the lowest British tender was £l7,000. The Committee held that the desire to relieve unemployment did not justify paying the additional £4,000.”

Comment would spoil it. We confine ourselves to the simple statement, that it is not what you spend, or how you spend it, that should be your chief concern. It is what you get that matters. It is in the workshop that you are robbed. Your efforts should be concentrated in obtaining, along with your fellow workers, ownership and control of your means of livelihood. Compared with this, how you spend your pittance is a secondary matter, and a bad second at that. Own your means of living ; all else is ”wool-pulling.” Don’t let ’em pull the wool over your eyes.

W. T. Hopley

Letters: William Morris (1990)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

William Morris

Dear Editors,

The two articles on William Morris in your October 1990 issue are most welcome. Although it is the hundredth anniversary of the publication of News From Nowhere, the left has been almost silent about Morris. This, despite the fact that Radio Four made it a “Book At Bedtime". Sadly others, particularly Greens and modern-day Utopians have not been so slow to pick up on claiming Morris for their own philosophies.

Against this your two articles do a good job in situating Morris firmly within a socialist and Marxist tradition. C. Skelton gives a fair summary of Morris's political ideas, although I think I prefer Morris's original views to Skelton’s gloss on why they didn't work. Central to this, of course, is Morris's connection with extra-parliamentary anarchism. Now that Stalinism has collapsed perhaps it will be possible to examine this afresh. Certainly while I would agree that parliamentary activity cannot be ignored, one can understand how Morris, faced with Hyndman's SDF, came to take the stand that he did.

I am not so sure about DAP's review of the book William Morris and News From Nowhere: A Vision of Our Time. There is no doubt that, as DAP notes, it is an "interesting and important" book. It explores some of the themes in News From Nowhere and tries to show their relevance for the 1990s. So far so good. But the ultimate aim of the book is, of course, not to reinforce our understanding of Morris's position as perhaps the outstanding early British Marxist. Rather it is to suggest that Morris's heritage is confused and that he could be claimed equally by Greens or by radical liberals. Indeed, the Communist Party of Great Britain, which is just about to rename itself as the "radical party" is using Morris in just this way. DAP's review of the book is fine as far as it goes.

But if Morris is not to be taken from the Marxist tradition we will need to be much more critical of those who would isolate certain elements of this thought while denying his socialism and Marxism.

Keith Martin

London N17

Reply:

We agree that an attempt is being made to claim Morris as some sort of harmless Green reformist, whereas in actual fact to his death he called himself a "revolutionary, international socialist".

Editors

Poll Tax

Dear Editors,

Instead of campaigning to abolish the poll tax. the working class should organise politically to end the capitalist system itself. Without the capitalist system there would be no poll tax, no rent, gas bills, house repossessions, wage slavery, no money or private ownership of the means of producing wealth.

Why object to paying poll tax when one has to pay to eat. to drink, to keep warm, in fact to exist!

Anti-Capitalist 

Seaham, Co. Durham

Labour Party and Entryism

Dear Editors,

Please can you say what is the SPGB's attitude re Labour Party members? Recently I have met some London Labour members in Bradford—they were here to help the local Labour Party MP's. councillors etc.

I had a chat with them on the precinct as they were "signing up" passers-by at a bench. I asked these people what they thought about the SPGB. One or two did know of the existence of the SPGB, but did not know much about what it stands for—they had not been conversant with the Socialist Standard. After a discussion about all manner of aspects of current affairs but noticeably nothing re Socialism itself (I thought that very strange) they seemed to disregard the possibility of the SPGB growing into a mass party of the proletariat and they said that the Labour Party was the only one today to challenge modern Toryism, Thatcherism and present-day State Capitalism in the UK.

Please could you assess these postures of the Labour Party? I would appreciate if you are able to forward the SPGB's view of the Labour Party's claim. Basically it is this: The Labour Party sees the contemporary state capitalism as the full development of previous capitalism reaching an advanced (albeit decadent) level even with all the terrible exploitation which is caused by it.

My impression of Labour Party members is one of a strange lack of clarity and lucidity re Socialism. Your evaluation of the eastern states, USSR and others in the past has been proved perfectly correct, as recent changes have shown. Having assiduously studied the proofs and tenets of the SPGB, my findings are that the SPGB is totally validated re Socialism.

M.Henson 

Leeds

Reply:

You have obviously come across a group of Trotskyist infiltrators into the Labour Party. Which would not be surprising since the MP for Bradford whose death provoked the recent by-election was associated with the so-called “Militant Tendency". Talk of capitalism involving exploitation and being decadent would make Neil Kinnock livid if he heard it, as what he and his fellow leaders of the Labour Party want is a chance to try and show that they can manage capitalism better than the Tories.

It is true that the Labour Party can win elections whereas we in the Socialist Party are without much influence. Since, however, Labour support is built up as support for managing capitalism, when in office they can do absolutely nothing to further the cause of socialism. Socialism will only become a real issue when more and more people want it and organise into a separate political party opposed to Labour. It is to this end that all our efforts are directed.

Editors

Christianity

Dear Editors,

Although I think the October issue of the Socialist Standard is the most forthright condemnation of capitalism you have published during the last ten years that I have been reading it, there is one topic which I would like to question. "Does Religion Matter"?

Would it not have been better if socialists had ignored religion until real socialism had been established? We know that religion has always been used as a weapon of oppression against the working class. However, if we had not publicly denied the existence of our mythical Jesus Christ, who, according to the equally mythical bible, preached a socialist way of life, we might have had a few million Christians fighting for socialism!

After a few decades of world socialism, the Christians who had helped to bring it about would have departed this life, taking their religion with them. Hypocritical views maybe, but better than the evils of capitalism.

Peter H. Reynolds 

Sevenoaks, Kent

Reply:

We don't think that our relative lack of progress is due to our opposition to religion. After all, if there were millions of Christians who would otherwise want socialism, why haven't they formed their own movement which would advocate the same as us except on religion? Nor can we see how it can be said that the mythical JC “preached a socialist way of life". The early Christians were a sect very similar to the Jehovah’s Witnesses of today who cared little about changing society as they expected their Messiah to return in the near future and inaugurate a theocracy in which God would rule over humans with an iron hand. Hardly socialism!

Editors

Profits before trees

Dear Editors,

What happened in our village today is a mini-example of how the Green Party and all other reformist poitical parties will be unable to save the world from environmental destruction. Four very healthy mature trees stood immediately outside our back fence. They were a home for the birds, played their part in cleaning up the polluted air we breathe and were a pleasure to look at. Unfortunately they stood in the way of our local land baron and his plans for the future development of his land for either houses, car parks, access or factory units. He was not concerned that the North Herts District Council had asked for all existing trees to be retained, his object is the acquisition of money and all must bow down before this aim. So the trees were cut down and he is no doubt thinking hard for a good excuse when the NHDC asks questions. Those trees were no threat to our house but were immediately behind it. The lesson for the Green Party and all other reformist political parties is that, in our capitalistic society where money is supreme most acts are performed if profitable, and exploiting the earth is profitable. Vote out capitalism for a better society.

John E. Windebank 

Little Wymondley, Herts

Film Review: The Selfish Giant (2014)

Film Review from the June 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Selfish Giant directed by Clio Barnard is a poetic social-realist film, unsentimental, politically angry in the tradition of Ken Loach’s Kes. Barnard’s aim was ‘to make a film in the realist tradition of fables about children’ like De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cent Coups, and Samira Makhmalbaf’s The Apple. She has created a damning portrait of capitalist society where a ADD-afflicted teen called Arbor (Conner Chapman) and his best friend Swifty (Shaun Thomas) engage in ‘scrapping’: collecting scrap metal or the detritus of capitalism with a horse and cart in the post-industrial landscape of Bradford with its cooling towers and electricity pylons.

It is inspired by the Oscar Wilde story The Selfish Giant whose message is that private property is evil; a permanent winter descends caused by his determination to stop children playing in the grounds of his castle. Barnard uses the metaphor for the deleterious effect on communities when society as a whole fails children. Wilde himself wrote in The Soul of Man Under Socialism: ‘With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live.’

Barnard said ‘The selfish giant of my film is a selfish ideology. I liked Glenda Jackson’s speech in the House of Commons after the death of Thatcher when she said that under Thatcher selfishness and greed had become virtues. The film is about what got lost.’ The Selfish Giant is about capitalism and consumerism fuelling greed, selfishness as an ideology, children marginalised and the general lack of concern about society in capitalism.

Steve Clayton

Obituary: Ken Shaw, 1920-2016 (2016)

Obituary from the December 2016 issue of the Socialist Standard

My father Ken Shaw died in October this year aged 96. He joined the Socialist Party in the mid-seventies and was to remain a party member for the rest of his life.

Along with a few others he was instrumental in forming the West Yorkshire branch, which, though short-lived, had some success staging and attracting audiences to a series of public meetings in his home town of Bradford.

When younger, Ken had been a member of the CPGB. Marriage to a catholic girl from Italy inevitably meant occasional visits from the local parish priest, whose disgust he incurred by leaving copies of the Daily Worker lying around the house.

Ken became disillusioned with the CP and for a number of years switched allegiance to Labour. Then, in the 1970s, he started reading the Socialist Standard and soon became convinced about the case for socialism. He quickly succeeded in getting a few others interested and the formation of the branch soon followed.

On my return visits home I would always find the latest issue of the Socialist Standard in prominent view somewhere around the house. I later discovered that this had been with the express intention of getting me interested – which eventually it did.

Ken spent his working life in the photo-litho department of a local printing firm. He was a talented amateur painter and photographer and has left a wealth of examples of his work.

Rod Shaw

Blogger's Note

See also: How I got to be a socialist (2009)

Northern Propaganda Tour (1977)

Party News from the April 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

New Branch Formed

In the last week of February a group of London members toured West Yorkshire and Lancashire and, with the help of local members, staged five indoor meetings with great success.

The first two meetings were held in Bradford, at the University and the Textile Hall: the subjects were "Introducing the SPGB” and "Socialism Yes — Labour No!” There were good-sized audiences for both. At the second one several vociferous opponents from left-wing groups and the Labour Party were present. Our Central Organizer wrote in his report: “The way in which the speaker dealt with them left me in no doubt that this meeting was one of the finest I have ever attended.”

On the following days meetings were held in Bolton and at Keele University. Both roused considerable interest. We have several members in the Stoke and Keele area, and there are good prospects of a discussion group and further activity there.

The final meeting of the tour was at the Crown Hotel in Manchester. Because of the size of the audience, the landlord turned customers into another bar to provide a larger room. While it may be too early to start talking about the reconstitution of a branch in Manchester, members round the city are doing a lot of useful work. We look forward to hearing more from there before long.

It was a hectic five days, covering 800 miles, and a tonic to the members who went as well as the local members. The specially stimulating outcome is the formation of a new branch of the Party, to be known as the West Yorkshire Branch. Details of its meetings can be found on the Directory page; Socialist Standard readers in that area, take note!

Exhibition Review: The Peace Museum, Bradford (2017)

Exhibition Review from the July 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are plenty of museums that cover wars, the armed forces and military history, but rather few that deal with peace and peace movements. The only accredited one in Britain is Bradford Peace Museum, founded in 1994, which has connections with the International Network of Museums for Peace (museumsforpeace.org) and the Division of Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. In 1997 the local council declared Bradford a ‘City of Peace’, though it is hard to see what that achieves.

It’s not a large museum, but there is plenty of interesting material, covering the period from World War One down to the present day. There are original documents, banners, posters and other objects relating to the two world wars, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, in the main, as well as material on migrants to Bradford, including recent refugees and asylum seekers. Aldermaston Marches and activities at Greenham Common illustrate some of the efforts of peace movements. In the last two years of World War One there was an active, if nowadays little-remembered, anti-war movement among women in Bradford.

A copy of the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty is accompanied by a quote from Ferdinand Foch, who was Supreme Allied Commander during the war: ‘This is not peace, it’s an armistice for twenty years.’ He meant that Germany had not been punished sufficiently, but even talk of an armistice was a bit optimistic, considering all the fighting that took place between the two world wars.

There is a mention of a claim made (it is not said by who) in 2003, that there were two superpowers, the USA and worldwide public opinion, which is just wishful thinking. A quote is shown from Norman Angell (who wrote a best-selling book The Great Illusion in 1910, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1934 and was for a short period a Bradford MP): ‘The obstacles to peace are in the minds and hearts of men.’ Unfortunately this naive remark underlines the fact that the museum exhibits do not include any attempt to explain why wars break out, or references to the role of capitalism. 

Paul Bennett