Between the Lines: Some riots you see . . . (1985)

The Between the Lines column from the December 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some riots you see . . .

Riots on TV are not what they used to be. In the early 1980s we used to get panicky reporters appearing live on the scene, not quite knowing whether the BBC had insured their limbs. These days no sooner does a riot start than a team of dull-witted politicians are in the studio, there to throw cliches at us like chucking nuts at monkeys The Tory says that it's all caused by criminal elements who are taking advantage of easily-led workers. Then comes the Labourite — usually Gerald Kaufman whose jackets are worn to remind us what value we're getting for our colour TV licence — who talks about how the Tories invented unemployment and while the rioters are wrong they can be sympathised with, but then again the police are doing a good job, but then again they really shouldn't shoot people if they can possibly avoid it. but then again reports have shown . . . Riots on telly are becoming more boring than The Horse of the Year Show. One good thing about the revolution: it will only happen once.

. . . and some you don’t

Remember the pictures of the Orgreave riot shown during the miners' strike? Remember how we were urged to have pity on those poor police who were doing their best to defend the peace against the violent tactics of those horrible strikers? And now, long after the strike is over, we see another view of the riot (People to People, C4. 9pm. 27 September). Clear pictures and accounts demonstrated very forcefully that what occurred at Orgreave was a police riot that the police were out of control and dished out violence to peaceful pickets in a manner which would be more typical of the Polish or South African state machine. Those with eyes to see. and minds unblocked by prejudices which tell them that the police can never be the aggressors, saw camera shots of police beating up workers who had gone to Orgreave to further their trade-union interests. Why were these pictures never shown while the strike was on? The fact is that while the camera never lies, the liars are very capable of manipulating the evidence of the camera when it so suits them.

Real lives

The banned and then censored BBC2 documentary on "political extremism" in Northern Ireland turned out to be nothing very original or surprising. Both nationalists in the programme (for let it not be forgotten that the Unionists are nationalists too) showed themselves to be buried in the politics of working-class disunity, sloganising and violence. McGuinness came across as somewhat saner than the Unionist clown whose response to the murder of some Catholics was to declare that "Christmas has come early this year". In fact, most workers are more advanced in their thinking than the sort of politically retarded mis-leaders portrayed in this film.

If only every town . . .

Have you seen that appalling advert which concludes. "If only every town could be like Milton Keynes '. Have you ever been to Milton Keynes? Has the joker who dreamed up the advert ever lived in Milton Keynes? Perhaps he should be given a chance to live in one of the uniform workers' houses in the land of his dreams. And while we're at it. why not give Jimmy Savile a free pensioners' travel pass and let him travel round the country on second-class British Rail trains instead of the Rolls which he is more accustomed to sitting in? And why not let old Barratt live in one of the poverty-homes he is so eager to advertise on TV instead of the expensive mansion near Hexham which he lives in now? Let the shoddy goods which the ad-men try to sell us be consumed by the idle parasites — they are not good enough for the wealth- producers. For workers nothing but the best is good enough — and to be sure. Milton Keynes is nothing like the best.

Showing it like it is

There is a popular view on the Left that everything shown on television is lies. Plenty of what we see on TV is lies and distortion, but much of it is both useful in providing an insight into aspects of life which most of us never experience and helpful in indicating the manifold contradictions of capitalism. Of late we have been offered several documentary series worthy of note. BBC2's series Probation (Tuesdays. 9.30pm. ended 29 October) was one of those "fly-on-the-wall" efforts in which we were allowed to look in on the ruined lives and confused existences of workers dependent on probation officers. Two points emerged from the series: firstly, that, despite the claims of the human nature brigade, there are plenty of workers in our society who are genuinely eager to help other workers to get out of their mess: secondly, it became clear that those society sees fit to punish or cure are inevitably the victims of a system in need of punishment or cure. A society which leaves thousands of workers ill-educated, unemployed, frustratedly aggressive, vulnerable to dangerous escapism and tempted by goodies beyond their reach creates more casualties than the over-burdened probation officers can hope to help satisfactorily. At best, the probation service can ameliorate the difficulties of those who attract problems like light attracts moths; at worst it serves as a rather authoritarian, patronising and sermonising outfit which seeks to normalise those capitalist normality can do without.

Infuriating though it has been. Queens': a Cambridge College (Wednesdays. 8.20pm. BBC2) provides a glimpse into an institution where students are taught that they are part of an intellectual élite. The evidence of the cameras (which could be discriminate) is that an awful lot of Cambridge geniuses are bores, morons or both. In the first programme in the series we were shown a public school twit in an interview, attempting to gain a place to "read" history. He is asked why he wants to read history and answers that it is because looking at the past will help us to understand the present Fair enough. Then he is asked to give an example of this. He mumbles vaguely that if you look at the origins of the Middle East you will understand the Arab-Israeli war. He lists as his hobby "fantasy war games" highly appropriate for a Cambridge history scholar. Asked why he wants to "come up" to Cambridge he answers that he wants to be trained for leadership. He gets in. As does the Sloane Ranger who is applying for medicine, whose parents live in the Sudan, has enjoyed "surfing on the Nile", working on a leper colony (which was absolutely amazing") and wants to work "with Third World people in North London".

In the second programme we see a crowd of these "intellectuals" joining the Christian Society and one of them (a science student) recounting how Christ appeared to him one night in his study after he had screwed up his packet of cigarettes. Nobody asked him what he had in them. In the third programme we were irritated by an offensive law student with pretensions to being an orator. He addressed the Cambridge Union (membership. £18 a year) on why public schools must exist. Apparently they produce academic excellence. Odd that: he came from one and seemed exceptionally unoriginal in his thinking.

After The War Is Over (Fridays. 9.25pm. BBC2) showed very clearly that after the suffering of the Second World War workers had big expectations. Returning from the war, the wage slaves came to something other than a land fit for heroes. The series has been very successful in showing both the utter impotence of the reformism of the patronising post-war Labour government and the shoddiness to which workers had access in those days of never having it so good. The Ministry of Information propaganda films are particularly striking in their transparent aim of bluffing the workers into continuing the war effort after the war had supposedly been won.

All three series helped to show workers more about what has been and is going on in society. They were not exercises in deception, but full-scale. uncensored pictures of capitalist reality. Proof that television can be used in the battle for working-class knowledge.

Charles and Di

Your reviewer did not watch the interview of the happy Royals on ITV (Sunday. 20 October), but is expecting at any time now a letter from the Palace calling on him to meet with Charlie for a serious discussion about how to abolish poverty and other related matters which our heir contemplates in his spare time. Let it be noted here that whatever passes between us will be in confidence. Suffice to say that I can offer him some definite advice about how to avoid becoming the ruler of a divided nation — and it doesn't involve doing yoga and keeping off red meat.

Steve Coleman

Editorial: Progress ! (1907)

Editorial from the March 1907 issue of the Socialist Standard

The 1905 criminal statistics recently issued from the Home Office show that while there is a decline in convictions for drunkenness, manslaughter, bigamy and malicious wounding, there is nevertheless a significant increase in burglaries and crimes against property with violence. Sir John Macdonell says in his summary : “The enormous preponderance of crimes against property is remarkable : nearly nine-tenths of the whole fall every year within that category.”

Indictable offences have increased from a yearly average of 51,612 during 1896-1900 to 61,463 in 1905. While, instead of drink being the cause of crime, drunkenness has declined while crime has increased. The statistics are eloquent of the dependence of crime on economic conditions, the increase in crime coinciding with greater distress and unemployment among the people. The accumulation of property into few hands and the corresponding lack of the means of existence among the many lead irresistibly to what are called crimes against property, and the Socialist is not surprised to find that the year of acutest distress and unemployment among the workers was at the same time “a record year of National Prosperity.”

Truly there is progress and prosperity, but it is not for the workers—yet; and instead of the class cleavage becoming less marked it daily grows wider.

To abolish the contradictions and antagonisms of interest that exist, the working class must gain control of Society and dispossess the owners of capital so that unity of interest may be secured by the participation of all in production. Those, however, who think of securing the support of those whose superior position depends upon the slavery of the workers, must, if honest, be ignorant of the lessons of history and of everyday experience.

Thus Mr. Keir Hardie tried to assure the Cambridge undergraduates recently that “Socialism was not a class movement.” “Down with it!” they cried. “Many of the Socialists’ most enthusiastic advocates are university men,” shouted Keir Hardie. “Shame!” howled the undergraduates. “These men and women from the middle and upper classes realise that there is something more sacred than property,” continued Hardie. “Rot!” yelled the gownsmen ; and there is no doubt that the undergraduates differ in no essential from the generality of their class.

Blogger's Note:

This is the 19,000 post on the blog. It begs the question: will I hit 20,000 before the end of the year? Stick around to find out.

The Illusion of National State Capitalism (1975)

Pamphlet Review from the August 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

Politically, the world is divided into states, but economically it is one unit. Wealth today is produced by the labour of people all over the world, as can be quickly seen by taking any object of everyday use and considering all the kinds of labour that have gone into it from start to finish. Wealth today is also produced for sale and directly or indirectly, it is world market conditions which determine the amount and kind of wealth that is produced.

It is precisely because capitalism is a world system that the SPGB insists that Socialism too can only exist on a world scale. Socialism can only be a world without frontiers in which the world-wide network of production have become the common heritage of all mankind, used not to produce wealth for sale with a view to profit, but to satisfy human needs .

The fact that capitalism is economically a world system restricts the actions of the various states into which the world is divided. Governments have to react to and be guided by capitalist economic forces and pressures. Many people mistakenly attribute the normal workings of world capitalism to the machinations of "imperialist powers” and of multi-national corporations, and imagine that if governments are determined enough they can overcome these supposed machinations. In effect they believe it is possible for a single country to isolate itself from the effects of world capitalism. Among those who make this mistake are the four Cambridge academics who have written Spokesman Pamphlet no. 44 on Britain's Economic Crisis.

These academics are fully aware of the policy the Labour Party has always pursued. This is what they have to say on the subject:

Labour’s willingness to act as an administrator of British capitalism shows its lack of understanding of the contradictions of such a position. To act as the administration of a capitalist economy means to maintain and reinforce a system built of inequality, hierarchy and the alienation of the working class. Whatever humane and egalitarian ideals the party may have had, in administering the system it has not only attacked the class from which it gains mass support, but has attempted to incorporate the trade union leadership into this attack. For example, fig. 1 [not reproduced in this article] shows how Labour has repeatedly attempted to solve crises by freeing real wages in 1951-56 and 1970-73, have been won under Tory governments: while Labour governments in 1948-51, 1964-70 and 1974 have held them down in a vain attempt to solve the capitalist crisis by adopting capitalist policies. It has often appeared as if Labour's objectives were to integrate the working class into capitalism and to apply reactionary policies which would be violently opposed by the unions if attempted by the Tories, (p. 11).

However, they attribute this failure to the fact that the Labour party has not been prepared to go far enough with its policies of state ownership and control. If it were, they say, then things could be different. In effect they are advocating national state capitalism (which they mistakenly call "socialism”) as a solution to Britain’s economic crisis. They want nationalization of big business, state control of foreign trade, and planning.

Assume for a moment that this programme had been put into practice; how would this isolate Britain from the effects of world capitalism? The government of British state capitalism would still be faced with the same problem: to sell British exports on the world market at a profit. According to these four academics this is easy; all you have to do is “to take international trade out of the hands of market forces” and plan it, “especially by developing new markets with ‘socialist’ and third world countries” (incidentally, this reference to socialist countries, by which they mean Russia and the Comecon countries, betrays the political views of the authors as supporters of the so-called Communist Party). But even in order to "plan” foreign trade, as for instance by long-term trade agreements, British export prices would have to be competitive, i.e. in line with world-market prices. For if they were above this level, Britain’s trading partners, even in the so-called Socialist (really state-capitalist) countries would go elsewhere for their purchases. To be and remain competitive, industry would have to be continually kept up to date by new investments of capital. The source of such investment could only be the surplus labour of the working class of state-capitalist Britain.

Indeed, if the government of a state-capitalist Britain were to pursue a policy of trying to improve the lot of the working class, then it would soon be in desperate economic trouble. The fact is that, so long as capitalism exists, there is no way of overcoming the economic law which dictates that working-class consumption as a whole cannot rise much above what is needed to keep them efficient producers of wealth. The belief that more state ownership and control can overcome this is an illusion. Only the replacement of world capitalism by world Socialism can provide a framework within which today’s social problems can be solved once and for all.

According to these academics, however, people who hold such views as these and argue that trying to solve working-class problems on a national scale "diverts attention away from the basic task of establishing Socialism”, have been taken in by a "starry-eyed internationalism.” In fact, however, it is rather they who are the starry-eyed idealists for believing that capitalism can be reformed, by wide-scale state ownership and control, into functioning in the interests of the working class.

A pamphlet like this at least makes one thing clear: that the gap between Socialists and leftists is as wide as that between Socialists and right-wingers. The only thing we have in common with leftists is, unfortunately, an overlapping vocabulary. But once you get behind their words, it is clear that they stand for something quite different from us. They stand for a national state capitalism where goods will continue to be produced for sale at home and abroad by a class of wage-earners.

(foot of next column)

The Socialist Party of Great Britain, on the other hand, stands for world Socialism where, on the basis of the common ownership and democratic control of the means of production, wealth will be produced solely to satisfy human needs by the co-operative efforts of free and socially equal men and women. Money, the market, profits, buying and selling and the wages system will disappear because they all reflect the fact that mankind does not control its social and economic environment. Once it does, by converting the means of production into their common property, then these economic categories must disappear, giving way to genuine democratic planning for use.

Adam Buick

Greasy Pole: Oliver Letwin – Eccentric or Fake? (2011)

The Greasy Pole column from the December 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is more to West Dorset than the Jurassic Coastline. It is also a parliamentary constituency where, in the 2005 general election, they registered the highest turn-out in the United Kingdom. Effectively it is the Lib Dems who are now the opposition there – and this in a constituency which includes the tragic village of Tolpuddle. The Tory-comfortable loyalty of this corner of rural England is now represented by Oliver Letwin, consistently one of the party’s policy wonks, once Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Shadow Home Secretary, author of a doctoral thesis Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of the Self, but also the originator of some of the most spectacular blunders even among Honourable Members. He refuses to read newspapers because they tell him “nothing I need to know” – but what they tell us about him suggests there are other reasons for his calamitous record.

Liberals and Fabians

Even before he came into Parliament, Letwin was displaying symptoms of what we might politely call a characteristic confusion. At Cambridge he was active in the university Liberal Club and later explained how this fitted in with his career aim to become the Conservative leader: “I was also a member of the Fabian Society…this was because I was interested in the thoughts of Liberals and Fabians (and still am) rather than because I was a Liberal Democrat or a Fabian”. It is probably kindest to assume that the famously brainy Letwin resolved this contradiction with a typically clever evasion – joining a party opposed to both the others – which, incidentally, offered him the best chance of reaching the top in politics. His first attempts to become a parliamentary candidate were for two London seats. West Dorset in 1997 was much gentler and more secure, offering shelter from Tony Blair’s landslide. But then came the blunders. In 2001 he was credited (Gordon Brown went so far as to thank him) with helping Labour to stay in power by proposing, as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that a Tory government would reduce public expenditure to the tune of some £20 billion – a seriously unpopular suggestion. Many politicians would have responded to such pressure by simply bluffing it out, but Letwin chose to go underground, which provided yet more ammunition to his opponents, such as the Labour party member who dressed as Sherlock Holmes and, complete with bloodhound, pretended to sniff out the fugitive Shadow Minister.

Predators

Letwin’s stints as Shadow Home Secretary followed by the equally prestigious Shadow Chancellor, may have boosted his self-esteem to the point of seeing himself as a future party leader and then, after a little inter-reaction with the voters, Prime Minister. But it would also have made him vulnerable to the predatory tunnelling of his rivals. In 2003 he was leaked as saying that he would “rather go out on the streets and beg” than let his children go to an inner-city London comprehensive. In reply to the consequent storm of outrage the best he could do was to protest that the remark had been made in a private conversation – which failed to answer his critics and left untouched the central matter of Letwin’s acceptance that what is called education is, like all else in capitalism, class determined.

Schooled in these prejudices at Eton, Letwin is now a director of the Sherborne School for Girls, whose annual fees are as much as £26,700. A multimillionaire, he works for N.M.Rothschild, described as a finance house, where he “earns” £5020 for 35 hours work in a year – not enough to pay for a place at Sherborne but a useful sum to the parents of comprehensive kids. This secure lifestyle is in contrast to that of employees such as teachers and hospital staff, who were recently attacked by him for their supposed lack of application to their work. At a meeting at KPMG – another collection of financiers – he gave vent to what seemed to be a particular frustration to him: “You can’t,” he raved, “have room for innovation and the pressure for excellence without having some real discipline and some fear on the part of the providers that things may go wrong if they don’t live up to the aims that society as a whole is demanding of them”. However, he seemed to be ready to abandon his own guidelines for disciplining fear when in May 2005 he was moved from Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs at his request for a less demanding job to follow his career among the bankers and the hedge traders in the City. After the Tory win in May 2010 he got even more free time when Cameron appointed him to the new, vaguely titled job of Minister of State for Policy.

Sheffield

Despite his reassuringly avuncular exterior, Letwin can give voice to some pretty scabrous opinions on those he regards as his social inferiors. In April, in a clash with his fellow Old Etonian Boris Johnson over the expansion of airports, he sneered “We don’t want more people from Sheffield flying away on cheap holidays” – which united Johnson and several thousand others, including Sheffield Hallam MP Nick Clegg, in outrage. Undeterred, Letwin attracted further merciless exposure in the media when he was observed, while walking in a Westminster park, stuffing a lot of official correspondence into rubbish bins and giving some to a collector. His attempt to defuse the matter by explaining that “I…simply wanted to make sure the pieces of paper were not weighing me down” was less than helpful to him. It has been known for a politician who is in a tangle with the voters to try to divert attention from their confusion with a cloak of beguiling eccentricity. It is, however, unusual to be confronted by so blatant and unrepentant a practitioner as the Rt. Hon Oliver Letwin MP – one of the more extreme, exotic leaders to personify the system’s stagnant and wasteful character.

Ivan

Proper Gander: Tory Teenagers (2012)

The Proper Gander column from the September 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Leave a Petri dish in Oxford or Cambridge and chances are it will spawn a few young Conservatives along with other bacteria. The universities there have always been infected with teenage Tories, and two of these irritating germs featured on Young, Bright and On the Right (BBC2). Cameras followed them both as they tried to gain influence in their respective Oxbridge University Conservative Associations – CUCA and OUCA.

Joe Cooke hangs portraits of Thatcher and Churchill on his bedroom wall, where other teenagers might have posters from Nuts magazine. Nineteen-year-old Chris Monk describes himself as “a wild firebrand of the right”. Alas, he’s too ‘wild’ to ingratiate himself among CUCA, with his flailing arms, gawky demeanour and strange obsession with cheese and port. The most striking thing about each of them is their voice. Chris speaks in a whiny gargle, like Boris Johnson with a helium balloon. Joe’s decided to dilute his Yorkshire accent to fit in better with his posh, plummy peers.

Both want to start playing among the infighting and intrigue they find in their Conservative Associations. In their minds, they’re practising for when they’re in Parliament. In reality, they’re behaving like they’re in a sixth-form drama production of Yes, Minister. The game turns more serious when Joe gets revenge on those who mocked his real accent. He goes to the papers with evidence that OUCA sang racist and anti-Semitic songs at their meetings. He says he’s now seen through their “warped reality”.

Young, Bright and On the Right reveals that both Joe and Chris have grown up feeling isolated, and this led them to seek acceptance in the Conservative Party, of all places. Why there, rather than anywhere normal people go? Perhaps feeling some resentment towards their peers has contributed to their joining an organisation famed for trampling on people. It’s as if Conservatism is a symptom of their teen angst. Thankfully, it’s a phase both Joe and Chris should grow out of. By the end of the programme, they’ve both abandoned their political aspirations. Hopefully, in years to come they’ll be suitably embarrassed about being young, bright and full of shite.

Mike Foster

A Christian History. (1912)

From the April 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Universities, having grown out of cathedral schools, have ever been pillars of the Church. In this country these “seats of learning” are even more bigoted and reactionary than the rest of the ruling class. Here is an example.

There is now being published by the Cambridge University Press, a new work called “The Cambridge Medieval History,” in the words of a familiar advertisement, as a supreme product of a great university. If past experience of a bulkier product from the same source is a guide, copies are already being specially reserved for us, and soon we may expect the postman’s knock to herald the avalanche of Yankee swank inadequately describing its merits. It is not, however, the marriage of medieval thought with bustling methods of advertisement that need concern us here. Perpend.

"The Observer," an influential Conservative organ, has reviewed the first volume of this eventful history, and some of its remarks are worthy of note. It said:—

   “After a glance at the table of contents one is not surprised to find that the hook has a strong theological bias.   . . . Whereas Gibbon assailed Christianity with the most subtle reasoning, the present volume assumes (an assumption which the facts of the period show in a peculiar light) that the rise of Christianity was the steady conquest of good over evil: fine theology, doubtless, but a little presumptuous, perhaps, as history. This is seen, too, in the importance given to the actual creed of Christianity as apart from its importance as a political factor or organisation.”

Your theologian is ever the greatest falsifier of history. He writes “history,” invents an Atheist shoemaker, and imagines a death bed scene of a Darwin, with but a single aim —the greater glory of his trade. And “The Observer" goes on to say : —

   “It is Professor Gwatkin (The Rev. H. M. Gwatkin, one of the editors) who is the most marked partisan; he writes of ‘the heathens’ with a scornful unction, seen in his description of Constantine’s anxiety to unite Paganism and Christianity. . . . And he writes a little later: ‘After all, Christianity is not a monotheistic philosophy, but a life in Christ,’ a definition which is, of course, clear as sunlight to the initiated, but is the kind of phraseology which is better suited for a British Weekly than for a European History. After all, Christians and not 'heathens' scraped the philosopher Hypatia to death with tiles in the church called Caesariitm, A.D 115."
  “In consequence, however, of such ideas as those expressed by Professor Gwatkin, one turns back to the wider view of Gibbon or of Dill with an added recognition of its value. Whatever the influence of religion may be upon individuals, it is generally the authority a nation gives itself for doing what is profitable."

The Italics are our own.

It would appear that, in the best informed capitalist circles — as distinct from the bigoted medieval obscurantism of the theologians — a dim recognition of the essential truth of the Socialist case against religion cannot be suppressed. Like murder, it will out.

F. C. Watts