SPGB Snippets: The punishment of Christa Pike (2026)

From the Socialist Party of Great Britain website 

October 3, 2026

A dark abyss of cruelty lies behind capitalism’s glitzy facade. Christa Pike spent 31 years on Death Row for murder while lawyers launched appeal after appeal. The trial jury were never told about Pike’s hideous childhood: ‘Pike was physically and sexually abused by several of her mother’s husbands and boyfriends, and raped several times, once when she was 11 and again aged 17. Later, it was discovered that she was repeatedly raped as a toddler by her grandmother’s boyfriend.’

Unmoved, Tennessee’s governor, and the Supreme Court, refused to stop the execution. But the lethal injections failed, leaving Pike with possible brain damage. Her endless punishment is just one story in a trail of broken lives left by a world obsessed with money, power and bloody revenge.

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard 

… a tiny minority of about 0.6 percent of the population, own 45 percent of the country’s total wealth. For workers… the situation in Germany, is becoming increasingly precarious. 

(WSWS)

… support for Hezbollah — as well as opposition to it — still fall primarily along sectarian lines. Polling by The Washington Institute late last year found that 34% of Sunni Muslims and 29% of Christians expressed a positive view of Hezbollah, while 93% of Shias said they approved of the group. 

(NBC)

As he watches the world go by each day from the shade of his porch in southern Havana, Ramone Monteagudo, 72, a retired history teacher, has a front-row seat for the wreckage… Now flies swarm over a sea of rubbish in the sticky heat. He watches some of his poorer neighbors — who until a few years ago had enough to eat — pick leftover food out of the rot. ‘When it comes to food and medicine, we’re living through an extraordinarily difficult situation’. 

(Truthdig)

It was done for the Viet Cong in numerous countries during the US involvement in Vietnam. It was done for the African National Congress (ANC). It was done for the Irish Revolutionary (sic) Army (IRA). Across the United States, Europe and Australasia, all three organisations, demonised as terrorist outfits, received tacit, symbolic support from protestors. In some cases, support was genuine and pecuniary. Now, the Lebanese Shia militant and political group Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organisation in a number of Western states, has inspired flag holders to appear at protests against the expanding conflict in Gaza and Lebanon.

(Dissident Voice)

Saudi Arabia has executed 213 people so far in 2024, more than it has in any other calendar year on record, as the kingdom competes for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council. 

(Middle East Eye)

‘. . . The ratepayers’ association and the ANC led municipality are working together to evict poor black people, to destroy our homes and communities. They say that our presence reduces the value of the land, as if value is just a question of the price of the land and has nothing to do with the value of land for the human beings who live on it. They say that we must be removed because we are a health hazard as we must use the bush to relieve ourselves whereas the obvious solution to the lack of sanitation is to provide sanitation. They say that we are ‘chasing tourists away’. The strong element of racism driving all this is often openly displayed on the social media used by the white residents of the gated communities. The black elites who live in the gated communities are silent about this racism”.

(Dissident Voice)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

Political Notes: It’s an honour (1983)

The Political Notes Column from the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

It’s an honour

There has never been any reason to believe that Harold Wilson had designs to abolish himself so there must be some other explanation for the fact that, although when he was prime minister he announced that no more hereditary peers would be created, now that he is out of parliament he is reported to have accepted — to have wanted — such an honour for himself.

Of course this may be yet another — if especially obscure — example of Labour Party gradualism, of the theory that capitalism will eventually find itself ended through a succession of near-imperceptible steps. It is something over fifty years since the Labour Party announced that one such step would be the abolition of the House of Lords and Wilson's stated preference for the creation of life, as opposed to hereditary, lords was greeted as a gradualist move in the process of abolition sometime.

This enthusiasm — Labour supporters starved of real progress, have had to learn to exist on such contemptible crumbs — must have been dented when the police began to take a deep interest in several of the eminences so recently ennobled by Wilson.

Capitalism can do very nicely — as it does in places like America, France and Russia — without the tradition of dressing people up in funny clothes, pinning bits of ribbon and metal on them and giving them funny titles. Which is not to say that the system does not have some picturesque rewards for those who have given it special service.

Harold Wilson was one of these. He came to power through a skilfully worded pledge that working class problems could easily be conjured away through something called the technological revolution; that the micro chip would alter the basic nature of capitalism. Predictably, he and his government were soon bogged down in crisis. Their fine promises were forgotten as they grappled to deplete workers’ living standards. When they lost power they were thoroughly exposed and discredited and since then no more is heard of the harvest to be reaped from the white hot technological revolution. By any standards, a notable achievement by Wilson. He fully deserves his honour; capitalism has looked on him and found him to be good.

Head count

The debate over the restoration of the death penalty was loaded with moral considerations and much talk about the ethics of the judicial taking of life and the right of society to respond to a murder by itself murdering the killer. Almost everyone who took part agreed that this was a very important issue because with human lives at stake a careful and informed discussion was necessary. When it was over and the votes had been counted everyone could go home congratulating themselves for playing their part in such a highly charged occasion with full regard to their grave responsibility.

But what sort of problem were they talking about? If the death penally is restored so that it applies as it did before the Homicide Act of 1957 — before the introduction of degrees of murder — there will be about one execution a week in Britain. If a Bill goes through in this form, something like 60 people will die who would otherwise survive to serve a life sentence.

Now there is no denying that the death penalty is a disfiguring barbarity. There is no denying that the vast majority of murders can be said to be some sort of response to the inhumanities which capitalism imposes on its people, and which it expects them to survive with patience and conformity. But in comparison to the tens of millions who die each year through the simple fact that capitalism can’t meet the needs of the human race, the numbers who might be despatched by the hangman in Britain are insignificant. If MPs. and others who were convinced that they were arguing about moral issues, about the sanctity of human life, were sincere why are they so consistently able to ignore this massively greater death toll?

The answer is simple. The apologists for capitalism can discuss an issue like the death penalty, with its strictly limited scope, without ever needing to consider the wider and deeper responsibility of this social system for the problem. The whole thing can be talked out in terms of ethics, religion, insignificant reforms; when it is over capitalism is left undisturbed.

This is a much more comfortable way of approaching an issue, than one which might call into question the basics of society, their effect on people and the fact that this social system must degrade the people who keep it in existence. As so often happens, the debate on the death penalty was really about granting capitalism yet another reprieve.

Up school

Margaret Thatcher has not made her name as a political tactician of historic subtlety so perhaps she was unaware that, by sacking Francis Pym, she was depriving some of her opponents of one of their most cherished illusions. Pym's departure from the government meant that, with the exception of the increasingly ridiculous Lord Hailsham, there is now not one Old Etonian in the Cabinet — to say the least, an unusual situation for a Tory government and one to cause consternation in London's clubland.

It has always been a favourite left-wing pastime to tot up the numbers of Tory ministers who spent their schooldays at Eton and Harrow and to produce the result as proof that a Conservative government is in the hands of a small, privileged, self-perpetuating clique. At times, there seemed to be something to be said for this theory. Harold Macmillan, for example, seemed to go out of his way to give some top jobs, not just to Old Etonians but to those who were related to him. The lesson we were invited by the left wing to draw from this was that a government full of such high born people could not possibly understand, and deal with, the problems of the “ordinary” people and that we should therefore vote for a party with a less exclusive background.

Unhappily for this theory, we had the experience of Labour governments, many of whose ministers had not only not been to public school but had sometimes had very little formal schooling at all. Some of them were fond of reminding us of this, by applying an eccentric pronunciation which removed aitches from where they should be and stuck them back on where they should not be.

Jimmy Thomas was one such eminence; another was Ernie Bevin. Their place in political history is assured; they were zealous workers for the interests of the British capitalist class at no matter what cost to the class of their origin, the class which can't send its children to Eton or Roedean and which suffers the effects of the social system which Thomas and Bevin helped to administer.

Thomas, after a spell drunkenly contemplating the deepening misery of British workers in the slump of the late twenties, saved his miserable skin by joining the National government with the Tories and the Liberals. His aristocratic friends were much amused by his comical terminology. Bevin, among his many other achievements, saw British workers committed to the slaughter of the Korean war and the start of the British nuclear weapon programme.

The familial and social beginnings of the people who run capitalism is of absolutely no account. It is working class acquiescence in the system which is important. Without that the leaders would be impotent and redundant and we would have a society free of conflict and privilege.

Blogger's Note:

On the subject of capital punishment, this issue of the Socialist Standard also had a longer article on the subject: British rope trick

The Passing Show: I hire 'em, I fire’em (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the April 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

I hire 'em, I fire’em

Under the 1948 treaty of “alliance” between Britain and Jordan, Britain is allowed to maintain air bases and troops in Jordan, and subsidises and trains the Arab Legion, which is the Jordan army and police force combined. The subsidy to the Arab Legion is paid not to the Jordan Government but direct to the Legion itself. Up to a short time ago the Arab Legion was commanded and controlled by Brigadier-General Glubb, who had the assistance of more than 70 British officers, some seconded from the British Army, but most on private contract with the Jordan Government. Under this set-up General Glubb “controlled a sum which amounted last year to two-thirds of Jordan’s total national budget” (The Observer, 4/ 3/56). When it was pointed out that this meant that Jordan, with her coercive forces controlled—through Glubb and the British subsidy—by Britain, was little more than a British colony, the answer always came pat that Glubb had nothing to do with Britain; he was simply a “soldier of fortune,” who was employed as a matter of private arrangement by King Hussein and the Jordan Government But when, on 1st March, King Hussein acted on this assumption, and gave Glubb the sack, what a roar of anger went up from the British ruling class! In fact, under the old arrangement, Jordan was a quasi-colony of Britain; and the dismissal of Glubb was part of an attempt by the Jordanian ruling class to free itself from the tutelage of the British ruling class.

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For better, for worse

But while the British ruling class was roaring with anger, our “progressives,” our left-wing Labourites and Communists, were roaring with approval. The sacking of Glubb was seen as a successful episode in an anti-colonial struggle for liberation by the Jordan people instead of indicating merely a change of masters. But how progressive is it to be a “progressive?” For while the Arab Legion was controlled by Britain, Glubb saw to it that it was kept ready to defend the interests, strategic and commercial, of the British ruling class in the Middle East, in any possible struggle with anti-British powers. It was therefore the policy of Britain to keep the Legion out of any war with Israel. But now that the restraining influence of General Glubb has been removed, the chances of a war between Israel and Jordan, with all the attendant devastation and misery, have been much increased. As usual, the “progressives” in their pursuit of “immediate” policies and “day-to-day” objectives, have found themselves between the devil and the deep blue sea.

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The things that are sacred

The House of Commons has now voted twice within a month to end hanging. An interesting sidelight on the first debate in 'February was the attitude of The Times. It was against the complete abolition which Mr. Silverman and his associates called for; and although it prides itself that its news columns are impartial, it saw fit (taking the report of the debate and the summary on the main news page together) to give 90 inches of space to the speeches of the hangman’s supporters against only 30 inches to those of the abolitionists.

As for the second debate, in March, one cannot resist quoting part of the contribution made by Mr. Logan, the Labourite, who sits for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (The Times, 17/2/56).

“The Bill was the most fallacious and damnable thing affecting the liberty of the people that had been brought before the House of Commons. It gave a licence to kill without a penalty. It should not be allowed.... If members of the House valued their own lives, if they valued law and order, and if they wanted to protect the things that were sacred, in the name of God it was their duty to vote against the second reading.”

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Camel-swallowers, Inc.

But in spite of the impassioned arguments of Mr. Logan, the Bill was given a second reading. What is the Socialist attitude to it? It means that some 12 or 13 persons each year will, instead of bring hanged, be put into prison for a greater or lesser number of years. But in the meantime the system of Capitalism, with its big wars, “small” wars, colonial wars, and “emergencies,” continues to send thousands to their deaths every year. Mr. Silverman, the Labour M.P. for Nelson and Colne, said in the first debate (The Times, 17/2/56):

“Beyond all the arguments about deterrents and the state of the law, there must remain in their minds the fear that from time to time at eight or nine o’clock in the morning an innocent man would be taken out of his cell to have his neck broken.”

But Mr. Silverman, and the other Parliamentary supporters of the Bill. were also supporters of the last war, when not one or two innocent men, but hundreds of thousands of innocent men—and women and children too —were shot or bombed to pieces. If Mr. Silverman is really concerned with preventing innocent people losing their lives, he would be wise to devote himself to the inauguration of Socialism, instead of the patching-up of Capitalism.

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Fiddling the accounts

Figures are frequently published to demonstrate to the workers that the rate of surplus value is really very low. For this purpose various shady devices are employed —for example, allowing for directors’ fees, which are often a disguised form of surplus value, as part of the total expenditure along with wages and raw materials, before calculating the amount of profit which the workers have produced for their bosses. Another, and more important, dodge is to allow for payment of the various company taxes before reckoning up the surplus value. And it is true that if this is done, the amount of surplus value is brought down considerably. But this is simply a trick. To the worker, labouring part of the week to produce the equivalent of his wages' and for the rest of the week to produce surplus value for his boss, it is immaterial whether that part of the value of his work which is stolen from him goes to the individual Capitalist who happens to employ him or to the executive committee of the Capitalist class, which is the State. The Capitalist grumbles about his taxes, but he goes on paying them, because the burden of taxation can only be borne by a propertied class. The State must foot heavy bills for things like armaments. And for these the Capitalists must pay. But they pay for what they want themselves armaments are not bought in the interest of the working class; they are bought to enable the ruling class—that is the Capitalist class—to defend its property and its profits against the ruling class of other states. But though the Capitalists have to sacrifice part of their gains to preserve the rest, all of it—what they buy armaments with and what they keep—is surplus value, which the worker produces and is then deprived of.


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Boloney, Mr. Masefield

On February 17th the Queen returned from a tour of Nigeria. To mark the event Mr. John Masefield, the Poet Laureate, composed the following verse:

Lines for the Home-Coming of our Most


              Gracious Sovereign Lady


Chain upon chain, and prison within prison,

Man shuts his spirit into deeper night.

This Lady, home-returning, has brought light.

Upon a way long dark a star has risen.

Do you really think it has, Mr. Masefield?

It is sad to see a man of Mr. Masefield's talents reduced to writing rubbish because the upper class expects it of him.

Alwyn Edgar

50 Years Ago: Drugs and the Death Penalty (2006)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard 

While the controversy about the abolition of hanging has been causing such a furore in this country, a significant change in the American law recently has passed by almost without comment. This is the passing by Congress of the Bill aimed at the drug traffic in the United States, which includes in its provisions increased penalties for trafficking in drugs and, in particular, the death penalty for those found guilty of selling heroin to young people under 18. The background of the Bill, the drug traffic,was recently reported on by a US correspondent of the Economist (14th July, 1956). The picture is horrifying.

 According to the Economist’s correspondent the United States is said to have more drug addicts that all the other Western nations combined, and the authorities are engaged in a constant battle against the traffic. The main impetus to it is given by the needs of 60,000 addicts who are prepared to spend anything from $10 to $100 a day to satisfy their craving. To get this money, many of them resort to crime, and it has been said that about half of the crimes committed in large cities and about a quarter of crimes in the US are the result of this drive to get drugs.

The police seem to be able to do little more than hold their own. Smuggling is fairly easy, and rife. The product is small and expensive, and profits are huge – nine ounces of uncut heroin can earn $50,000 when diluted for retail sale. New pedlars soon step in to take the places of those arrested and put in gaol.

 Apart from the sale of such vicious drugs as heroin, there is a large business done in other less dangerous drugs, much of it barely legal. In the words of the Economist :-

“But the narcotics problem extends beyond the underworld; it reaches on to the counters of unscrupulous chemists. Housewives eager to lose weight take amphetamines and do not realise that they have become addicts until it is too late. Officials are also worried about the widespread use of barbiturates (sleeping pills). In theory these are obtainable only with a physician’s prescription; in fact many chemists will sell them and users do not realise that addiction leads to grave dangers to mental health”. 

Altogether a terrible story. And made even more dreadful by the extension of the death penalty to try to deal with it.

(Article by S. H., Socialist Standard, August 1956).

News in Review: Syngman Rhee (1960)

The News in Review column from the June 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Syngman Rhee

In 1950 the U.S.A. intervened in Korea, when that country was torn by internal strife and faced with the threat that Communist China was attempting to take over the country. Fortunately for the U.S.A., Russia had just walked out of the Security Council, and the United States was able to get the United Nations' support against “Communist aggression" and go to the aid of Korea in order to save that country for “democracy.” Most nations of the Western bloc will not forget in a hurry places like Pusan and Seoul, where bitter fighting took place. Many died on both sides for that hackneyed phrase “ Freedom.” 

It has been asserted more than once that the so-called Chinese Communism is a repressive dictatorship where people have no rights and democratic government is not known—in fact it is a police state. The war, as we know, ended in a stalemate in 1953 with North Korea in the orbit of China and the Southern part under the “democracy” of Syngman Rhee. Following the recent shooting of demonstrators in Seoul. Mr. Christian Herter, the U.S. Secretary of State summoned Mr. Yen Chan Yeng, South Korea's Ambassador to the U.S.A. for discussion. Within an hour, the Secretary's Press Officer was “expressing the U.S.A.’s profound and growing concern over (1) the high-handed suppression of political opposition by Korea's 85 year old President Syngman Rhee; (2) brutal Korean police action against student protest marchers and (3) other repressive measures unsuited to a free democracy.” It seems that Syngman Rhee has all the aspirations and undemocratic desires of a minor Stalin. Unfortunately, the workers who died in defence of “Freedom” in Korea cannot protest, but we can. This is another of the many tragic examples of workers being hoodwinked with empty phrases. Wars are fought to perpetuate this vicious capitalist system, not to institute “democratic freedoms.”

Caryl Chessman

The recent legal, ritual putting to death of Caryl Chessman in San Quentin gas chamber, after twelve years' occupation of a death cell, brings into morbid focus the irrational and negative character of the death penalty. Those who defend the death penalty act on the base assumption that human nature is essentially anti-social and that only “the fear of the rope” deters us from asserting our “instincts” to wantonly murder and rape. On the contrary, it was our own society, which institutes at every level of social life struggle and competition, that nurtured the violence in Caryl Chessman's make-up during his earlier years. Twelve years ago, Chessman was a hardened criminal, a product of slum poverty, brutalised by a childhood history of reformatory schools. His own criminality was in itself a negative response to the injustices of his own environment. Yet by Chessman's own efforts through education, the man they executed was a thousand cultural miles removed from the man they originally condemned. But blind retribution had to proceed. For an individual to offend against morals by committing rape, as Chessman was convicted of having done, poses a social problem. But when organised society in all its brutal ignorance exacts primitive vengeance from the life of an individual after twelve years' incarceration, that constitutes a nightmare. The significance of the case of Caryl Chessman will be missed if we fail to condemn the society which first produced him and then so brutally destroyed him.

That Wedding

Princess Margaret's wedding has been a source of joy to the headline writers of the popular press for some months now. Sickening discussions have taken place on the number of bridesmaids, the style of the wedding dress, and so on. More recently, sections of the press have been coming down to earth with some articles on the cost of the whole pantomime. The Government, without batting an eyelid, has spent £25,000 on the wedding, with a further £40,000 on the honeymoon cruise. It is surprising that these papers, and some Labour M.P.'s. should suddenly criticise the expenditure on the cruise, because, as pointed out in the House of Commons, the royal yacht costs £4,000 a week in wages alone, whether or not it is in use. However, those in Parliament who do criticise, are in the minority; the majority think that as advertising agents for British capitalism, the royal family do a good job of work, and they should be paid accordingly, with now and then a bonus like this gigantic wedding.

Economic Rebore

Our economic system is a gigantic machine that needs constant care and attention. A mechanic who understands his car can keep it in good order indefinitely, but the political mechanics, whose job it is to keep capitalism in good running order, have very limited control over the caprices of our mode of production. However, one body of opinion insists that a healthy balance between production and consumption can be maintained, if, from time to time, the brakes are applied to working class spending. Production is geared to meet the demands of the market at their peak, and any fall in demand can cause chaos in the economy. The latest credit squeeze was designed to restrict the too rampant expansion of industry by putting a curb on capital investment. This old machine, even if it gets a de-carb and a rebore, is liable to break down at any time. We all have to travel in it, and it is time we thought seriously about getting ourselves a new one.

Policeman's Lot

The increasing rate of crime and the shortage of manpower in the police force has caused the Government to set up a Royal Commission to investigate the matter. A joint memorandum has been submitted to the Commission by the Police Federations of England and Wales and Scotland. The memorandum said “That the decline in the relative status and pay of the police constable was calamitous—that police pay should be maintained at between 40 and 45 per cent. above the average weekly earnings of manual workers." It was claimed in the memorandum that "the constable at the maximum of his scale is no longer 55 to 60 per cent. ahead of the average worker’s earnings. He has fallen so far that he is getting less pay than the average.” This situation led one Chief Constable into allowing his men to take up civilian work after finishing their duty, a state of affairs that is deplored in the memorandum, it being considered that “a constable should be paid sufficient to be able to hold himself aloof from spare time work which might lead to embarrassment or to a conflict of loyalties.”

This fall in pay is an example of the natural oscillation of price around value, caused by fluctuation of supply and demand on the market. The fact is that the post-war boom having created a terrific demand for productive labour power, the police force has been to some extent neglected in the mad scramble for profit. We use the term ”natural oscillation of price” because this applies to all commodities which are helpless to resist the effect of these oscillations. The unique commodity in this respect is labour power, whose owners can resist market fluctuations to some extent by intelligent use of their trade unions and the strike weapon. The police don’t have access to this weapon and are thus as helpless as a pot of- jam in determining its price.

Red Herrings

The second United Nations law of the sea conference — on the Icelandic fishing dispute — has ended in failure. Mr. John Hare, leader of the British delegation, blamed the "selfish interest" of the other contending capitalist countries. No capitalist class will ever admit that its own interests are selfish: the selfish ones are always the others. Our rulers will expect the working class to support them on this as on many other issues. But the disputes over three, six or twelve mile limit does not consume the working class. The only limits which concerns the workers is the budget between them two classes in society — the rulers on one side and the ruled on the other.

Plane Over Russia

The incident of the American plane which was shot down over Russia when on a spying mission raised a furore. There was much criticism of the American action, especially in left-wing circles. It is hard to see why this was. The present division of the world into mutually contending powers — which is inevitable so long as there is capitalism — means that each country must spy on all the others in order not to be taken at a disadvantage if war breaks out. It all goes back to the basic contradiction in all non-Socialist "progressive” thinking: the system of capitalism is supported. and yet its results are attacked.

The Catholic Church and Authority (1960)

From the June 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Every Sunday evening without fail, there is a religious programme on television. Sunday, May 1st, was no exception. The contributor to the programme was none other than his eminence, Archbishop Heenan of Liverpool, who had some interesting and outrageous statements to make on authority and tyranny, which were later reproduced in the Universe. Some of the characteristic evils of our time, he said, were “Defiance of Authority ” and “ Unofficial Strikes.” He forgot to mention, however, that authority invites defiance when it is oppressive. On the question of unofficial strikes, it should be made clear that workers take action by striking only when they feel that they have a legitimate grievance.

The Archbishop then entered the realm of sport. “You can’t even run a football match without authority. What would happen when a game got dirty if no one obeyed the referee?” Too true, Mr. Archbishop, but surely this is a very poor parallel? Capitalism is a dirty game in its entirety. Football, especially when it is not being played for money, is usually clean, but even so the workers do not make the rules under capitalism, neither do they pick the referee.

He then proceeded to say that “Some people think the Church is like a totalitarian state. Of course, there are bullies amongst the clergy, as there are in other groups, but on the whole, we are not tyrants." Well, well. It seems that some of the Delegates of God have been reading their texts instead of their newspapers. Talking of totalitarians and tyranny our minds go back to Mussolini and Franco. Did not the Church of Rome support the Christianising of those Abyssinian savages with dive bombers, and did they not also give support to Franco against the democratic government of Spain? Surely the Pope is a classic example of complete authority, for remember, the Roman Catholic Church argues that as the word of God on earth, the Pope can do or say no wrong.

But the Archbishop's field ranged far and wide. “It is not the Church but the law of God that forbids divorce and contraceptives." Seeing that both these things are products of modern society, one wonders when and where the directive came to oppose them. The writer well remembers the look of horror on the face of the local parish priest when he suggested that contraceptives would probably assist the health and economic position of a relative after she had produced her ninth child. “The Lord will provide” was his answer. But the Lord was meagre in his provision, for her husband was unemployed and they lived in two rooms in a Bermondsey slum.

Archbishop Heenan also had a prayer for the upholders of authority. "Have you any pity for those who exercise authority? It is so easy to think that the man at the top has done pretty well for himself. The night before an execution I pray for the Home Secretary as well as the criminal.”

Now this is the limit. The Archbishop presumably thinks that the problem of deciding is as acute as the problem of losing one's own life—and after all, the Home Secretary can always change his job. The Archbishop has also a lot to say about guidance, but of course he surely would not advise that the criminal go free, for that would be a blow to authority. In our view, he could have well spent his time considering the barbaric practice of capital punishment.

It seems that as all the other advertisers on ATV have to pay for time on the air, the Archbishop can congratulate himself on a free half-hour of advertisement. In this day and age it is tragic that leaders of the Church can put over this rubbish and unfortunately it will be accepted, by Catholics in particular, for blind acceptance of the teachings of the Catholic Church is its major rule. It is one of the most backward of all religions, one that breeds on ignorance and poverty. We ask all Catholic workers to seriously examine the contradictions and arguments of Roman Catholicism, and they, too, will see that they are irrational, and will set about achieving a sane and intelligent society. Tyranny will be a thing of the past and the mumbo jumbo of the Church service will be replaced by intelligent discussion of the real world where men will walk with pride and dignity and not in fear of the myth of Popery and repressive authority.

Johnny Edmonds

Letters: Class War (2007)

Letters to the Editors from the April 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class War

Dear Editors

I read the review of Ian Bone’s Bash the Rich (March Socialist Standard) with interest as a few years back I had a couple of pints with the author in a pub in Bristol. And until recently he could be found selling the excellent community news-and-scandal sheet The Bristolian in that same fair city.

Indeed, one of the most interesting sections in his “confessions” deals with his involvement in a similar publication in Swansea during the late 1970s called Alarm. Populist, pro-working class publications are evidently what he does best, and the mother of them all of course turned out to be Class War.

Here’s my “confession” . . . I always had a bit of a soft spot for CW. Their political positions (such as they were) were always closer to the Socialist Party’s than most anarchists and any lefties. And the paper in its heyday was something to behold. But – and it’s a big but – their avowed methods were, and are, different from ours in the extreme. Bone quotes a comrade of his criticising elitist violence (as opposed to political mob violence) by stating ‘petrol bombs are far more democratic than dynamite’. OK then, but isn’t democratic political action even more democratic still? And, of course, CW famously developed a veritable obsession with the “middle class” that they saw as standing between us and the ruling class.

As his memoirs end abruptly around 1985 we can presumably await further fond rememberings, no doubt featuring tales of the anti-Poll Tax conflict of the early 1990s. Until then, Ian, if you’re reading this, where on Earth did the bloody Bristolian vanish to?

Ben Malcolm, 

Bath.

Capitalism

Dear Editors

Thanks for the review of my book Capitalism: A Very Short Introduction (March Socialist Standard), which I appreciate. I introduce the notion of a stage of managed capitalism largely in order to contrast the tendencies of the period (roughly speaking) 1850-1970s with what has happened since the 1970s. I agree that there are continuities across this watershed – the concentration of capital has, for example, steadily increased – but I think we need some notion of a different stage since the 1980s in order to make sense of Thatcherism and New Labour, their similarities and their difference from old Conservatism and old Labour.

While it appeared to many in the 1970s that capitalism was collapsing, and there was plenty of evidence they could draw upon – notably the global decline in rates of profit – capitalism did seem to get a new lease of life in the 1980s.

On the issue of whether the Soviet Union was a form of state capitalism, I would argue that the institutional differences between the Soviet system and the capitalist countries are sufficiently great to warrant the treatment of the Soviet system as fundamentally different, though I would agree that the Soviet Union was a part of the capitalist world economy rather than distinct from it and that it was another means by which labour was systematically exploited. If one treats the Soviet system as a form of state capitalism it is also more difficult to make sense of the 1990s transformation of Russia and its consequences, which flowed from the introduction of capitalist mechanisms.

Perhaps you are too pessimistic on the possibility of changing capitalism, since there have been many important institutional changes in many different countries at many different times. By change you mean change from rather than change of! Are there any signs that a change from is going to happen?

James Fulcher 

War

Dear Editors

I agree with Bob Dixon (book of poems reviewed in the March Socialist Standard) that the working class do not give much thought to wars. Some regard them as part of life. You can see this from the way they buy poppies and the way they attend ceremonies which glorify wars. Although many join the forces for adventure and to escape poverty. But we must try to change this culture of war by any means we can including by poems like Bob Dixon’s. If you join the forces you will be expected to kill and be killed. All wars are illegal and you will be expected to fight for the ruling class. Who will put poppies on your grave? You will become part of the poppy day parade. No sympathy. No comment. Just silence. Like the dead.

Joe Boughey, 

Newton-le-willows.

Death penalty

Dear Editors

In his article (Socialist Standard, March) John Bissett explains some of the cruelties of the death penalty, and talks movingly of his own experience of trying to support someone on death row. As a constitutionally secular society that, ostensibly at least, champions the right of the individual, executions in America seem particularly perverse.

Of course, it’s unlikely that anyone reading this letter is likely to have any overly idealistic ideas about the American government (to say the least!) but couldn’t we at least hope for them to not engage in such a seemingly obvious contradiction of the values for which they claim to stand?

A real turning point for me, in my understanding of both the death penalty and my attitude towards it, came from reading the book ,Who Owns Death? Capital Punishment the American Conscience and the end of executions, by Robert Jay Lifton and Greg Mitchell. I really found this to be one of the cleverest and most illuminating books I’ve ever read. I was honestly bowled over by the skill with which the authors tackled this subject. Rather than dwelling exclusively on the point that executions aren’t terribly nice for the person getting killed in this manner, and then vilifying anyone who possessed the inhumanity to express even the slightest sympathy for it under any circumstances ever (as I might have been tempted to do) the authors adopt a diametrically different approach – seeking to understand, rather than pass judgment, on everyone in any way involved in the death penalty process or expressing an opinion on it.

The authors draw a distinction between personal emotions concerning violent crime, and government policy. As they put it: “we can well understand how a husband or sister of a murder victim might want to tear the killer limb from limb; we’d probably feel the same way, at least initially. Yet this does not provide a clear indication about what society should do with convicted killers.”

I’ve had a few conversations with people who regarded themselves as supporters of the death-penalty who I’ve managed to bring around to agreeing it wasn’t a good idea, by first expressing sympathy for their sense of indignation and wish for vengeance, and then gently asking them if they thought the death penalty would really help stop such things (i.e. violent murders) from happening.

The authors explain how the condemned man comes to serve a symbolic purpose – representing evil that needs to be purged, and, a “hard” attitude towards crime generally. This is of course relevant to other groups that can come to represent evil, and towards whom a similarly “hard” attitude is seen as appropriate, i.e. “Islamic terrorists”.

The death penalty is significant not just from the point of view of the suffering it causes to its victims (and everyone else involved in the death penalty process – a point explained by Lifton and Mitchell), but also because it is related to fundamental moral and psychological issues that are a part of everyone’s lives, to do with justice, vengeance, forgiveness, and the value we place on human life. By improving our understanding of these, and learning to ditch the attitude of considering people as “evil” in favour of recognizing them as flesh and blood humans like ourselves, erring and misguided though they may be, we can start to gain a recognition of our shared humanity that, when shared by enough of us, will help bring an end to all instances of inhumanity and neglect.

Adam Waterhouse, 

Bristol

News in Review: Significance of Tashkent (1966)

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

Significance of Tashkent

The real significance of the talks at Tashkent had nothing to do with the dramatic death of Mr. Shastri, even though this did provide the press with copy for a lot of articles representing the man who had carried out India's warlike foreign policy as a veritable Dove of Peace.

We are used to such mush by now. What really mattered about Tashkent was that it was the Soviet Union which called the two sides together and which, when the talks looked like breaking down, spared no effort to get an agreement.

The final communique mentioned the two leaders “deep appreciation and gratitude" to the Russian negotiators, and well it might. But the Soviet too, should have given their thanks to somebody, because their intervention in the dispute was anything but coincidental and was inspired by anything but concern for the security of other countries.

It is clear that Russia’s interest in pacifying the Indian continent arises from its struggle with China. It would be disastrous for Moscow if the Indo/Pakistan conflict were to get out of hand; apart from anything else, the continuing clash between these two countries gives China an opportunity to sign "peace pacts" with one or the other, perhaps to send “volunteers" to fight there.

On the other hand, a stable India, friendly to Russia, forms a very important part of a defensive cordon around China. Who is to say that one day there will not be Russian missile bases in India, trained on Chinese cities?

Now the truly striking thing about all this is that Russia has been allowed to intervene, and to exert considerable influence, without any protest from, indeed with the encouragement of, the Western powers.

Only a few years ago this situation would have brought the two sides in the Cold War close to a shooting match. And only a little farther back the same situation was a persistent nightmare of British Foreign Secretaries, obsessed as they had to be with the priority of keeping Russia out of India, and so denying her an outlet to the rich markets, plantations and mines of the Far East.

Times, as they say, have changed. British Imperialism was once thought to be the greatest possible threat to the world's peace. There was certainly plenty of evidence of its ruthlessness, and of the deaths and troubles it caused. This led many people to assume that the end of the British Empire would mean a safer, happier world.

Yet now that this has happened, now that Britain calmly looks on while its old adversary walks into an area over which bitter wars were once fought, what has happened to the peace of the world?

We are threatened with greater and more terrifying wars than ever. There is as much, if not more, tension in the world than there ever was. There are still great power blocs, confronting each other over the markets and the raw materials of the world.

The reason for this is simple. The wars of capitalism are not caused by any particular line-up of powers, nor by the dominance of any one country. They are caused by the basic nature of capitalism itself, which cannot help but divide the world into competing units.

The dream of the old-time Indian nationalists may have been realised, and the nightmare of the old-time English Foreign Office have come true. But the black and fearsome reality of capitalism —which is neither a dream nor a nightmare — remains with us all the time. 

More murders

Ever since the abolition of the death penalty, a careful watch has been kept on the murder statistics by those people who think that the only fit and just fate for a murderer is to be hanged by the neck, alone and ignominiously, until he be dead.

The Home Office figure for crimes provisionally classed as murder during the first nine months of 1965 was 185; on this basis, and with a little statistical juggling, and with a little emotion roused by admittedly rousing cases such as the “Murder on the Moors" trial, some sections of the popular press have published the conclusion that since the Silverman Bill became law murderers are running riot.

In fact, the figures prove nothing of the kind. The provisional figure for murders need bear no relation to the figure of crimes which are finally recorded as such. (In 1959, for example the provisional and final figures were 192 and 141 — in 1960 217 and 135.)

So a higher provisional figure for 1965 does not necessarily mean that the final number of cases of murder will turn out higher. The provisional figure can be affected by all sorts of influences, not the least of which is a concern on the part of the police for public and parliamentary interest in the matter.

If the murder statistics—for this country and for others, and for any period— prove anything it is that the death penalty has no influence in the matter. Punishing a murderer does nothing to help his victim, neither does it safeguard the future victims of other killers.

This can be extended to other crimes. There is no call to be particularly sympathetic to the criminal, who after all is making the best of a particularly bad world for himself, much as any law-abiding bank clerk. But facts are facts.

Severe punishment—the cat, the birch, the hangman’s rope—has no effect on crime. A book published some time ago (The Courage of His Convictions, by Tony Parker and Robert Allerton) drove this point home.

But at the same time, it pointed out that the go-soft-on-the-criminal school was equally wrong. They merely disgusted the criminal, who preferred to know where he stood rather than be patronised and manipulated.

The effect to beat down the criminal by punishment, or to talk him round with kindness, has taken up a lot of society's time and energy. And in the result the crime figures go up or down quite unaffected by the methods which are used to deal with the problem.

In the process, a lot of favourite theories on both sides of the argument have been discredited. Most have been replaced by other, equally discreditable, theories.

The fact is that modern crime has its roots in modern capitalist society. Areas like Harlem, or the Gorbals, are a standing incentive to crime, because the best way to survive there is on your wits, and to strike first and talk afterwards.

Add to this the fact that capitalist society is one of privilege, where possession counts for everything, and you have the start of an explanation of, and therefore a cure for, the mass of crime which is such a problem all over the world today. 

Whatever conclusions the criminologists reach over the new murder figures, and whether the death penalty comes back or not, of one thing we can be .sure. Without an understanding of capitalism, and of the problems it causes, crime will continue to flourish unhealthily in our midst.

Labour waves the big stick

Mr. Ray Gunter, who has always prided himself on his affection for blunt speaking, opened the New Year in characteristic style.

Up and down the country he went, making speeches with but a single theme:

  We must find a means of making the country understand that we can spend only what we earn . . . (Blackburn, 5th January)

   We as a nation are living beyond our means (Ilford. 8th January)

The reason for Mr. Gunter's panic was, as we all know, that we are all living much too luxuriously, taking wages which are far too high, doing hardly any work in return, spending long holidays abroad and so on.

So Mr. Gunter and his colleagues speak up, treading a path well worn by previous Labour Ministers. But really, they have little to complain about. There is one thing they are forgetting.

It is now Labour Party policy to wave an enormous stick over workers' heads in the matter of wage increases; “If we cannot or will not match our productivity to our spending,” threatened Mr. Gunter, “Unemployment will arise.”

Now the Labour Party always claimed that it was the Tories who would have to use threats in wage negotiations, and that a Labour government would be able to use its close ties with the unions to keep wages in check without having a stand-up fight.

In fact, the opposite has happened; the Conservatives leaned only very lightly on the unions and Labour Ministers have used threats.

What the Labour Party's propaganda overlooked—not accidentally, of course— was that a Labour government would be committed to running capitalism, with all its conflicting interests—in this particular case the clash between workers and employers over wages, hours and so on.

In face of this clash, and in face of the conditions of labour shortage which generally favour the workers when it comes to a fight, the exhortations and the threats which come in so steady a stream from Labour Ministers are powerless.

There is no cause to offer them any sympathy. They asked for power to try to run British capitalism. And they got it.

After all, the big reason why the Labour Party got where it is today is that it has never encouraged the working class to face the facts of capitalism. There is an especial irony in the fact that those same workers who in their ignorance put the Labour Party into power are now themselves, unwittingly or no, forcing a Labour government to face some of the unpleasant facts of the capitalist social system.

Running Commentary: About hanging (1979)

The Running Commentary column from the July 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

About hanging

Who cares about hanging? Perhaps the thousand-odd people serving life sentences, who may have hanged before 1965, care. Probably a few million workers who, we are informed by such weighty organs as the News of the World, are seething with vengeful intent towards murderers, care. And perhaps those politicians who, although they are able to eat hearty dinners after taking decisions which will result in thousands of deaths, enjoy a public display of what they call their conscience — perhaps they too care.

Since hanging was abolished in this country in 1965, there has been a statistical battle over whether such a cruel and final penalty has any effect on the frequency of the crime which it punished.

This battle has been rather more civilised in tone than the mob hysteria which demands that one killing be expiated by another (how many politicians would, in all justice, survive for long if that were strictly applied?), and which assumes that the harsher the penalty the more effective the deterrent.

If this were so, the job of capitalism’s crime fighters would be a lot simpler. There would be no need for a massive structure of laws detailing sentences. All that would be needed would be one sentence for all offences — something like prolonged torture, followed by public execution, preferably by slow strangulation. That would abolish crime at a stroke.

In fact, human motivations are not so simple. And crime — even the most violent and ruthless — is not the acts of wicked people. Much of it springs from the very conditions which capitalism foists upon us — the slums, the degrading lifetime of exploitation, the mediocrity, the despair.

At the moment, the abolitionists seem to have won the statistical battle, which leaves only the hysteria to be debated. And it is in this that politicians will be able to show us (hoping we will remember it, come the next election) how tortured is their conscience over this great moral dilemma.

In this debate, an important fact is liable to be overlooked. Even if hanging is brought back, it would mean only a handful of people being executed each year. Sickening as that prospect is, it must be seen in proportion to the fact that capitalist continuously organises the deaths of millions of people — in war, famine, avoidable illness, in ‘accidents’.

No politician’s conscience ever suffers over that. The hanging debate will provoke a lot of nonsense, from both sides. As always, it is essential that the working class (to use an inappropriate phrase) keep their heads.


Paradise in Brazil

Brazil, one of the world’s foremost football countries, is now also climbing the economic league table. It has the eighth most powerful economy in the world, and at the present rate of development will by the year 2000 be inferior only to the USA, Russia and Japan. What does this mean to the Brazilian people? Do they reap the rewards of this, and live in plenty and freedom?

The truth is very different. Brazil’s climb began with the military coup in 1964, in which the trade unions and free political activity were effectively abolished and strikes were outlawed. Under this dictatorship, the Brazilian workers squirm as the exploitation screw is turned ever tighter upon them.

As a recent television programme and an article in The Observer highlighted, in Sao Paulo millions of workers live in appalling slums, while just a short distance away there are glittering shops and international banks, evidence of the foreign investment in the country. The child mortality rate increases remorselessly, and hundreds of thousands of children, their parents unable to afford to feed them, are abandoned to roam the streets as beggars, prostitutes or thieves.

Above this desperate misery a small, parasitic minority of capitalists live in apparently boundless luxury. It is a blatant assertion of the reality of the social system — of the fact that the majority of people work, and are exploited, to perpetuate the privileges of the ruling class, and therefore their own servitude to that class.

Brazil has a lesson for the workers in Britain which has nothing to do with their superior football team. Much of the political debate here is about the allegedly irresponsible attitudes of British workers. The implication of all this is that a disciplined, compliant working class would also be a prosperous working class, sharing in the extra profits which their docility brought their masters.

The experience of the people of Brazil provides yet more evidence to disprove this comfortable (for the capitalists) theory. It illustrates the opposition of interests between the classes and the necessity for the workers to struggle in trade unions to protect their interests.
And finally, it shows that capitalism is a society where profits take precedence over people a society which merits only implacable hostility until the day it is swept away.


What the eye doesn't see . . .

We have all heard of the many refugees leaving Vietnam in small boats and getting into trouble at sea. If they are lucky they get picked up by (mainly) British boats and taken to Hong Kong. Being already almost unbearably overcrowded, the Colony is understandably reluctant to allow them to land. They therefore spend weeks — sometimes months — on board ship, lying offshore while one or other government finally, reluctantly, agrees to accept them. The latest and most publicised were the nearly 1,000 aboard the Sibonga. After some haggling they have been allowed to come to England. However, Margaret Thatcher quickly pointed out that in permitting them to come she was not setting a precedent, and other such refugees would have to look elsewhere for a new home.

One effect of all this had not been mentioned until an item in the Daily Telegraph of 31.5.79 by Ian Ward, under the heading “British Ships Will Avoid Refugee Routes”.

For a ship the size of the Sibonga, every day spent waiting for someone to agree to take the refugees means a loss of £7,000, and there is no way of recovering this money. On the other hand, it is a ‘law of the sea’ that ships pick up people in distress.

It has not taken British owners long to find a solution (it is said that owners in other countries thought of it some time ago) — re-route the ships. Apparently most of the emergencies occur in the first two hundred miles from the Vietnam coast. Admittedly, re-routing to avoid this area means extra fuel costs, but these represent far less expense than that incurred for days wasted at anchor waiting to offload the ship’s human cargo.

Refugees will of course continue to find themselves in danger and distress, but, to use another old saying, ‘time is money’. If, by re-routing, the ship isn’t there, no-one can blame it for not picking up drowning men, women and children.

News in Review: Brothers for George (1966)

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

Brothers for George

It is apparent that George Brown is not the only capitalist administrator in the world who is worried about wage claims.

This year promises to be a stormy one for the trade unions in West Germany, for it will see the expiry of wage agreements affecting some twelve million workers. 

The unions are of course planning to get a new agreement which will give them higher wages and shorter hours; the Metal Workers, for example, are asking for a nine per cent increase in wages, a cut in hours and other benefits.

All this, however, comes shortly after Chancellor Erhard has appealed for all German workers to work another hour a week, and after the Institute of German Industry has issued a forecast of economic difficulties during 1966, when one source predicts that German balance of payments will be in deficit by about £623 million.

Storm warnings are being hoisted, too, in Sweden, where the employers’ organisation recently broke of negotiations with the unions over their demand for a ten per cent wage rise.

The reasons given in both Germany and Sweden for these clashes bear a remarkable similarity to each other, and to those being given by the British government for its current disputes with the unions. Consider these statements:

  Germany. “. . . estimated that in the third quarter of (1965) hourly wages paid by West German industry were up by 13.2 per cent over the same period of last year, while productivity rose by 5 per cent." (The Guardian—2/12/65.) 

  Sweden. “The wage raises in Sweden during the last years have been bigger than the industrial growth and it is not realistic to think that this can continue for ever.” (Spokesman for the Swedish Employers’ Association—20/11/65.) 

  Britain. “Despite the injunction and the signatures on the declaration of intent, earnings are still going up much faster than productivity.” (Mr. Callaghan, Chancellor of the Exchequer—30/10/65.)

If these statements show anything, it is that the same problems are confronting the capitalist class in many countries at the same time. Many of them are trying to keep wages in some sort of check, and to bargain higher wages for more intense exploitation. At the moment, however, the acute shortage of labour ensures that the unions can push their claims with a fair amount of success.

Once more, the signs are appearing that governments are trying to put pressure on the unions, which may mean that 1966 will be a turbulent one for industrial relations.

The statements also show the problems of the working class are international too —as are the methods by which they try to solve them.

Dare we wish the unions in Germany, Sweden and Great Britain, as they prepare to go over the top to meet the concentrated resistance of the employers, a Happy New Year?

Middle East flashpoint

The assets of yesterday have a habit of becoming the liabilities of today.

Throughout the world, strung along the main trade routes, are many once prized jewels now destined for the diplomatic dustbin. Colonies that were once vital to a Great Power to be defended at all costs, become expensive liabilities once changes in the balance of power rob them of their importance.

Strong points that could command narrow straits with their heavy guns, naval bases from which fleets could operate, or victualling and coaling stations, no longer matter in a world of nuclear armaments.

Sometimes the colony was of no great value in itself, but in the power scrambles of the time it was feared that a rival could make use of it.

Today that world has gone and ideas of Colonial freedom and the “rights” of peoples to govern themselves, become more attractive to the occupying power than to the inhabitants themselves— especially where an artificial settlement has been built up around a naval base or port, and withdrawal would mean economic distress.

Governments who not long ago would have opened fire on a mob demanding Independence, now often cannot grant it quickly enough.

But occasionally other forces come into play and then the liability becomes a flashpoint. Such an area is the Federation of South Arabia with its major port of Aden.

For a century Aden has been the strong point at the southern end of the Red Sea, leading to the Suez canal. It was seized from the Turks in 1839 and became an important coaling station, but its importance has declined. Britain is due to get out in 1968.

But the Federation of South Arabia is part of the Arabian peninsula, which is in a state of political ferment. The Federation's next door neighbour—the Yemen—has been in the grip of civil war.

Rising nationalism and the growth of Pan-Arabism, plus the efforts of Egypt—the strongest Arab State in the Middle East—have helped to produce a situation that periodically explodes into violence.

Then again we hear the sad and familiar story of terrorist bombs and troops firing in the streets.

We also have the familiar story of a suspended Constitution, of Ministers coming and going and of questions being asked in Parliament.

Another suffering chapter is added to capitalism’s history of conflict and. bloodshed.

The price of a bride

What is marriage?

Exploited to the hilt by the insurance companies, the car hire firms, the caterers and the photographers, and worked to death by the advertising agencies who seem to be able to match any message to a picture of a happy couple coming out of church, it is certainly one of capitalism's money-spinners.

It is also one of capitalism’s great  deceptions.

Marriage may seem rosily romantic to a plain working class couple the day they take the vows. There’s the ceremony and the people all around and the expensive get-up and the chance to be the centre of attraction. Much more exciting than the factory line or the typing pool.

But the reality which follows is something different. There is the struggle to find somewhere to live, to balance the family budget, the fear (it is very often no less) that children who cannot be afforded will be conceived.

There is also, perhaps, the eventual reality of the Divorce Courts.

And when a marriage reaches the Divorce Courts another side of it is often revealed—the fact that it can be almost a business deal between husband and wife.

Everyone knows that a husband is under a legal obligation to provide for his wife, and for any children born of the marriage. A divorce settlement usually requires him to keep paying his ex-wife a sum fixed by the court.

On the other hand, the woman also has her price, and if a man loses her he can often claim that price from the third party. This requires the court to assess the woman as a domestic, economic and sexual asset. And how is this done? In the only way capitalism knows—in terms of money.

Last month, for example, the Divorce Court heard a case, in which a company director was cited by a quantity surveyor, who alleged adultery with his free-lance fashion designer wife.

The husband at first claimed that only damages of ten thousand pounds could compensate him for his loss, but the judge thought that was too much.

He awarded four thousand pounds to the husband, but more significant was the way in which he justified this decision: the husband, he said, had “. . . suffered a serious loss of a valuable wife, both professionally and domestically”.

This is only one of many such cases. A couple of years ago a divorce judge awarded one hundred pounds and explained this comparatively small amount: “I don’t think this young lady would ever have been a very satisfactory wife. I don’t think the husband's loss in terms of money is very high”.

This sort of case always gets wide coverage in the press, but no newspaper ever asks whether the wife objects to having a price ticket put on her, nor whether the men in the case think it undignified to be engaged in a sort of auction over a woman of whom they are, presumably, fond.

It is typical of capitalism that while it glorifies the institution of marriage it also puts its own sordid standards on it.

Against the tide

For almost every problem capitalism produces there is a bunch of well-meaning reformers, heroically swimming against the tide, who are trying to do something about it.

They sing more often than they swim.

Enterprise Neptune is the National Trust’s name for its effort to save what remains of the British coastline from being wrecked by what the property and building companies like to call Development.

The Trust has produced some convincing—and disturbing figures. The Kentish coast, where so much of recent British history began, was 29 per cent built up in 1958; now it is 50 per cent built up. Each year, six miles of coastline falls to the developers, to their bungalows and holiday camps and petrol stations.

Only nine hundred miles now remains of any worth as a place for recreation and relaxation. The National Trust is trying to raise £2 million to buy up the best bits of it as they come on the market.

But they are up against an enormous problem. Once development permission is granted—or sometimes even when it has been applied for—the price of a piece of land shoots up. A Trust spokesman recently gave the example of an Essex island which was sold four years ago for £1,750 and which is now back on the market, with permission to build one bungalow, at £20,000.

This is no more than an example of the working of one of capitalism’s laws. The Trust’s secretary recently complained that the wrecking of the coastline was caused by “. . . greed for financial profit and . . . enormously conflicting interests . . .”

That is undoubtedly true, and anyone who knows the exhilaration of fine coastal scenery, and who fumes at its destruction, may find themselves keeping their fingers crossed for Enterprise Neptune.

But they should ask themselves why it is all happening. Where does “greed for profit” come from? What causes “conflicting interests”?

The social system we live under is based upon production for profit, and in that very fact it produces a mass of conflicting interests. Sometimes these interests are asserted in planning inquiries—and sometimes they are asserted in other, more spectacular, ways.

Capitalism has been responsible for untold destruction, distortion and degradation—of human beings and of their environment.

This is a desperate situation, and it needs more than charity, however well- intentioned to deal with it.

The Evans affair

Ghouls, and those students of something or other who so carefully study the most revolting details in all the murder cases, must regard the case of Timothy Evans with a special affection.

First there was the original case after which Evans was executed—not very exciting in itself. Then the Christie case, which had everything a reader of the News of the World can ask. Then there was the Scott Henderson Inquiry, to say whether Christie was responsible for the crime which cost Evans his life.

Then there were all the books, and now yet another investigation, by Mr. Justice Brabin.

It is a terrible story. Ten Rillington Place was a hellish house, with its crumbling plaster, its rotten woodwork and the mouldering washhouse where they found Mrs. Evans’ body.

And there among the damp and the decay lived poor simple Evans and his ill starred wife and his pathetic baby. There, too, lived the frustrated, tormented killer under the lash of the deficiency in him which made him do what he did.

They have renamed Rillington Place now, and a West Indian family lives at Number Ten. But such changes cannot eradicate the memory of it; the place remains a festering eyesore in more ways than one, and there are plenty more like it.

There are plenty more people, too, like Evans and Christie. People who are ill and tormented or what the official reports call “backward”—people who are too simple to survive in the clawing world of capitalism, no matter what obvious deceits they resort to.

These people are inadequate, and they are tortured and miserable for it. But by what standards are they inadequate?

There, is little time for such people in a society dedicated to ownership, to exploitation, to the fast sell and the big profit. Social workers battle with the problem but their efforts are puny beside the monster they are fighting. They often give up the struggle, and think themselves lucky if their charges keep out of the courts, or at any rate out of the more serious courts.

Evans never really had a chance and that is something which no bewigged inquiry will ever investigate. Whether he killed his wife and child or not, there is no helping Evans now; the penalty which was supposed to be a cornerstone of our civilisation in his case worked in a particularly barbaric way.

And if the Evans affair is ever settled, what hope will there be for the other misfits of capitalist society? The people who have campaigned so long and hard to clear Evans’ name show no signs of having any adequate answer to that question.

Part of the campaign has been to persuade the Home Office to remove what they say are Evans' remains from Pentonville and rebury them in ground consecrated by the Roman Catholic Church.

This is perhaps the most hopeless part of it all. For the effort spent in restoring to Evans the mythical and worthless graces of religion would have been better used in working for a world where it will be no disadvantage to be less cunning than the man downstairs who has a rope.

They Said It . . . (1992)

From the October 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

• I believe large wealth in private hands is only morally sustainable if it used to benefit people—The Duke of Westminster.
• We might execute a 12-year old. It depends on the case—US District Attorney John Holmes.
• The government deserves every sympathy in its present situation—Daily Telegraph leader on the sterling crisis. 
• We do not attribute emotions to Her Majesty—Buckingham Palace aide, on the Queen and the Fergie photos.
• The Quayle family believes in the power of prayer—Dan Quayle, to a Christian Coalition rally.
• A presidential campaign is not a democracy—Lyn Nofziger, Reagans political director, on the Bush campaign.
• I'm not an expert on the economy— Norman Lamont.