Let’s have common ownership, not Common Market (1971)

From the September 1971 issue of the Socialist Standard

A pathetic spectacle provided by the reformist parties and their satellites as they work themselves into a lather over the issues thrown up by capitalism. They fall for it every time. Whether it be the balance of payments, export-chasing, or gold reserves, at the drop of a hat they form up into positions and start to do battle for the capitalist class, whose interests alone are involved.

Capitalism has always provided plenty of distractions to take working class attention away from the real issue, and every time the self-styled leaders of the workers have proclaimed them as vital issues that will lastingly effect the future course of history.

The Common Market is just another distraction. The arguments for and against joining are equally irrelevant. One thing is certain, that the real issue has not been and is not being debated by the pundits of the “left” and “right”.

Capitalism often produces strange bedfellows, but when the mutual commitment to capitalism of both “left” and “right” wing groups is understood, it is not surprising to find the so-called Communist Party and National Front in the same camp, and the Trotskyists trailing along as usual behind the Tribune set, with Enoch Powell thrown in for good measure. The Labour Party front bench, which maintained a precarious unity while in power, have gone their different ways. Wilson complains loudly about “knives” and “hatchets”, but is not listened to by Roy Jenkins, Michael Stewart or Lord George Brown. The petty demagogues line up in a power struggle inside the Labour Party, as Michael Foot seeks to purge pro-market members from the shadow cabinet.

The two sides bicker incessantly about the “terms”, about New Zealand, and the possibility of better pickings for British capitalism elsewhere. None of these things is of the least concern to the working class. And, by working class, we do not mean the wage-slaves of just Britain and Europe, but of the entire world. What then is the real issue?

Throughout the world the means of production are concentrated in the hands of an owning minority — the capitalist class. This means that the vast majority own nothing but their physical and mental abilities to work. They must sell these abilities for wages or salaries in order to live. This vast non-owning majority is the working class. There is an antagonism of interests between the capitalist class owners and the working class non-owners since the fundamental relationship of capitalism, that of employer to employee, rests upon exploitation. The interest of the capitalist class is to maximise their profits and accumulate capital through the exploitation of wage-labour. To serve this interest, the whole world has been turned into a market for the profitable disposal of commodities (or wealth produced by wage-labour under conditions of private property and exploitation). The entire globe is the hunting ground for minerals and other resources to feed the hungry machines of industry, to keep up the flood of commodities and expand profits. The rivalry between national and international capitalists promotes their military power and fashions their alliances. War, like poverty, unemployment, slums and hunger, is inseparable from capitalism.

Both the pro- and anti-marketeers work on the same false assumptions, namely, that the market economy is indispensable, and, that there, is a unified national or European interest which workers and capitalists have in common. Socialists totally reject these assumptions. The interest of the working class is to end the system that exploits them; to abolish the employer-to-employee relationship; to do away with commodity production and get rid of the markets profits mad-house. This will mean the abolition of the wages-system and of buying and selling. In short, the interest of the working class, is to get rid of capitalism. The real issue is one of ownership. The workers in the six countries which at present belong to the EEC own none of the vast industrial or other resources of those countries. They are wage-slaves, just like the workers in Britain.

The only market that awaits British workers, like their European fellow-workers, is the labour-market, and the dictum “hired when it pays, fired when it doesn’t” will remain in force.

Instead of accepting the bogus arguments being trotted out by both sides, for and against joining, workers should be asking questions like: In or out of the Common Market, will wealth continue to accumulate in the hands of a few and will food still be destroyed while people starve? In or out of the Common Market, will poverty and insecurity continue to blight the lives of many millions ,both here in Britain and throughout the world? In or out of the Common Market, will H-Bombs remain both within Europe and outside to threaten the existence of mankind? In or out of the Common Market, will the massive power blocs, America, Russia, China, Japan and Europe, continue to struggle for advantage with war as their last desperate card?

These are questions which put the Common Market in its real capitalist perspective.

There are those who oppose entry because they fear loss of national identity. The workers have always been taught to be proud of their master’s country. If the barriers of nationalism are weakened through the EEC, this would not be a harmful effect, though there is little sign of it happening. All that is taking place is a grouping together of States, which has happened before, in earlier stages of capitalism, in America, Germany and Italy except that the EEC has yet to go for full political union.

Modern capitalism operates with such massive plant and investment levels that grouping together is the only way to stay in the big league. The military strategy of modern capitalism, and the costly technology of modern warfare, also dictate the coming together of groups of nations. If nationalism on the old scale diminishes, a continental scale of nationalism will develop as the rivalry between the emerging groups grows hotter.

What is really relevant to the world context in which we live today, is not new groupings, but a society without frontiers. Not bigger markets and fatter profits, but an end to all markets and all profits. Not the concentration of ever greater wealth into fewer hands, but the common ownership of the Earth and all its resources. This is the real issue which faces the workers of the world.

Harry Baldwin

Trust me, I’m a reformist (2026)

From the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

Remember Kaa, the snake in the cartoon version of The Jungle Book? A thoroughly dangerous and treacherous constrictor whose one interest in life is to get his coils around Mowgli and squeeze the life out of the poor lad.He nearly manages it too, with his hypnotic eyes and the lisped lyrics of a song that goes:

‘Trusst in me, jusst in me, shut your eyes and trusst in me’.

And if you were to look for a common denominator of all the reformist parties currently slithering around in front of the working class, whatever the details of the various plans they’ve hatched to ensure a wonderful future for the likes of you and me, it would surely be this plea to ‘Trusst in me’.

And they all echo one of Kaa’s follow-up lines, ‘You can sleep safe and sound, knowing I am around’.

And if you reckon that you will be able to sleep safe and sound by once again voting to hand over the administration of the capitalist system to any of these reformists, you are heading for yet another rude awakening. Because, as we will never tire of reminding you, the system cannot be made to work in the interest of the majority. The minority’s interest will and must always come first.

And unlike the fictional Kaa, who was after just one quick fatal squeeze, in the real world we’re trapped in the coils of a system that is designed to keep squeezing us to provide its owners with profit.

Budgie

Material World: It’s the Economy, Stupid! (2026)

The Material World column from the July 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

So said James Carville, a political strategist on Bill Clinton’s successful campaign to win the American presidency in 1992. It was written up on a whiteboard in Clinton’s Little Rock headquarters, as a reminder to campaign workers to remain focused on the recession then affecting voters.

A decade and a half earlier the Italian historian, Carlo M. Cipolla, wrote his essay, ‘The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity’. His basic contention was that everyone always underestimates the number of stupid people there are.

Stupidity is generally defined as acting foolishly or carelessly, in an apparently stunned or blank manner, or being ridiculous to an extreme degree. It is important at this point to establish that Cipolla wasn’t using stupidity as a synonym for idiocy or lack of intelligence. But rather it is a human feature of many, perhaps all, whatever an individual’s mental acuity.

Everyone, if they are honest with themselves, will be able to identify personal examples of their own stupidity, indeed they are likely to be many and various. Usually, they do not result in anything too serious, more often nothing worse than inconvenience or embarrassment. Occasionally, though there is injury, or worse

At the Kremlin

Consider two presidents, one Russian, the other American and their current wars. If there is one huge lesson the Second World War should have taught Russia’s present leader it’s that a powerful military force can be thwarted by a determined population.

Stalingrad was thoroughly bombed, shelled and otherwise blasted for over five months. 90 percent of the city was taken by the aggressors with almost half a million military and 40,000 civilian casualties. Yet not only did it not surrender but became the instance from which the invaders suffered ultimate defeat. Four decades later the Russians became the insurgent force in Afghanistan only to suffer defeat and expulsion at the hands of a seemingly inferior military.

So what induces the present Kremlin incumbent to consider victory in Ukraine likely? Dreadful as they are, the missiles and drones launched against the cities are not anything like the razing of Stalingrad. If the intention was to thwart NATO, the consequence has been to strengthen its resolve and expand it. To have expected otherwise, in the face of previous experiences, appears to be an exemplar of stupidity, at an awful and avoidable cost.

In the White House

Meanwhile, in the White House, stupidity seems to be the order of the day. The Vietnam War is not so long ago its conduct and outcome can have been forgotten. B52 bombers that were to return Hanoi to the Stone Age proved far less effective than bicycles down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. America’s own, more recent, experience in Afghanistan, with the eventual return to government of the Taliban should have highlighted how all too easy it is to become embroiled in bellicose misadventures.

The setting aside once more of historical experience has ensnared the Commander in Chief in a conflict he is having great difficulty in extricating himself from. Indeed, it could well lead to the regime in Tehran becoming stronger. Stupidity wrapped in stars and stripes.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to identify any war the outcome of which was an unmitigated success for a winner. For any supposed winner there may be some short-term spoils, but any such resolution is subsequently unravelled by further conflict arising directly or indirectly from that martial discord.

Following leaders

The present system is driven by the accumulation of capital, which requires nation states to compete for resources, trade routes and markets, competition that all too often manifests as armed conflict. Governments of all types have to serve the interests of capital, the unfettered, as far as possible, pursuit of profit. It doesn’t matter what governments or politicians promise their citizens – better welfare at home or conquests abroad – the imperative of profit will be the deciding factor.

There are of course those for whom war is not stupidity writ large, the arms manufacturers. A huge industry worldwide it consumes massive amounts of scientific research time, resources and labour power, as well as the lives of multitudinous casualties military and civilian.

Consider how humanity worldwide would benefit if that effort was focused on meeting people’s needs rather than profiting from their deaths. It must be stupidity to persevere with maintaining a system that cannot be anything other than careless of human need.

Any campaigning against the arms industry is opposed not only by shareholders who want their dividend from the profits, governments covetous of tax revenue and, also, the trade unions of those employed in the industry. Yet the best interests of all, even the shareholders, would be in establishing a cooperative worldwide society that wasn’t riven by nationalism, wars, terrorism and all such manifestations of inhumanity.

However, for as long as people continue to lend their support, via the ballot box or other means, to political individuals or parties while expecting, or hoping for, better outcomes they are denying their own experiences. Rather than accepting the need to play an active part in determining a very different society, they continue to be passive recipients of whatever capitalism deigns to spare them. This is not congenital, but elective, which means it is eminently possible to choose otherwise.

One of the basic laws Cipolla formulated in his pamphlet was ‘A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or a group of persons while himself deriving no gain or even possibly incurring losses’.

Consider the two leaders referred to above, along with leaders in general, in the light of Ciprolla’s law. How long is humanity to be subjected to leadership stupidity? How long is humanity going to continue the stupidity of following leaders?

James Carville was certainly no socialist, but he unintentionally acceded to socialist understanding. Because it is the economy, the worldwide economy that is ultimately the determining factor of the quality of life to be shared by all.

D. A.

Letter: Vote Labour? (1991)

Letter to the Editors from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Vote Labour?

Dear Editors.

As a paid-up member of the Labour Party, I agree with “Anti-Capitalist", of Seaham. in regard to ending the capitalist system (Socialist Standard, December 1990), but I believe he is rather short-sighted in his view that without capitalism there would be no poll tax, rent, gas and electricity bills, etc, because unfortunately they are a necessity of life.

What is required to be controlled is the immorality and hypocrisy of this Tory government which makes the rich richer and at the same time—if there were no trade unions—would impose on the already low-paid working class families a 6½ percent wage rise, as they tried to impose on the NHS ambulance crews and failed.

So it is my honest working man’s belief, as one who worked from the age of 14 in 1939, who fought for his country from the age of 17 in 1943, that capitalism be legally controlled, the denationalised industries now in private hands be returned to public ownership, the profits from all the industries accounted for to ensure that the workers get a fair return coupled to productivity and inflation. Also that the government ensure that working class families have decent housing with all mod cons, and good bus services, shopping centres, sports facilities and entertainment facilities, decent hospitals, doctors’ surgeries.etc.

Isn’t this only what we deserve as the “factory fodder" in peace and the close combat “cannon fodder” during the wars every generation endures? That way we get a fair return for the hours we need to work to give us the pride in working for a living, a wage to pay for the necessities of life. gas. electricity, an acceptable rent and rates system based on the ability to pay. a decent education for our children.

We need a socialist Labour government to ensure that Britain returns to having a truly democratic government, which this lava-tory government can’t claim to be because it has sacked loyal British citizens at GCHO because those working class men were not prepared to surrender their democratic right to belong to an accredited trades union. That act of fascism was the first "goose-step” on British soil by a British government claiming to be democratic but creating the stench of nazism in England’s fresh and. so far, free air (until it gets privatised).

There is one light at the end of this dark gory Tory tunnel and it is this. The millions of good honest working class families, of all political persuasions, who thought that they could afford to vote Conservative because of the false promises of Margaret H. (for "Hypocrite" not “Hilda") Thatcher's dreams have found that these turned into nightmares. Inflation, mortgage interest rates, freezing of family allowances, and—most disgusting of all— the freezing of the old age pensioners’ £10 Xmas gift, plus additional charges for eye tests, dental checks, transport costs to get to work, and the effects of the poll tax making the rich even richer and working class families poorer—all the above have taught the working class young lads and lasses a very hard lesson: that the Tories, as they have always done, only look after their own. the fat cat families.

This is why at the next General Election all those who thought they could afford to vote Conservative and did so to their ever-lasting regret (yes, they were the ones who voted the Tories into power) will be the ones to vote them out. out. out.

George Ellis 

Timperley, Cheshire

Reply:

You are probably right. Hundreds of thousands of workers will be voting Labour at the next General Election for the reasons you give. Since the Tories really have done all the things you list, we can understand why no worker with the slightest inkling of class consciousness would even consider voting Tory. But is that a reason for voting Labour?

It might be if it was governments that caused the problems and miseries that workers face under capitalism. But they don't: governments merely preside over the capitalist system while it works in the only way it can. as a profit-making system in the interests of the profit-takers and against those of the wage and salary workers.They have to carry out what the continuing profitable operation of the system demands.

Changing the government doesn’t change this. All this does is to change the individuals who make up the government. Different individuals can of course have different attitudes and we freely acknowledge that Labour politicians, for various reasons, don’t have the same desire to make the rich richer and to bash the working class as theirTory counterparts. But what counts in the end is not what government ministers may or may not want to do, but what they will be forced to do as administrators of the capitalist system.

Capitalism forces all governments, including Labour ones, to dance to its tune. Have we not seen Labour governments cut benefits, freeze wages, impose health charges, break strikes and preside over the rich getting richer and unemployment going up? There is no reason to suppose that a Kinnock government would be any different. No government of capitalism can give workers the sort of "fair" deal you outline—and make no mistake about it: a Kinnock government, like all previous Labour governments will be a government of capitalism. A "socialist Labour government" is an absurd contradiction in terms, but this is not even what Kinnock is promising as he has openly proclaimed that the aim of the next Labour government will merely be to try to make the market economy—capitalism—work better than the Tories.

Since it is capitalism that is the cause of working class problems, to solve them what is required is not a change of government but a change of economic and social system— from one based on class property and the profit motive to one based on common ownership, democratic control and production for use: and. yes. this will mean that electricity, gas and housing will be provided, like everything else, as free public services.

Editors.

Aphorisms of Socialism: [VII.] (1912)

From the November 1912 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Aphorism VI.

Being an explanation of the Declaration of Principles of the S.P.G.B.

Aphorism VII.

As all political parties are but the expression of class interests, and as the interest of the working class is diametrically opposed to the interests of all sections of the master class, the party seeking working class emancipation must be hostile to every other party.

The political machine, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially an instrument of class government. It does not anywhere come into existence until society has assumed a class form — until there has developed within society a class who govern and a class who are governed.

The political machine exists to preserve order in society according to the existing basis of that society; but just as there can exist sections with opposing sectional interests within the ruling class of a given society, so that political machinery can be wielded in different directions to further the several interests of those warring sections of the ruling class – and that without in any way threatening the social base.

Political parties consist of those who organise to gain control of or at least to exert their influence upon, the political machine, in order to advance their interests as they understand them.

But if it appears from this that capitalist political parties rather indicate sectional than class interests, it must not be forgotten that this is merely because these parties, comprising sections of the ruling class, are at one with the basis upon which their position as a ruling class is founded.

Though it is true that each of these sections will use the political machinery in a slightly different way, this difference can only apply to matters of superficial detail. In anything deeper than this every political party among the ruling class stands for the interest of that ruling class.

This is inevitable. Before these sections can exist as such those comprised in them must be a ruling class. Before the landed interest can clash with the manufacturing interest both the landowner and the factory-owner must be established in privilege on a private property basis. Before Tariff Reform or Protection can become burning questions of the day, those whose sectional interest is wrapped up in either detail of capitalism must first have their deeper interests identified with one and founded upon the capitalist system.

The class interest, therefore, is paramount; in the last resort it overshadows all sectional interests. Indeed, the fact that sectional interests loom so large in capitalist party politics at the present day is no proof of the importance of those interests but is evidence only of the weakness of the pressure exerted politically by the opposing class.

The truth of this is seen in the tendency of capitalists to “close the ranks” against any political party which, in fact or in their idea, threatens their class interest, and the increasing pressure of the organised political party of the workers is destined to reveal with the utmost clearness the fact that capitalist parties stand primarily for capitalism and for the capitalist class — is destined to reveal it by exhibiting them a united party at bay with revolution.

There are certain so-called political parties such as the I.L.P., the B.S.P., and Labour Party, and in Scotland, the S.L.P. who, it might be argued, are not covered by the above remarks, but in reality these have no separate political existence. Two of them are nothing but appendages of the Liberal Party, one is trying which wing of the capitalist bird of prey it can find most comfort (if any) under. As for the remaining group, they have postponed political action until it will not be required — until the workers have gained in the teeth of the political machine all that they could gain with it. They have cut their political throats with the anarchist razor, and by this contribution to anarchy, to say nothing of other matters, have added their service to the preservation of capitalism.

As a matter of fact all political parties must express the interest of one or other of the only two classes in society. In this connection, Frederic Engels finely says (“Origin of the Family,” Kerr & Co. p. 211): “For as long as the oppressed class, in this case the proletariat, is not ripe for its economic emancipation, just so long will its majority regard the existing order of society as the only one possible, and form the tail, the extreme left wing, of the capitalist class.”

This is strictly true, and therefore, not only was it inevitable that these pseudo-Socialist and Labour parties, composed as they are, of a working class element which is “not ripe for its economic emancipation,” should express capitalist interests, but it was inevitable that they should express the sectional brand of capitalist class interest appertaining to the particular phase of capitalism by which they are immediately environed – namely, the manufacturing interest, as expressed in the Liberal Party.

Hence, despite their pretended hostility at the moment, the eventual destiny of the B.S.P. is the Liberal fold – just as soon as its leaders can get their price.

The political activities of all who are not ripe for their economic emancipation must necessarily express capitalist interest, for the simple reason that they are helping to maintain the existing order of society. This is so even if they managed to gain admission to a sound, revolutionary organisation. There they work out the ruling-class interest by weakening the revolutionary attack – probably the worst form opposition to working-class emancipation can take.

The interests expressed or reflected, and striven for, by political parties, therefore, fall into two main groups – capitalist and working-class. These are diametrically opposed, since they involve wage-slavery on the one hand and emancipation on the other. The position of the party seeking working-class emancipation, then, must clearly be one of uncompromising hostility to all other political parties. It does not materially matter whether these parties are organisations of working men with capitalist ideas or avowedly capitalist organisations with a working-class tail.

The object of the last is to secure working-class votes, because, as Engels puts it: “The possessing class rules directly through universal suffrage” – and the vast bulk of that suffrage is working-class. In this object they find, increasingly as the workers get a dim idea that their masters’ politics are not their own, great assistance in the pseudo-Socialist parties. These parties, led by men on the look-out for billets and personal aggrandisement, spread confusion by teaching the workers that the difference between themselves and the capitalists is merely one of personality, and not of class, principle and system; that the difference between their interests and their masters’ is so slight that for the “immediate end” of getting a Labour leader into Parliament, that difference can be composed, the battle stopped, and the two rival classes work together politically.

This is, where it is conscious, the worst form of treachery, in as much as it prevents the working class realising the fundamental antagonism of interests between themselves and their exploiters. It prevents them, therefore, becoming “ripe for their economic emancipation,” and from organising politically as a class, apart from and hostile to those who hold them in bondage, ever seeking, working, fighting for deliverance from their chains.

Again, as Engels says: “Universal suffrage is the gauge of the maturity of the working class.” The ballot is indeed the means of gauging the working-class strength and maturity, and for that reason it must be kept free from compromise and the entanglement of alliances. It must stand as the clear index of the progress made by working class consciousness, the clock ticking off the last moments of our long slavery. To this purpose it is scared. If, however, it is to have any significance of this character, it must indicate a working-class mind free from the obsession of capitalist illusions. This is a final reason why the party seeking working-class emancipation must be hostile to every other political party.

The political struggle of the workers must of necessity be waged along class lines, for it is one form of the highest phase of the class struggle. It is on the political field that the sternest battle of all is to be fought. That fight is not for mere votes as such, but for the enthroning of the REVOLUTIONARY IDEA in the seat of power. The enemy, then, is no less the political ignorance of our own class than the educated master class, therefore we must attack that ignorance, even when it is organised in so-called working class political parties, just as relentlessly as we attack the orthodox parties of our masters.

A.E. Jacomb

Letter: Class interests (1977)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1977 issue of the Socialist Standard

Class interests

The party’s Seventh Principle states that “political parties are but the expression of class interests". Accepting that the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties all look after the interests of Capitalism, which particular section of the capitalist class benefits from which party?

Who does the Labour Party represent? Stockbrokers seem to believe in it, as the F.T. Share Index shows, but which businesses are actually supporting it. by donations etc? Could you name some businesses and types of business which stand to benefit from Labour policies as opposed to those of the Tories?

The Seventh Principle stands as a generalisation. There is no generalisation worthy of the name which does not apply in specific instances. Therefore, would you give some details?

F. S.

Newcastle

Reply:

All sections of the capitalist class, industrialists, mine-owners, bankers, ship-owners, newspaper proprietors, manufacturers and property-owners, and building consortiums, benefit from all the major political parties. After all, the political parties govern in their interests. There is no special group of capitalists who are preferred to others, but it is common knowledge that MPs of all parties lobby for particular business interests, and act as public relations men and consultants to large companies and industrial organizations. Historically, the Tory Party represented the interests of ship-owners, newspaper proprietors, bankers, mine-owners and landlords. The Liberal Party represented industrialists, manufacturers and small business men. The Labour Party look over the Liberal Party’s policy but was originally formed to represent trade-union interests. These distinctions no longer exist, and capitalists of all kinds will support any political group irrespective of its ideology, as long as it can keep order and advance their interests. Some sections, such as the landlords, claim that Labour governments legislate to their disadvantage, and cite the Rent Acts as an example. However, the Rent Acts were introduced by a Conservative government in 1915, and the Tories have extended these against the landlord at various times.

Without any doubt the Tory Party receives large donations from big manufacturers like Tate & Lyle and many others. McAlpine, the millionaire road-builder, is their Chairman. These donations used to be made in secret but now have to be declared on the firm’s accounts, and many rich individuals make donations through the “Old Boy” network. How else could they maintain the expensive electoral machinery, full-time agents, and professional propagandists and large head office premises. It is not possible to give specific details as these donations are not publicly announced or recorded.

Another type of support given by big business to the Tory Party is in the type of campaigns against certain Labour Party measures. In the recent campaign by the banks against nationalisation, hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent, and undoubtedly some of this money would have found its way into the Tory Party. The same thing would have applied in the case of the campaign run by a federation of ship-repairing interests against the nationalization of the aircraft and ship-repairing industries.

The Labour Party also has rich supporters, including a number of millionaires: the late Eric Miller, who hobnobbed with Harold Wilson, Jimmy Goldsmith, Cotton the Birmingham property millionaire, Charles Forte and many others. These rich people do not give their support unless they receive something in return; whether this be a subsidy, honours, export credit, a licence, a Government contract, or some other form of Government assistance will depend on the particular circumstances. The Labour Party receives the bulk of its funds from trade unions through the Political Levy, and the sponsorship of some of its MP’s, but it is a capitalist party which believes it can run capitalism in the interests of the working class. Occasionally it will make attacks on certain rich people or luxury industries, and the worst excesses of capitalism, but it will not attack the system.

The main issue between Tory and Labour government is on the question of state control of industry and nationalization. Here is a classic example of the interests of the capitalist class being represented in different ways, and this is precisely what Clause 7 refers to. The Tories want to cut down expensive government, reduce taxation, and state intervention. To the extent to which the state intervenes bureaucracy grows and inhibits the growth of capital. This is the main bone of contention. It would be impossible for governments to show partiality to certain sections of the capitalist class over a long period, as they are all watching one another and will take good care that nobody gains an advantage. This is where their parliamentary hacks come in. The fact that a party like the Labour Party is predominantly composed of workers does not prevent it from acting in the interests of capitalism, for the simple reason that the workers support capitalism.

Editors.

What price democracy? (1992)

Cartoon by George Meddemmen.

From the September 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the collapse of what we were encouraged to believe was communism in eastern Europe, another clutch of nations are undergoing the birth pangs of what passes for freedom in the so-called western democracies.

Unquestionably, it is better to live in a society where there is some degree of democracy than in one where opposition to the regime is not tolerated. The question is, however, how democratic are the democratic countries and how much benign repression is concealed by the illusion of freedom?

We have all heard the boast that America is a classless society and that any man or woman, whatever his or her origins, can become the nation’s chief executive. That no-one is debarred from the office of President on the grounds of being a cheat, a liar or a fool, is demonstrated by the history, past and present, of US Presidents. On the other hand, neither a woman nor a black person have had the distinction of being selected and, while it is possible that the colour and sex prohibition may be overcome in the future, the likelihood of someone who is not immensely rich succeeding to the Presidency of the United States is extremely unlikely.

In the struggle for electoral victory in the US Presidential elections money is a primary factor. It is not expensive, of course, to advise the voting public about the real issues that concern their future; but it does cost the most fantastic amounts of money to obscure the reality of both the present and the future. All the work of programme preparation, the prime media time, the wages and salaries of artisans and specialists in all sorts of hype and media trickery, conning with paper hats, raspberry blowers, millions of posters carrying asinine slogans, telling lies, using private detectives to look for dirt with which to expose an opponent. The disgusting circus that passes for democracy at Presidential level is very, very expensive stuff in which there is no place for ideas or concepts that cannot be backed by multi-millions of dollars.

Of course the election of a President is a two-horse race. We don’t even hear about the other candidates nor, indeed, do most Americans. There is no bar on socialists, or any other grouping, running for office—that’s the basis of the claim that America is a democracy—but without the massive wealth to buy the organisation, media time etc. that the Republicans and Democrats can deploy, that claim is patently fraudulent.

The system is not necessarily fashioned to repress the free expression of ideas but that is what it does. Western capitalism uses the power of money to benignly repress the general dissemination of ideas with even more efficacy than eastern state capitalism repressed ideas with terror. In the latter, the means used to suppress inexorably created their own reaction; in the former, since all are theoretically free to express their ideas and are gagged by lack of money, the public—conditioned to accept the economic logic of people even dying because they do not have the money to buy the food, shelter or medical care they need—can easily accept the financial suppression of ideas as being consistent with the democracy of the market.

Power of money

The same two-horse race as takes place between the Democrats and Republicans in the US takes place in Britain; here the runners are the Conservative Party and the Labour Party—with the so-called Liberal Democrats anxious to supplant one or other of the runners.

In Britain—especially following the revelation that one of the biggest press barons was a despicable crook who even stole from his retired workers—it would be freely admitted that, as in all the other so-called democratic countries, the press is owned and controlled by unscrupulous racketeers who have the power to influence millions of people every day. But it would be argued that at least the more influencial electronic media is largely free of undemocratic practices. Unlike the United States, where politicians and political interest groups can buy radio and TV lime, the electronic media here is allegedly protected against undemocratic abuse by rigorously enforced guidelines.

In fact these guidelines are even more repressive of genuine democratic practice than the American system. While it is true that in the United States those political parties serving the political needs of the capitalist class can buy the most potent means of controlling and conditioning masses of people and that this is the opposite of democratic, it is also true that interests outside the big parties can buy such exposure for their ideas as their necessarily meagre finances allow. In Britain, minority voices are denied access to the mass communication media except, of course, if they can muster amounts of money far greater than would be required for a modest campaign on American TV or radio!

In order to get an insignificant amount of broadcasting time on BBC or ITV in a general election, a political organisation must put up at least £25,000 as deposits for 50 candidates. On top of this a reasonably credible campaign in support these candidates would cost another £125,000. Any crackpot thesis, providing it is legal—and the rubbish that the major parties pul out on TV shows legality is no guide to sense!—can get the maximum amount of time if its sponsors can raise about £300,000 in the form of deposits for candidates in every coastituency. This amount of money buys it the right of access to the public through the medium of television and radio just as surely as it would in the US if it was paid over directly to the TV companies.

It has to be added, lest anyone is surprised that British democracy is so cheap that, after the deposits have been paid, about another £1,500,000 would be required to field a modest campaign—indeed, one press report claimed that the Tories invested in excess of £20,000,000 in buying the opportunity in the 1992 General Election to govern Britain.

So much for living in a democratic society. The cash nexus that controls capitalist democracy means that new ideas and concepts that do have, or may have, merit in solving the terrible and intractable problems of capitalism are frozen out of the pseudo-democratic system by the power of money. That, of course, is why problems like poverty, insecurity, homelessness, crime and wars, are intractable—because mass public examination of new solutions or different approaches to our problems are not permitted by those who gain wealth, power and privilege out of the very system that creates these problems.

Struggle for democracy

The "justification" for this anti-democratic system of closed loop capitalist "democracy" that ensures that the public is comfortably insulated from knowledge of any sane alternative to the present system of social lunacy, is the argument that the financial bar precludes all sorts of nut-cases from getting involved in elections. Of course, the amount of money spent in procuring a percentage of the vote at elections also acts as the means of measuring what access, if any, those outside the mainstream parties have between elections.

It is certainly no accident that, despite the fact that political fare is a sought after and, normally, ongoing part of television and radio programming, it is a rarity for anyone outside the mainstream panics to be seen or heard on British TV. Nor does the absence mean that there is a dearth of minority political opinion or spokespersons prepared to pul such opinion. No, it means that the utterly anti-democratic "percentage of the vote" thesis is working a treat for British capitalism.

But the argument itself, that nut-cases are kept off the air—apart from the fact that it is an essentially anti-democratic argument that makes money the arbiter of political sanity—falls down in practice. Apart from the Monster Raving Looney Party and the mass of candidates who fought the General Election on a policy of conquering problems by thinking they are not there, there are the orthodox inanities of Major, Kinnock and Ashdown.

Real democracy, of course, is impossible to achieve within a system of social inequality; the essence of real, informed and fully participative democracy can only prevail in a truly socialist society. Still, to establish the majority socialist consciousness that must necessarily underpin Socialism, it is important to struggle for our voice to be heard; for the limping democracy of capitalism to become more than a mere numbers game for pollsters and politicians. That is not to say that the struggle for a wider degree of democracy must precede the struggle for Socialism but, rather, that the struggle for democracy is an integral part of the struggle for Socialism.

Richard Montague

Editorial: None of the above (2025)

Editorial from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

At the next general election most voters in England are likely to have a choice between candidates representing six different parties: Labour, Tory, LibDem, Green, Reform UK, and the new Corbyn party. In Scotland and Wales, with the nationalists, it will be seven. This appears to extend democracy by offering voters a wider choice. But does it?

What, on paper, is on offer? Labour is in office nationally and has pledged to bring about economic growth and to improve education, housing and social amenities funded by the increased tax income that will be a by-product. The Tories are also promising growth but by being even more in favour than Labour of giving private capitalist enterprises free rein. The LibDems advocate something. The Greens promise to pursue reforms to benefit the environment. Reform UK says that cutting back on immigration will improve things for the rest of us. The new Corbyn party wants to return to what Labour promised in the 1970s by redistributing wealth and income more evenly.

Labour and the Tories — the Ins and Outs of British politics — have had many chances to implement their policies and have both consistently failed. It is tempting to conclude that it’s because their leading members are bungling incompetents, corrupt or nasty people, or, in the case of Labour, sell-outs. Some of them undoubtedly will be but that’s not why they fail. Even if they were all competent, well-meaning and honest it wouldn’t have made any difference. Replacing them in office by the members of some third party such as the LibDems or some new protest party such as Farage’s wouldn’t make any difference either.

The reason Labour and the Tories fail, and why the others would too, is because they all accept capitalism and believe that the government can make its economy work for everyone. But it can’t. Capitalism is based on the resources needed to produce wealth being in the hands of a minority and used to produce goods and services for sale with a view to making a profit. This is what drives the economy and is what all governments have to respect and implement. Governments don’t control the way the capitalist economy works. It’s the other way round. The coercive economic laws of capitalism impose on governments what they can — and can’t — do. Governments can’t conjure up growth, can’t give priority to the environment, and can’t redistribute wealth and power.

In this way conventional politics is based on an illusion. Governments are assumed to be able to do what those elected to office say they will. And so elections are seen as being about voters choosing what policies they would like to see pursued or what reforms they would like to see enacted by voting for the candidates of one or other political party that they consider would best do this.

There is a choice at elections but it is a choice of which grouping of politicians is to carry out what the workings of the capitalist economy demand. It’s a choice as to which of them is to preside over capitalism’s operation and implement its priorities.

Faced with this limited choice, socialists, opposed as we are to capitalism and all of its works, say ‘we are not voting for any of you’. What is needed is a change of system not a change of politicians in office.

Cold War Inside the Kremlin (1953)

From the August 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Under socialism, when classes and class interests will no longer exist, the reason for the existence of political parties representing contending class interests will have gone. Decisions about the best policy to be followed to promote the well-being of all will be reached democratically by informed discussion. That situation is, however, something yet to be brought about since socialism exists nowhere in the world.

In Britain and many other countries capitalism has evolved a political system through which control of the government is vested in the politicians who are able to secure for their party or groups of parties the support of voters at elections, conducted on the basis of universal adult suffrage. This system works, and provides capitalism with the stability it needs, only because the major political parties and the voters behind them are agreed on the continuance of capitalism and differ only on secondary issues of policy.

In earlier times when the electorate was a very restricted body of property owners, and still earlier, before Parliament had made its hold on the armed forces and the monarchy effective, the struggles between contending economic interests to control the State machine were settled by disorderly public demonstrations, by show of armed force or by costly and ruinous civil war.

In Russia, since the overthrow of the Czarist monarchy in 1917, rule has been in the hands of a group based on the Communist Party, all other political parties being ruthlessly suppressed. In such conditions it was necessary to retain and strengthen the Secret Police, which, with its own powerful armed forces constitutes one of the three pillars of the Russian government, alongside the army and the Communist Party. Under this political system the rulers of Russia have had to face problems of great size and complexity including civil war, invasion in the second world war, the dispossession of the peasants and their forcible combination into collective farms, and the problem of trying to persuade and cajole the workers into accepting their exploitation and the particular hardship involved in building up modern industry in what was a predominantly peasant country. The inevitable tension has been aggravated by the need to impose a large measure of centralisation not only on strongly-autonomous regional interests inside Russia but also on the “satellite” countries in Eastern Europe brought, since 1945, into the Russian sphere of interest. Stalin's death brought the problem to a head, and forced the question, which individual was to gain the succession at the centre and on which of the three pillars of the State, Party, Army and Secret Police, he would lean. In this situation the sudden flare up of revolt in East Berlin and the plain signs of incipient breakaway in the satellite countries were, to those at the centre, alarming reminders of the dangers surrounding them.

Beria’s removal gives colour to the view that the Party and the Army have been able to agree to line up against the Secret Police but that, even if it is a correct interpretation of forces about which so little definite is known, could only be a provisional solution. It does not settle the question of bringing all the forces of the State, including the army, under the control of political heads who would owe their authority to having majority support in a Parliament resting on genuine electoral contests. Where, as in Britain, continuous contact between electors, the government and the opposition is maintained by political parties operating in the open, and seeking both to reflect and to mould political opinion, a stable basis is provided for the administration as well as means to change it at elections. Lacking such a system contending interests in Russia, with their divergent views on the running of capitalism, can only intrigue for power at the centre and seek support in Army, Secret Police, Communist Party, regional autonomous movements, or anywhere else where discontent makes itself manifest.

The removal of Beria and the likely curbing of the power of the Secret Police, have not materially altered the system. In a country where ordinary political organisation and activity is illegal and discontent is therefore driven underground an elaborate secret police organisation is indispensable and it will be observed that Beria’s removal and other changes have all been initiated and carried out arbitrarily from the top, with the masses of the people kept completely in the dark until they are simultaneously informed of what has been done and called upon to hold “spontaneous” demonstrations approving it. As is usual in a Police State the defeated contestants are removed and held guilty without any such formality as waiting for a public trial or allowing their supporters to state their case in the open.

Whichever group wins the present round in the struggle for power the problem of broadening the base of the Russian political system remains to be solved. Whether it will be by compromise among the rivals or by armed struggle remains to be seen.

Edgar Hardcastle

You—and the next General Election (1949)

From the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain will be contesting two constituencies at the next General Election —North Paddington and East Ham South.

At the last General Election a majority of you voted a Labour Government into power. Are you satisfied with what you did? What have you gained from Labour Government? In their election programmes Labour Candidates promised you “Real Peace, a Good Home, a Good Job, Good Wages, a Chance for the Children, Rising Standards of Living for the Whole Population” and “Public Ownership—the organisation and control of the nation’s wealth and resources for the benefit of the Whole Nation—is needed to give our people a Better Britain.” Do you remember these promises, or is your memory so short that you have forgotten them? Look up the Labour programmes again and then compare the accomplishments with the promises.

Real Peace, a Good Home, Rising Standards of Living; what a cruel disillusionment! The armaments race is in full swing in preparation for another war; this time with one of the erstwhile Allies. The “good homes” have vanished in face of a greater housing problem for the workers than has ever been experienced before. The standards of living are going down as prices go up and the Government is appealing to you to abandon demands for higher wages. It is also throwing its weight against you, just as Tory and Liberal Governments did, when you come out on strike. Many large industries have been nationalised—has this meant a “Better Britain” for you? In all of them there is discontent and the workers are either on strike or threatening to do so. Where an industry has been nationalised you have only one employer; when you get the sack you are done for. Miners have already learnt this to their cost.

Labour Government is fundamentally no different from Tory or Liberal Government; each of them governs on behalf of the capitalist class and for the benefit of that class.

Before you voted last time we urged you to think very seriously about what you were doing. But you did not do so; you swallowed the hoary old promises that were so often broken. Your present bewilderment and apprehension in face of a world moving steadily towards another catastrophe is the logical result of the vote you cast at the last General Election. Once again we urge you to spend a few months in serious thought before the time comes to cast your vote. Give up trusting in promises and look behind promises to the facts of the life you are compelled to live. Here are some of the facts.

Within the last fifty years the means to produce and distribute wealth have been vastly improved and expanded. So prolific have been the social productive powers that, repeatedly, steps have had to be taken to limit production, and even to destroy large quantities of essential products that have been produced in excess of the market requirements. During the same period a relatively small section of the world’s population has been enjoying unprecedented wealth and luxury, whilst the vast mass of the people have been living on or near the poverty line, harassed by the dread born out of insecurity, and suffering most when the shops are glutted with the things they need but cannot buy.

During these fifty years the world has been torn by two devastating wars, bringing death, disablement and misery to millions of people, as well as diverting the energies of a large part of the world’s population to production for war purposes—that is production that makes and feeds implements of destruction. Neither Labour, Tory nor Liberal Government can find a solution to the problem of war. You who are workers produce the munitions of war, and give up your lives on the battlefields as well as behind the official front lines. What have you gained by your sacrifice? Nothing! After the first Great War unemployment and insecurity reached dimensions never experienced before. After the second Great War the housing problem has reached a pitch that is staggering and, allied with the scanty housing ration is the scantiness and soaring prices of needful things. Just imagine what it was like when oranges, bananas and the like were cheap and plentiful. No, you have gained nothing from war except misery.

All the arts of “leaders,” diplomats and governments are incapable of abolishing war because war is an integral part of the present social order whose basis is the production of goods for sale at a profit. Wars are waged for plunder, and the source of this plunder is the wealth you produce above what it costs to keep you and your families.

You are told that we are living in difficult times and that you must curb your demands for better wages because the war has left the world short of necessary goods. Yet, since the war, fortunes have been left by those who live on your work; banquets are given by the wealthy and Continental resorts still thrive out of their visits. If you had the money you could buy anything anywhere as the wealthy do. There is no shortage for them. Have you asked yourselves why your class must pull in its belt while the wealthy class can thrive in luxury in spite of a devastated world?

These are some facts over which you should ponder before going to the polling booths next time; but they are only a beginning.

Gilmac.

Why you should be a socialist (1994)

From the August 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some years ago, a Guardian writer wrote a succinct sentence: "Who stands for nothing falls for anything." This statement rings true for all socialists aware that their fellow workers, voting, for instance, for mainstream parties come election time, are in fact acquiescing in their own exploitation.

Labour, Tory and Liberal candidates are fond of telling workers, and indeed of convincing them, that a vote for them (the candidate) is a vote for themselves (the workers). By electing such-and-such candidate, we are told our taxes will come down, our hospitals will improve, our schools will churn out brighter pupils, that homelessness will disappear, that there will be less unemployment and more jobs and streets free of criminals. In short, we are offered a vision of utopia. The optimistic worker falls for all of this, only to have their expectations dashed on the rocks of capitalist reality.

In the absence of any coherent ideology, the worker will invariably fall for anything. This is not to insult members of the working class by casting aspersions on their intellect. It says more about the skill of politicians when it comes to regurgitating the same old cant. These administrators of capitalism, the politicians, have been plying their trade since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. They have, therefore, become adept, highly skilled in the rhetoric of bullshitting workers. So successful are they, in fact, that a lot of what they have been saying have become the prevalent ideas in society; racism, sexism, homophobia, nationalism, hostility to the unemployed, the disabled, trades unions and criminals — all these prejudices have their roots more or less in the advent of capitalism.

Workers in this country are constantly reminded they are British, that they have a queen and a culture and a heritage, that they live on an island "the envy of less happy lands". Workers are raised to be nationalistic, patriotic and to stand when the national anthem is played at closing time in the British Legion. And then when wars break out, workers are encouraged to fight workers from other countries, under the delusion that freedom and democracy is at stake. But wars only break out when the interests of the dominant class of one nation clash with those of another, whether it be over trade routes, areas of domination or mineral resources. One US worker-cum-soldier, being interviewed en route to the Gulf, said he had never even heard of Kuwait until the order came through to mobilize. If he had not heard of Kuwait, you can bet he had no idea why he was being told to kill workers in Iraq.

Some workers actually believe their interests are served by killing workers they have never met before in far-away lands, workers who are similarly hoodwinked by their masters to protect their profits and potential markets. They fall for all the jingoism circulated by politicians.

When the Tories came to power in 1979, they had made great use of the slogan "Labour isn’t working", pointing out that unemployment stood at 1,000,000 and that this would fall under Conservatism. Workers fell for this, but within a few years unemployment figures had tripled, in spite of the Tories having made 17 adjustments to the way the original statistics were calculated. Statisticians put the real figure at 4.5 million.

When Mrs Thatcher resigned from office, workers were told she was the "greatest peace-time prime minister". Workers applauded her, some gave her a standing ovation, forgetting she had sent troops to the Falklands and the Gulf, sanctioned the US bombing raid on Libya, increased the troop presence in Northern Ireland and sent battalions of shield-thumping police to confront striking workers at Wapping and Orgreave.

The Labour candidate tells the worker how the coal industry would be safe under Labour, pointing to the number of pits closed since 1979. The worker tuts and pledges support, unaware that a Labour government closed 223 pits between 1965 and 1970.

Lies

The Tories conned workers into investing their hard-earned savings into the newly-privatized nationalized industries. The Labour governments who introduced nationalization (or rather state capitalism) had already told workers these industries belonged to the people. This did not, however, deter workers from buying shares in what theoretically already belonged to them. The Tories did not tell the workers that the returns on their investments would be minimal, nothing compared to the returns big business could expect, and that privatization was only meant to benefit the capitalist class in the first place.

The Tories had another idea — to encourage workers to set up their own businesses. Hundreds of thousands of workers were hoodwinked into believing they could compete with the big boys. Hundreds of thousands were to realize that in a climate where even some of the big boys could not survive, what chance had they. Politicians are always keen to assure workers that a country under their administration will be crime-free, but in the past 15 years there has been a sevenfold increase in reported crime and Britain's prison population is the largest in Europe. Inner-city riots have become so commonplace that they no longer make the headlines, and crimes such as joyriding and ram-raiding are so widespread they have become hackneyed in the plots of television serials.

Over the years, workers have been told there will be "peace in our time", that they’ve "never had it so good". Workers are urged to "watch" the lips of politicians while they repeat "no more taxes". The promises are as endless as they are futile, but still the worker falls for them.

In March this year, William Waldegrave reaffirmed what socialists already knew: "In exceptional circumstances, it is necessary to say something untrue in the House of Commons" (Guardian, 9 March). It doesn’t take much imagination to envisage which "circumstances" — those hidden truths about the nature of capitalist society that would cause a furore amongst workers were they revealed, but which remain a hidden truth because to reveal them would upset the capitalist minority whose system the politicians administer.

Leaders

Again, the administrators of capitalism have convinced workers that they need leaders. So prevalent is this idea that workers perpetuate the illusion themselves on behalf of the leaders, for instance, conditioning their children to take heed of everyone from the local vicar to the village bobby — all of whom see to it that the child never thinks for itself and will never challenge the status quo. The leaders, the politicians, however, are themselves only following the dictates of the profit system, which is itself governed by uncontrollable economic laws.

Workers have been led so long they have forgotten their potential collective strength. We seem unaware that everything in the world is produced by workers, from a pin to an oil rig, not thanks to politicians, but in spite of them.

Think of the artificial brakes that are put on production, the inventions that could benefit humanity, but which are suppressed because their introduction would cause the influx of a product which would in turn diminish somebody’s profits from a similar more expensive product. Most workers are aware of this, but fail to challenge the contradictions of capitalist society because leaders have convinced them there is no alternative society. Workers are told that socialism has already been tried and has failed miserably. But socialism has never been put into practice in any country, and those nations that called themselves communist were in reality only state capitalist, which politicians knew all along.

Workers will continue to be led and to believe what leaders tell them so long as they do not believe in themselves, in their own capabilities. A worker who does not understand how society is really organized, whose conditioning has alienated them from their consciousness will fall for anything.

There is nothing special about a socialist. They do not assume the airs and graces and the arrogance of Leninist vanguard parties, who believe the workers can only achieve a trade union consciousness and who wish to lead the workers into oblivion. Socialists are simply workers who have made a conscious effort to understand society from their own objective position and who have realized that is their position in the relations of production and who can apply this relationship to every aspect of life in present-day society.

The capitalist system is only as strong as the socialist cause is weak. The contradictions of capitalist society will only continue as long as workers are oblivious of them. If you’re reading the Socialist Standard for the first time, then you’ve already made the conscious decision to think for yourself and to reject what you had hitherto been told about socialism. If you stand for socialism you’ll fall for nothing.

John Bissett

Letter: Truth & Politics (1974)

Letter to the Editors from the August 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Truth & Politics

Just to conclude the matter of the labour-time vouchers, I don’t see that Horatio’s remark in the May issue gets us any further. We are still stuck at the point that you can’t time a Shakespeare as you can a miner and you can’t get a Schubert to clock on when he jots down an inspired tune in the middle of the night. We must just leave it that now the Socialist position holds good — to each according to his need. Without measuring.

May I express a little surprise that in his otherwise most percipient article on Logic, Truth and Politics, R. Barltrop lapses into naivety when he says there are such things as honest politicians and he immediately proves the opposite by reference to some “thoroughly decent” C.P. leader — who nevertheless “told . . . whopping . . . lies”. But the example of another “honest liar”, Stafford Cripps, is even more odd. The suggestion that he really believed in ’49 that the pound would not be devalued when he swore this right until the day it happened is untenable. To say that the “government” did the devaluing is meaningless. As Chancellor, in this matter, for practical purposes he was the government and he lied because he had to (otherwise speculators would have reduced the pound to waste paper).

I am afraid your writer has rather misunderstood Churchill’s reference to Cripps (“There but for the grace of God goes God”). He did not mean that he thought Cripps was honest — merely a puritanical humbug. The proof is almost contained in the article which refers to the lies about the regime in Russia when Stalin became our glorious ally. Churchill needed as an ambassador someone who would be able to go there and see the atrocities which Stalin was committing against the Russian workers — and send enormous lies home which would be swallowed by the British workers. So the old cynic sent the most plausible leftist liar he could find. Cripps. I agree with Barltrop that the psalmist’s “All men are liars” is wrong. The correct position was stated by the late Crossman (who knew!) when he once wrote in The Guardian “all politicians tell lies” (my emphasis). Lying is one of the evils of capitalism which Socialism will render unnecessary along with greed, envy, etc.

S. Gamzu

Other letters and replies held over to next month through pressure on space.

Hobson’s choice (2025)

From the January 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

On 20 January Donald J Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States of America.

Hopefully, given the American predilection for violence, Donald Trump won’t in the interim have suffered the fate of Caesar, like a lot of other American presidents, political figures, civil rights advocates and so on. We come not to bury him and certainly not to praise him.

‘Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think.’ This aphorism seems particularly pertinent given the reaction which the election of ‘47’ seems to have generated. The media, and social media especially, went into paroxysms of rage, frustration and general crazed madness. The meltdown displayed by individuals, who seemed to think that upon being sworn into office Trump was immediately going to pass an Enabling Act, was off the scale. The ire and emotion directed at Donald Trump would be more positively channelled into changing the capitalist system.

Robert Tressell in his book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, gave an example of how those who favour the alternative are treated:

‘At the conclusion of the singing, Bert turned another picture into view. “’Ere we ’ave another election scene. At each side we see the two candidates the same as in the last pitcher. In the middle of the road we see a man lying on the ground, covered with blood, with a lot of Liberal and Tory working men kickin’ ’im, jumpin’ on ’im, and stampin’ on ’is face with their ’obnailed boots. The bloke on the ground is a Socialist, and the reason why they’re kickin’ ’is face in is because ’e said that the only difference between Slumrent and Mandriver was that they was both alike”.’

There’s nothing comic of course about the American adult population voting for the continuation of capitalism. Socialists have to live with the result of this happening time and time again, but socialists don’t throw their toys out of the pram. They just roll up their sleeves and work harder to make socialists.

It’s said if America sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold. One objective the incoming President has declared is the implementation of protectionist economic measures, ie, raising tariffs on foreign imports. This action is intended to have a negative impact on America’s economic rivals and competitors, but it will also damage the economies of ‘friends and allies’ (sic). Is it likely that American workers will see some material benefits in the next four years? Possibly, if only for a while. American capitalists will almost certainly see their wealth and power increase. But what about the working class in the rest of the world? Can they expect a mild dose of flu, or pneumonia? However, as demonstrated by the UK Labour Party’s recent performance, politicians will simply lie in order to gain power, so nothing they say is set in stone.

Thomas Hobson (1544–1631) owned stables in Cambridge, and is said to have told those wanting a horse, take the one in the stall nearest the door or don’t bother taking one at all. ‘Hobson’s choice’ therefore means there is no choice. For voters in the November US election, just as in all states claiming to be democracies across the world, it’s always Hobson’s choice, because whatever inducements are offered the result is always to the benefit of capitalism.

The Scottish stand-up comedian Billy Connolly said, ‘The desire to be a politician should bar you for life from ever becoming one. Don’t vote. It just encourages them’. In socialism we won’t need them and we won’t have them.

But this is not to say that voting and elections are useless. The World Socialist Movement aims to use political means in order to implement the change to a socialist society across the world. As we say in our pamphlet What’s Wrong With Using Parliament?:

‘Control of the state is operated by those who hold political power as a result of being elected via universal suffrage (the vote). This means they have to get the formal agreement, at election times, of the majority of the people. This is not too difficult since most people are imbued with capitalist ideas and see no alternative to present-day, capitalist society with its class ownership, production for profit, working for wages and rationing by money… there is a more positive reason for winning control of political power. The state is an instrument of coercion, but it has assumed social functions that have to exist in any society and which have nothing to do with its coercive nature: it has taken over the role of being society’s central organ of administration and co-ordination. Gaining control of the state will at the same time give control of this social organ which can be used to co-ordinate the changeover from capitalism to socialism’.

Dave Coggan

Editorial: Fireworks on November 5? (2024)

Editorial from the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

As we go to press the US presidential election is approaching its conclusion amid a febrile atmosphere of fear and mutual loathing, with each side trolling the other during a punishing schedule of rallies in the decisive swing states, and Trump-backer Elon Musk offering to pay $1m a day to petition-signers in Pennsylvania.

‘What happens on 5 November could change the world we live in,’ pants the Guardian, reflecting the breathless fascination of the world’s media for an election which may in truth have a significant bearing on tariff-versus-free-trade tensions playing out across world markets, as well as on Israel and the Middle East war, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the growing power of China, and implications for US carbon commitments. Many fear the consequences of a Trump victory. Many others fear the fireworks Trump may unleash if he rallies his fanbase to reject a defeat.

According to Pew surveys, domestic US voters are not overly concerned with geopolitical questions or foreign trade, and even less with global warming. 81 percent of those polled say their main concern is the economy, which a barrage of Republican disinformation has represented as a failed basket-case under Biden. This isn’t so, objectively speaking. The economy is in fact very healthy, at least for wealth owners, but for many workers it’s a catastrophe of low wages and high prices. Both things can be true, of course. A healthy economy of desperate workers is capitalism’s ideal operating condition.

Many US voters probably grasp, at some deep level, that they don’t matter, their views don’t count, and their needs will go unmet. The Democrats make no apology for standing primarily for the urban, college-educated, white-collar ‘middle class’, by implication writing off the rural, non-college, blue-collar majority as a rabble and a lost cause. If capitalist democracy is a rigged circus anyway, some will think, why not elect the most outrageous clown, if only to wind up the establishment and the liberal woke opposition?

From an outside perspective, this vicious race to the bottom looks frankly surreal, framed as it is partly by America’s privately owned and heavily polarised news media, with Fox touting Trump and CNN touting Harris, and partly by their peculiar libel laws, disguised as ‘free speech’, in which anyone ‘has the right’ to slander and tell lies about anyone else without the legal obligation to substantiate or retract.

Unlike the recent UK general election, there is no foregone conclusion here, with polls showing Trump and Harris neck and neck. But we can certainly predict that, whoever wins, and failing a global environmental disaster or nuclear war, American workers will not see much if any difference. Governments can’t control markets anyway, regardless of ideologies. They are like rollercoaster riders, hanging on for dear life as capitalism hurtles through its booms and slumps, powered by its own insatiable frenzy. The main effect of capitalist elections is not to bring about real change but to promote the illusion of change while the runaway acceleration of exploitation remains unaddressed and undisturbed.

So, whichever way it goes, the working class won’t win. There is no way to win, except by abolishing capitalism in favour of truly democratic global common ownership. Otherwise, all the glamour and fireworks are merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.

A plague on both their houses (2024)

From the October 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

This issue is published before the US presidential elections on 5 November so we are unable to comment on the result. But we can analyse the campaign and what is at stake.

Most elections under capitalism are simply about which band of professional politicians shall occupy executive and ministerial posts. In other words, about a change of personnel to continue with the same basic policies. This was the case in the recent UK elections. On some occasions, however, the capitalist class are split on some key economic issue and the only way this can be settled is via the ballot box.

In Britain, this was the case over whether or not the British state should remain part of the European Union. One section of the capitalist class wanted to withdraw to avoid EU regulation of their financial activities while another section, the majority, wanted to stay in.

In a capitalist political democracy the only way of settling such conflicts of interests within the capitalist class is to put the matter to the electorate to decide, an electorate overwhelmingly composed of workers. The rival sections of the capitalist class each spend millions in propaganda to try to get workers to vote for their candidates. The section that wins gets its way. The government is formed by their political representatives who have a mandate to implement that section’s policy. In Britain those in favour of leaving won a referendum and a subsequent general election, so Britain left. Had the vote gone the other way Britain would have remained in the EU.

In such elections there is something more than a mere change of personnel at stake — for the capitalist class, though not for the working class, whose interests are opposed to all sections of the capitalist class and who are not required to take sides.

The current presidential election in the United States is one such example. The basic split in the capitalist class there is the old one between those who favour free trade and those who favour protectionism, which has foreign policy implications. Harris represents that section which favours the status quo and support for existing international bodies set up to promote freer trade. Trump represents those who want to protect US manufacturing industry from outside competition by imposing a tariff on all imports. Harris wants to continue the war in Ukraine and bombing Gaza. Trump just wants to bomb Gaza.

If the election was a contest as to which candidate has the least unpleasant personality Harris would be the lesser evil. But that’s not the issue. It’s which section of the US capitalist class shall get its way, a matter of indifference to workers and of equal opposition to both by socialists.

Because it is the working class electorate that will decide, both sides have to spin their policy in a way that will dupe workers into supporting them. Thus Trump courts the Christian right and other social conservatives while Harris presents herself as a champion of liberal values. Trump’s appeal is mainly to whites, Harris’s mainly to voters of colour. Trump mainly to men. Harris mainly to women. But none of these is the real issue, even though how voters react to them will decide which section of the US capitalist class gets its way.

The US system for electing the president is peculiar. In other countries with elected presidents, the candidate who wins is the one who gets the most votes, whether in a first or second round. In the US this is not necessarily the case — it is the candidate who wins the most votes in an electoral college composed of members representing the states that make up the union, whose number broadly reflects the electorate of each state and who (except in a couple of small states) vote as a bloc. When Trump won in 2016 he got fewer votes than Hilary Clinton but more in the electoral college. This was because Clinton won easily in California and New York but this didn’t increase her representation in the Electoral College. Who wins here is decided by who wins in a number of key ‘swing’ states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia but also smaller ones like Arizona. This is not fully democratic but is the procedure that has evolved in the United States for deciding who shall chair the executive committee of its ruling class.

Under the US constitution, the president cannot get their way unless their party has a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives is elected on a normal democratic basis from constituencies of roughly equal size. Only one-third of the Senate is elected every two years, a constitutional arrangement put in place by the Founding Fathers to prevent a majority for any radical proposal (such as land reform) getting its way for at least six years.

The Democratic Party leaders got Biden to withdraw as they were afraid that, if he stayed as their candidate, they risked not winning a majority in the House of Representatives and Senate, and so not being in a position to block what Trump might do that would be against the interest of the US capitalist class as a whole. In fact, their strategy is just as much aimed at this as at electing Harris as President so that, if she loses, they will still be able to block Trump doing something the section of the US capitalist class they represent doesn’t want, such as abandoning Ukraine or starting a world tariff war.

Trump is portrayed by some of those who support Harris as a ‘fascist’ who wants to install himself as dictator. This is an exaggeration for vote-catching purposes. A more sober assessment is given by one of Trump’s economic advisers, Stephen Moore of the notorious right-wing think-tank The Heritage Foundation. When asked what Trump would do if elected President again, he said that ‘Trump would be pragmatic in office and focus on the needs of business to drive economic growth’ (tinyurl.com/2n4ftxp3). Perhaps not so different, then, than what the new Labour government here has said is its approach.