Letter: Twyford Down (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

Since last year, 1 have been involved in the fight to save Twyford Down. This has been presented by the media as a "green" issue with particular appeal to New Age travellers, students, environmental activists (such as Earth First!) and conservationists. The destruction of many sites of archaeological and historical interest there has scarcely been mentioned. The political aspects of the Government's roads programme are ignored. The corrupt dealings between Conservative Party members and MPs with Winchester College, the construction industry and the Department of Transport have not been exposed at all.

The Government is interested in only one thing — power. This is true of all governments, but the present one is particularly nasty and corrupt. Their overriding concern is that they and their Establishment friends (the Establishment is not just a mental construct but consists of real people who live and interact with each other in a social milieu most of us cannot even imagine) should continue to hold their positions of wealth and power at our expense.

Roads are not built for (although they are built by!) working people, despite encouragement to buy cars and use them. Their main purpose is to boost profits by offering cheap transport (roads are paid for and subsidised from taxes) for the owning class. Tory support for the roads lobby also ensures the continued payment into Party funds of huge subventions by the British Road Federation and construction industry companies, and the continued appointment of worthies to lucrative directorships.

The people who run this country, like those who benefit from the capitalist system everywhere in the world, are not interested in the well-being of ordinary people, although they pretend to be when they want us to sanction their robbery with our votes. They will spare no destruction — of our communities or the natural environment — in pursuit of power and profit.

The roads programme is an important issue not because of any intrinsic values but because the government chose to make it so. The Twyford Down struggle eventually took on the proportions of Orgreave, with the use of Group 4 Securitas as a private army, hired and equipped by the DoT to show us who was boss. Nearly 200 security men. plus construction workers and police, were sent against 25 protestors (I was one) who were camped on the Down overnight on the 9th December — to set an example, not merely to enable Mott MacDonald's vandals to destroy an irreplaceable ecosystem and scheduled ancient monument.

Despite what has happened at Twyford Down and what we are threatened with at many places around the country, people are not going to shut up and go away — to do that would be to abandon any thought of standing up to the worst excesses of this evil Government and to abandon the future of the planet as a place fit for life. It is vital that our non violent protests continue and grow. It is no use waiting for the Tories to be voted out of office, let alone for "the revolution". If direct action is not taken now there may soon be precious little left for politicians to argue about.

Katy Andrews, 

London E11

Reply:

It's all very well saying it’s no use waiting for "the revolution" (we agree: we shouldn't "wait" for it we should work for it). But unless it takes place — and the basis of society is changed to common ownership, democratic control and production solely for use. instead of private ownership, stale control and production for profit, then capitalism will go on destroying the environment, and the most that can be done will be to occasionally slow this down a little. The record shows, however, that defeats (as a Twyford Down) are more frequent than any minor victories. This is not really surprising as nothing, not even government action let alone direct action, can stop the economic laws of the profit system ensuring that profits come first. — Editors.

Life and Times: You park, we charge (2025)

The Life and Times column from the September 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parking fines have been in the news lately, especially those levied by private parking companies and technically called ‘parking charges’. A large number of car parks are owned by or outsourced to these companies. They go by various names, for example Euro Car Parks, Excel Parking, Parking Eye, Total Parking Solutions, Britannia Parking, National Car Parks. The first you know you’ve been fined (or charged) by one of them is when you receive a letter in the post giving you details of what you’ve done wrong and instructing you to pay them an amount of money – usually £100 but £60 if you pay within 14 days. They make payment simple – by phone or online. You’re also given the option of appealing the charge, but, as everyone who’s ever tried that knows, appeals are rarely successful.

Eternity

This came close to home for me recently, when a friend asked me if I could help her appeal against a charge for not parking her car entirely within the confines of a parking bay. It was unfair, she said, since her limited personal mobility meant she needed extra space on the driver’s side to get out of the car and this caused her to park just over the line on the passenger side. And as she’d parked in the last bay of the row – the only one available – and the other side was just empty space, she was not occupying part of another bay or causing any other obstruction. It seemed cut and dried to me that the charge was unfair and unreasonable and that it would be overturned, especially given my friend’s disability.

But that’s not what happened. Her appeal was rejected by the parking company (Eternity Fire and Security), the reason being given that ‘the vehicle was not parked correctly within the markings of a bay or space’, meaning that ‘the terms and conditions of the car park were not followed’. It was also stated that ‘parking out of marked bays can cause obstruction, inconvenience and safety hazards to other users of the car park’. So no account whatever was being taken either of the fact that my friend was disabled (her car was displaying a blue badge) or of the fact that, since the bay in question was the last one in a row, she could not have been causing ‘obstruction, inconvenience or safety hazards’. She was invited, if not satisfied, to appeal further to what was called an Independent Appeals Service, POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals).

POPLA

I advised her to do this. If POPLA was independent, surely it would see sense and reject Eternity’s decision? But no. It came back with confirmation of the decision on the grounds that ‘POPLA cannot allow an appeal based on mitigating circumstances’. I found this astonishing and my obvious question was on what basis could they ever allow an appeal? But it was sort of answered when I typed POPLA into the internet. I found its average score of 1.3 out of 5 on the Trustpilot site together with a profusion of negative comments. One of them said ‘private parking companies are the scum of the earth’, and another effectively summed things up by writing: ‘Comes across as heavily weighted towards the operator rather than a proper appeals process. They rejected my appeal on the basis of claims provided by the operator’. That said it all, so I wasn’t surprised when my friend received a further letter from POPLA telling her that she must pay without delay and it had now gone up from the original £60 to £100.

DCBL

We both agreed that she shouldn’t pay and wrote back to Eternity explaining again why and basically saying ‘see you in court’. Their response was yet another demand for payment and, after a further reply from us, a ‘Notice of Debt recovery’ letter from DCBL (Debt Collection Bailiffs Ltd) arrived threatening court action. This, it was stated, could lead to consequences like ‘further fees and costs’ and ‘prevention of future lending’. The amount demanded was now £170. Our further response was that we were sure that a court would see the reasonableness of our mitigation and throw out their case, probably with costs to us.

We couldn’t be sure of this of course, but there had been a recent case in the news where a company who took someone to court claiming over £11,000 had their case thrown out and were ordered by a judge to pay over £10,000 themselves to a charity. I duly drew DCBL’s attention this (tinyurl.com/4uranrzz), but their only response was to send me a ‘final reminder’. Another ‘final reminder’ has arrived since. We have ignored both. Will they take us to court? Well, I obviously can’t be sure they won’t, but I sort of doubt it, especially in view of the recent publicity about such cases, the obvious weakness of trying to rely entirely on formal ‘terms and conditions’ without attempting to consider other relevant factors, and also the fact – which I also made sure was drawn to their attention – that, under the Equality Act 2010, ‘reasonable adjustment has to be made for disabled people’. So watch this space.

Money and profit

What to make of all this? Well, first of all, the very existence of a plethora of parking companies whose purpose is to make money for landowners or investors either by charging people to park their cars or fining them for not carrying out the operation correctly is a prime example of how the system we live in is ruled by money and profit and not by human need. Secondly the practice of issuing fines (or ‘charges’) and pursuing people for payment, of appeal processes, of debt collection and then maybe court hearings are among the many examples of the enormous waste of human energy and resources inherent in the system we live under. It is a prime example of how that system spawns vast amounts of socially unproductive activities resulting in complex bureaucracies that need servicing and in large numbers of people doing jobs that they themselves can take little satisfaction from rather than being able to exercise their talents and capabilities in cooperative and socially productive ways.

Howard Moss

The Passing Show: Holiday Reckoning (1964)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

Holiday Reckoning 1.

The residents of Clacton had hardly gathered their wits after the Easter punch-ups, when Whitsun brought fresh outbreaks of teenage violence, but this time at Margate, Brighton and that paradise of retired army officers—Bournemouth. Margate was the worst afflicted, as hoards of “Mods” and “Rockers” descended on Dreamland and other parts and laid into each other without pity, egged on by their girl friends.

One aspect of these outbreaks which has alarmed the authorities is the contempt in which the warring youngsters held the police. “Here come the coppers; let's do ’em! ” was heard at one point and seems to sum up the prevailing attitude. It’s little wonder, then, that the coppers got just as tough and waded in with truncheons swinging. Neither is it surprising that heavy penalties were imposed by the courts on practically all those who were caught.

Just about as sickening was the spate of comments, excuses, call them what you will, in the press and elsewhere. Some people had blamed the poor weather and the lack of teenage amusement facilities at Clacton for the trouble there, but the same excuse could not be used for those which occurred at Whitsun. Nobody seemed to have any real grasp of why the violence had broken out and everybody was shocked and angered by it, forgetting that this was not the first trouble of its kind—neither is it likely to be the last.

When it came to suggesting ways of preventing it, we were treated to a rich variety of uselessness. The Evening Standard featured brief impromptu interviews with people in the street One young woman thought that confiscating their scooters and motorbikes would “immobilise the little horrors and soon put a stop to them,” as if there were no such things as buses and trains. (Anyway, what is to stop them from fighting at home if they want to?) Stiffer penalties, prison, birch and the inevitable “put ’em in the army for a spell’’—all were trotted out, and all equally futile. The army, after all, exists to do just this sort of thing, only on a bigger and more highly organised scale. There is another difference, of course. The army has the sanction of the government in particular, and society in general. When it knocks other people about, it is done in “the interests of peace” or “to establish the rule of law” or “to protect the territorial integrity ” of some puppet state or other. Yobbos do not enjoy such privilege.

We hold no brief for the Whitsun wild ones, but at the risk of being told to turn the record over and play the other side, we say again that they are the ugly product of an equally ugly society. In the main, they are members of the working class—that much is obvious, despite some of the inane suggestions about their supposed riches. Their homes are usually in the drabber and meaner parts of the big towns, and their everyday lives are generally in character with their surroundings. Like most of us, they have to face a monotonous, unfulfilling and insecure existence of going to work for a wage packet.

This faces them with all the associate problems, boredom not least of all. Not just the boredom of “nowhere to go in the evening” but the greater boredom which is part and parcel of the uninspiring life of a wage slave and which does, in fact, colour his every waking minute. If we are honest with ourselves, we will all admit this.

The remarks of some of the “ Mods’ birds” to Daily Mirror reporter Paula James the day after the fights, are illuminating.

Listen—it gives you a kick, a thrill. It makes you feel all funny inside. You get butterflies in your stomach and you want the boys to go on and on . . . You’ve got to get your kicks somehow. You’ve got to make up for all that boring time you're going to spend at work next week.

This, then, sums up their attitude. This, they think, will solve their problems— and the “kicks” have got to be extra hard to give them any pleasure at all. No use telling them that their problems will still be with them long after they are too old for kicks any more. Reefers, Purple Hearts, violence and noise are the empty pleasures they seek. No use telling them either of the broken health which lies only a short way ahead for many of them. The Mods’ birds have a reply to that, too:

We like life the way it is now. We want it to go on and on like this. . . . We want to live today. For here, for now, not next week.

They have yet to realise that they are really at the receiving end of the biggest kick of all, one that lands fairly and squarely on them, so long as they are members of the working class. All the bust-ups in the world won’t alter that. That is the real lesson they have to learn and until then Capitalism has the laugh which really matters.

Holiday Reckoning 2.

Whitsun was warm and sunny, the roads hot and smelly—and dangerous. It was estimated that about six million cars were on the move over the four days, mostly rushing to and from the holiday spots. A record number of cars and road deaths. At least eighty-four people lost their lives. In France the number was one less. Sweden, with seventeen, had its highest total for years.

There were the usual warnings and appeals from motoring organisations and Ministry of Transport Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chesham. Strange though it may sound, these might have had some effect. Apparently overall driving was better, but the relentlessly increasing volume of traffic has a counteracting effect. As The Guardian pointed out: “ The ultimate effect is that we are marching slowly backwards.”

This trite little statement seemed to illustrate neatly the mockery behind the whole problem of road traffic. In this and other countries, a great deal of motorway building has been going on, but the fastest road building does not seem to keep pace with the mounting number of vehicles. It is typical that only capitalism could produce such machines as the motor car, inefficient and unwieldy when viewed from the viewpoint of human interests and then plonk it onto a road system completely unable to cope with it. In addition, only Capitalism would have us all on a ball and chain, and then release us all at once for “a much needed break,” half of which is spent rushing “to get away from it all ” only to find that we have not really escaped, because everyone else has had the same idea.

Majorcan Holiday

Situated in the Mediterranean about five miles off the Spanish mainland, Majorca has become tremendously popular in recent years as a holiday centre. With its warm climate and beautiful rugged mountain scenery, it attracts tourists from many parts of the world. It is noted, amongst other things, for its cultivated pearls, its cathedral at Palma, and the Valldemosa monastery where Chopin stayed for just a few unhappy months.

Many workers manage a fortnight there by travelling tourist class on a “package holiday,” some spending most of the daylight hours lying on the beach frying themselves in the sizzling sunshine, concerned less with the benefits of sunlight than with getting a tan to take back home and show their friends. They may get heatstroke for their trouble, but the prestige of a golden brown skin is obviously considered worthy of the risk.

Despite the warmth and the comparatively relaxing atmosphere, it is interesting to note the number of people who, even there, never let down their guard for a moment. Here is the woman with pointed sunglasses and a loud affected voice, trailing an enormous dog behind her. Over there is the man who boasts constantly about his “good job” and high income and, most laughable of all, some of them even get patriotic about the English weather.

Their hotel is quite well appointed and perhaps this is what has gone to their heads a little. They seem to miss the point that it is by no means as exclusive as they like to think. For exclusiveness you go to another part of the island, such as Formentor, where the cheapest hotel room will cost you about six guineas a day, where the beaches are superb and serene in their peacefulness. It is the playground of royal families and other rich types.

Some of the better-off have settled in Majorca and live the usual life of ease associated with their wealth. But for most Majorcans it is the usual story of working for a wage packet as a means of living. This is the lesson which stands out just as much among the beauty of the Balearics as it does amongst the dirt and bustle of London.

Eddie Critchfield

Blogger's Note:

A short Panorama video about Mods and Rockers from 1964 gives you a flavour of the period. Failing that, you can always check out Sting as a Bell Boy.

The Passing Show: Free blood (1965)

The Passing Show Column from the May 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Free blood

You walk in and sit down. You are called to a table, where a man in a white coat pricks your finger for a test. Then you lie on a bench and hand the bottle you've been given to a nurse. About twenty minutes later they have a pint of your blood in the bottle and you are drinking a cup of tea. Not long after that you're back at work (that's the worst part of it—the rest is not at all a bother).

This is the typical routine at a blood donor session, and such is the demand for blood, that your pint may be used within a matter of hours. This is one of the sobering facts surrounding the National Blood Transfusion Service in England, and probably one which prompts many workers to give their life fluid every few months.

In this country there is no money in it for you. merely a small certificate or badge in recognition of your services. Equally there are no strings attached or compulsion, yet thousands of people donate at regular intervals and give it no more thought than going to bed or any other day-to-day function. No doubt the prospect of an hour off from the monotony of their work and the chance to see other faces are factors, but I think there is something more to it than that.

Here is perhaps just a faint glimpse of human beings doing something for each other without the prospect of "gain" in the sense that it is meant today, but equally without fear of injury to themselves in the process. Under such conditions is it too much to feel that perhaps many of them get a real sense of satisfaction such as they rarely encounter in their workaday lives? The eagerness with which they give their blood suggests maybe a sense of relief at being able to act for a brief spell without the normal restrictions which capitalism imposes, although they are not conscious of its reason.

Peace time war training

It is about as near to a "harmony of interests" that capitalism will ever let you go, because apart from odd moments like these, you are in constant competition with your fellow man. And even in this sphere, capitalism has a degrading effect, for as fast as blood is collected in one place, it is shed even faster on the roads at home and in places farther afield like the trouble spots of Malaysia. Cyprus and Aden.

This is the background against which to view the efforts of the devoted doctors and nurses of the blood bank. It seems you just can't win while capitalism is with us.

Capitalism causes wars, big and small. That is a simple statement of fact, but it has many implications. You should not, for instance, run away with the idea that war is something which bursts like a thunderclap over a largely unprepared and unsuspecting world, for such are the conditions of modern capitalism that there is plenty of suspicion between the powers, even while they are professing undying friendship, and they are never entirely unprepared.

They are constantly training their forces and developing their weapons of death and destruction, and where they get the chance, they will give them a tryout under operating conditions. Thus they gain valuable data for future modifications in time for the bigger showdowns to come. .Such was the case during the Spanish Civil War for example, when some of the major powers sent arms and "volunteers" to one side or the other and noted their effects. Then there was the Korean episode, when the British Centurion tank was in action and later underwent alterations as a result.

Now this is not to say that Spain and Korea were just glorified weapon testing grounds. Obviously there were very real capitalist interests at stake which caused the flareups and put the men and weapons there in the first place. But they are also regarded as useful training grounds, although this is not something that statesmen and politicians will normally care to admit. However, sometimes we may get a glimpse of cynical candour as one or another of them shoots his mouth off, like Lord Mountbatten, thus:

This is war, but is a very small form of war . . . We are being shot at but really it is the most marvellous training that our forces ever had . . . (speaking on the Malaysian situation in New Zealand March 4th.)

Out of the horse’s mouth indeed. Obviously Lord Mountbatten does not think that the “marvellous training" will be wasted. No doubt it will come in handy to protect British capitalism’s interests elsewhere when this little crisis blows over, and for that very reason then as now, workers will get killed or horribly maimed. It’s a man’s life in the Army.

Infernal combustion engines

A friend of mine runs a small shop on the outskirts of Watford. Apart front his shop and a few others, the road is lined with houses on both sides almost for its entire length. Most of the houses and shops have been there for many years, so there has keen little change in the size or appearance of the road in all that time. But there has been one big change in another respect which terrifies the wits out of me every time I walk along that road.

Time was when the shop door could be left open on a warm day in Summer. But that was some years ago, before the road became a feeder to the M.1. Now, the stink and deafening noise of huge lorries and countless cars have made a nightmare of the place, especially in the rush hour. So, Winter and Summer alike, the shop door stays closed and if you walk along the narrow pavement (laid long before the car became the monster it is today), you need eyes in the back of your head to get you home in one piece. Probably all that has saved the road from complete destruction is the construction of M.1 extension into London a few miles away, due for opening in the near future.

The problem of the roads was growing before the second world war, but it is in the post war years that it has threatened to get out of hand and has been such a headache for the capitalist class of Britain and other countries. One gets the impression that some of them would like to see some sort of restrictions imposed, but the car industry has now assumed such importance in modern capitalist economy, that they will not attempt anything to hamper its growth to any great extent. What this holds in store for us in terms of ripping up the countryside and the deterioration of already ugly places remains to be seen.

It is of course very convenient in many ways to have a car nowadays, but more than that—for many workers it is a positive necessity by the very nature of their employment. It is indicative of the demand to move ever faster in the world of capitalist competition, where time is money and every second counts.

So the politician who takes over the administration of modern capitalism will have to make big allowances for the automobile in his electoral calculations, whatever his personal feelings. Greater London Council Member Mrs. Peggy Jay (wife of Douglas) may shout about proposed “box” of motorways for London, and tell of the destruction of living space, and about ten thousand trees, which it may well entail, but she will not get much support from the electorate at large. For the system which she supports has produced the motorised worker of the sixties, dominated by his machine and hating anyone who denies him the right to drive it where he likes, even in some places onto the sea shore to the very edge of the waves.

Crackpot? indeed yes, but just another of those problems that only a private property system can produce.

Gaspers

”. . . The Conservative Party should not be afraid of inequality.” (Mr. Du Cann, Tory Party Chairman, 27.3.65.)

“ This is not an attack on profits.” (Mr. Brown, defending Labour Government's budget 7.4.65.)

“ My first job is to maintain political stability and if 1 have to detain ten or twenty thousand, I will do it.” (Dr. Banda at a Blantyre rally on 4.4.65.)

“The days of nuclear war are gone." (Mao Tse Tung to Arab Leaders in Peking, reported 6.4.65.)

"Businessmen have more hope of making progress and money under a Labour Government than they had before.” (Mr. Brown in an interview with the editor of Director, Institute of Directors Journal, April 1965.)

"We do not care what colour a person's skin is. It is just that we do not want any more coloured people in Marshall Street.” (Mrs. Groves of Smethwick after a deputation meeting with the Housing Minister 8.4.65.)

Eddie Critchfield

Life & Times: Road rage (2025)

The Life and Times column from the March 2025 issue of the Socialist Standard

In this column not long ago I wrote about the ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road and how that was causing ever-increasing difficulty in finding places to park them. I pointed out that this was a function of the capitalist system’s relentless quest for ‘growth’ – growth of all goods and services and at all levels. I also pointed out that people having more or even better things doesn’t in itself lead to satisfaction or happiness and doesn’t have the power to tame or overcome all the negative factors that may arise from the instability and unpredictability of the system we live under (job reorganisation, unemployment, recession, poverty, war, etc., etc). All ‘growth’ does is to satisfy the system’s built-in quest for profit that never stops regardless of social need or long-term consequences.

Angry and not so angry

What has all this got to do with ‘road rage’? Well, journalist Sophie Gallagher recently wrote an article in the i newspaper entitled ‘I was a victim of road rage – it is everywhere and getting worse’. She explained how a driver wanting to overtake her ‘exploded with rage’ when he couldn’t and then tailed her for several minutes, managing to box her in and then getting out of his car and approaching her threateningly before she was able to pull away. This brought a considerable response from readers agreeing with her and recounting their own experiences of other angry road users. Her article also happened to coincide with an incident I was involved in myself when sitting in my parked car in a local shopping centre behind a large van. The van suddenly started to back up and it worried me that the driver might not have seen the car behind him and would back into me. I hooted in warning – just in case. The driver then stopped his van, got out and walked towards me. When he got to my car, though he did not threaten me, the look on his face told me he was angry, and there was a hint of intimidation in his voice as he told me that, yes, he’d seen me and that his van had ‘loads of cameras’. As he walked way, got back into his van and drove off, I thought I should have replied that I’d hooted ‘just to be on the safe side’. Hindsight is a fine thing.

But, on reflecting afterwards, I also thought how rarely this kind of thing actually happens – and what that says about ‘human nature’ considering how stressful driving is these days and how often awkward situations arise involving more than one vehicle. The fact is that on the road most people most of the time are extremely patient and even go out of their way to be considerate, civil and helpful to others – whether drivers or pedestrians. And that is the general expectation, so that, when something untoward does happen (ie, when another driver behaves in an unkind, inconsiderate, or angry way), we’re taken by surprise, and that may loom inappropriately large in our overall mental picture of what driving a car is like.

News, bad and good

This would go some way towards explaining the journalist’s generalising conclusion that, because she has experienced anger or threatening behaviour a couple of times when driving, ‘it is everywhere and getting worse’, and for her then casting around for ‘evidence’ of this from newspaper reports, insurance companies and various academic ‘experts’. Not surprising either that her article also brought considerable feedback from readers, announcing that they’d had similar bad experiences on the road and thereby ‘confirming’ the journalist’s conclusions. Yet, turning this on its head, is it not also worth asking the question how effective her article would have been if she had stated the opposite reality, ie, that very few people indeed experience road rage from other drivers and that ‘road kindness’ rather than ‘road rage’ was motorists’ predominant experience? The fact is that, for the media, news overwhelmingly means ‘bad news’.

One of the academics consulted by Sophie Gallagher is quoted as saying that ‘driving is dangerous and anxiety-provoking’ – something most people would agree with. That being the case, is not the most noteworthy thing that relatively rarely do drivers manifest anger, or even irritation, towards others road users, even when they find themselves in untoward situations or where someone else’s manoeuvre or decision clearly leaves something to be desired. On the whole, we live and let live – and usually help and cooperate if we can – just as human beings do in most daily interactions, even when these are manifestly stressful.

Everyday socialism?

And in fact, regardless of the ‘bad news’ that the news media tend to focus on, people do also like ‘good’ news, as shown by the countless examples posted every day on social media which show people coming together to help members of their community and generally to assist others in difficult circumstances. So, when socialists put forward the idea of a whole society organised this way (ie, on the basis of voluntary cooperation and from each according to ability to each according to need), it can be hard for us to understand that people should scoff, as they sometimes do, and say things such as that it is against ‘human nature’. As the sometimes mundane but countless day-to-day examples, on and off the road, of what has been labelled ‘everyday communism’ (perhaps we should call it ‘everyday socialism’) show, such a society could work – but only when a majority of workers across the world have developed the consciousness and understanding to bring it into being and to organise production and distribution of everything that people need according to socialist principles.

Howard Moss

Death on the Highway (1951)

From the March 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

It is strange that in a world where so much effort is being spent in trying to find more diabolical ways and means of destroying life, that there should also be so much effort directed towards preserving it. Whilst governments spend money on bigger and better bombs to blow babies to bits, they also spare a few coppers to exhort road users to be careful in order to reduce the toll on young life on the roads. Between rival posters extolling the merits of the army, the navy or the air force as a career for young men, can be found one that depicts a stern looking mobile policeman pointing and urging “Mind how YOU go!”

Sitting in a bus reading in the morning paper about the large number of lives that can be wiped out with one atom bomb, we can look up and see pedestrian crossings, traffic lights, Belisha beacons, pavement railings, halt and go slow signs, subways, “cross here" indicators, speed limit notices and all the other paraphernalia calculated to reduce road accidents and save life.

“The borough of — ?— welcomes careful drivers” is a common sign these days. Lamp posts are decorated with picture posters and slogans, “The next step may be your last;” “ Better safe than sorry ” or “Pedestrians use, motorists observe the crossings.'’ Footprints are painted on the pavement to indicate where to cross the road and studs are arranged to spell, “Look to the Right” Local authorities erect notices comparing the monthly number of deaths from road accidents in the district with the number during the corresponding month the previous year. Newspapers tell us of the total number of deaths from the same cause throughout the country.

Letters to editors and to the B.B.C. argue around various schemes to prevent the growing toll of the roads. Some say that greater penalties for careless driving will have an effect Some claim that the roads are to blame as they are too narrow or not fit for fast traffic. Others divide their condemnations between bright headlights, intoxicating drink, speed, jay-walking, bicycles and lack of courtesy.

No doubt speed is a contributory factor to this death toll. Not high speed necessarily, but excessive speed under the prevailing conditions. A better word than speed is haste, hurry or hustle. What would be classified as dangerous haste when driving a car through a market town on market day. would be considered a menacing crawl when on a wide concrete by-pass road.

This is an age of haste. The competition of capitalism has driven men to hurry and hustle. "Time is money” is a slogan of the day. We search for ever quicker ways of getting things done. We have quick service snack bars, speedy boot repairs, time saving soap substitutes, ready in moment breakfast cereals, time saving household gadgets and even quick fire entertainment to satisfy this urge to speed up the tempo of life. We live in the system of the alarm clock, the factory punch clock, the school bell, the time-table, the moving belt and the speedometer. So that no time shall be “lost" we have the hours divided up, the minutes portioned out, whistles are blown, sirens are sounded, bells are rung and "pips” come over the radio. We even have time and motion study experts.

Centuries ago, although men lived a more primitive existence, they also led a more leisurely one. With the growth of trade came the need to be first with the goods and early in the market. Speed on the road was very limited whilst the only power unit for transport was the horse. But the tendency for greater haste and more speed was apparent Stage coaches vied with one another in their endeavours to whisk their passengers from place to place in the shortest possible time. In 1776 Mathew Pickford advertised flying wagons from Manchester to London in five and a half days at an average speed of just over 1½ miles an hour. In 1800, Thomas and James Pickford sent a daily service over the same route in four days.

The development of steam power opened up new possibilities of greater speeds. With the advent of the petrol motor came the era of high speeds which have only recently been exceeded by the turbine jet engine. An Act of Parliament of 1861 limited locomotives on the highways to a maximum speed of 10 miles per hour in the country and 5 miles per hour in the towns. Four years later these limits were reduced to 4 and 2 miles respectively and every vehicle had to be accompanied by three men, one of whom had to walk in front with a red flag to warn horses.

This low speed limit and the "man with a flag” regulation, hampered the early motor cars. In 1896 the law was repealed and the "Locomotives on Highways Act” of that year permitted speeds of 14 miles per hour. In 1903 the "Motor-car Act” allowed a maximum speed of 20 miles an hour. Today the speed limit is removed except for certain types of motor vehicles and in "built-up” areas.

Another quality which, together with speed, is a factor in the road death problem, is weight. Weight and speed give momentum, and momentum, in either a bullet or a car, can kill. The laws which allowed ever-increasing speeds ran parallel with others which allowed increases in weight. A "Heavy Motor-car Order” of 1904 allowed a maximum unladen weight of 5 tons, and with trailer 6½ tons. The "Roads Act” of 1920 increased this to 7¼  tons and allowed six-wheelers to carry 10 to 12 tons.

This, then, is the set-up that is responsible for many of those road deaths—greater speed, greater weight and greater size coupled with the urge to hurry. The need to get to work on time and the strong desire to get finished on time. The fear of being late and the desire not to waste time. Drivers trying to maintain time schedules and children scared of being late for school. Salesmen speeding to be first to get to a customer and housewives hurrying to be first on the queue at the shops. Heavy transport vehicles that are paid by the load and hasten to get in as many loads a day as possible; and old folks who are not sufficiently nimble to fit into an age of hustle and rush.

We are not going to claim that Socialism will eliminate all road deaths. Neither do we anticipate that, in a Socialist order of society, there will necessarily be a great restriction in speeds or weights of vehicles. Fast moving, heavy load-carrying vehicles can be an asset in any future society. But, with the introduction of Socialism there will be an end to the competitive scramble of capitalism: worker competing with worker for a job; shopkeeper competing with shopkeeper for custom; company competing with company for markets; nation competing with nation for international trade. All trying to steal a march on one another by being first. All hurrying for fear of being "left at die post.” Socialism will end that and will allow of a more leisurely tenor to life. There may or may not be solutions to the road casualty problem within capitalism. That is not our worry. Capitalism fritters away human life in many ways and it is our task to overthrow the system itself. We are no more, and no less, shocked by the number of road deaths than we are by the numbers who die from malnutrition or from tuberculosis through lack of clean, fresh air and sunshine; or those who are killed in capitalist wars; or those who perish in mine disasters and shipwrecks in the scramble for profit. Nearly all this waste of life is the result of a system in which production is for sale with a view to profit. We aim to end that system and, in so doing, extend the lifetime of many, and make that lifetime more enjoyable.

When we see on the hoardings a poster advertising the number of children killed per day on the roads in Britain, or one that shows the tear-stained face of a widow over the words, "Keep Death off the Road,” and close beside it another poster pictorially glorifying the life of the man who is trained to kill—the soldier, we can think of only one word. HUMBUG!

W. Waters

Life & Times: To park or not to park? (2024)

The Life and Times column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

The street I live on has reserved parking for residents. This should mean there’s a place for me to park my car outside or near my house. Until relatively recently, that was always the case. But lately things have changed and now it can be difficult for me to find a place anywhere on the street meaning that sometimes I have to drive around nearby streets looking for (and not always finding) a space not reserved for residents. What’s going on?

Well, first of all there’s an increasing number of families in the area with more than just one car and then more and more students from the local University living in the area are turning up in cars. In the past they would get booked by wardens for parking outside their rented accommodation, but now they’ve twigged that, if they get their logbook changed to their student address, they’re entitled to a parking permit.

Cars, cars, cars

But over and above all this there’s simply an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road. That’s a function both of the fact that more and more people find them a convenient way to get from one place to the other and also that they’re being used to transport the increasing number of goods of all description that people are ordering online. How long can this continue?

How many more vehicles can roads, both local and long distance, take before log jams of vehicles become even more frequent than they are already and, as a matter of course, the number of vehicles looking to park exceeds the number of places available. Can anything be done about it? The answer to this question has to be not very much. There have been some attempts by government and other authorities to cope, such as additional motorway lanes or charges for entering certain areas. But measures like these, apart from being limited in scope, often give rise to further problems, for example the obvious danger to road users caused by the removal of hard shoulders to accommodate extra motorway lanes.

I know the objection will be raised that the writer of this article, as a self-confessed car owner, is part of the problem. Which up to a point I accept, but I also know I’d be happier with travel arrangements that didn’t push me to jump into the car to get from A to B but instead provided an easy communal means of transport – something that only exists to a small and erratic extent in the production for profit system we live under.

Growth, growth, growth

In fact, when looked at in the context of how things work in general, the car situation can be seen as something of an emblem of capitalist production as a whole, that is the system’s imperative to produce ever increasing numbers and kinds of goods with a view to profit regardless of social advisability or longer-term consequences. In the recent general election, a watchword of all the major parties was ‘growth’, something always projected as desirable since it evokes an increase in wealth or prosperity that will somehow make people better off or happier. At bottom of course that tends not to happen, since ‘growth’ has no power to overcome or even tame all the other negative factors arising from the unpredictability of the system we live under (eg, inflation, job reorganisation, unemployment, recession, war).

Though, in their everyday lives, most people illustrate in countless ways by their actions and attitudes that they’d rather cooperate with others than compete against them, the pervading dog-eat-dog ethic that informs the way the capitalist system works and dictates the drive for ‘growth’ forces producers to compete against one another to get their products on the market and sold to buyers – very often regardless of any intrinsic necessity.

In the UK, for example, there are more than enough houses and other forms of accommodation to satisfy everyone’s need for shelter and decent accommodation, yet many people go homeless or poorly accommodated while properties are left empty and more houses continue to be built. And, to return to transport, there are large masses of cars that are little used by their owners or lie on garage forecourts, while more and more are produced each year adding, as this article began by saying, to the problem of finding places to park them.

Control?

How can all this be brought under control? Quite simply it can’t – at least not under the buying and selling imperative of capitalism, whose only urge is to continue to produce more so that profit can continue to be made by that tiny minority of people who own the means to produce – we would call them the capitalist class. Or rather, it all could be brought under control, but only, if we, the vast majority forced to sell our energies for a wage or salary to an employer, were to opt via democratic political action to establish a different kind of society – one of voluntary cooperation, of production for use not profit, and of free access to all goods and services based on the principle of from each according to ability to each according to need. Such a society would have and would need – I venture to speculate – far fewer cars than the present one. Nor would there be a shortage of places to park them.

Howard Moss

50 Years Ago: Ivan Illich, intellectual (2024)

The 50 Years Ago column from the August 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the co-founder of the Centre for Inter-Cultural Documentation in Cuernavaca, Mexico, Illich seems to have a ready press for his ideas. His book, Deschooling Society, caused a minor explosion in the education world when it was published a few years ago. For those who do not have the time (or the patience) to read his “shrewd and passionate arguments” (The Guardian), BBC Radio 3 broadcast a long interview with him in April of this year. You can’t avoid him.

In the interview Illich explained his basic position, in this way: “It is my hypothesis that when the tools for production exceed a certain measure, they impose exploitative relationships on the society, no matter what political choice in ideological terms, the society thinks it has made.”

In other words, he is saying it is the size of the productive and other “processes” (eg, the education system) that is the cause of society’s problems. His favourite illustration is to compare the bicycle with the motor car. A “convivial society” he says “….can only arrive on the bicycle. With shoes alone we are not efficient enough. And with cars we are already over-efficient and impose an exploitative mode of production on the entire society.” (…)

It is on the basis of production for profit that cars are produced to snarl up the cities and pollute the air. Illich is right to point out the appalling effects on the planet we inhabit, but it is the profit system that draws forth cars from the witches’ brew of capitalism. Merely urging people to go back to bicycles is about as sensible as King Canute ordering back the waves.

Illich stated in the interview that the “convivial society” he wants can only be “a society which opts for voluntary poverty.” In other words he wants to abandon technological progress and put everyone in rags on a bicycle. (…)

Workers must learn to treat the ideas of such intellectuals with the contempt they deserve. A “convivial society” cannot be achieved by pedalling on a bicycle. Capitalism itself must be abolished, and a society based on common ownership must be established in its place.

(from Socialist Standard, August 1974)

The end of the line (1963)

From the June 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

At last the dreaded news is out. Dr. Beeching has dropped his bombshell on the Cabinet; at least so headlined the daily press. But in fact the general outline of the Beeching plan has been known and discussed widely for some months. The Transport Minister, Mr. Marples, immediately confirmed his support of the plan on the day of its publication—hardly the action of a person struck dumb by devastating tidings.

Let us make it clear that we are unconcerned whether or not Capitalism manages to make the railways a profitable concern. We do not urge modernization schemes whose motive is that wealth can be used to serve the interests of a minority. We prefer to show how such changes can and do affect the mass of the population and how these changes can often be unpleasant for some sections of the community.

Probably the new plans will produce a slick rail system. But for how long? And just what new problems will be created by its implementation? Even Dr. Beeching cannot be emphatic in his replies. Change as such cannot be avoided, but we should find out why a change is desired, whom will it benefit and who will suffer and whether it is particularly necessary.

The rapid growth of road traffic has dealt railways everywhere a heavy blow. By point-to-point delivery, transport costs for both goods and passengers are cheaper by road. As the rail running costs increase, so freight and passenger receipts have either fallen or not kept pace, and often the railway's only answer has been to raise rates and fares. This puts the railways at an even greater disadvantage, especially on freight carrying. The car industry is the number one consumer of steel, and the oil interests are powerful factors in Britain's economy, and this is possibly why the Government tends to be more favourable towards the road interests than to an industry like railways.

Many sections of the capitalist class are fed up with subsidising, through taxation, a transport system that is no longer so useful to them as in days gone by. Many lines have massive engineering works which were erected a hundred or more years ago. Such works do, and will in the near future, need large sums spent on them for restoration, but the takings on these lines would not justify this expenditure. So, in the interests of the profit motive, some fifty to seventy-thousand people will over a period be sacked. Some areas will be more isolated than they are already and no doubt the slashing of lines in Wales and Scotland will be ready fuel for the fires of the small nationalist parties. Mr. Marples has promised that roads in the trainless areas will, if necessary, be improved to take the heavier road traffic, but he gives no guarantee that such construction will synchronize with the closures. The promise of replacement by extra buses is not certain as the routes have a tendency to be just as unprofitable for the bus companies as they were for the railways.

We have heard a lot of chat from the Parliamentary-maid-of-all-work, Lord Hailsham, about new industries in the depressed areas, but it is noticeable that the cuts are heavier in the North and the Scottish lowlands than in the “prosperous" South. Does this mean that the Hailsham promises are just so much political flannel to keep the unemployed in a state of suspended animation?

When the Labour Party nationalised the railways, we were promised efficiency, cheapness, security of jobs for the railwaymen, and improved travelling conditions, but the iron road became the odd man out. The mines were modernised; even the small film industry was subsidised; and huge sums were poured into aircraft production, while the steam train clanked on, encrusted in Victorian filth. So in the 1950's the railway became a whipping boy; a god-send to every comic and mummified politician who aspired to enter the House of Commons: trains always late, freight often mislaid or stolen, and public relationships ranging from antagonism to despair the more recent modernisation programmes have been held up by political uncertainty. Government decisions have ranged from plans for dieselization and electrification, to shutting the whole lot down. At least Dr. Beeching has arrived with something definite.

In spite of the sectional and local feeling, the majority of the people will not be very much concerned with the drastic cuts. The wide ownership of cars has removed the utter dependence on the trains. The car, in fact, has become a universal season ticket, but with the owner himself providing the vehicle and being responsible for garaging, parking, maintenance and driving-problems that were unknown to the train traveller.

After the lull of a few days that followed publication of the report the railway unions have made arrangements for protest strikes, and some local councils and M.Ps. have organised agitations. Some sections of line may be saved, but there is always something of the forlorn rearguard in token strikes and strongly-worded protest; the cage door is being closed after the bird has flown. The stick that falls across the shoulders of the working class is unfortunately wielded by themselves. Most workers believe in and support a society that stands four square on profit, exploitation and privilege for a few, and the railwaymen are no exception. Whilst this mass support is given to capitalist society, those who are not under immediate fire will never extend more than a passing sympathy for the afflicted and with many workers it probably never gets that far. Perhaps the attitude of a fair number of people can be expressed in the statement by a Conservative M.P., Kenneth Lewis, when he stated that the N.U.R. strike threat was a “strike without reason, a strike against change." (Evening News, April 4th. 1963.)

Capitalism with its ever-pressing need for new modes of production to prevent its profit from falling has mesmerised its supporters into dumb worshippers who fall prostrate at the very mention of words like “Streamline.” Few of them stop to wonder why and for what purpose slickness is established in our every day lives. It is pathetic to wail and protest, to alternate between humble petition and violence, if over the past years one supports in word and deed the very base of our social maladies. If those who ardently organise protests and demonstrations against this and that were to examine more closely their position as workers, the nature of capitalism and its Socialist alternative, their power to defend themselves as a subject class would be much stronger, and a new society that degree nearer. It is not only rail systems that are stunted by our current society. 

How will transport operate in a Socialist society? Firstly, it will be owned by the community as a whole, which means that it would be absurd to charge ourselves fares. The problems of threatened bankruptcy, or the need to reinvest surplus would be unknown in such a society. One cannot say with certainty just what form of transport would be most common, but this we do know; man's prime concern, in transport as everything, will be to serve the needs of the entire community.

If a given form of transport should be technically obsolete, then the operatives would certainly not be cast on a dole queue. This only happens in capitalist society, where the exploitation of wage labour is dominant. A Socialist society would also ensure that alternative methods of transportation were already fully in operation before other means were removed. The present dominant form of travel—the car—in its current form, is hardly likely to be regarded as beneficial under Socialism. The effect of enormous numbers of people driving their vehicles along a confined road space serves only to jar our nervous systems and it is not to be wondered at that the road casualty figures have become an outstanding disgrace and tragedy.

The history of capitalism, with its demand for accelerated production and improved methods of buying and selling has been the basic cause of speed in the modern world. Remove these social and economic factors for one of common ownership and mankind can revert to a more leisurely pace—and be the happier for it.

Jack Law

Speed (1950)

From the June 1950 issue of the Socialist Standard

The lorry had nearly completed its skid when it hit the child. Nearly but not quite. The force behind that rapidly decelerating mass was quite sufficient to break the bones of the child.

The driver of the lorry was the first to reach the boy. Two women were next to help and comfort the stricken child. The ambulance arrived in three and a half minutes and the policeman in ten.

Whose fault? The driver? Travelling under the speed limit. Sight good and reflex action good. Lorry construction and brakes in first class condition.

The boy? Looked both ways before crossing to catch the school bus.

Nobody’s fault. Just a plain accident. If the boy had waited two seconds, if the lorry had travelled at 20 instead of 22 m.p.h., if school started two minutes later, or if the witness hadn’t run to catch a bus. the accident might never have happened.

Undue haste was the cause. But haste is an essential of the society in which we live—Capitalism. Capitalism demands efficiency. Efficiency demands speed and speed does kill.

Death on the road is not an incident. It is a regular occurrence. In a world where the things we need could be so easily turned out in an abundance surely there is no need for haste. We can afford to decelerate.

Capitalism—the system of the alarm clock, the time clock, the school bell and the speedometer, is the real killer on the road.

Socialism—even if it offered little else, would give a little leisure and a safer conduct for children.

R.J.M.

Pathfinders: Hot Air Emissions (2006)

The Pathfinders Column from the December 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

“It is now plain that the emission of greenhouse gases… is causing global warming at a rate that is unsustainable”, writes Tony Blair in the preface to the UK government report which concludes that “there is only a small chance of greenhouse gas emissions being kept below dangerous levels.” When questioned about this report on Radio 4 Margaret Beckett, environment minister, states “we could come to a tipping point where change could be irreversible.”

This is not the much-publicised Stern Report of October, but an earlier report, Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change, published by the UK government in January of this year, based on research presented by speakers at a conference held by the UK Meteorological Office in February 2005. (BBC Online, 30 January).

Since then the heat and emissions released by politicians of all persuasions has increased to dangerous and unsustainable proportions. A summit in Monterrey in Mexico in October was hailed by the 20 biggest global polluters as ‘very positive’, then more noise over the Stern report later that month, which tended to be taken more seriously by politicians since they listen to economists with infinitely greater attention than they ever listen to scientists. But then in November the politicians were complaining that the politicians weren’t doing anything, as Kofi Annan despaired at the UN climate summit in Nairobi that global warming was as “grave a threat as conflict, poverty and the spread of weapons.” Sceptics, he added, with a politician’s ear for the ringing soundbite, were “out of step, out of arguments and out of time”.

The only politician in Britain in recent weeks to actually do anything, as opposed to making speeches and going to junkets in Mexico for Important High-Level Talks, has been dear old Red Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who has infuriated the Kensington and Mayfair set by announcing a punishing £25 per day congestion charge for Band G motor vehicles, which is effectively the SUV-class 4×4 ‘Chelsea tractor’, emitters of carbon roughly double that of any other car. Many of these can be seen outside school gates during the school run, and are apparently second family cars used for kids, shopping and round-town errands, themselves the most carbon-inefficient types of journey. Ken observes,correctly, that people who can afford these monsters can afford any mainstream car so their decision to buy these heavy polluters and stick two fingers up at the world is clearly deliberate.

Most people who have even the mildest concern over capitalism’s damage to the planet must surely have the most searing contempt for anti-social yahoos in bull-bar Mitsubishi tankettes, so it was not surprising that this measure was greeted with ecstatic cheers, even though it won’t come in until 2009.

What a pity Ken went and spoiled it all immediately by getting himself into trouble over a freebie junket (by carbon reckless air travel, of course) to Venezuela to visit his soulmate Chavez, at the council taxpayer’s expense. Never mind, the thought is what counts.

And the thought, in government circles, is all about counting at the moment, carbon counting. The UK government has announced, through the annual speech made by its velvet glove puppet the Queen, that its target of reducing carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2050 will now be enshrined in law, with a Carbon Committee set up to make sure it happens (BBC Online, 15 November).

They’ll check every five years or so and make a speech, or an excuse, depending on where they’re up to. So, lots of noise again for now, and leisure enough not to worry for the next five years, until everybody’s forgotten about the targets. And what if the targets haven’t been met then? Well, they can just hold over publishing the report until a useful ‘bad news day’ comes along.

Everyone’s showing willing, and that’s nice. The Nairobi conference was held, not to do anything, but to agree a timetable to discuss globally binding emissions targets in time for the expiry of the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. Nobody stuck to the Kyoto Protocol in the first place, but nevertheless it is very important to hold talks to establish agreement over the next generation of agreements that nobody will stick to either.

The European Union has set itself the pious goal, not of reducing total carbon emissions, but of containing the increase to levels which will push the average temperature up by ‘only’ 2 degrees. An increase of 2 degrees centigrade is enough to melt all the ice in Greenland, but this is considered acceptable considering the dire consequences if they go even higher than that.

To keep to this target, atmospheric carbon – originally 227 parts per million (ppm) at pre-industrial levels and now at 380 ppm – needs to be stabilised at around 450 ppm. Speaking on the same programme as Margaret Beckett in January, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, called this ‘unlikely’. “We’re going to be at 400 ppm in 10 years’ time”, he said. “To aim for 450 would, I am afraid, seem unfeasible.” So why set such a target then? Well, they’ve got to say something, haven’t they?

It’s all a question of motivation.The ugly truth is probably that Europe is hoping to trade its problem away with the new carbon emissions trading system, whereby they get to smoke and Africa gets the cancer. Russia didn’t even turn up to Monterrey, presumably because global warming doesn’t seem so bad when you’ve got frostbite in Irkutsk, and it’s a very chill wind that blows nobody any good. The Chinese, meanwhile, on being invited to join in huge emissions reductions at a time when they are the fastest industrialising nation on Earth, smile politely at this blatant imperialist attempt to clip their dragon’s wings, and carry on about their filthy business, supremely confident that the greedy foreign investment will continue unabated in the free-for-all of their boomtown economy.

The people who are most worried are not the Europeans or the Americans or the Russians or the Chinese, it is the so-called developing countries who in fact are never allowed to develop and who occupy the equatorial belt which is soon likely to become an incineration zone. That they are less guilty of pollution than anyone, but are going to more punished than everyone, is yet another example of the sort of ‘justice’ meted out by an economic system in which nice guys finish last and rich guys fix all the races. Their coastal infrastructures are going to be flooded out, their wetlands will dry out, their crops will die, and wars and migrations will escalate. The Nairobi conference, the first climate change conference to be held in that continent, aimed to bring another dimension to the debate,that of human rights. It was, said Kofi Annan and other delegates, a human right not to be killed by the callous self-serving vandalism of other people’s behaviour. Perhaps this is true in some moral sense. But capitalism is a blind process of profit accumulation. It doesn’t understand morals. The administrators of capitalism serve a supremely ignorant master.

For all their hot air, they are never going to challenge the thing they most believe in. They will still be making speeches while the world burns.

Paddy Shannon

The Problem of Transport (1967)

From the December 1967 issue of the Socialist Standard

A constant and pressing problem today, especially in a greater conurbation like London, is the problem of transport. Crowded trains, buses late or cut out, the constant whine of jet planes, dirt, noise and fumes — the list is endless.

At the heart of to-day’s transport problems is the motor-car, loved and hated to an immoderate degree, transforming the very face of the country, as a century ago the steam locomotive was transforming it. Any tenth-rate comedian can get a laugh by just saying ‘Barbara Castle’, as if a change of personality at the head of the Ministry of Transport would make an atom of difference to the problem.

In an effort to ease the jammed-up roads, pleasant gardens and tree-lined avenues are cut up for wider roads, while parks and squares are ruined to make car parks, and even the humble pub garden becomes a little asphalt desert. Motorways run like a scar across the countryside, and winding lanes are ‘improved’ out of recognition. Worst of all is the ever mounting toll of accidents.

None of this is particularly new; it is merely a change of form. That profit is the only serious consideration, with human comfort and happiness coming a very poor second, is true to-day and has been true for as long as capitalism has existed. London, and all big cities, have for centuries been very noisy places. Iron clad wheels and horses’ hooves, clattering over cobbles, made a terrible din and congestion in London was notorious.

Rowlandson, in a typically unflattering series of etchings, drew a picture of traffic chaos in the early 19th century. In the late 1850’s the London General Omnibus Company alone had about six hundred horse-buses, and horse trams appeared on the scene in the 1860’s. Congestion in the City gave rise to plans for a pedestrian bridge over Ludgate Circus, and the first underground railway (imagine the “Met” with steam engines) was put through to relieve congestion.

By the 1890’s there were over 1,700 buses and about 900 trams in central London. Over it all rode the locomotive, a smoky monster that blackened the working class districts through which it cut into London. The childish squabbles indulged in by rival railway companies, as in 1884 when the District Line chained a locomotive in a disputed siding at South Kensington Station and three Metropolitan Line engines tried to pull it out, make the snarling of motorists at traffic light to-day seem very tame.

The protests at Motorways ruining the countryside echo the protests of a century ago when the railways were doing the same thing. No, the problem hasn’t changed, but the vast increase in population, and the much greater powers of production, have made it more acute.

Now, the canals that once drove men and horses hard for greater speed and profit are pleasant, green oases in endless suburbs, and the once hated steam engine a romantic memory. It is the internal combustion engine that dominates the 20th Century.

No other modern industry has had such a profound influence on the social and economic life to-day as the motor industry. Its development has resulted in the decline of once important industries, and has given an impetus to a mass of others that were unimportant at the turn of the century. It was one of the main factors in the migration of industries, from the North of England to the South and to the Midlands, that took place between the wars.

Like the steam engine that preceded it, the internal combustion engine began its existence as a static form of power, and was later adapted for locomotion. Steam cars had been in existence since the early years of the 19th century, but they were heavy and fuel was a problem. The internal combustion engine made possible a much lighter vehicle. More important, it could be run over existing public roads, unlike the railways which had to stick to a set route; this made for greater mobility. By the beginning of the present century the motor vehicle was with us.

Its application followed existing patterns, in the various forms of road transport in existence at the time—the private carriage, the bus and the wagon. In its early days the motor-car was still a luxury reserved for the type of people who could afford a carriage. The bulk of the population travelled by public transport.

The first motor buses appeared in Britain about 1898, and by the early 1920’s they had been joined by the long distance coach.

One of the selling points used by the promoters of coach travel before the war was that coaches took you through the heart of towns and villages, and gave you a better view of the country. Today more and more coaches trail along dreary motorways and by-pass towns and villages.

Slowly the motor buses pushed the railways into the background, and drove the tramcars off the road. The swing was first from the railways to public road transport; the golden age of the bus was the 1930’s.

But now, by changed production methods and a heavy reliance on hire purchase, the private car has become available to the mass of the people. There were four times as many cars on the roads in 1964 as in 1939 and the number is still growing. Furthermore, the number of people travelling to work from a fair distance away has grown steadily over the last 100 years. The resulting chaos has brought home the importance of the railways, with their much greater carrying capacity. Without their rail systems, cities like London woud seize up in the rush hour.

Since the war a favourite pipe-dream has been an ‘integrated public transport system’, with transport used in a balanced way to its best advantage. But capitalism doesn’t work that way. If profit can be made it will be made, however pleasant or unpleasant the result may be. If, on the other hand, something like the railways no longer pays, but is considered necessary to the general interest of capitalism, then it will be subsidised, but as cheaply as possible.

The grim railway arches that overshadowed the mean terraces of south and east London were held up as examples of the inhumanity of the Victorians, but the new fly-overs that overshadow houses to-day show the same contempt for the people who live underneath. Transport has changed. It will change again, we can only guess how; but one thing is certain. If capitalism remains the new transport will be as nasty as the old.

Les Dale

Driving to distraction (2023)

From the November 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

Proposing the radical alternative to capitalism is hindered in part by being unable to present a detailed vision of what socialism will look like. The broad features are clear. A truly democratic worldwide, moneyless society base on the principle of meeting everyone’s self-determined needs.

This projected society is contrasted with the present in which profit is the motivation for production and also its limitation: no profit, no production, without any consideration as to what people require. The productive process being in the ownership and control of the miniscule minority means the vast majority are dependent for their livelihoods.

They must sell their mental and physical energies for wages and salaries amounting to less than the wealth that labour creates. If it is less than what is needed to buy necessities they must go without. However, not selling is also a disaster for those seeking to harvest the difference between costs and price, the profit.

While production cycles through boom and bust it must be maximised and be as unrelenting as possible. Society has developed to accommodate this, consumerism is the dominant feature. A seeming deluge of new goods and gadgets flood the market. Having the latest . . . whatever’s the must-have.

Freedom has become defined by, and largely limited to, freedom of choice. Products, even the very latest, are often marked by their similarity rather than difference or improvement. Which is why the ‘free’ society has become the wasteful society all too readily disposing of perfectly serviceable items: around 25 million tonnes being thrown into UK skips at recycling and landfill centres.

The motor car has become an exemplar of this problem. From the early 1960s onwards society has been remodelled around it. An icon of that decade is surely the Mini Cooper. Railways were closed down, urban tramways torn up, a motorway system built along with bypasses and new towns planned around roads.

Freedom of the open road was the advertisers’ image, with an implication of individual choice and control. Possessing a car would confer the power to select destinations, who to travel with and when. No more being beholden to timetables.

The difference between the dream and reality was all too quickly realised. Burgeoning car sales favoured the capitalists of the automotive industry to the point that all those newly developed road systems quickly became congested.

Rather than the freedom of the open road there was increasing incarceration in chain gangs of iron cells, inmates fuming with frustration at being rendered near-stationary. Then came a gradual awakening to another profound problem: fossil fuels.

Just forty years or so on from open-road optimism a dramatically changing climate, actual and metaphorical, began to seriously bring into question the practice of continuing to burn oil. That it was unsustainable became ever more apparent, an issue the automotive industry couldn’t ignore or obscure behind advertising propaganda.

When a commodity becomes socially and politically unacceptable then a profitable solution has to be found. Simply ceasing to make that commodity is out of the question. A recent example of this is tobacco. Continuing to kill significant numbers of the population couldn’t be countenanced, especially in the face of informed opposition of health professionals, scientists and the anti-smoking lobby. Cue vaping.

With impressive alacrity the car industry has responded with technological advances, launching electrical vehicles onto the market. Some, hybrids, offered as a compromise, while increasingly all-electric vehicles have made significant commercial progress.

Problem solved! Except, of course, capitalism does not, cannot, solve its own problems, because it is the problem. Profit was, is and will remain the only driving force of capitalism. Social, political and environmental difficulties all ultimately devolve to economics.

An unacceptable commodity cannot simply be forgone, it must be replaced with another commodity. All the better if that commodity also diverts attention away from the root of the problem, the unending absolute requirement to pursue profit.

The electric vehicle superficially appears to circumvent the fossil fuel crisis. A motorist can, with clear conscience, drive away from the fossil fuel red light and go green. Should freedom of choice fail to result in sufficient swapping from oil to electricity then the state can act by decreeing an end to petrol and diesel car production. The Mini Cooper will become all electric and the sixties dream can be recast.

In typical capitalist fashion, though, the solution of one problem becomes the creation of other ones. These are becoming apparent all too readily. In the USA 60 percent of electricity generation is through the burning of fossil fuel. The increasing demand for electricity caused by growing numbers of electric vehicles has merely moved fossil fuel consumption from individual vehicles to power stations.

While there is increasing use of alternative generation in Britain, if every petrol/diesel vehicle presently on the roads is replaced with the electric alternative, how great is that increase going to have to be?

Also, wind turbines are constructed using high-quality steel, a product of a process using fossil fuel. Again there is an element of displacing fossil fuel burning rather than eliminating it.

Then there is the very real problem of the battery. Lithium is the key element here, presently being intensively mined, often in more deprived regions where it is environmentally harmful. Friends of the Earth report that communities are having their water resources jeopardised by lithium mining.

In 2021 the Guardian highlighted workers being paid the equivalent of 30p an hour mining cobalt for use in electric vehicles.

The batteries themselves pose the problem of charging, a very much longer process than filling a petrol tank. Presently there is an inadequate number of charging points. If all cars become electric there will be a requirement for many more charging points than the present number of petrol pumps because of the extra refuelling time.

There are superchargers that cut the charging time, but they reduce battery life by around 80 percent, meaning more mining and having to dispose of increasing numbers of worn out, and very toxic, batteries.

Undoubtedly, over time the technology will improve, but problems won’t disappear. Neither will congestion on already full roads.

As socialism can only be achieved by the action of the working class consciously working through all the difficulties and details that will entail, how life is organised cannot be predetermined. However, it must surely mean a qualitative change to the way life is generally lived, not just a tweaked version of the present, capitalist, society.

People en masse confined to slow- or non-moving traffic jams for ironically named ‘rush hours’ everyday, even in electric vehicles, cannot be a socialist aspiration. As the whole nature of work must radically be transformed by socialism there will be no need for such threats to physical and mental health to be tolerated.

The effects of climate change can at best only be minimally mitigated, if at all, by a mass switching from petrol and diesel to electricity. The automotive industry, though, will continue the propaganda blitz, advertising the freedom enhancing, high-tech status-raising qualities of electric vehicles. Distracting attention from what really drives climate change and society at present, capitalism!

Dave Alton

The highways of slaughter. (1925)

From the October 1925 issue of the Socialist Standard

The daily slaughter of the workers on the railways, in the mine, in fact, throughout industry, has almost become a commonplace. Being a commonplace, it excites little more than passing sympathy, and the usual flood of nauseating Capitalist cant. But a new peril has arisen : “The Slaughter of the Highway.”

“There were 25,342 street accidents in the metropolitan area of London alone, during the quarter ending June 25th. Fatal injuries were inflicted on 226 people, 191 of them by motor vehicles (quoted, The Ratepayer, August). 73 casualties occurred in England and Wales from motor accidents for the week-end September 13-15th, 1925, of which number 26 were killed” (Daily Express, September 15th 1925).

The above figures only allow a very small estimate of the toll of human life throughout the country, but it might cause the workers to ask a few pertinent questions. Whose is the commercial motor? Is it not the property of the speeding-up-profit-grinder?—whether it be the heavily laden motor-lorry or the traffic grabbing ‘bus combine. Whose is the Rolls Royce and the Daimler? Is it not the expensive toy of the class for whose pleasure and profit our class are murdered on the sea, the battlefield, in the mine, and now upon the very streets we walk? Dare their apologists deny it? They cannot without lying. They can only whine lest you realise at long last that the pleasures and the profits of the few are the fruits of your sacrifice in every department of life. Hear them :—

“It would be a grievous thing to the life of the road and of the community if hatred of motorists follows in the wake of the daily toll of accidents that are collected by the Press” (Westminster Gazette, September 21st, 1925.)

Would it? What a grievous thing if the workers realised that the toll of the road, bad as it is, is as nothing to the toll of human misery the Capitalist system engenders for them. The community, indeed (sic). In their sense it is merely the cant word for Capitalist Class. Did that class consult the “community” over that stupendous event, the war? Do you think they will bother about a mere handful of you in comparison with the loss of life that the war was bound to involve? No. Just as in a mining disaster they rush their black coated clerics to the scene lest the tragedy arouse your hatred of them and their hellish system, so their prostitute journalists rush into print in an effort to lull you into the belief that the ever growing motor peril is incidental and passing. But even in their efforts to bluff you they belie themselves as they invariably do in other matters concerning Working Class life. The same writer admits that even after precautions and penalties have been scientifically enforced :—

“We shall still have to accept a residuum of yearly accidents as an average. That price must be paid for the boon which motoring has brought, just as a similar price has to be paid for transport by sea, railroad, or air” (Ibid).

We ! To whom has motoring brought the boon? And who are the “we” that must ”pay the price” ? As Socialists we welcome all means to shorten toil and extend pleasure. But just as the vast improvements in machinery, transport, and scientific methods of producing wealth bring their harvest of disasters and poverty under Capitalist private ownership, so the motor, both commercial and pleasure, in the hands of the Capitalist highwaymen extends the inconveniences and the dangers of your already here-to-day and gone-to-morrow poverty existence.

W. E. MacHaffie