News in Review: By-elections (1962)

The News in Review column from the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

By-elections

As we go to press it is too early to comment in detail upon the results of the November spate of by-elections.

At the moment only a few facts are clear. Lord Sandwich is causing a stir in Dorset South by beating his own track through the Tory undergrowth there— something which is becoming a habit with this rich aristocrat. This has pained Tory candidate Angus Maude, who was once on the Sandwich (when he was Hinchingbrooke) coat-tails over Suez and perhaps looked for better reward than this.

We know that a number of servicemen are testifying to the delights of being part of capitalism’s military machine by working a legal fiddle to get out of the forces by having themselves nominated as candidates in the by-elections.

But most of all we know that for Socialists all over the world one of these contests is especially notable. For the first time—in Woodside, in Glasgow—a Socialist candidate has been nominated to fight in a Scottish Parliamentary constituency.

This news will hit no headlines in the capitalist press. We do not expect our candidate to receive many votes. But, as usual, we shall strive to make sure that whatever votes are cast for him come from people who want to get rid of capitalism and replace it with a world of peace and plenty which will be worth living in.

In contrast the Labour Party Deputy-Leader, George Brown, has promised that his party will make their campaign “as exciting and lighthearted as possible . . . in an attempt to stimulate the interest of young people.” He added (as he had to) that this would be “short of gimmicks.”

This is typical of the hard-headed vote-catching of the parties of capitalism. Yet it will be uphill work to persuade anyone to be lighthearted over Cuba, say, or the current figures of London homeless and Scottish unemployed. And hasn’t capitalism got enough excitement already? Nothing gets us more het up than a narrow escape from nuclear war.

Mr. Brown will have his gaiety and his excitement and he will get his votes as well. The Socialist in Woodside will get none of these, but for all that his is the only significant and worthwhile campaign among them all. 

More unemployed

Obstinately, the unemployed figures creep upwards. The October total of over half a million was the highest since April, 1959, and represented 2.2 per cent, of the total working population. Scotland is the hardest hit and after that the North West is the worst sufferer.

At the same time the number of available and vacant jobs has decreased, and at a faster rate than is usual at this time of the year.

The immediate reasons for this situation are simple enough. Firms all over the country are finding it harder than ever to sell their goods, at home and abroad. Profit margins are under strong pressure because, at the same time as selling is getting more difficult many costs of production are going up. Competition in some markets is keen to the point of cut-throat.

Many industries are in considerable uncertainty. Others, like the mines and the railways, have an air of doom as the efficiency experts and the accountants move in and redundancy spreads.

Yet uncertainty was one of the things which capitalism’s experts are supposed to have banished for ever. Are not they all dedicated Keynesians, who can revitalise an economy by the simple process of manufacturing bootstraps for it to lift itself up by?

Have they not assured us, many times in recent years, that they had at last solved the problem of boom and slump and unemployment? Was it not all something to do with planning the economy?

Countries abroad, like Canada and Italy, have already shown up the fallacy of the experts’ claims for themselves. Now our own lengthening dole queues mock the helpless experts and the promises which they have made.

None of this, of course, will prevent them making similar promises in the future. Neither will it prevent the working class falling for the facile assurance from the expert. But some, at any rate, of the workers will get the point

However much capitalism is meddled with, and whatever promises are made for it, it cannot help but remain the same uncontrollable mess it has always been.

China and India

As India has emerged into the family of capitalist nations it has often suited her government to pose as an honest broker in the disputes between both sides in the Cold War.

This has gone home with a lot of workers, who now imagine India as a perpetual peacemaker, always willing to send her men into the Congo or Suez to sort out the mess left by the more ambitious disputants of international capitalism.

Even more confusingly, the government in Delhi is expected to behave like the pacifist which Gandhi is mistakenly thought to have been.

In fact, Ghandi was simply an exponent of the technique of passive resistance to the presence of British rule in India. Had he lived to lead a government, he would soon have had to discard the surface idealism so necessary to any aspiring leader's days of struggle.

So there was nothing inconsistent in the Indian adventures in Kashmir and the annexation of Portuguese Goa. The Indian ruling class has shown that, when its interests demand it, it can be as belligerent and as ruthless as any of the old colonial powers.

Now that India herself is under attack, her government has run true to form. Passive resistance? Not likely. Mr. Nehru has called for the “Dunkirk spirit” and those of us who can remember what that meant for the British working class can shiver for our Indian brothers.

The Chinese in India have suffered in the way of all such people in an enemy country in wartime. If they own shops, these have been attacked by mobs. By government decree, they have been stripped of their Indian citizenship—a move obviously designed to play up to popular nationalist sentiment.

This is particularly dirty work. The harshness of British rule, boosted as it was by racial theories which went against the Indian, should have taught the Indian worker that such theories are pernicious and inhuman. But he has shown himself as ignorant, as ready to be deceived by his leaders and as .proudly nationalist as any Empire builder of the old days.

Just another job

Boy, are you looking for a job?

Listen, stop worrying. I’ve found one.

It’s great. Nothing to do with good works or anything like that. It’s so easy.

Listen, there’s this female and she's at Oxford, at the University, I mean, and she’s a research worker.

Sounds good, you say.

Now she’s been finding out something about how people live. Nothing to do with how well we could live. It’s all about how little we could live on.

And has she come up with the goods. Listen.

She says that a family with a mother and a father and three kids can live spending less than four pounds a week on food.

If they want to, that is. But, of course, they don’t, and this research worker, she sounds a bit cross about it.

She says—in high tone, of course, because after all she is at Oxford—that when a family’s wage goes down they sometimes cut out essential foods instead of buckling to and making the most of the cheaper stuff.

She thinks that we should teach kids in school to cook so that when the wage drops they’ll know just how to get food that a research worker approves of.

Now I wonder whether she worked all that out with those statistics things or whether she’s lived on low wages herself and eaten poor food with them.

Because k says nothing for the modern world that it has to present ordinary, useful human beings with problems of living which make subjects for nice lady research workers at Oxford to look into, does it?

And it isn’t so surprising that, when subsistence is a problem, these useful humans don’t act like the humming, foolproof computers that the lady might use in her researches for all I know, but like—well, like human beings.

Now you don’t need to be a university research worker to think that one out. I’m sure I could do that girl’s job for a lot less than she’s getting.

Think I’ll apply. Wonder how little she could live on?

Will Formosa touch-off World War III? (1958)

From the October 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

As this article is being written shells are raining down on Quemoy and every day some of the 125,000 military and civilians on the island are being killed or maimed. As the news is heard over radio and television in the comfort of our homes, or read in the papers, some are asking, or at least thinking, “ Is this the start to World War III?

Mr. Dulles said:

“Military dispositions have been made by the United States so that a Presidential determination, if made, would be followed by action both timely and effective.

“The President and I earnestly hope that the Chinese Communist régime will not again, as in the case of Korea, defy the basic principle on which world order depends, namely, that armed force should not be used to achieve territorial ambitions. Any such naked use of force would pose an issue far transcending the offshore islands and even the security of Taiwan.

"It would forecast a widespread use of force in the Far East which would endanger vital free world positions and the security of the United States. Acquiescence therein would threaten peace everywhere. We believe that the civilised world community will never condone overt military conquest as a legitimate instrument of policy.”

How it started

Immediately after the defeat of Japan, the U.S.A. backed Chiang Kai-Shek in the civil war against the Communists. American post-war financial backing from 1945 until 1949 amounted to U.S. 3,875 million dollars. (China Stands Up, by R. K. Karanji.) This turned out to be a bad investment for the American Capitalist class because the Nationalist military machine lost the war, and took refuge in the island of Formosa, where they have since remained as a quisling government, lavishly supported by the U.S. Quemoy is one of the islands between Formosa and the Chinese mainland.

The British Government considers that support to Chiang Kai-Shek is throwing good money after bad, and with their long and intimate experience in China were amused at the American policy of pouring money into Chiang Kai-Shek’s coffers. Much of this money is lost in graft, and most of the arms have found their way into the hands of the opposing Communist side.

It would be a feather-in-the-cap for the Chinese Government to capture Quemoy and help to develop a spirit of chauvinism in the Chinese people, who so far seem somewhat lacking in patriotic fervour. And, in any case, Quemoy is a step towards Formosa itself. 

American Strategy

Formosa, together with the outlying islands, including Quemoy are an island crossroads, halfway between Shanghai and Hongkong, and halfway between Tokyo and Saigon, so that control of the island by the Chinese Nationalists means that they (on behalf of the U.S.A.) control these routes. Another aspect of the island’s strategic position is that along with Japan and the Phillipines it acts as a bastion of American defence, or as a spring-board in case of invasion to the Asian mainland.

Another use of Formosa to the U.SA is that so long as control is invested in the Chiang Kai-Shek clique there is always the inherent danger of invasion of the mainland, and this risk keeps large bodies of Chinese troops tied down. American assistance is vital for the defence of Formosa, even apart from the fact that every year the personnel of Chiang’s forces get a year older. There is little in the way of replacement as the families of these men have mostly been left on the mainland. Although some native Formosans have been drafted into the army, these are unreliable troops. There have been a series of rebellions throughout the islands from time to time, including trouble amongst the Formosan cadets. The Chinese administration is loathed as alien and corrupt. But the “democratic” American Government regard Chiang’s control of Formosa as vital to their interests at present.

Formosan capitalist class

But Formosa, with a population of over nine millions, has its own rapidly developing capitalist class which, supported by the workers, would no doubt oust the Chinese administratfon and resume trade with the huge Chinese market on the mainland. It is simple for the capitalists in Formosa to attribute the workers’ problems to the foreigners in control. This, of course, is a time-honoured dodge, but it always seems to work, because the workers there, as elsewhere, are not Socialists and do not understand their class interests.

The development of Formosa reads like an American success story. The index of industrial production, for instance, has risen from 49.4 in 1949 to 142.2 in 1957, and it is very much the same story for other aspects of the economy.

Wealth is produced whenever a good investment appears, as was shown last year in the successful sale of stocks and bonds amounting to 40 million Formosan dollars of the Ta Tung Engineering Corporation and the Formosan Cement Corporation. How fortunate these Capitalists are to have such industrious workers slaving away for them!

Also, the progress of the Chinese Petroleum Corporation in the island must be a great comfort to the shareholders; present plans in course of fulfilment are providing an output over four times the 1947 figure. But this is not sufficient for them. Like Capitalism elsewhere they need an efficient and economical administration with as little graft as possible, although there is always a certain amount of corruption in present-day society where money opens so many doors.

But Chiang Kai-shek does not provide what is required and the more Capitalism develops in Formosa the more is the need felt for a better administration. The pot is reaching boiling point, with the Nationalists sitting on the lid.

Probably neither the governments of U.S., China, Russia, or even Chiang Kai-Shek or Formosa particularly want war. But there is always the chance that the sparks now flying may ignite these fire-eaters and the situation may grow out-of-hand and embroil the world.

The Hope for Peace

Should war result, no benefit will accrue to the workers, who will be induced to fight the war. Whatever side they support they will be the losers, even though some of their masters may win markets, trade routes and sources of materials to enable them to increase the profits their workers turn out for them. THE ONLY ANTIDOTE TO WAR LIES IN THE SPREAD OF SOCIALIST KNOWLEDGE. When the workers realise the Capitalist cause of wars they can no longer be misled by their ruling-class into support of them and this alone will see the end of these scourges of mankind. This is one of the reasons why the spread of Socialist knowledge is so very urgent.

One Damned Thing After Another

But let us face it—even if the fighting over the Formosian islands is settled, the threat of war will remain —and possibly on a grander scale. Chinese Capitalism has designs on Indian territory and is steadily working towards a showdown there. The July issue of China Pictorial, an official Chinese organ, showed a big chunk of North-eastern Assam and parts of Bhutan and Ladakh as belonging to China. On September 4th the Indian Premier, Mr. Nehru, said that “the Chinese Communist Government had failed, in spite of repeated reminders, to revise its maps of China so as to exclude territories which are indisputably Indian.”

Elsewhere Chinese exports of manufactured goods are ousting the Japanese products, among others and relations between the governments are growing more strained.

Capitalist development generally is making the whole world a danger zone for war. It is difficult to foretell the result of the present fighting because of the complications that lie behind, but certain it is that the Formosan incident will not be the last.

Frank Offord

10 years of the "Peoples" Republic - Part 2 (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1

It would be misleading to paint too dull a picture of China on her 10th birthday, for there is a small section of the population for whom every day could well be a day for celebration. Those fortunate few are the capitalists. Capitalists in “Communist” China! But why be surprised, for Article 10 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China begins as follows: —

  The State protects the right of capitalists to own means of production and other capital according to law. 

Perhaps the best plan would be to let one of the leading capitalists tell all about it. which he did to the Editor of Eastern World, April, 1957. Mr. Y. L. Kan is Managing Director of the Nanyang Bros. Tobacco Company, one of the largest companies in the country, owning a number of factories. One of the shareholders of this Company was formerly T. V. Soong, a member of the Nationalist Government who absconded to Formosa. The Chinese Government have seized his shares which makes their shareholding 40 per cent. of the stock; 35 per cent. are owned by Mr. Kan’s family and the balance by 8,000 other shareholders. Mr. Kan’s father was a former managing director of the Company, but the son was only appointed to his present position by the Government in 1950 on his return to China from abroad. And this is what Mr. Kan said:

 Immediately after entering into joint ownership with the Government we realised that we were benefitting by that move. Production and capacity went up continuously until it reached, today. 250 per cent. the output of 1949. This has been mainly due to the incredible enthusiasm of the workers. I confess that I had never thought possible such complete change of atmosphere and such incredible improvement in output owing to this different attitude of the workers to what they, quite rightly, consider a factory of which they are part owners. Our Company, to my astonishment, proved to be about 50 per cent. more efficient than those enterprises which had remained entirely in private hands. Also we had none of the labour difficulties or frictions with the workers as became frequent in the private sector of industry.

The account further described the luxury in which the Kans live and explains that in addition to his salary a fixed dividend of 5 per cent, is paid free of income tax, and this, the report adds, on his substantial holding of shares makes for considerable income, far more than the net income which would be received in the West. “I am only a managing director.” Mr. Kan went on to say.

  But I am also an executive member of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, as well as on the committee of Light Industry which has to deal with the interests of 6.000 factories. Altogether there are 37,000 factories of mostly light, but some heavy industry in Shanghai, and the total number of commercial and industrial concerns amounts to 160,000.

Capitalism is capitalism all the world over, with its gulf between the exploiter and the exploited. Riches at one end of the scale presupposes poverty at the other no matter whether in China or the West. When the worker is fooled as to where his real interests are, and, as a consequence. is induced to work like a maniac, it is the capitalist who, waxing wealthy, congratulates the worker. This task of misleading the worker is made easier when by means of partial or complete nationalisation, the worker can be induced to believe that he is a partner in the enterprise and that his interests are no longer opposed to those of the exploiter.

The Indian Incident
This anniversary review could hardly be concluded without reference to the border fighting when China overran and seized part of the Indian province of Ladakh in Kashmir, in the process killing the Indian guards. These events have sometimes been presented in a sensational light as though they were the precursor of large-scale warfare. In this case the war mongers watching out for the main chance on the side lines may well be disappointed, for it is likely to be merely a matter of bargaining over a road from Khotan to Gartok in Tibet (secretly built by the Chinese for the subjugation and subsequent colonisation of Tibet) which crosses a corner of the Indian province.

The incident may prove useful to the Indian Government who seem to be using it to work up a sense of patriotism among their workers and patriotism can be very useful in some emergencies when ruling-class interests are really threatened. And what do they stand to lose in exchange? Just a piece of barren and unpopulated land. It is the Chinese workers who have built the road and Indian workers who have lost their lives repelling the Chinese. In this system of society, whichever capitalist group succeed, it is the workers who always seem to be at the sticky end of the wicket.

No one who remembers the sheer poverty, starvation and street deaths under the old regime can deny the overall improvement in physical conditions and also in the security for the workers. Achievements in industrial construction, agrarian expansion, health, education and sanitation constitute a remarkable story. On the debit side, as the Sunday Times 27/1/57 says, there is bland but total suppression of freedom of thought and expression. imposed under a puritanical regime, which is mass-producing a race of robots in blue overalls.

The robots, it must be conceded, are apparently happy. "Communism” has not yet changed the innate friendliness. charm and generous human behaviour of the Chinese; maybe it has not changed their subtlety and expedient patience, either.

The Chinese have had recent experience of living under a regime of oriental feudalism. Now that they are living in Capitalism (even though some label it Communism), they can compare the two systems. With the tremendous intellectual fervour the vast upheaval has made, argument and discussion continue at high pitch. Like the British under Macmillan’s Tory Government, the Chinese under Mao-tse-tung. it is claimed, have never had it so good. Certain it is, all observers agree, that Mao-tse-tung could win a free democratic election with perhaps greater ease than Macmillan’s party won the last general election here. The Chinese workers, surrounded by new-fangled commodities such as radios, bicycles and tinned foods and ball-point pens that they can now buy, like their British counterparts with their televisions, scooters, cars and council flats, do not realise that exploitation goes on just the same.

When productivity increases, the workers may themselves absorb a greater amount of goods without any radical change in their state relative to that of the master class. But sure it is that the Chinese have got Capitalism whether they know it or not. and that, by-and-large, being subjected to similar economic conditions as workers in the rest of the world of Capitalism, they will develop Socialist ideas.

China, with her vast sea of people increasing by about 12 million per year, was civilised and ruled by an aristocracy of culture a millenium before the tiny speck of island now known as Great Britain was redeemed from barbarism by the Roman invaders. But in the course of time the face of the world changes and Capitalism first took root in England. The establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 was the political event which marked the entry of that country into the world of Capitalism.

So we of the Socialist movement of Great Britain, the oldest Capitalist country in the world, in a spirit of comradeship. and breaking through the barrier of language which is perhaps more of a bar to communication than mere distance itself, give you—the youngest working-class in the world—this, our anniversary greeting coined by a Socialist a century ago:

Workers of the world unite. You have only your chains 
to lose, you have a world to win.

Frank Offord

The King of Nepal (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Several weeks ago the King and Queen of Nepal paid a state visit to London. You may recall the event, particularly if you were a Londoner caught up in the traffic chaos that day and were not mollified by the background of pageantry.

The City of London, however, showed pleasure unalloyed. The Crown Prince Birinda of Nepal watched the Guildhall luncheon in honour of his father, King Mahendra. Four hundred guests tackled lobster soup; sole and pheasant.

The king wore the same gorgeous uniform. as he did for his reception by the Royal Family on his arrival, with the addition of the baton of a British field-marshal, newly presented to him by the Queen. In his speech he said:—

  London is especially attractive to us because here was begun the battle of liberty and freedom, centuries ago, and here it was won during the latest—and let us hope, the last—challenge in war.
  The task is now to press on with the Battle of Peace—and we in Nepal unshakeably believe that London is going to be our greatest friend in this struggle, too.

Why do the Nepalese King and Queen hob-nob with “our” Queen, and what is the significance of Nepal to the British ruling class? What meaning lay behind the King's speech at the Guildhall? Such suspicious questions seem to come naturally to Socialists, for we have learned by experience in capitalism not to take too much notice of the description on the label.

May we now proceed to attempt to unravel the little mystery of the royal visit even though it may rather take some of the glitter off the tinsel.

Nepal is a border state between India and Tibet. It is 525 miles long and up to 140 miles wide, with a population of 5½ million. The family of the present ruler has been in power for decades and the history of Nepal is a long story of royal ruthlessness, trickery and bloody outrages.

Nepal invaded Tibet in 1855 and received annual tribute until 1952, when Tibet was colonised by “Socialist” China. Since then China has reversed the process and has become in turn the aggressor. The Chinese last June invaded Nepal's border, killed a Nepalese army officer and took prisoners back. It naturally gave a severe jolt to relations between them and makes it understandable that the Nepalese ruling-class should now wish to lean on the U.K. And with India on its other border Nepal is between two dangerous giants.

But the so-called Socialist Government of Nepal is good at playing one off against the other and in the process doing well for the ruling-class. To date the economic and technical aid from India amounts to about 100 million rupees (£8 million). Besides, India has been helping Nepal build up her vital lines of transportation and supply. A 972 mile highway linking Katmandu, the capital, with the Indian border was constructed by Indian engineers. In 1958 an agreement with India was signed for the laying of nearly 900 miles of roads. India has also agreed to contribute R's 500,000 for irrigation and waterworks.

From China, too, Nepal has received R'S 10 million in economic aid as part of a R's 60 million aid programme. Russia, too, has agreed to set up a hydro-electric power plant, a sugar factory with a diesel power plant, and to prepare a road survey costing three million roubles.

Whilst Nepalese capitalism is expanding, the Nepalese working-class is suffering heavy unemployment and is embarrassing the so-called Socialist government of the country. They, however, hold out hope in the start of the second five-year Plan now beginning, which has made provision to absorb about half a million working people during the Plan period. Social services cannot do much to tackle this thorny problem and the population is growing at the rate of 1.5 per cent. per year.

Amongst the Nepalese underprivileged, so great is the struggle for existence that normally children over 10 work and some even below that age. But unemployment means cheap labour, and cheap labour can give rise to good profits. No wonder the City of London are interested. The dinner at the Guildhall was bread cast upon the water, to be returned with interest.

The recently elected “Socialist” government of Nepal serves to mark that country's entry into the world of capitalism. The Sino-Indian dispute and its repercussions loom large on the Nepalese political horizon, but as a way out the Nepalese ruling class is developing a world consciousness.

When the King of Nepal referred to liberty and freedom, he was no doubt referring to the liberty and freedom for the ruling class to make money with as little in the way of restrictions and hindrances as possible. Those who remember the journeys and activities of the Duke of Windsor when he was Prince of Wales will realise that the King of Nepal is not the first royal commercial traveller.

Frank Offord

Finance and Industry: Making Money from Armaments (1960)

The Finance and Industry Column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Making Money from Armaments

A generation or more ago, when most of the world's armaments were made by private companies, it seemed plausible to many people that if the armament-making came under government control and private profit was taken away there would be no deliberate encouragement of armament competition and the risk of war would be less. It was always a mistaken hope because the economic rivalries that make for war come from all the profit-seeking interests in all the countries, not just some sections or some countries. And in our own day armaments moving openly or secretly across the world are mostly despatched by governments not by private companies. These in any event could not operate without the consent of their own government.

The popular way of looking at the armament trade has changed too, and “merchants of death” has gone out of fashion as a term of abuse. This is not surprising, because the governments supplying the arms now present themselves as public benefactors, only concerned to help “good causes.” Anyway, all the governments are in the business—from the last Labour Government in Britain, which sold military aircraft abroad, to America, Israel and Russia.

Russia's latest business deal in its growing invasion of world markets is the reported sale to India of £11 million worth of equipment, including heavy transport aircraft, helicopters and road building machinery. (Guardian, 7/10/60). The India Government wanted to buy in America but the Russians offered the stuff at lower prices. The significant aspect is that the purpose of the purchase is to enable India “to defend its border with China.”

Of course, China may or may not continue to be Russia's ally, but business is business, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and who can object if Russia helps both sides.

It recalls the attitude of the Russian Government (and of the Communist Party) during the war, before Russia became involved. The Russian Government was selling oil and other materials to Germany and some simple-minded people here complained about it. Which brought from the Secretary of the Russia Today Society a letter to the Manchester Guardian assuring its readers that the Russian Government was quite willing to sell to both sides.

The "Alternative" Society

The people who refer to present-day capitalism as the affluent society make much of the greater variety of articles that are available to be bought by the mass of the population. They quote aggregate figures of washing machines, motor cars, refrigerators, etc., and the figures look impressive. But Mr. Mark Abrams, writing in the Observer (23/10/60) provides an analysis which puts the matter in better perspective. He divides families into two groups, those in “which the chief earner is in a white-collar post and earning at least £800 a year,” and those not in this group. About a third of families fall into the first group, and two-thirds into the second group, which he calls “working-class.”

He includes receivers of property incomes in this group as well as wage and salary earners. He shows that “only one item—the television set—is to be found in the majority of British homes.’' The rest are the possessions of minorities.

His list showing the percentage who own various items, among his “working-class” group is as follows:—

Television set            79 per cent.
Lawn mower             34 „ „
Washing machine ...  37 „ „
Car                            22 „ „
Refrigerator              13 „ „
House                         29 „ „

He does not make the important point that the percentage who own all of these items is, on his figures, at most 13 per cent. He does not include a telephone in this list; had he done so the percentage owning the lot would probably be under 10 per cent.

And he does not stress the point that “own” is an ambiguous term since millions of the houses and the rest are only “owned” by the user in the sense that he has them while paying off the mortgage or hire purchase instalments. And “car” includes all the barely roadworthy crocks.

Another enquiry (also referred to in the Observer) brings out that “many families when furnishing a home, prefer to leave some rooms bare rather than incur a small millstone of debt.” For the majority of workers it is not a question of moving all the things on the list but of owning one or two because they cannot afford them all—the alternative society. You can have full choice as long as you can afford what you buy.

A description of life in Stepney by Godfrey Hodgson (Observer, 21/8/60.) had the following which should further dampen the optimists.

  The Rev. Joseph Williamson, of St. Paul's, Dock Street, said that the best living quarters in his parish were the Peabody Buildings. They had no baths. The lavatories and sinks were outside the flats themselves, and were shared. “In illness, in winter especially, this is bad.” But all the other blocks of old flats were far worse.
  “Apart from the flats,” Father Williamson went on, “we have squalor beyond belief. Let me say in all seriousness that on a modern farm the accommodation provided for pigs is far superior.”

Canada’s Unemployment

The myth still receives wide acceptance that all the countries have for a decade had the low level of unemployment ruling in Britain. This ignores the years of massive unemployment that afflicted the workers in Germany and Italy until comparatively recently. And it ignores Canada. The Financial Times (28/10/60) printed a graph of unemployment in the past four years since January, 1957. It shows unemployment in Canada reaching 9 per cent. and 10 per cent. in each winter and never falling below 4 per cent. except early in 1957 and for a short period in 1959.

The Canadian Government has been calling special conferences to deal with the situation and admits that it threatens to get worse. Many British immigrants are coming back. The Canadian motor industry has been asking for tariff protection against the import of British cars.

Canadian workers out of a job or threatened with dismissal because of falling sales can derive what comfort they can from their Prime Minister’s remark that “the situation would get worse if action were not taken, and he promised that it would be taken before Parliament met.” Times (24th September, 1960.)

Russian Trade Policy

The oil industry has been worried by big Russian sales of oil at below the prices ruling in the rest of the world, but the Times (11/10/60) hopefully interprets some remarks made by Krushchev at a lunch in New York when he was asked: —

  Whether Russia would extend to other commodities the same sort of agreement on quotas that it had accepted already for tin, aluminium and diamonds.” According to Pravda “Mr. Krushchev replied that there was no reason why this principle should not be extended to other goods.”

The Times interprets this as meaning that “Russia is willing to join international commodity agreements provided that Western countries are prepared to allow the U.S.S.R. what it regards as a fair share of the market.” In the diamond industry it will be remembered that Russia now sells all its diamonds through the South African Diamond Group. A correspondent writing in Reynolds News (16/10/60) went further and suggested that Western oil interests are trying to do a deal with Russia.

   The leading capitalists in the world, the mammoth international oil companies, are planning to break through the Cold War barriers that have throttled top-level political contact between East and West since the Paris Summit fiasco. They are determined to make a vast oil deal with the Russians. In effect, they want to set up a cartel agreement that would span all the world's oil supplies . . . though the first news leaks, planned to test the temperature, refer to the scheme as a “ live and let live arrangement.”
   The Plan: Russia should be allowed to move immediately and extensively into the huge European oil market. With a one-fifth increase in consumption in 1959, this is still the world’s biggest market despite mounting African and Asian demands.
   In return, the Russians would offer the big international companies no oil challenge in the rest of the Western Zone and among the neutral nations.

Business Morality

Children may still be taught that honesty is the best policy and crime does not pay, but once they enter the adult world of business these notions fade away, not by “brainwashing” but simply by disuse; to be replaced by the practical rule that what is profitable is right, but when in doubt you should consult a good lawyer. In a successful take-over bid those who lose may set up an outcry about “shady methods,” but the business world really sees nothing wrong in taking over a concern at a fraction of its value, throwing out or buying out sitting directors, and getting rid of redundant workers. And when the takeover assumes the form of a government seizing foreign investments at dictated rates of compensation or none at all, the rest of the world sheds no tears over the “business immorality” of it but hurries in to trade with the new owners.

Cuba is a case in point. Fidel Castro’s government seized American-owned sugar plantations and factories and went on handling and selling the sugar on its own account. From the standout of capitalist morality these are "stolen goods.” So the American ex-owners started action to obstruct the sale of Cuban sugar by Castro’s government. At this point we turn to the Daily Telegraph (22/10/60), a correspondent of which had been making enquiries about the Americans’ chances.

The one thing entirely missing from the article was a nice upstanding declaration that of course they would not touch stolen goods, because that would be dishonest. The attitude rather was the purely legalistic one that the American companies do not stand a chance of proving their case. Not a denial that the Sugar is “stolen” but a near certainty that no American company can prove that a particular lot of unmarked Cuban sugar came from a particular factory which used to belong to the company.

The article quoted “a spokesman of a City firm” who said: “It is impossible to make any forecast. But if you have a cargo of, say 9,000 tons of sugar it would be very difficult for a person on the other side of the Atlantic to say: ‘These grains came from our factory'. "

Tate and Lyle’s are going on buying Cuban sugar and told the Daily Telegraph “We have not allowed our buying policy to change as a result of the dispute between the Cubans and the Americans.”

Edgar Hardcastle

50 Years Ago: The Conflict That is Capitalism (2012)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the crisis is over—for the time being! The Soviets have climbed down over Cuba and have withdrawn their missiles from that unhappy island. Everyone is sighing with relief and no doubt President Kennedy is congratulating himself on the success of his tough line. The press generally acclaimed him as the saviour of the peace, although it has been suggested in one journal at least, that there was no real Russian intention to fight over Cuba because the U.S.S.R. was just not ready for a shooting war yet. Russia, it seems, has run away to fight again another day.

Just what day, when and where, none can say—least of all the various opposing governments themselves. It is one of the terrifying aspects of the whole ghastly business that at the most we can only guess where the next trouble spot will be, and whether that will then trigger an explosion which will blow the world sky-high. Look back over the years since 1945. Berlin, Korea, Suez, Hungary, Lebanon, Formosa—the monster of war can rear its ugly head any place at any time and this is not to mention the smaller in-between conflicts such as Indo-China and Algeria.

Cubahas simmered down for a while and maybe will move out of the headlines altogether, as the major capitalist powers find their attention diverted elsewhere. Who amongst us anyway would have risked a wager even six months ago that Castro’s Land would be the focal point in a crisis which edged the capitalist world perilously close to another horror?

And now there is India’s fight with China. This again is in a part of the world which has only recently become big news, as Capitalist China pushes her borders outwards in pursuit of her expansionist aims. She has been squabbling for some time over certain slices of Indian border territory and negotiations have dragged wearily on, but force is the final arbiter in the clash of opposing interests, as we have pointed out on many occasions.

(Editorial, Socialist Standard, December 1962)

Rear View: On the road to nowhere (2017)

The Rear View Column from the September 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the road to nowhere

Two academics list some actual and proposed responses to the ‘refugee and migrant crisis’, which include international summits – seven in 2016 alone – and an island between Italy and Tunisia, before advancing their own: ‘a set of loosely-connected self-governing units we call “Refugia”, brought into being mainly by refugees and displaced people themselves, with some support from sympathisers’ (theconversation.com, 7 August). They see Refugia as ‘a utopian solution to the crisis of mass displacement’. The Oxford dons are correct about one thing – their proposal is Utopian, but not a solution: creating more countries in a world where competition between them can result in war (one reason for the ‘crisis’ in the first place) and leaving the real culprit, capitalism, intact will fail. In a socialist world of production for use not profit, there will be no more refugees seeking escape from war and want. The only borders will be natural ones and citizens will be free to migrate where they want.

October 1968 

Another dead end

The actor Mark Rylance asks ‘who can remember the dreadful battles of the First World War commemorated recently without remembering that World War One was meant to be the end of war?’ and wonders ‘when will we stop this madness?’ before imploring us to join Stop the War. STW was formed following the September 11 attacks of 2001. The sponsors involved include some past Labour MPs and Jeremy Corbyn plus the dead hand of the Socialist Workers Party. Left wing groups are selective about the wars they oppose and have come out in favour of dictatorships e.g. North Vietnam if such are under attack from the West. By contrast, the Socialist Party has the unique record of opposing both world wars, in fact all wars other than the class war since its formation in 1904. Wars are not fought in our interest and are not worth the shedding of a single drop of working class blood. We make our opposition to capitalism, its wars and other attendant ‘problems’ clear. Here is one example from the front cover of the October 1968 edition of our Journal: VIETCONG, NO! MAO, NO! CHE, NO! SOCIALISM, YES!

Silk roads

‘”If the Chinese gain control of the Donglang region, they will hold a commanding position in the Chumbi Valley and would gain the ability to essentially cut off India’s access to the north-eastern states in case of a conflict,” says The Diplomat. Border skirmishes were once a common occurrence along the 2,520-mile frontier zone, the most notable of which was the month-long Sino-Indian War of 1962 (theweek.co.uk, 7 August). The ongoing tension between these countries is of no surprise to socialists. The expanding sphere of influence of capitalist China started before 1962 and spread to Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos and Tibet. These days, Chinese capitalist interests extend into Eurasian and African regions through the Belt and Road Initiative. Other competing Asian states such as India and Japan seek similar expansion of their interests and for the time being are working together on an alternative Silk Road.

Streets paved with gold?

‘Could gold finally have a purpose? New research says it could help in the fight against cancer’ (cnbc.com, 7 August). Sultan Erdogan has, it is rumoured, gold-plated toilet seats in his gigantic 1,150 room palace. Tens of thousands of tonnes of it collect dust in vaults throughout the world. But we do not need to turn to Thomas More’s Utopia, where bathroom fixtures are made of gold, to find other uses for this metal. Contrary to what the article suggests, there are various, established medicinal uses for gold and the metal is also employed in other fields including electronics, dentistry and photography The vast stockpiles of gold in a socialist world would likely mean an end to its extraction through mining and, consequently, associated pollution and fatalities.

Revolutionary road

This road is unique in that you cannot be lead there. Should a majority of us come to understand and desire socialism we will be able to explain to the next generation, any visiting aliens or cryogenically unfrozen humans – probably capitalists – that ‘People are no longer obsessed with the accumulation of things. We’ve eliminated hunger, want, the need for possessions. We’ve grown out of our infancy.’ Actually, that is what Captain Picard says in the year 2364. A socialist world of free access and production for use has been possible since the last century. Let us not wait until the 24th.

Editorial: The Conflict that is Capitalism (1962)

Editorial from the December 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

So the crisis is over—for the time being! The Soviets have climbed down over Cuba and have withdrawn their missiles from that unhappy island. Everyone is sighing with relief and no doubt President Kennedy is congratulating himself on the success of his tough line. The press generally acclaimed him as the saviour of the peace, although it has been suggested in one journal at least, that there was no real Russian intention to fight over Cuba because the U.S.S.R. was just not ready for a shooting war yet. Russia, it seems, has run away to fight again another day.

Just what day, when and where, none can say—least of all the various opposing governments themselves. It is one of the terrifying aspects of the whole ghastly business that at the most we can only guess where the next trouble spot will be, and whether that will then trigger an explosion which will blow the world sky-high. Look back over the years since 1945. Berlin, Korea, Suez, Hungary, Lebanon, Formosa—the monster of war can rear its ugly head any place at any time and this is not to mention the smaller in-between conflicts such as Indochina and Algeria.

Cuba has simmered down for a while and maybe will move out of the headlines altogether, as the major capitalist powers find their attention diverted elsewhere. Who amongst us anyway would have risked a wager even six months ago that Castro's Land would be the focal point in a crisis which edged the capitalist world perilously close to another horror?

And now there is India's fight with China. This again is in a part of the world which has only recently become big news, as Capitalist China pushes her borders outwards in pursuit of her expansionist aims. She has been squabbling for some time over certain slices of Indian border territory and negotiations have dragged wearily on, but force is the final arbiter in the clash of opposing interests, as we have pointed out on many occasions.

The Indian affair highlights perhaps the most tragic irony of all, that of poverty stricken workers literally running to join the Indian Army in defence of their masters' interests and in ignorance of their own. No need for conscription, said Mr. Nehru; his government could take its pick from millions of volunteers. But ignorance is not something peculiar to Indian or Chinese workers, or people in “backward" countries alone. It is a failing common to workers the world over, even though many of them may not join the army quite so enthusiastically as their Indian brothers.

Yet sooner or later ignorance will have to yield to the growth of Socialist knowledge and the realisation that war is not just a nasty accident but has its roots in the private property basis of modern society. It is an ever present menace so long as capitalism survives. The sordid squabbles over markets, trade routes and other considerations, give way eventually to armed conflict, but no working class interest is involved, and no social problem is solved by fighting. When each war is over, all that can be said is that countless workers have died to preserve the conditions for another holocaust later on. Someone once said that the next war really begins where the last one ends. We could not agree more.

India and China (1963)

From the January 1963 issue of the Socialist Standard

The hostilities between India and China have helped to jolt the complacency of many Labourites and other social reformers who had relied on India to act as a bulwark of peaceful neutralism. The current incidents must be the last nail driven into the coffin that contains their hopes of everlasting peace, for the development of Capitalism certainly has a way of catching out its supporters!

The Indian diplomatic notes to China have a scholarly legal flavour. They say that the Indian Government inherited the McMahon boundary line from the British administration and this the Chinese should respect. But the notes fail to mention that when the British left India, they gave the option to the native states to join either India or Pakistan or remain free. Only Hyderabad, in Central India, and Kashmir hesitated. The Indian Government took both of these areas by force. Again in 1961 India marched her troops into Goa and annexed it, despite the fact that for 500 years Goa had had its own, separate history. It is obvious that mealy-mouthed legalistic arguments are only used when it suits the Indian Capitalist Government.

The Chinese Government says that the McMahon line was drawn up by the British when the Chinese Government was weak. They claim that they are no mere successors to the old regime; they repudiate the idea of two Asian powers being bound by international law over an agreement to which they were not parties. “Let us decide the boundaries for ourselves,” say the Chinese who are in possession of the territory in dispute, possession being reckoned as nine-tenths of the law.

Meanwhile, the winter is likely to prevent any further military action by either side. The Chinese, however, have prepared for their aggression by building supply roads in their rear connecting with bases in Tibet, whilst the Indians only have the use of mere tracks through very difficult terrain. Furthermore, the Indian military forces (those so-called guardians of neutralism) have been pinned down in activities against Pakistan within their own borders.

But after mentioning an exchange of words, we should then deal with the underlying economic motives, which form the basic reasons of much military action. Neither side is particularly concerned about a few miles of mountainous terrain, but with any further Chinese advance the India-dominated kingdoms of Nepal and Bhutan are likely to fall, together with some of the other frontier states, into the Chinese sphere of influence.

Nepal, for instance, is in internal ferment. The previous ruling class there —the Rana clique—were thrown out by the Government of the present King Mahendra with the help of India, whose capitalist class covet the Nepalese market for their manufactures (including military supplies). But the rising Nepalese nationalists have their own interests to safeguard, and this border has been a cock-pit for the contending Indian and Nepalese supporters. On October 5th the Nepalese Ambassador in London said that Nepal's patience with India was at breaking point. These words bring back memories of Hitler, who also said much the same just before the last European War. It would probably suit the Nepalese trading interests to have China on their doorstep, so that they can get whatever they can from both sides. At present 99 per cent, of Nepal’s imports are from India and 94 per cent, of her exports, mostfy raw materials, go to India.

But there is more than that involved, for by forcing India into a state of panic and emergency the Chinese have wrecked India’s five-year plan for the time being. The plan's industrial reorganization and development promise to be a threat to Chinese interests. Meanwhile, the Chinese population expands every year by the equivalent of the population of Belgium and industrial progress continues unchecked.

Incidentally, the Chinese are not the first Government to realise that a foreign military adventure distracts the attention of workers from their own domestic troubles, one of which — the food crisis — has become urgent with the failure of successive crops.

There is an incidental lesson to learn from this little war—the State Capitalism of Russia behaves like the older Capitalism of Great Britain.

While Great Britain is protesting her friendship for India, she is shipping all supplies possible to China, through the back door of Hong Kong. Likewise, “Communist” Russia, for all her “comradeship” with “Communist” China, is the supplier of the M.I.G.’s and probably other military equipment used by the Indians to slaughter the Chinese. Wherever we look in capitalism, business is business.

The war in India is no doubt just a part of a Chinese master plan, for the surging capitalism of China must either expand or burst, even though such expansion is done in the names of liberation, and fraternity. Hence the expansion of China's sphere of influence into Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Tibet, and now the Indian border States. These are just milestones in the long march of Chinese Imperialism as it bursts bonds and expands across Asia. We can expect many more milestones yet, many more dead and maimed, many more refugees, now that the giant capitalism of China is awake and on the move. Here we see another bloodstained chapter of world history in the making, but there is nothing in it for the workers concerned. The fruits of victory will not he theirs—only the bloodstains.

Frank Offord