Local histories (2008)

Pamphlet Reviews from the January 2008 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Class War Radical History Tour of Notting Hill by Tom Vague, Psychogeography, 2007.

Camden History Review 31, Camden History Society, 2007

The Class War pamphlet, the ‘souvenir programme’ of a recent London march maturely entitled “Bash The Rich”, is a rambling and rather unfocussed (as the doubtlessly pseudonymous author’s name would suggest) example of the local radical history writing which is currently fashionable. In this case it also is an unintended comment on the Class War organisation, which has itself become historic. Nonetheless the pamphlet might help locals gain “the sense of place in time” necessary to overcome the crazy disconnectedness of London living which makes political action in the capital so difficult to achieve nowadays.

In contrast the politics (and arts) issue of the Camden History Review is, as one might expect coming from the premier local history organisation of the capital, immaculately produced and finely focussed. The piece on Camden’s MPs is a rather old-fashioned biographical exercise, useful mainly for reference; however, the articles on the fight for a free library in Highgate and the St Pancras Civil Defence revolt of 1957-58 are prime examples of how on-the-ground-floor writing can help illuminate the real processes of history. The particular lesson to be learned from these two cases is that within capitalism every advance in the freedom of knowledge or the search for peace has to fought for tooth and nail. And how fruitless such actions, whether achieved via constitutional reform or direct action, ultimately are. The Socialist Party gets a mention fourth political essay, on the radical history of Grays Inn Road, as a radical organisation which once had its head office in the area and which pushes the solution – production for use not profit – to all capitalist problems from attacks on libraries to warmongering.

Kaz.

Letters: Force or violence? (1993)

Letters to the Editors from the June 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Force or violence?

Dear Editors,

In reply to Denham Ford (April Socialist Standard) and his ridiculous assertion that the bombing of Dresden was anti-fascist violence, it obviously wasn’t!

I (and Class war) are on the side of the working class in struggle, and that means against fascism and fascists who are active against the revolutionary forces (eg attacks on the SWP and the recent attack on Freedom Bookshop).

An act of violence in itself doesn’t change anything. It is the combined weight of collective violence which will win the revolution. It seems that a lot of people on the left do not understand the class struggle as a dynamic, a living force which we mould every day. It is a balance of forces which we have to tip or kick in our direction. This is because they are not going to give the working class freedom. We are going to have to take it.

Dave Clark

London E8

Reply:

You're confusing force with violence. Of course the majority will have to force the ruling class to give up their wealth, power and privilege, but this can be done by mass democratic political action based on socialist understanding rather street fighting which wouldn't work anyway (they've got bigger guns and better bombs)— Editors.

Dear Editors,

Ref your article on the Mail on Sunday (April), I wrote in very similar terms to the Western Mail and South Wales Echo years ago, and the replies I had were more or less what you received from Chris Rees.

One way out would be to change the name to something that is not in existence, in this country at least, then register it like Marks and Spencers so that nobody else can use it.

E. H. Evans 

Newport, Gwent

Dear Editors,

The commonly held idea of socialism as nationalisation, or some form of state capitalism, is an Aunt Sally that the Mail on Sunday and other opponents of socialism are quite happy to accept as their target. They are not disposed to engage in any real objective discussion on socialism.

The responsibility of explaining socialism as Marx and Engels and the Socialist Party of Great Britain have always interpreted it is the task of the Party itself. The extent to which this has been achieved is the question we have to face. I am firmly of the opinion that a mistake was made when the name of the party was abbreviated to "The Socialist Party" and the full name relegated to the inconspicuous last item, printed in the smallest type, on the back cover of the Socialist Standard.

J. E. Apling

Harlow, Essex

Reply:

Unfortunately the capitalist press are going to distort the meaning of socialism whatever we call ourselves, and whatever version of our name we use. As you say, it's up to us to explain what socialism is—Editors.

Letters: Is there a “middle class”? (1998)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is there a “middle class”?

Dear Editors,

I have read with great interest your new pamphlet The Market System Must Go! on “why reformism doesn’t work” and admire the style with which you present usually obscure economic topics in a readily understandable way. I should like to comment on one of these–the distribution of wealth–dealt with in Chapter 7.

Here you explain how in modern capitalism ownership of the means of production takes the form of legal rights to claim unearned income from stocks and shares, interest-bearing bank and building society accounts, government bonds and National Savings, (perhaps rents could be added to this list?). You demonstrate the grossly unequal distribution of this income-producing wealth using tables from Social Trends published by the Central Statistical Office. These can be arranged to show that in 1992 the top 5 percent owned 53 percent of investment capital, the next 20 percent owned 29 percent and the last 75 percent owned 18 percent.

In my view these figures are slightly misleading as although they exclude the value of dwellings, they do include household goods and personal items–such as cars–which make up such a large proportion of “working-class” wealth. On the other hand the top one percent “hold more of their wealth in shares than in any other form”. (Social Trends 1996 p. 111). This reinforces the socialist case that the largest concentration of ownership of the means of production is in the hands of a small minority of the population, and the working-class majority own a very small amount of investment capital–probably in the form of modest building society or National Savings accounts.

But what about the middle group, shown here as 20 percent of the adult population owning 29 percent of investment capital?

These make up what is generally regarded as the “middle class”, except by the Socialist Party who maintain that there are only two classes–the owners of the means of production and the wage or salary earning working class. For example, in the October 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard, the now defunct Class War is stated to have made “one crucial error in their class analysis. Instead of a two-class society–owners and workers, they had three”. Evidently Class War (whose publications I have not read) made many errors, but this was not one of them–the three-class analysis conforms more closely to reality than the two-class model of the Socialist Party.

In the above table the population is split at 75 percent because a scrutiny of the relevant Inland Revenue statistics indicates that below this point the average holding of investment capital or “savings” (excluding dwellings, household and personal goods) does not reach £16,000–the point at which eligibility for any Social Security benefit is disqualified. For the 20 percent, this £16,000 minimum (it increased rapidly up the population scale) produces significant unearned income, but not enough to live on. The individual is forced to seek employment as a wage or salary earner, and it is this dual relationship to the means of production–as significant investor and as employee–that defines the middle class and is the economic basis for this class.

The Socialist Party’s view that the middle class are simply the “better off” working class implies that they have an identity of interest with the 75 percent wage-earning majority. While this may be true in the long-term perspective of a future socialist society, it is far from the case now. As the middle class derive an income from their “stake” in the ownership of the means of production they will, and do for the most part, identify their interests with those of capital rather than labour. This middle class (probably in fact larger than Social Trends’s tables indicate) occupy positions of power and influence in all areas of political, economic, and cultural life. They are Tony Blair’s “stakeholders” in capitalism and it is not clear how they can be converted to socialism. On the contrary, they act as a channel for capitalist ideology to permeate the working class–a formidable challenge indeed for the Socialist Party!

John Williams, 

Nottingham

Reply:

Classes are defined by the relationship of their members to the means of production, not by how rich or poor they are. Of course the members of the dominant class are generally rich and the members of the dominated class(es) are generally poor, but this is an effect not the cause of the division of society into classes.

This means that the figures for wealth ownership are only an indication of the class structure of society–they show that society is divided into classes but not how it is. So, classes should not be defined on the basis of them; classes are defined socially not statistically. And the working class is defined socially as those members of capitalist society who are excluded from the ownership and control of the means of production and are therefore forced to get a living by trying to find an employer to buy their labour power.

Most of those you want to call the “middle class” fall into this category, even if they do have savings, since these savings are not sufficient to change their social position. In the vast majority of cases their “investment income” is not going to amount to more than a few thousands pounds a year at most. Nor are we convinced that such people regard themselves as capitalists; they may not call themselves “working class” but this is because of the term’s popular (but mistaken) association with manual labour and not because they don’t regard themselves as working. In fact they get quite irate if you suggest this. On the other hand, as we said in our criticism of Class War, “making a putative middle class into an enemy is as divisive as anything dreamed up by the owning class”.

Have these better off workers (yes, that’s what they are) you want to call the “middle class” an interest in establishing Socialism? Why not? They are exploited in the sense that they produce more value (or save more time) for their employers than they are paid for (this surplus value they produce will also be more than what they get as income on their savings). Like the rest of the working class (properly understood), they suffer from pressures to work harder, stress and job insecurity.

And even if their higher income does allow them to avoid bad housing and hospital queues and dump schools they still suffer from the bad–and worsening–“quality of life” under capitalism: rampant commercialisation, lack of community feeling, social breakdown, decadent values, not to mention pollution and the threat of war.

Editors.

 

Ending Poverty

Dear Editors,

I should like to put forward a question which I think of more relevance now towards the end of the century and the beginning of the new one: what are your aims as the Socialist Party of Great Britain on the transformation of the state? Do you advocate the same theoretical line of certain other system-methodists in the prediction of the withering away of the state, and the instigation by some organised body of a working class of what Lenin referred to as “Marx’s first and second phases” of Communist society?

I know you don’t refer to yourselves as communists, but surely in certain respects your ethos is the same (please correct me if I speak out of turn). What are your thoughts on the acceptance of inevitable inequality in the evincement of the capitalist system, as it crumbles away around us, and we search the debris for the remnants of order, moving consciously towards the second, or higher, phase of the new society? I’m not speaking of “fantastical utopianism” but merely the practical acceptance of the inevitable, and the proper instigation of the new order.

I understand fully that your long term aim is, as all good socialists, the seizing of the means of production, and the property of the whole rather than the individual. But for which socio-economic system do we aim? You will of course say socialism. Perhaps you could define what you mean. Are you referring to some time in the far future, when we shall all work voluntarily as best we can, as far as our ability goes, to suit our joint needs, as part of a co-operative society, no man more independent than another? Do you see this as the conclusion to the modern life-style under the present socio-economic system?

Do you still see yourself as the aggressive enemy of the oppressors of the masses, and the benefactor of the working people? Do you advocate a revolution, or simply a democratic process which is no longer democratic in that it no longer means “for the people”? There can be no democracy under a capitalist system. Do you suffer under the illusion that you can win our case through agitation of the media and non-socialist members, as well as so-called socialist members of the government and local political constituencies? I’m not asking for a recital of your Objective as a Party, but merely a considered response to a straightforward letter.

Kimberley J. Ellis, 

Bromley, Kent

Reply:

Our aim is socialism, which we define as a world-wide society in which the Earth’s resources will be the common heritage of all humanity under democratic control at world, regional and local level as appropriate. It will be a society where, in your words, “we shall work voluntarily as best we can, as far as our ability goes, to suit our joint needs, as part of a co-operative society”. It will be a society in which the state, as the public power of repression at the disposal of a ruling class, will have been abolished and replaced by a participatory democracy. This is our immediate aim, not some long-term goal.

In short, we think that given the development of productive capacity since Marx made the distinction in 1875 between a “first” (when full free access according to needs would not be possible) and a “higher” phase of “communist society” (when it would), the so-called higher phase can-and should-be established more or less immediately.

Although we call such a society “socialism” we have no objection to it being called “communism” as long as it is clearly understood that this has nothing to do with the state-capitalist dictatorships that used to exist in Russia and East Europe.

As to your other questions, no, we don’t see ourselves as “the benefactor of the working people”. We are wage and salary workers who don’t see ourselves as a group doing anything for other fellow workers other than putting before them the basic socialist propositions that under capitalism there is an irreconcilable conflict of interest between capitalists and workers; that capitalism can never be reformed so as to work in the interest of workers; that what is required is a society of common ownership, democratic control and production for use not profit.

If workers want such a socialist society this is something they must do for themselves without following leaders or relying on benefactors. We can’t establish it for them. As we say in our declaration of principles “the emancipation of the working class must be the working of the working class itself”.

No, we don’t suffer from the illusion that existing MPs and local councillors can do anything to further the cause of socialism. Their job, and in fact aspiration, is merely to run the political side of capitalism in Britain, and capitalism can only be run as a profit system in which priority must always be given to making profits over meeting needs. We also agree that there can be no real democracy under capitalism in the sense of a situation in which everybody has an equal say in deciding what should be done and in which those decisions can be implemented without hindrance. This is not the case today.

Having said this, in many parts of the world including Britain a sufficient degree of democracy exists for a socialist majority to be able to use existing elective bodies, such as parliament, to win control of the state machine through the ballot box. Of course, to work, this presupposes a socialist-minded and democratically organised majority outside parliament standing firmly behind the delegates they will have sent into parliament with the single mandate to take the formal steps to stop the state supporting capitalism.

Editors

Letters: To vote or not to vote (1998)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

To vote or not to vote

Dear Editors,

In his article on Class War (Socialist Standard, October 1997) Paddy Shannon wrote that “so long as there are revolutionaries out there with the energy to act and the will to think, we want to talk to them”. Unfortunately when talking to revolutionaries, Socialist Party members are usually caught up in the debater’s tricks that have so characterised any debate with anarchist revolutionaries, that is, to wilfully misunderstand what we are saying, and then accuse us of a whole list of things that we have never said or done. Such was the case with a recent exchange with the Anarchist Communist Federation. First we were falsely accused of punishment beatings, and when we strenuously denied this, we were then told we were also guilty of advocating head-shaving, tarring and feathering, tying to posts, sticking notices on front doors, curfews and chasing people out of town. This cheapjack debater’s rhetoric is camouflage for the Socialist Party’s own failure to address the problem of the State, the police and crime.

Are the police merely “workers in uniform”—“not the real enemy” as Paddy Shannon says—who will continue to exist after the Socialist Party has managed to persuade the majority to vote for them and who will carry on doing what they were doing before the Great Socialist Vote? You have never seriously tackled the question of the police, the army and the other forces of repression organised by the State and the ruling class. When others attempt to develop ideas about how we can control our own areas without the police, you readily caricature us as advocates of vigilantism.

The forces of State repression are our enemy just as much as is the boss class. Of course all methods must be used to counter them—not excluding fraternisation, revolutionary propaganda aimed at them etc. But this leads to the dissolution of these forces not their control by some benign Socialist Party administered State.

You seem to think that you are revolutionaries. But you have consistently failed to take part in any mass actions—for example against the Poll Tax—preferring the safe isolation of your own sect. You have consistently argued against revolutionary action on every occasion. In actual fact you are good old-fashioned reformists. Wait till you have an electoral majority to vote in Socialism—of course the boss class and the State won’t lift a finger-and in the meantime do nothing but propagandise! But you can’t even get the votes of most social-democratic parties and you have been trapped in your sterile logic for the good part of a century!

Of course as Paddy Shannon correctly says: “The more violence is involved, the more likely the revolution is to fail outright, or to be blown sideways into a new minority dictatorship.” But most revolutions are remarkably non-violent, in their constructive phases at least. The violence comes when the boss class starts fighting back. That’s when armed self-defence of the Revolution is necessary. You criticise Nestor Makhno in the Ukraine for defending revolutionary gains there. What would you have done there? Call for an election and a vote for the Socialist Party? As White and Bolshevik armies attempt to destroy any revolutionary gains!

There are many fine and decent people in the Socialist Party. But if a real revolutionary movement emerges in Britain, you will be forced as individuals to come to terms with the dead end of electoralism. Then there may well be splits in your Party, as some see the need for revolutionary action and others remain trapped within an irrelevant sect.

Ron Allen, 

London E1

Reply:

1. Perhaps we are doomed to misunderstand each other. You accuse us of caricaturing your position yet immediately go on to caricature ours by talking about “some benign Socialist Party administered State”.

Anyone who knows anything about us knows that we regard the whole idea of a “socialist state” or a “socialist government” as a contradiction in terms and that we envisage the dissolution of the repressive state upon the establishment of socialism.

So let’s start again.

We have thought long and hard about the state and its repressive forces. Our reasoning goes like this. We want the useful majority in society (workers of all kinds) to take over and run the means of production in the interest of all. However, at the moment these are in the hands of a minority of the population whose ownership and control of them is backed up-and, when necessary, enforced-by the state and its repressive forces. The state stands as an obstacle between the useful majority and the means of production because it is at present controlled by the minority owning class. They control the state, not by some conspiracy, but with the consent or acquiescence of the majority of the population, a consent which expresses itself in everyday attitudes towards rich people, leaders, nationalism, money, etc. and, at election times, in voting for parties which support class ownership. In fact it is such majority support expressed through elections that gives their control of the state legitimacy.

In other words, the minority rule with the assent of the majority, which gives them political control. The first step towards taking over the means of production, therefore, must be to take over control of the state, and the easiest way to do this is via elections. But elections are merely a technique, a method. The most important precondition to taking political control out of the hands of the owning class is that the useful majority are no longer prepared to be ruled and exploited by a minority; they must withdraw their consent to capitalism and class rule-they must want and understand a socialist society of common ownership and democratic control.

Alternative ways of dislodging the owning class have been suggested, such as the head-on clashes with the forces of the state by a determined minority that you advocate. This is foolish, not to say suicidal: the state wins every time. The plain fact is that you can’t “smash the state” while it still enjoys majority support—and when those who control it no longer enjoy majority support there is no need to try to “smash” it: the majority can use the power of their numbers to take control of it via the ballot box, so that it is no longer used to uphold class ownership.

To do so they will need to organise politically, into a political party, a socialist party. This is what we advocate. We don’t suffer from delusions of grandeur so we don’t necessary claim that we are that party. What we are talking about is not a small educational and propagandist group, but a mass party that has yet to emerge. It is such a party that will take political control via the ballot box, but since it will in effect be the useful majority organised democratically and politically for socialism it is the useful majority, not the party as such as something separate from that majority, that carries out the socialist transformation of society. They neutralise the state and its repressive forces-there is no question of forming a government-and then proceed to take over the means of production for which they will also have organised themselves at their places of work. This done, the repressive state is disbanded and its remaining administrative and service features, reorganised on a democratic basis, are merged with the organisations which the useful majority will have formed to take over and run production, to form the democratic administrative structure of the stateless society of common ownership that socialism will be.

This is perhaps a less romantic idea of the socialist revolution than yours but a thousand times more realistic. Which is why we think this is the way it will happen. When the time comes the socialist majority will use the ballot box since it will be the obvious thing to do, and nobody will be able to prevent them or persuade them not to. At that time it will be anti-electoralists like you who will be irrelevant. Presumably you’ll be there on the sidelines (except, that is, for those who will have split off and joined the socialist majority) chanting “Don’t Vote”. It is doubtful if anyone will be listening.

2. Our differences on this point lead to different conceptions as to what is “revolutionary action”. Since you favour head-on clashes with the forces of the state, it is such actions that you regard as “revolutionary”, irrespective of what the clashes are about.

This is the only basis on which you can make the preposterous claim that the campaign against the old Poll Tax was “revolutionary”. After all, this was a campaign to reform the tax structure of the capitalist state. It is true that it did contain elements of resisting some people’s standard of living being reduced, but that still didn’t make it revolutionary but merely a defensive action within the capitalist system (and a sectionalist one in that not all workers were worse off with the Poll Tax compared to the previous system of paying rates).

Our individual members made up their own minds as to whether or not to pay the Poll Tax (some did, some didn’t) and it is true that, as a party, we didn’t try to jump on the anti-Poll Tax bandwagon and hijack it for some supposedly “revolutionary” end by trying to provoke confrontations with the police. A reformist campaign does not cease to be a reformist campaign because its partisans, or some of them, resort to riots and grappling with the police. Violence no more equates with revolution than non-violence does with reformism. It is the end not the means that decides.

At the moment it is the peaceful activity of undermining people’s support for capitalist ideas that is the most revolutionary and subversive activity that opponents of capitalism can engage in because it is precisely people’s pro-capitalist ideas, not the repressive forces of the state, that maintain capitalism in being. Yet you consistently dismiss such revolutionary activity as mere propagandising.

3. Finally, to return to your idea of forming a “real neighbourhood watch” to deal with “anti-social elements” in place of the police, we don’t think you’ve thought this through either. People resort to drug-dealing, mugging and burglary, not because they are evil, but because to live in a capitalist society you need money and this is one option that is open for workers to acquire some.

Chasing the police off some housing estate or out of some neighbourhood won’t change this reality; it then becomes someone else’s problem. You then take on the responsibility for trying to suppress what is undoubtedly anti-social behaviour but which some people will always resort to as long as capitalism exists-and your “no go” areas will continue to exist within the framework of capitalism.

We don’t think that we are being unfair in putting you on the spot over this. How precisely are you going to deal with drug-pushers, muggers and burglars? No doubt you would begin by warning them off, but if that didn’t work what would you then do? OK, you could bring popular pressure to bear on them-boycott them, “send them to Coventry”-but, if that didn’t work you’d have to resort to physical force in the end, to chase them away (not that that would solve the problem; it would be a typical not-in-my-backyard reaction; they would merely move to some other area and continue their anti-social activities there).

We find it strange that people calling themselves anarchists should want to get involved in trying to maintain “order” under capitalism, to in effect try to do the state’s job for it. It won’t work anyway since crime, being endemic to capitalism, cannot be suppressed by the police, or by vigilantes or by your vague “real neighbourhood watch”. It will always exist under capitalism and to get involved in trying to suppress it is dangerous for revolutionaries as it is to take on responsibility for running capitalism, which, as we know from experience, always ends in tears. A self-policed neighbourhood under capitalism is no more revolutionary than a self-managed firm producing for the market-which is another mistaken idea from the same stable.

Editors.

Ending Poverty

Dear Editors,

Thank you for publishing your review of my book To End Poverty (Socialist Standard, November). It was very good and would give your readers a clear idea of what it was, and is, all about.

I was only a little disappointed that you did not mention the key factor—the disproof of the Theory of Division of Labour. This theory says that all members of a firm benefit with higher wages if the firm succeeds. I say that the lowest paid don’t benefit because the unemployed outside are prepared to work for less. Conventional economic wisdom used to say that theoretically there can be no unemployment because production creates its own demand (Say’s Law), so theoretically there are no unemployed outside to depress wages. Say’s Law has now been junked by Keynes, and everyone else, so the Theory of Division of Labour has been disproved; so industrialisation impoverishes.

Richard Hunt, 

Oxford

Reply:

We don’t understand the point you are trying to make. The Theory of the Division of Labour says that more can be produced by people specialising in what they are best at than by everybody having to produce everything they need. It applies equally in an agricultural, and even a hunter-gatherer, context as in an industrial one. For instance, in a tribe of hunters, it is more efficient if some members concentrate on making arrows while others concentrate on actual hunting than if every hunter has to make his own arrows.

This is a technical point which has nothing to do with Say’s Law which is an erroneous (as Marx pointed out long before Keynes) theory about markets.

What your example shows is not that the industrial division of labour as such causes poverty but that it only does so where the means of industrial production are owned by one class for whom the rest have to work for wages. If the means of production were owned in common and used to produce what people require, as socialists advocate, there would be no need for anybody to go without adequate food, clothing, shelter and the other amenities of life. We don’t need to abolish industry to get rid of poverty, only the ownership of industry by a minority, privileged class.

Editors.

(To John Williams, Kimberly Ellis, John Loomes and Ian Synclere: we will be replying to your letters in coming issues.)

The Stall (1998)

A Short Story from the January 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

On Saturday 1 November an Alternative Politics Fair was held in Norwich and three of us decided to go along for the day to run a couple of stalls. We set the stalls side-by-side with one section piled high with copies of the Socialist Standard, including some free back numbers, and the other with literature, books, pamphlets, and leaflets of a radical nature.

Norwich (for those of you who have never visited it) is a colourful and cosmopolitan little city and political people know one another, either by sight, shared experience or reputation, so as we gathered in the auditorium of the Norwich Arts Centre there was no lack of co-operation between stall-holders as stalls were set up and boxes were carried into the hall. A general atmosphere of camaraderie reigned and some curiosity shown for other stalls. The Anarcho Syndicalists were there, a Disabled Rights Group, Friends of the Earth, Black Womens Rights, Ethical Investments—don’t ask me, I was told it was to do with investing ethically which is much as I thought. At ten thirty we opened to the public and waited for the surge.

The surge did not come and there were no hordes but there was a steady trickle and people did look round and some left laden with books and leaflets. Interest was shown in the Socialist Party stall and explanations required as to our political colour. We had to refute that we were anything to do with Militant Tendency, Socialist Workers, the Independent Labour Party or Arthur Scargill. Helpful discussion ensued from this but the idea of a system without the use of money was usually greeted with smiles of disbelief and some people said it would be very nice but . . .

The main problem for people seemed to be “human nature”. Fortunately the Socialist Party’s leaflet on the human nature question was included in packs of leaflets and Socialist Standards and handed to everyone who came to the stalls.There were the usual arguments. People would not work if food and shelter did not have to be struggled for. There would always be people who would grab more than others. We have to have leaders to represent us. Some people are bone idle and would live off the backs of those who worked harder. We endeavoured to deal with these arguments as they cropped up, but I have always found when talking to people about the abolition of money that they are, on the whole, not comfortable with the idea, seeing themselves as perhaps bereft without cheque books, wallets and purses to carry about with them. There is a general ignorance about the part money plays and a belief that it is money that is valuable and not the goods which are produced by people's labour. In fact I suspected that in the minds of some people money had been raised to that of almost supernatural status.

October's Socialist Standard was snapped up, the illustration on the front cover about Class War spotted immediately. We were asked what had happened to them. People agreed that in theory Class War s aggression had been unacceptable, but glints in the eyes of people told me that they found it exciting and satisfying, in some way responding to anger and frustration about the capitalist system. I found no-one to support anything the Labour government is doing and no-one who expected it to do anything other than it has done since it came to power.

It was a good day and Alistair sold many books on his stall, but disappointing to find that reformism is still depended on and money is still seen as the best means of exchange apart from perhaps the LETS system and bartering. A little sadly, I think, we packed our literature away and dismantled the stalls until the next time.

Heather Ball

Letters: Class War (2007)

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

Class War

Dear Editors

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

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

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

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

Ben Malcolm, 

Bath.

Capitalism

Dear Editors

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

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

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

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

James Fulcher 

War

Dear Editors

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

Joe Boughey, 

Newton-le-willows.

Death penalty

Dear Editors

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adam Waterhouse, 

Bristol

Letters: Myth (1993)

Letters to the Editors from the April 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Myth

Dear Editors,

Watching a demonstration of predominantly young people parading a banner which reads ‘'Alexander the Great was Greek, not Slav!” I ask myself why it is that my own generation, the youth of today, are just as foolishly willing to throw away their lives for their various national masters as were those before them. It seems that whenever death is on the agenda there are always those to be found eager and willing. Hardly surprising, perhaps, when one considers what daily life under capitalism entails.

Of course, nationalism derives its energy not just from poverty, but from the ignorance that is engendered by the profit system, where most of us have no real stake in life and hence no incentive to dip into history and find out things which might strip our capitalist nation-state society of its pretended legitimacy.

In fact, Alexander “the Great” (the inverted commas to underline the fact that military heroes are not my heroes!) was neither Greek nor Slav, but if anything, he was definitely the enemy of the Greeks more than of anyone else.

Alexander was the son of Philip of Macedon, a kingdom to the north of the Greek city-states, and whose warriors had swept over Greece after the fratricidal war between Athens and Sparta. The oppression suffered by the Greek city-states at the hands of Philip and Alexander (Thebes was razed to the ground for daring to challenge Alexander’s tyranny) was such that the Greeks were eventually obliged to call on the Roman Republic for assistance in ousting the Macedonians.

What any schoolboy with the slightest classical education ought to know is apparently unknown to the nationalists who are only eager to die for what they call “Macedonia”, on one side or another, since the name hit the papers. But then, as nationalism is irrational in any case, historical awareness and understanding can only take cover when it is time for fools to start shooting:

   A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. It appears to serve the same purpose as certain signs that one sees on vacant lots in London— “Rubbish may be shot here." (definition of “flag” in The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce).

A .K .Walker 

Bournemouth

City violence

Dear Editors,

I thought double standards and muddled thinking were the prerogative of the press and media but Dave Clark of Class War appears even more muddle-headed with his references to “anti-fascist violence”. Presumably, by his reckoning. the bombing of Dresden and other German cities were acts of anti-fascist violence.

Some may recall the annual “Stop the City” campaign of a few years ago which of course did nothing of the sort as the City is still there if not flourishing. At the time of these demonstrations I was working in a stockbroker’s office when a bunch of mindless idiots lobbed a heavy lump of wood through a window, though luckily no-one was injured. I would ask Dave Clark what this or any other act of violence achieved. Violence of whatever kind has never solved anything witness two world wars and the mindless cold-blooded murder taking place almost daily in Northern Ireland.

Denham Ford 

Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex

The politics of Class War (1992)

From the October 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

What are we to make of the Class War Federation? According to the tabloids, who have not been slow to recognise this growing group within British politics over the past decade. Class War (CW) comprises a collection of wild-eyed revolutionary hooligans; the walking, swearing seeds of civilised destruction. But then, when have the booze-soaked brains of Sun and Daily Mail journalists ever come up with a valid definition of what a revolutionary is?

Many on the Left dismiss CW as a gang of loudmouthed lumpenproles whose entire existence is dedicated to gratuitous violence and offensively-stated propaganda. Some police and politicians imagine that behind every urban riot and act of vandalism there are CW organisers in the wings ticking off a list of targets. Others dismiss Class War as a prolier than thou version of Private Eye: satire for those who get their kicks out of wounded cops and dead aristocrats. Whatever worth there is in these analyses, there can be little doubt that plenty of people are talking about Class War, both the newspaper and the federation.

Our analysis will ignore the question of style. Revolutionaries are not identified by image or affectation, but by what they stand for and what they do. Our purpose is to examine and criticise the politics not the pose.

Areas of clarity
Class War understand more about what a socialist society will be like than any of the pseudo-socialists on the Left. We quote from their book Unfinished Business, the Politics of Class War (from which all the other quotes come):

  There will be no need to work for a capitalist to survive. The revolution will mean us clocking off wage slavery for good . . . [A]fter the revolution we can and will survive without (money]. Money will not be replaced by something with a different name that does the same thing such as bartering, coupons, tokens, etc. . . . Just by its existence, money is a measure of the failure of society to organise the production and distribution of goods for the benefit of all; IT HAS TO GO . . . We seek to do away with artificial boundaries and borders. The world will not be divided into countries or States . . .There will be no limitations on travel.

A wageless, moneyless, stateless world society is not a bad start as far as revolutionary vision goes. But ideals are cheap. How does CW do on some of the other basic revolutionary tests so regularly failed by the Left?

On several, they do pretty well. For example, the Left’s long-running sick love affair with the capitalist Labour Party has been one of the enduring comi-tragedies of the twentieth century. Not so CW:

  "At times we have no choice anyway but to fightback . . . This is where the role of the British Left is crucial to the ruling class. As long as they can divert us into stupid campaigns like getting Labour elected, the ruling class are safe”. 

Again, how often do we find leftists romanticising the role of the trade unions, seeing them as bodies of immense working-class struggle? Whilst socialists understand the need for unions as defensive combinations of our class (in which many of us are active) we are well aware that bodies committed to fighting for crumbs will do little to abolish the wages system. CW argues, correctly, that the unions are crucial to the role of "regulation stability and control . . .  In advanced capitalist countries like the UK. capitalism cannot function without the help of the unions".

CW opposes Leninism and those sects which stand for “taking control of the State with a vanguard party on behalf of the working class”. CW avoids falling into the trap of leftists who patronise feminists who are seeking women’s liberation without socialism:

  The objectives of equality for women can only be achieved as part of a wider social revolution . . . The idea of ‘wages for housework’ is an illusion. We believe the only real solution to low pay and no pay for women is the removal of capitalism.

That much-loved concept of the pseudo-socialist, the state that will live on into the new socialist society, is rejected by CW: “We see no transitory workers* State . . . as the Left does, we have learnt the lessons of history". Finally, CW seems to understand clearly the role of mass culture as a means of feeding workers with capitalist ideology, and, unlike many leftists, they are firm in their rejection of religion: “Once you believe in divine beings or forces above humankind with superior power over our lives then you give up the right to control your own life yourself".

These areas of clarity are refreshing contrasts to the usual trash of left-wing thinking, and puts in question the popular claim that CW is just a bunch of noisy but vacuous graffiti kids. Unfortunately, in with the positive points are a load of major negatives—illusions, misconceptions, follies. We urge the supporters of the Class war Federation to think about these seriously.

How many classes?
This is no academic question, although for years it has been a key area of attention for the pseudo-intellectual sociologists. They are concerned to classify people in accordance with the market needs of a consumer-commerce society. That is why they break up the working class into an upper and lower section (often several sections) and are committed to the false view that there exists a middle class.

Our definition of class is clear: there are those who need to work and those who don’t. There are us workers who must try to sell our mental and physical energies in return for a wage, salary or giro cheque, and there are capitalist parasites who live off the proceeds of our work by receiving rent, interest and profit. The profit of the capitalists comes from the legalised robbery of the workers. We give them everything they have. They live in privilege and luxury out of our productive efforts. There can be no common interest between the class of exploiters and the class which is exploited: our class, the overwhelming majority. Willingly or otherwise, the antagonism between robber and robbed takes the form of a constant class conflict. The only way to end the class war is for our side to win. We must throw the very small minority who own the means of wealth production off of our backs. We are many, they are few.

We would expect an organisation called Class War to agree with all this. And at one point in their manifesto they do: “Struggle is inevitable because society is divided into two opposing camps, the working class and the ruling class, who are fundamentally at odds in this world” (our emphasis). But, aside from this accidental clarity, CW’s analysis of class is hopelessly confused and should be abandoned sooner rather than later. In chapter 3 on “Class" they claim that there are three classes under capitalism: ruling, middle and working. They claim that the ruling class in Britain comprises 5 percent of the population—which is probably much larger than the real size of the capitalist minority. They then claim that “the middle class" comprises 20 percent of the population and includes doctors (but not nurses, who are listed as workers), social workers, researchers, teachers and small employers.
The reasoning behind this false division is that the middle class are those with more power than the workers. In fact, this power which people in the middle class think they have is illusory. There are those who imagine that a “good” accent or a college degree or a job with a monthly salary puts them in a higher class. Look around the dole offices and see how wrong they are: these are just the deluded workers who are being hit, especially in the South East, now that the recession is cutting into welfare services, banking and insurance and other so-called safe jobs.

The myth of the middle class was invented by sociologists who saw themselves as being an intellectual vanguard for such a class, and CW has fallen into the trap of accepting their self-deceit. But there are practical questions which CW had better face up to. In the event of a working-class revolution, are we to assume that millions of teachers and social workers—or, put more clearly, people given a salary to teach infants to read or paid a wage to work in old people's homes or centres for the mentally handicapped—will be regarded as part of the non-working-class enemy? Are we to assume that a nurse with a posh accent or a bank clerk who plays golf at the weekend (both defined as working-class by CW) will be inherently more revolutionary than a junior doctor working sixty-plus hours a week for a pittance or a newsagent who employs a couple of part- time staff? We suggest that CW’s ridiculous class analysis is based upon a romanticised view of the workers as horny-handed sons of toil who wear cloth caps and drop their aitches and a large dose of sociological nonsense based upon middle-class guilt.

What is a revolution?
There are two areas of disagreement here. Firstly, CW throws out the democratic baby with the parliamentary bathwater. Secondly, having rejected a democratic road to the new world society they commit themselves to a policy of foolhardy violence.

As to democratic change, there is a long-standing confusion on this issue which requires serious debate amongst those who seriously seek a new system of society. For us the democratic principle is paramount. There can be no socialism without a majority who want and understand it. Only a socialist majority can enact the revolution. Democracy is not merely a strategic appendage to the thought of the Socialist Party, but it is inseparable from our aim: a truly democratic society. Unless those who seek to establish socialism do so as knowing participants in their emancipation, the outcome cannot be socialism, as it is bound to be the case that those who followed others into any new system would remain followers within it. Democratic change—which means a majority who are conscious and not willing to be passive— is a prerequisite for revolution.

In different parts of the world conscious socialist majorities will express their mandate for the new social system in different ways. In Britain workers have the vote.The vast majority use it now to elect leaders to run capitalism. They are not forced to do so; workers are deceived into wasting their votes on the continuation of their class slavery. Used by revolutionary workers the vote would be the most orderly and peaceful method of giving a mandate for socialism.

CW rejects this, but we see their objection as more based upon anarchist dogma than experience. They say that “as it exists, democracy is most definitely an illusion. It fools us into thinking we can change things through the vote". They argue that instead we should elect workers’ councils or soviets with instantly recallable delegates. The Socialist Party has no dogmatic objection to workers expressing their will through such bodies—why should we? But we warn CW that these bodies can become just as anti-democratic and leader-controlled as parliaments have been if those doing the voting for them are not politically conscious. The soviets in Russia in 1917 were used by the Bolshevik leaders as a means of getting a grip on the malleable workers in them; soviet power became party power.

Parliaments with instantly recallable and democratically elected and accountable delegates sent to outlaw capitalist property rights will make perfectly useful revolutionary bodies. And they can be won now, simply by having a majority of workers using the vote as a revolutionary weapon. CW is just wrong when it claims that "the condition for us to have a right to vote in this competition is that all the candidates are on the bosses’ side". We do live in an undemocratic society and the bosses do have millions to spend on their rotten candidates, and their laws do make it very hard for us to stand against them, but we can and we have. Imagine if we revolutionary socialists had enough candidates to stand in every constituency—if we could win one in ten of the votes cast—if workers started to realise that there is a real political opposition. Could the ruling class ban us at that stage in our growth? Let them try and see how much faster we would grow.

We realise that there are long-standing anarchistic sentiments which make the case for the majority vote seem unappealing. So the debate on this matter must go on, particularly amongst people who agree on the aim of a classless, wageless, moneyless global society. But in the meantime CW is committed to a case for revolution which rejects democracy. They say that “a revolution is not ‘democratic’ in the sense that there might be a majority of our class involved”. From there on in CW’s entire revolutionary strategy is useless.

Who needs violence?
What they seem to envisage is a growing minority of workers rioting, creating no-go areas, entering into violent conflicts with the police and army and eventually bringing about a civil war. They “see violence as necessary and inescapable”. Of course, in a minority revolution violence would be inescapable—and the ruling class, backed by the most sophisticated weaponry and well- trained and paid military force, would rout the insurrectionaries. There is nothing romantic about such a prospect. Look at how the Serbs are currently dealing with the Bosnians and then imagine what would happen if a civil war, fought between an army with NATO-type equipment and a well-tooled gang of glorified rioters, was ever to be fought in the name of working-class revolution.

At times CW glibly glorifies violence, such as in a rather sick passage in Unfinished Business where they recount an occasion in the Spanish Civil War when peasants shot the local nuns and priests and then dug up the bodies of previously dead clergy in order to shoot bullets through them too. “This brilliant piece of working class propaganda sets very well the tone for dealing with religion”, comments CW. But what about dealing with the teachers and the social workers and the greengrocers and the other so-called middle class enemies who must be defeated? Shooting people, even if they are of the most confused and ideologically unpleasant kind, has nothing to do with revolution and is, in fact, a recipe for the rule of bullies and psychopaths.

CW proposes the setting up of no-go areas administered by vigilante-type workers’ militias. You cannot run an army democratically. On the contrary military organisations are notoriously authoritarian. Living on a council estate where thuggish police hassle young workers and blacks is bad news, but the way out is not to create new cops who will, as CW might put it, “sort out their own”. Workers in Ireland who have been on the receiving end of so-called paramilitary justice will be the first to warn against new self-policing squads.

CW warns of “the dangers of these forces becoming detached from our class and becoming a new power in themselves”. The only safeguard against this is to close the doors of the revolutionary movement to those who think with their fists and are happiest when they are playing authoritarian militarist roles. We don’t need them, In a majority revolution the capitalist minority will be likely to cave in peacefully, but even if they do not they could easily be dealt with by the socialist majority.

The basic prerequisite for a socialist revolution is widespread working-class self-education. The Left, who have contempt for workers’ intelligence, have always been against this. They are just officers looking for infantry. The Class War Federation seems to be still at a stage where it is willing to debate and to learn. To that end we challenge them, as workers to workers, to enter the process of public scrutiny and discussion of their ideas and ours.

Steve Coleman

Letters: Sinead O’Connor (1993)

Letters to the Editors from the February 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sinead O’Connor

Dear Editors,

It was wonderful to see the article on Sinead O’Connor in the January Socialist Standard. I wasn’t aware just how clearly she had come out about the money system, and it is very heartening to think that this stuff is getting discussed.

I had been more conscious of her strong feelings about the abusive upbringing of children. and your article has inspired me to set out my ideas about how the two areas relate to each other. I hope I can put this fairly succinctly.

To live under capitalism is to live for some other purpose than our own fulfilment, as Erich Fromm recognises. We strive and suffer, not to grow more fully ourselves, but to amass figures on a screen somewhere. Our lives only have meaning, and our needs will only be met, if someone else can extract some value from us.To live is to be used.

Does this not echo the reality of a child whose parents simply use her to carry their hopes and fears, and do not value her for who she is? Perhaps capitalism can be seen as a big abstract parent, telling us what we can’t have, punishing us for not being good enough. In the face of this system, our deepest needs have to be set aside as we try to satisfy its endlessly changing demands.

I have great respect for the Socialist Party’s realism in facing the fact that workers choose capitalism, that we arc often resistant to ideas of liberation, no matter how rationally argued. Perhaps our acceptance of such a punitive social system is merely our replaying in a different form our punitive childhoods. The resistance to change and new ideas certainly has a very rooted quality to it. I am conscious that you may react with suspicion to these suggestions on the grounds that 1 may appear to be saying “It’s not a matter of economics, but of personal insight”. But I’m not saying that. As long as we have a money system, leaders, coercion. countries, buying and selling and all the rest of it, then humanity will be held back from realising our true potential. and poverty and violence will remain endemic. What I am saying is that this personal dimension seems to me to be a hidden obstacle on the road to a truly free and humanistic society.

I am a parent myself, and no stranger to the pain of wondering if I’m being as supportive and respectful towards my children as they need me to be. Maybe sticking with what we know is a way of avoiding the fear of looking at who we are and how we relate to other people. Maybe the struggle towards a healthy society is connected with the struggle to become healthy individuals.

In any event, best of luck to you (and best of luck to Sinead O'Connor).

Peter Rigg

Nelson, Lancs

Reply:
Rest assured, we don't regard the ideas of Erich Fromm with suspicion. Quite the contrary, in fact—Editors.


Class War again

Dear Comrades,
It was a pleasure to read your article on “The Politics of Class War”. The subject was dealt with very sympathetically and I hope that any members of the CWF who happen to read it. take up your offer to discuss their views further.

Although the article stated that the CWF attracted the attention of the tabloids down South, I had never heard of them or seen any reference to their organization in the Scottish Press—although, admittedly, I am out of touch with political affairs.

Nonetheless, their viewpoint as stated in your article seemed familiar. About fifty years ago when 1 was active in working class politics, there was a European organization—I think they called themselves “Council Communists" or Spartacists (I can’t recall which)—whose literature was sold by a Glasgow organization the "Workers Open Forum”. The “Open Forum” was just that—an open forum which provided a platform for all shades of working class opinion. Every Sunday evening workers could go to the Open Forum and hear speakers from the SPGB. the SLP, the ILP, the CPGB, the Anarchist Federation, the RCP and the Labour Party. Its committee also organized debates between the various organizations mentioned. Literature from these organizations was sold at all these meetings. As you will appreciate there was little opposition from the “Telly" in those days and the meetings were well attended.

It was at these meetings that I obtained the literature of the Council Communists and, speaking from a somewhat snaky memory, I recollect that their views were similar to the CWF. The exponents of their case that I most remember were Anton Pannekoek, a Dutch astronomer, who dealt with philosophical and scientific matters, and Paul Mattick who dealt with economics. I remember them mostly for their articles in the Western Socialist.

I further recollect that they organized a meeting, either in Paris or Amsterdam, to which the SPGB was invited as an observer. The Executive Committee of that time (some forty or so years ago) declined the invitation. At the time I thought the EC were mistaken in their attitude but I can no longer remember the arguments.

Can it be that the CWF are the modern counterparts of the Council Communists? Whether they are nor not, I hope that your invitation to a dialogue is taken up.

Bob Russell

Glasgow

Reply:
As far as we know there is no direct connexion between the Council Communist group you mention and Class War— Editors.


Dear Editors,

Reading the October issue I thought I'd outline a few political points regarding Class War and anti-fascism, and the naive line of the Socialist Party.

I feel there is a great misunderstanding of the transformatory process, and the tasks to be carried out by the revolutionary working class. A revolution will entail new forms of power being used by the working class; both externally for the political struggle against the class enemy/counter-revolutionary forces, and internally for the control of anti-social behaviour (as I do not believe it will disappear overnight).

The sorts of working class active units I have in mind are closely related to the local workers councils or general assemblies. These decision-making bodies monitor the decisions made; and continuous action from, by and for the class is run by the local working class active units. Accountability in the struggle guides effective working class action on problems faced, and methods used in the past to see if they're working properly, and to devise new tactics if necessary.

“Punishment” may include violence if the class enemy is involved, and educative measures within the working class (historically this is the case). This does depend upon the particular situation facing the class though.

Also, no-go areas are not the only revolutionary strategy Class War has. I envisage widespread strikes, demonstrations, pickets, riots etc. Imagining that "the capitalist minority will be likely to cave in peacefully” is unrealistic, lacking historical backup, missing the range of bourgeois forces lined up against the working class, and the levels that they have dropped to and will drop to again.

You also misunderstand the nature of anti-fascist violence (back page, Socialist Standard, October), violence is only fascist if it is used with fascist ideas and intentions behind it. Anti-fascist violence is done with revolutionary working class ideas behind it, being one of the elements of revolutionary working class strategy.

Gerry Gable (bigwig of Searchlight) is against giving a (bourgeois) democratic platform to fascists; he recently said “I was in Germany recently and the coverage they were receiving was disgraceful. They would show young thugs attacking refugee hostels,' which was okay—it showed them for the mindless fools they are but then they would return to the studio and some well-dressed articulate neo- nazi would go on to justify these attacks in what some people would accept as a plausible fashion”. One of the working class anti-fascist strategies is no platform for fascists, the others being education and agitation.

Finally, I suggest Socialist Standard readers read The Coercive State by Hillyard and Smith. It’s a bit liberal but it carries lots of useful information on the "State of Democracy". Since it was published, however, things have got worse—people off the electoral register because of poll tax, etc. The message to be drawn is that we will never win on their terms.

I support Class War (and class warfare) because it is the war to end all wars!

Dave Clark

East London Class War 

London E8

Reply:
The danger in the "transformatory tasks” outlined is that the revolutionaries punishing, educating and guiding the rest of the population might well take on the authoritarian attitudes of a new ruling class. The only way to avoid this is to ensure that no revolution proceeds unless and until a majority of workers understand and want it. It is Class War’s failure to see the crucial importance of conscious majority action which could lead them, like "revolutionaries” in the past, into the rut of leadership tactics.

We do not agree that only intentionally fascist violence is fascistic. We are hostile to fascists, not least for their policy of dragging working-class politics into the mire of violence, and we shall play our part in defeating their pernicious ideology, using the force of scientific reason. (See the article "What the Fascists Need” elsewhere in this issue).

We have read the book which you recommend, which does indeed offer a piercing critique of the viciousness of the modern British state. For the record, one of its authors is a member of the Socialist Party and can therefore be expected to understand what the state is all about—Editors.

Letters: Getting Rid of Capitalism (2018)

Letters to the Editors from the November 2018 issue of the Socialist Standard

Getting Rid of Capitalism

Hi,

Doesn’t seem like there’s much to reply to, you mention the book in the first paragraph (‘How to destroy capitalism’, Socialist Standard, September 2018) but don’t actually discuss any of the points it makes.

A question for you: in the last 150 odd years, Marxist approaches to creating ‘society wide political and workplace action’ haven’t been successful to say the least. Capitalism is still very much alive and kicking. You say ending capitalism will come from a majority vote, but a tiny and shrinking handful of people vote for socialist programmes. What reasons do you have to think the same slogans and organising models will be more successful in the future?

Cheers,

Shahin (author of ‘Capitalism. What It Is and How Can We Destroy It?’)

Reply:

The article was not meant specifically to be a review of your book, only to answer the same question you posed in the title.

We can’t deny that capitalism is still alive and kicking, but this means that all the various theories as to how to get rid of capitalism have not been successful, not just Marxist, but anarchist, syndicalist, Leninist and reformist ones too.

We do indeed say that capitalism can only be ended when a majority is in favour of this and takes deliberate, democratic action to bring it about; which involves more than merely voting for it – it also involves organising democratically outside parliament. This is because socialism, as a society without economic or political coercion, could only be sustained by people willingly cooperating and participating in its running. Socialism is a democratic cooperative society that can only come into being democratically, i.e., with majority support and participation.

That is what we are working towards. There is no other way. If such a majority does not emerge then socialism won’t and capitalism will continue. – Editors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bone and Mogg

What does the SPGB have to say about the debacle on LBC radio in September about Ian Bone re Jacob Rees-Mogg and his crappy children? From what I heard on LBC Ian Bone called Mogg ‘a horrible person’ and said it to his children. LBC demonised Ian Bone for this.

J.S., 

London SW4

Reply:

Ian Bone and Class War have always specialised in anti-rich stunts but it is the capitalist system that is to blame for the lot of the majority class of wage and salary workers not individual members of the capitalist class such as Jacob Rees-Mogg. He may (or may not) be a horrible person – he comes across as a caricature of a toff and so an obvious target for a Class War stunt – but that is completely irrelevant. Remove him and replace him by a ‘nice’ capitalist and it would make no difference. Should Ian Bone have targeted Mogg’s children? Maybe, but only to tell them that capitalism is a horrible system – Editors.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Correction

Hi,

The September Socialist Standard and its obituary of Ron Stone states that he was a poet and wrote the poem ‘Wage Restraint’ which was published in the Eighties.

That particular poem was actually written by Roger Woddis under the title of, ‘How They Solved the Economic Crisis’ and was published in either the New Statesman or Punch. It later appeared in the book, The Woddis Collection first published in 1978 by Barrie & Jenkins 24 Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX.

Richard Layton

Reality (2012)

Book Review from the July 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Policing the Crisis. Class War. 44 pages. £1.

This is a pamphlet published this May Day by the anarchist group known for the photographic series 'hospitalised coppers' and pictures of the “Working Class Fights Back” at the 1990 Poll Tax Riot.

The section 'Police Crimes Against the Working Class Movement' is a historical survey of the police and the working class in Britain.  Minority class property is why the police exist; the police force is part of the executive arm of the capitalist state, and as such, the enemy of the working class, even if that’s from where its members are recruited.

The pamphlet reproduces Dave Douglass’s 1986 Come and Wet This Truncheon which details police 'crimes' against the striking miners, their families and communities during the year-long strike. This makes sobering reading. If read in conjunction with The Secret War Against the Miners by Seamus Milne which details MI5 and Special Branch operations against them, it is quite clear the state is used by the capitalist class against the working class to further its own economic interests.

Like Bakunin, Class War accepts Marx's class analysis and his economic theories about capitalism. Class War describes how “force is necessary by capitalism to move the developing situations towards a new balance of class relationships more favourable to them. It is never death or pain free”.

As capitalism has become more 'unfettered' since the 1980s, the capitalist state has relied more on its enforcers to ensure the new economic relationships are ‘accepted’, and significantly, although statistics claim crime is going down, the prison population has doubled in size in the last thirty years. Today we have austerity economics imposed on us and dissent is ruthlessly dealt with; the police threaten to shoot protesting students; last summer's social breakdown in the inner cities has resulted in obviously political sentences for ‘rioters’; and the concept of ‘pre-crime’ is now used to prevent any dissent against the bourgeois consensus of the Royal Wedding, Jubilee and the Olympics.

Class War are heirs to Bakunin with their emphasis on the 'propaganda of the deed': direct action philosophy, and opposition to taking part in capitalist elections (although Ian Bone, anarchist publisher of Class War, was involved in Bristol local elections in 2003, and Class War plan to stand a candidate for Mayor of Hackney in 2014).

As socialists we reject Bakunin's love of conspiracy, insurrection and his cult of violence. Marx once described 'anarchy' as the ultimate aim of the proletarian movement when classes will be abolished and the power of the state disappears. He can even be said to have anticipated that other historical anarchist Kropotkin in aiming at an anarchist communism which is a stateless, moneyless, wageless society and not a worker's state.

Steve Clayton