News in Review: Rhodesian colour bar (1960)

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

Rhodesian colour bar
The business interests of the Rhodesian Federation are making slow but steady progress in their attempt to build up a system free from colour bars, and from the inconveniences these cause in trade and industry. In the Northern Rhodesian copper mines, for example, the owners have long wanted to be able to call on the great reserve of local African labour for all the jobs in the mines, instead of having many of them reserved for Europeans. The resistance of the white miners to these proposals led to a long strike by the Europeans in 1958. But after a year's negotiation between the European miners’ union and six of the mining companies, the latter have at last persuaded the whites to allow at least all the unskilled jobs to be done by Africans. It is significant that the African mineworkers' union, although it gave a modified welcome to the agreement, took no part in the discussions: it was the owners who argued the case against the colour bar.


Monckton and Tredgold
In the political field, the. industrial interests are also forging ahead in their struggle with the planters' government under Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Edgar Whitehead. The recent Monckton commission recommended that secession from the Federation should be permitted, even though Welensky only allowed the commission into Rhodesia on Macmillan's promise that they would not be allowed to judge on the question of secession. But clearly the capitalists of Rhodesia feel that they could count on more co-operation from African governments in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia than from the present settlers' government which controls the whole Federation. As they feel their position crumbling, the planters try to bolster their control of the government. Sir Edgar Whitehead has brought in a Law and Order Bill to give himself sweeping powers “to maintain order” (i.e., to silence any opposition which gets out of hand). This has led to the resignation of Sir Robert Tredgold, the Chief Justice of the Federation, in protest. He is to lead a new movement to get rid of Sir Edgar Whitehead. All of which emphasizes the fact that those who support capitalism in Rhodesia are more and more turning on the pressure to over throw the former ruling class, the planters.


Labour controversy
When one considers the issues involved in the recent Labour Party controversy one can only wonder just what all the fuss was about. We were told that if Mr. Gaitskell continues as leader of the Labour Party it may mean the disintegration of that party. Mr. Wilson on the other hand was said to have been of a more conciliatory nature and because of this was more likely to have kept the party united. We are not concerned here with the personalities of the individuals involved except to point out that on the question of what started the controversy, namely, conference decisions on Defence, they differed only in their respective views on how best to maintain some appearance of solidarity in the labour movement. It had been said that should the issue have been settled either way it could possibly have meant the end of the Labour Party “as an effective opposition.” Socialists would have had no such illusions. Since the Labour Party’s inception the S.P.G.B. have been pointing out that the Party in question is not so much a party of opposition as an alternative government, having an occasional term of office in an endeavour to solve the same inevitable capitalist problems which the outgoing party have failed to solve. Socialists would be the last to shed any tears should the present controversy bring about the disintegration of the Labour Party.


Breakdown ?
Unhappy days seem to be here again in the car industry, as heavy redundancies develop in France, Germany and Great Britain. The Canadians have a similar problem and have responded by persuading their government to impose stricter conditions of dumping duty on car imports.

Unemployment is an old working class problem; it is especially ironical that it should reappear in an industry whose product has been the sacred symbol of post-war “prosperity.”

Capitalism, with or without full employment, is a system in which cars, like other commodities, are made only if they can be sold. This—not the policies of parsimonious governments or perfidious car companies—is the root of the troubles in the car industry.

Many workers, with a hire-purchase heap shrouded in balloon fabric at the kerbside, thought that what they called prosperity would last for ever. For these, the redundancies must come as a shock.

Sadly, there is no reason to suppose that unemployed workers are more receptive to the lessons of capitalist society than those who are working. Boom or slump, capitalism is an insecure system and must remain so.


“News Chronicle”
The News Chronicle stuck to what it chose to call its liberal principles like a prim old Auntie watching her hemline. Whatever sordid facts capitalism produced for it to comment upon, the Chronicle’s attitude was always impeccably virtuous.

An innocent could have been forgiven for believing that the newspaper existed only to expound lofty morality.

But the end of the News Chronicle and The Star had nothing to do with principles. Simply, they sold out because they could not balance their accounts: their revenue from sales, advertising and so on did not cover their costs of wages, materials and the like.

The people who sink money into newspapers like to receive a return on their investment, which means that the Chronicle, like any other commodity, was produced for profitable sale. They stopped producing the paper when it became obvious that it had little hope of ever making a profit.

This is the sort of event about which the high-minded Chronicle often had sad and stern words to say. It is ironical that it should have fallen foul of the same commercial necessities of capitalist society.

Head Office (1960)

Party News from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Socialist Party of Great Britain need a Head Office in Central London comprising a large room, suitable for Executive Committee and other meetings; plus a number of other rooms, for literature distribution. sub-committee meetings, etc. The location must be within reasonable walking distance of an Underground station, in the Kings Cross, Euston, or Camden Town areas; or could be a little further North, or further West. The market for business properties is very lively nowadays. and our approaches to agents have not led to any success. Therefore we ask readers who may be able to help, to send their suggestions to: The New Premises Committee. 52 Clapham High Street, London, SW4.

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

Peace a Profession? (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Peace Is Our Profession. Headquarters Strategic. Air Command," states the giant notice board outside the U.S. Strategic Air Command H.Q. at Omaha, Nebraska. From this base, under the command of General Power, are directed the activities of 250,000 personnel in seventy bases throughout the world, over 2,000 bombers and jet-tankers, and 90 per cent. of the Western Alliance's nuclear striking power.

In the event of war over 1,000 bombers, each one capable of more destruction than all the bombers involved in the whole of the last war, would be sent aloft. The crews of these bombers have pre-arranged targets and are constantly on the alert; at least once every twenty-four hours the alarm is sounded. The entire fleet of aircraft can be airborne within a quarter of an hour—the first within three and a half minutes.

Under a system of warnings and controls the crews are able to fly to predetermined points on their target routes; if they have a final go-ahead, on the express orders of the American President, they would continue on their routes and press home their attack. (If this final order is not given the bombers are instructed to return to their bases). Simultaneously intercontinental ballistic missiles—the long range rockets with H- bomb war-heads—would be released.

And so it goes on, this melancholy tale of potential destruction on a scale hitherto undreamt of.

These facts and figures apply more or less equally to the Soviet bloc and, of course, to Britain's R.A.F. and the air forces of other powers, all of which are on a permanent war footing. It’s all for peace and for the defence of righteous principles—they all say.

The American ruling class and their allies allege that it's a case of safeguarding freedom, democracy, “a way of life," a heritage; and, to help things along, they are never shy of enlisting the Almighty. Krushchev and company's tale is a little different. Apparently they have to offer defence against imperialism (particularly the American variety) to keep safe the “People's State" and “Socialism." So in order that people should remain “free" (both sides having their own peculiar definitions of this term), opposing capitalist powers are prepared if necessary to take part in the possible wholesale destruction of mankind.

What can be done to end this terrible state of affairs? Capitalist politicians can only talk on terms of a third world war and local conflicts (which may or may not remain localised) as long as they have the unquestioning support of the world's workers. Without this they would be impotent.

Modern wars are caused by property conflicts between rival teams of big business, arrayed on a national level, the private bosses of America and the state bosses of Russia being at present the major contestants. The stakes are high: vast resources, natural and man made, markets for an ever increasing volume of goods, to protect or capture these, capitalist states need strategic bases and political spheres of influence.

With these real, material, profitable bones of contention the alleged principles are clearly demonstrated to be something less than principles. Former enemies who were never, never to be re-armed, become military allies, and personal association with the previous regime is no impediment in this unsavoury process. Franco Spain and Salazar Portugal help to protect “democracy," as does Chiang Kai Shek and as did Syngmann Rhee. Dubious Latin American regimes are supported, so as to ensure stability; that is, the status quo on investments. The Soviet hierarchy with their commercial, and therefore, military commitments, are not at a loss in the game; in fact, they are racing neck and neck, if not leading by a short head.

Fidel Castro seems to be a friend in need at the moment; strategy and oil are more than remarkable coincidences (Batista, his more sadistic predecessor, was a stabiliser of Uncle Sam's). Nasser was the lad sometime ago, and new faces representing new aspiring ruling classes are constantly arising from the colonial struggles.

And so this dirty game of power politics goes on, over issues which are not worth the shedding of one drop of working class blood. It is now 21 years since the beginning of World War II. It began with Allied indignation at German bombing of “open cities," like Warsaw, went on with indiscriminate aerial bombardment by both sides, and concluded with Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Are you going to allow an even greater catastrophe, or are you going to wake up NOW!

Frank Simkins

The Passing Show: Freedom of the Press (1960)

The Passing Show Column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Freedom of the Press
In recent years many newspapers have been forced to cease publication or to sell out and merge with their competitors. No longer are only small papers involved: in the past few months papers as well known as the Sunday Empire News, the News Chronicle and the Star, have gone the way of the rest. It is a cliche that the Freedom of the Press is in practice the freedom of rich men to spread their views through the newspapers they own. Those of us in the Socialist Party know only too well that without vast amounts of capital the Socialist Standard has been able to reach only a small minority of the working class. But the conditions of entry in the newspaper stakes are becoming even more stringent than ever before. The News Chronicle lost money (and therefore, in a capitalist society, had in due course to close down) even though it had a daily readership of over one million. People other than millionaires have not been able to produce a healthy daily paper for many years: now, even the lesser millionaires must be getting worried. Once any millionaire with a taste for it could partake of the Freedom of the Press: now, apparently, only multi-millionaires are allowed to join the club.

Harmony
The news that the Archbishop of Canterbury is going to visit the Pope makes one wonder what they will talk about. At any rate, we can be sure it won't do the working class any good. For the Pope agrees with the Archbishop that capitalism is a fine system. This is from the Sunday Press (18/10/59):

  The Holy Father yesterday contrasted the appalling exploitation of workers at the beginning of the century with their present-day pleasant working conditions. Management and labour, working together in harmony, had created a new situation where the workers had never had it so well.

The reader may think that at least it is something that the Pope realises that things were bad sixty years ago. But, of course, everyone will agree that things were bad sixty years ago. The ruling class and its allies are prepared to admit anything except that the present system is bad. In the early years of the century, when the Socialist Party was already working, speaking and writing about "the appalling exploitation of workers," the then Popes were supporting the capitalist system, just as the present Pope supports the capitalist system now. In fifty years' time, no doubt, the Pope (if there still is one) will be talking about “the appalling exploitation of the workers in I960." But it does no good to attack the evils of half a century ago: they can't be altered now. What must be done is to attack the evils of today—i.e., the evils which are inseparable from the capitalist system.

Pray and work

And what has the Pope to say about the present? He gave, apparently, a “rousing warning against those who trampled the sacrosanct rights of the human person’’—but had no word to say of the Catholic-supported Fascist government of Spain, which denies the workers the most elementary democratic rights. And he rounded off with some advice which must have had every capitalist in the audience standing and cheering:

  The Pope recommended the workers to practise Christian virtues and follow the motto of St. Benedict, “Ora et Labora” (pray and work). In so doing, you will earn the treasures of heaven, he said. 

Believe that if you like. One thing is certain: you won't earn treasures anywhere else.


Monkey business
At a furniture factory in Houston, Texas, three chimpanzees have begun work sealing cushions and doing other simple jobs. The factory-owner plans to replace one employee each week with a chimp. To the factory's workers, this means the threat of the sack, the threat of unemployment. But there is more to it than that. Surely this news item underlines our present predicament. These human beings—members of the human race, which produced Michaelangelo, Beethoven, Shakespeare—are now reduced to spending their working lives doing monotonous, repetitive jobs which could be done as well by chimpanzees. This is not a question of spending a couple of hours a day, or ten hours a week, tending machines, which people may well decide to do under Socialism, in order to produce enough of the necessaries of life and at the same time free themselves for the rest of the time to develop their personalities as they think best. This is a question of workers spending their entire working lives on stultifying tasks.

The Daily Herald (12/11/60) printed an article which said this should be stopped because of the harm it would do to the human ego. “. . . There are things that the human ego rejects, out of hand, without another thought. And one of those things is the realisation that one's occupation, one’s life work, could be done equally well by a chimpanzee.”

This must typify the difference in political thought between reformers and Socialists. The writer of the Herald article would stop the chimpanzees doing "these jobs, because it makes obvious the degradation of human beings involved— this, of course, would do nothing to stop the degradation. Socialists, on the other hand, want to abolish the system which leads to men spending their lives in this way.

No trivialities

From an advert, in The Times (19/10/60):

  The owner of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II has his sights firmly on fundamentals and is never decoyed by passing trivialities. A philosophy reflected in his choice of motor car. . . .

So that’s how you get a Rolls. Next time you see anyone driving a broken-down old jalopy tied together with string, don’t assume rashly that it’s because he can’t afford anything better: no, it was his philosophy which led him to choose that model. If you feel that you have your “sights firmly on fundamentals” and the rest of it—well, your philosophy clearly entitles you to a Rolls. Better apply direct.

Alwyn Edgar

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

The Hidden Persuaders (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Hidden Persuaders, by Vance Packard. (Penguin Books. 2/6d.)

This interesting, and in part entertaining, critique of a now not so new approach to advertising has recently been added to the Penguin catalogue. Although this one short book obviously cannot, and indeed does not attempt to, deal more than very superficially with the subject (as well as revealing Mr. Packard's obvious bias) it contains much useful information and some pertinent comments.

Motivation research invented and pioneered by people like Dr. Ernest Dichter (President of Motivation Research Inc.) and Louis Cheskin (Director of the Colour Research Institute of America) as early as the 1930's, has been developed since the second World War, and really became established in the early I950‘s. Even today those who are most enthusiastic admit that “M.R.” is only in its early stages.

What is M.R., and how does it help in advertising? Briefly, it could be explained as “selling to the subconscious that is, finding people’s hidden weaknesses, wishes and frustrations, and exploiting these in order that, to meet expanding production, they can be persuaded to buy more.

Different experts favour different methods of M.R., the best known of these is the “depth interview." For this individuals or groups of people taken from a cross section of the population are led in discussion by experts, having first been put in a relaxed state of mind either by hypnosis or the administration of a special drug. It is claimed by advocates of this method that. "when their defences are down,” people reveal secrets to which they would not admit under normal circumstances.

M.R. is used not only in persuading the consumer to buy more. Public relations experts can be found advising churchmen on how they can become more effective manipulators of their congregation, business concerns of their employees and politicians of their voters.

By the mid-fifties both major United States Parties had become deeply involved in the use of professional persuaders. In early 1956 “Nation's Business,” published by the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, proclaimed: “Both parties will merchandise their candidates and issues by the same methods that business has developed to sell goods. These include scientific selection of appeals, planned repetition. . . . Candidates need, in addition to rich voices and good diction, to be able to look ‘sincerely' at the TV camera." This method of ‘selling’ was used to such an extent at the last but one Presidential Election that Mr. Adlai Stevenson said: “The idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal . . . is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process."

As Socialists are not surprised that those in control under the present system are constantly trying to think of new ways to persuade us (quoting Christianity and Crisis, an American Protestant publication) ‘‘to consume, consume and consume, whether we need or even desire the product almost forced upon us . . . to consume to meet the needs of the productive process,” to accept their ideas, religion and leaders.

Although at present the use of M.R. in the United Kingdom is negligible, it will certainly increase. The Observer may have had this in mind when featuring Dr. Dichter in their “Profile" a few weeks ago.

Mr. Packard in his final chapter quotes Clyde Miller in his book The Process of Persuasion: “When we learn to recognise the devices of the persuaders, we build a ‘recognition reflex.' Such a recognition reflex can protect us, not only against the petty trickery of small time persuaders operating in the commonplace affairs of everyday life, but also against the mistaken or false persuasions of powerful leaders. . . That, surely, is a good thing for all of us to bear in mind when listening to the utterances of those who “lead" us today.

E. C.

Clear Thinking (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Thinking to Some Purpose, by L. Susan Stebbing. Penguin Books (2/6).

Do you know what special pleading is? Would you recognise a syllogism if you saw one? Do you realise the fallacies that may lie behind an “average” figure?

If you are a Socialist—reading, discussing, arguing about Socialism—you will know how necessary it is to be able to detect fallacies in your opponent’s arguments. And, for that matter, in your own. Thinking to Some Purpose will enable you to recognise immediately all the most common fallacies. It gives the groundwork of logic, put in simple, straightforward terms.

Special pleading, for example. This arises when someone makes an assertion that apparently applies to everyone, and yet clearly it is never intended to apply to the speaker. The speaker, in other words, makes an implied “special plea” in his own favour.

  You may hear a person who lives on a large inherited income complaining that the “dole” given to the unemployed “pauperizes” them by giving them the means of subsistence without working for it. Or, again, wealthy people sometimes argue that, if higher wages were paid to bricklayers and miners, for instance, they will only spend the extra money on amusements, such as the cinema and football pools; yet these same people may defend their own expenditure on amusements and luxuries on the ground that they are giving employment.

Miss Stebbing also quotes the well-known example of special pleading from Archdeacon Paley’s Reasons for Contentment addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public, part of which runs:

  But no man can rest who has not worked. Rest is the cessation of labour. It cannot, therefore, be enjoyed, or tasted, except by those who have known fatigue. The rich see, and not without envy, the refreshment and pleasure which rest affords to the poor, and choose to wonder that they cannot find the same enjoyment in being free from the necessity of working at all.

Archdeacon Paley is saying here, in effect, that a poor labouring life is (for various reasons) a good thing; but at the same time he enters an implied “special plea” on behalf of the rich, since obviously these arguments are not intended to apply to them. As Miss Stebbing says, the poor “may have found it difficult to believe that the rich, who showed no eagerness to become poor, were in fact envious of the conditions imposed by poverty.”

To come to the second of the questions at the beginning of the article, a syllogism is a group of three statements, of such a kind that if the first two (the premises) are true, then the third (the conclusion) must also be true. For example:

All grass is green.This plant is grass.Therefore—This plant is green.

One of the reasons why one should be able to recognise a syllogism is that it enables one to see what isn’t a syllogism. We have all heard arguments like this:

I read in the paper that John Jones had knocked down an old woman and stolen her money.John Jones is a negro.Therefore all Negroes knock down old women and steal their money.

When written out in this way, the argument is obviously absurd. But it is on this level that very much political argument is carried on, and one has to be prepared to see it for what is is, and to counter it.

As for averages, it has to be remembered that while they are useful in summarizing information in some cases, in others they may well mislead. Suppose, for example, that in one group of eleven people, ten received £500 a year, and one £5,000 a year. It could be concluded that they all had enough to live on, because the average income of these eleven people is over £900. But, of course, that would be totally misleading. The average used here is what is called the “arithmetic mean”—that is, the figure obtained by adding up all the items in the group and dividing by the total number of items. A much better idea of the realities of the situation could be obtained by taking the mode, that is the item in the group that occurs most frequently, or the typical representative of the group. In the above group, the mode income is £500 a year, since ten of the eleven people in the group receive it. But very often the newspapers or political speakers use the arithmetic mean where the mode would be more appropriate, to try to prove, for example, that we “all” spend fantastic sums per week on tobacco, or drink, or gambling, and that therefore we must “all” be very well off.

Miss Stebbing covers all these and many other points of logic. She was not a Socialist. But she wrote a book which will be read with profit by anyone who wishes to train himself to think clearly.

Alwyn Edgar

Organisation Man (1960)

Book Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Are you fond of literature and music? Would you put your wife and children before your work? Do you feel unhappy about the way society is organised?

Yes? Then it’s unlikely you’ve the makings of a good Organisation Man—one of the fast-expanding army of junior and middle managements men in American Big Business.

William H. Whyte, an American journalist with an interest in sociology, puts him under the microscope in The Organization Man, published by Penguin Books in a 3s. 6d. edition. He reveals a picture of co-operation with conformity.

The typical O.M., a college graduate with a strong technical bias, sinks his individual identity into the group. He thinks, talks and acts like the collective. “Don't question or query things, accept them; be technically efficient, co-operate with the Company, and you’ll be looked after” is the philosophy peddled by his “benevolent” boss.

At work, he trains as a “dedicated” specialist in a team of “ dedicated ” specialists, toes the Company line, and wins promotion through personality tests—"Do yon agree foreigners are dirtier than Americans”?—designed to determine his ability to integrate himself in the Organisation.

At home, a mortgaged-to-the-hilt house in a “model” suburb, he and his wife participate actively in local affairs and just about make ends meet on a perpetual overdraft.

Whyte is worried about the O.M.’s loss of individuality; he calls it “a surrender to dehumanised values.” He’s worried, too, about the growing emphasis on specialisation at the expense of a broad, liberal education.

But both factors are not peculiar to American capitalism, or, for that matter, to Big Business.

First, unorthodox thought which questions the social system has never been popular with capitalists anywhere, be they large or small. And today the bigger capitalists in Western Europe, as well as America, strive to sidetrack criticism of the system among their executives with the carrot of Company cars, expense accounts, special allowances and top-hat pension schemes.

Second, scientific and technological skills are of vital importance to the advanced industrial nations in their cut-throat competitive struggles. A knowledge of higher mathematics produces more profits than a knowledge of Greek mythology.

Whyte urges the O.M. to fight back, but “not selfishly or stupidly,” and certainly not with the aim of changing society. Like every reformer, he has no real quarrel with capitalism which breeds conformity and an education system shackled to the profit motive.

He has yet to understand that only in a society liberated from the profit motive can man develop his individuality and knowledge to serve the common good.

Peter Jenner

Communists in Name Alone (1960)

Pamphlet Review from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many people are taken in by the apparently Socialist phrasing used in Communist Party literature. The fact that Moscow publishes some of Marx's works tends to convince such people that the Russian system is based on Marxism and is building Socialism. Without going any further into the matter, they find it hard to believe that the so-called Communist Party is not genuinely Marxist or Communist in character.

Even people who are opposed to the Communist Party, or who are not interested in politics at all, accept the myth that a basically different system exists in Russia. The propaganda machines of both East and West agree that Russia. China, and their satellites, are Communist. They simply disagree as to its desirability, although it is doubtful whether the ruling class of either side are really so naive.

A careful reading of The British Road to Socialism, the most recent programme of the Communist Party, gives some indication of how utterly confused and muddle-headed that organisation is. They freely'use the term “Socialism,” but their “explanations” betray only too dearly the fact that they have not the vaguest notion of what it means. Having stuck a Socialist label on their State enterprise capitalist programme, they proceed in great detail to show us how different it is from private enterprise capitalism.

The more they elaborate the more familiar becomes the ring of reformism, compromise and collaboration. The capitalist terminology is not disguised, it is blandly called Socialist.

The most important question that arises from the pamphlet is—if this programme were put into effect would it at least be a greater advance towards Socialism than continued Tory and Labour administrations? The answer is an emphatic “NO.“ If the working-class were to support the Communist Party on a programme of State Capitalism, as outlined in the pamphlet and called Socialism, the only result would be disillusionment. In Russia and her Empire all the ugly features of capitalism are clearly to be seen. There is no evidence that state bosses are any better for the working-class than private bosses.

The state is essentially an instrument of class rule and will not exist in a classless society—Socialism. This is a fact which some of the old Bolsheviks knew, but having taken power when historical development was bringing capitalism into being, they turned their backs on it. They have also turned their backs on Marx’s analysis of capitalist society.

As the programme makes repeated references to a “Socialist Government" and a “Socialist Britain” and uses such terms as the “Socialist State” and the “Working-Class State,” it is clearly evident that the so-called Communist Party imagines that nations, states and governments will continue to exist under Socialism. A few quotations will show how capitalism has made them eat their words on the question of the state and how they have adulterated Marxism in order to try and make it support its opposite.

Engels writes in Anti-Duhring: 

The modern state, whatever its form, is an essentially capitalist machine; it is the state of the capitalists, the ideal collective body of all capitalists. The more productive forces it takes over as its property, the more citizens it exploits. The workers remain wage-earners, proletarians. The capitalist relationship is not abolished; it is rather pushed to an extreme.

Lenin knew this to be the Marxist view of the stale. In a pamphlet (Lenin and Stalin on the State), for example, he tells us “. . . the State is the product and the manifestation of the irreconcilability of class antagonism. The State arises when, where, and to the extent that class antagonisms cannot be objectively reconciled. And, conversely, the existence of the State proves that the class antagonisms are irreconcilable.” (Page 26).

The truth that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has all along been the instrument for the building of modern industrial capitalism in Russia can be seen from the wage labour and capital basis of the Russian system. Vishinsky who, unlike many of the old Bolsheviks, died of natural causes, contemptuously stated that the so-called doctrine of the withering away of the State has been a favourite subject of petty-bourgeois chatter about Marxism. “What we want is a strong State with a redoubtable repressive apparatus." (The Patriotic War of the Soviet Government, published in Moscow, 1944).

It has been necessary to show the true nature of the State in order to make clear the all-important fact that the existence of the State is incompatible with common ownership of the means of production. Common ownership means class-less society, therefore, the absence of the class State or repressive apparatus. Furthermore, it is vital to establish this point because the “Socialist State,” a contradiction in terms, is the central theme and the basic proposition of the so-called Communist Party’s programme.

It follows that the rambling list of reforms which make up the programme to be carried out by a “Communist” government brands them as a purely state-capitalist party.

Although the British Road to Socialism consists of only thirty pages, there are so many fallacies and misconceptions that a hefty volume would be needed to thoroughly deal with each anti-Socialist proposition.

It is suggested, for example, that the Labour Party could join with the Communist Party to establish Socialism in Britain. This, despite the fact that the Labour Party has never stood for Socialism and when in power has run capitalism and been guilty of every anti-working-class act in the book. When in opposition, the Labour Party is obsessed with trying to find a policy that will get them elected to run capitalism again. To talk of a Socialist Britain with a "foreign policy” is to contradict the essential world-wide nature of Socialism, which in a world system there will be no "foreigners.”

To talk of foreign trade is to deny production for use and free access. Distribution according to needs is the basis of Socialism. To talk of trade at all is to talk of the struggle for markets, and rivalry for resources. To talk of trade is to talk of war. To talk of “independence for colonial peoples ” is to propose the setting up of more national states on the lines of home ruled capitalism with still more rivalry. Independence is the cry of the nationalist but it does not end the dependance of the working-class upon wages. Nationalism atomises the world into a number of mutually hostile fragments, where the workers in each fragment line up with their native capitalists. Internationalism expresses the oneness of working-class interest in the struggle to overthrow the wages system and establish the world community of Socialism.

For the Communist Party to talk of “the withdrawal of all armed forces from colonial and dependent territories or occupied spheres of influence and the handing over of sovereignty to governments freely chosen by their peoples," is hypocrisy in view of the imperialist record of the Soviet Union.

Socialism means the end of the employer to employee relationship, the end of landlord and tenant. Under Socialism there will be no pensions or benefits, which are the hall-marks of poverty under welfare capitalism.

To say that the Communist Party “will raise pensions and benefits for the old, the widows, the disabled and the chronic sick . . .”, is to say they will continue with a system of rich and poor. They promise to provide cheap houses at “a low rent.” Once again, it is only poor people who need low rents. Socialism means no rents because accommodation, like everything else, will be produced solely for use.

To anybody with half an eye the fact that the Communist Party talks of “reduction of mortgage interest charges,” “lower cost of repairs,” “finance,” “lower prices and higher wages,” shows how firmly they are in the grip of the economics of Capitalism.

In the final chapter, another futile effort is made to woo the Labour Party and the co-operative movement. Marx is linked with Lenin (with whom he has less in common than chalk has with cheese), and we find “church organisations” and “business people” listed amongst the “progressive forces" which will “open up the way for the advance to Socialism.”

It is indeed tragic that workers are so easily fooled by names, for even the most rudimentary understanding of Communism will expose the sham of those who are Communist in name alone.

Harry Baldwin

Wages (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The wages of work is cash.

The wages of cash is want more cash.

The wages of want more cash is vicious competition.

The wages of vicious competition is—the world we live in. 

The work—cash—want circle is the viciousest circle 

that ever turned men into fiends. 

Earning a wage is a prison occupation 

and a wage-earner is a sort of gaol-bird.

Earning a salary is a prison overseer’s job. 

a gaoler instead of a gaol-bird. 

Living on your income is strolling grandly outside the prison 

in terror lest you have to go in. And since 

the work-prison covers almost every scrap of the living 

earth, you stroll up and down on a narrow beat, about the same as a prisoner taking his exercise. 

This is called universal freedom.

From “Pansies” (1929) by D. H. Lawrence

(Published by Marlin Seeker)

Party News (1960)

Party News from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Wembley
Wembley Branch has continued with its series of very interesting historical lectures, given by members of the Branch. These talks have stimulated good discussion and have been advertised in the local press. Current details are given elsewhere in this issue. Canvassing of the Socialist Standard is a regular feature of the Branch activity and some very worthwhile results have been obtained. At present, the order stands at 18 dozen copies per month, and it is hoped to expand sales gradually in the future.

The efforts of the Branch press correspondent have met with some gratifying success. The local paper has published write-ups of our meetings and lectures and, just recently, featured in full a letter on the question of rents and housing. The comrades were very encouraged to see this, particularly as the Editor took the trouble to inform his readers, in a footnote, that we were not connected with the Labour Party.

On December 17th, Branch comrades are running a Social at Ealing Park Tavern. South Ealing Road, W.5. Tickets are available from the Branch Secretary at 3s. 6d. each and the usual arrangements are in hand, including a band, and free refreshments. We look forward to a very happy get-together.


British Columbia
Last month under the title, “News from Canada,” we stated that the application of the Victoria Branch of the Socialist Party of Canada for an open-air speaking spot in a park has been refused. It appears that the local council have evidently relented, for we now learn that the Branch is holding outdoor meetings in Beacon Hill Park.

We have received some cuttings from Victoria local papers, with pictures of our comrades in action, and a statement that 200 attended their first meeting--including active hecklers.

One local paper had this to say

The inauguration of Victoria city’s own Hyde Park proved itself a great success Sunday afternoon. A very respectable crowd in both size, interest and behaviour braved rain, mud and buzzing model planes to listen to the ideas of the Socialist Party of Canada, the thoughts of a philosopher’s philosopher, and an appeal to give more blood.

These meetings should give a well deserved fillip to the efforts of our energetic comrades in Victoria.


Coventry
Our comrades in Coventry are organising a Group. Will members and sympathisers in the area contact P. Boylan at 71, Ford Street. Coventry. Already the nucleus of members has accomplished a lot, and with the added enthusiasm from other comrades, it will be possible to pave the way to the formation of the “Coventry Branch.”


The “Standard”
How do you obtain your copy of the Socialist Standard? At a meeting, a newsagent, a Branch? From a friend, street seller or casual acquaintance? No matter which, there is only one way to be certain of regularly receiving your copy each month—and that is by subscribing. For 7s. 6d. a year the Socialist Standard will be posted direct to you at the beginning of each month. Complete the form on page 191 and be certain of receiving the Socialist Standard throughout 1961.


Swansea
The newly formed Swansea Branch have held a public meeting in the Central Library; we will report on it next month.

Phyllis Howard

Off The Air (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

From The Guardian (20/10/60)

Sir,—The juxtaposition of “The American Election on Television” and the letter on the BBC and the Third Channel in Saturday’s "Guardian” brings to light something of importance to all who value freedom of speech.

Whereas the dissent of bodies like the Socialist Labor Party is able to find expression through the medium of American television, no such opportunity is provided by our “national institution” the BBC. Fifty-six years after our foundation, we of the Socialist Party of Great Britain have yet to be offered any time on the air.

Curiously enough, only when visiting the United States as fraternal delegates to tho World Socialist Party have any of our members had the opportunity of presenting our case to the viewing public.

Your etc..

Edmund S. Grant.

50 Years Ago: The Anti-War Campaign (1960)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

In our report of the International Congress at Copenhagen we referred briefly to the absurd proposals to organise the workers of the world to ensure "universal disarmament and the prevention of warfare.’’

#    #    #    #

The main demands in the resolution which the German Social-Democratic Party forced upon the Congress were, compulsory arbitration upon international disputes, and Parliamentary action for disarmament and the prevention of wars.

#    #    #    #

The master class, being but a tenth of the population, can only keep possession of the means of production by their control (through the political machinery) of the armed forces. While the master class have that control it is hopeless for the workers to attempt to seize capitalist property. It is sheer madness, therefore, to expect that the capitalist class would, because the workers demand it, either abolish the armed forces or hand their control over to the working class. That would be to abolish themselves as a ruling class. Further, the interests of the capitalists of one country clash with those of the capitalists of other lands, especially in the matter of obtaining markets, and so long as capitalism lasts there will be this clash of interests, necessitating ever-increasing armaments and the inevitable appeal to arms. It is then absurd to waste time and energy in an endeavour to convince the capitalists that wars are superfluous and a curse under capitalism.

Let the workers learn their position in society and unite to obtain control of the machinery of government, including the armed forces. Such action will make it possible for them to take possession of the means of production and use them for the benefit of all. In that way alone will they be able to usher in a system of society wherein universal unity of interests will abolish all war, be it between classes or nations.

(Socialist Standard, December, 1910.)

Kennedy to Run U.S. Capitalism (1960)

Editorial from the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Kennedy’s victory at the American polls came as the culmination of years of patient ambition and at the end of a campaign of open cynicism, such as we have come expect from capitalist political parties.

When he started his attempt to win the Democratic nomination, Mr. Kennedy had several question marks against him. The principal of these was whether he could unite the trade unions, the industrial cities and the backward Southerners into supporting him. We now know how skilfully he did this, by the careful choice of his Vice-Presidential candidate and by the promises and opinions which he uttered. Such was the success of these tactics that, long before election day, many on-the-spot correspondents were prophesying that Kennedy’s campaign would be irresistible.

Mr. Nixon showed a similar determination to win the presidency. Here is a man with an established reputation for single-minded ambition which has led him into some unsavoury actions. Many people will remember Mr. Nixon introducing his pet dog into a television programme in which he was offering evidence of his integrity as a servant of the American public.

Mr. Kennedy based some of his case upon an appeal to the patriotism of American workers, alleging that United States’ influence abroad has steeply declined during the Eisenhower presidency. Nixon’s reply—similarly an appeal to patriotism—was that it was insulting even to suggest that U.S.A. is a second-rate power.

This, then, was an election campaign of by no means an unusual kind, in which members of the working class were asked to vote on issues of personality, nationalism and capitalist power politics, none of which has the slightest effects upon their basic interest. Nevertheless, the American voters became absorbed in the contest and grew excited when it became obvious that there was to be a tight finish.

Mr. Kennedy has been compared to the late Franklin Roosevelt, who so dominated American politics during the thirties. One of the fallacies left over from the Roosevelt era is that Roosevelt came to power because the Americans supported his New Deal policies as a way of ending the Great Depression. In fact, these policies were not discussed during the 1932 election—the Democratic Convention of that year had produced a platform which promised fewer government agencies, reductions in government spending and a balanced Budget. After Roosevelt’s victory, the New Deal policies were worked out and within a year many new government agencies had been created, government expenditure had increased and the Budget was unbalanced. We may rely on it that, if the interests of American capitalism demand it, Mr. Kennedy’s election platform will be ignored in the same way as that of his famous predecessor.

It seems that Mr. Kennedy both lost and won votes because he is a Roman Catholic. Apparently, many American voters are under the impression that a Catholic president would allow his religion to sway his decisions. It is a ludicrous idea that American capitalism, with its tremendous mineral and industrial resources and its universal military influence, would allow its policy to be dictated from the Vatican. Mr. Kennedy made it quite clear that, if he were elected, he would do his best to administer American capitalism solely in its own interests. In that, he is no different from the rulers of the other capitalist nations. None of them seeks power to promote abstract principles or religions. All of them want power to organise a country for the benefit of its owning class.

It is depressing that American workers should be impressed by—indeed be part of—slick, high pressure salesmanship and cynical drives for power. For after the shouting and the ballyhoo have died, capitalism, in America and the rest of the world, remains unscathed. This social system produces the horrors of war, poverty, insecurity and racial hatred. The Democrats and Republicans, like the other capitalist parties, can offer no end to these. Only the establishment of Socialism can give us a world of peace and plenty. And for that we do not need stage-managed ballyhoo. We need knowledge and the social responsibility that goes with it.

Death of a Daily (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Fleet Street was knee deep in a flood of crocodile tears. “We didn’t want to do it,” cried Lord Rothermere. "Neither did we,” wailed Mr. Cadbury. Nevertheless, it had happened, and The News Chronicle was no more. Publication had ceased with the last issue on October 17th, and the whole of its assets had been purchased by The Daily Mail. Its sister paper, The Star, suffered a similar fate and was gobbled up by Lord Rothermere’s Evening News. According to the last figures available at the time of writing, a sum of about £1,925,000 changed hands in the deal, with a further payment of £1 for every former Chronicle reader whom the Mail manages to retain.

Everyone will be familiar with the various reactions as the bombshell exploded in the world of journalism, ranging from the plaintive last tribute of the Guardian to the baffled rage of the 3,000 or so workers who overnight found themselves without a job. The general public reaction was one of surprise that even with a circulation of over a million, The Chronicle could not escape this fate.

Somehow, we are told, nobody had really expected it to happen, even though rumours had been circulating for some time before—rumours which only a few hours previously had been dubbed as “without foundation” by a spokesman of the Rothermere Press. Could it be credible that the sizeable body of opinion represented by the Chronicle could be blandly ignored? Yet there it was. And clearly the cloak of secrecy had been pretty effective, as many dumbfounded readers found when the Daily Mail was dropped through their letterboxes for the first time on October 18th.

It is this calm fait accompli which stands out so starkly from all the hullabaloo and wringing of hands. Doubtless, many of the older readers of the Chronicle will not be able to resist a comparison of this with the unctuous lip service to “principle” which has characterised this paper in the past (it even banned racing from its columns in the earlier days). Probably the Guardian leader of October 18th summed up the opinion which many held of its contemporary when it mentioned “. . . the attempt to give to a popular readership . . .  a fair impression not merely of the events of the day but of its culture, its unsmart values, its enduring humanities.” Certainly this was an impression that the Chronicle tried to create about itself, and of course, it was never tired of flattering its readers with its “purity" of approach.

One of the sickening hypocrisies of Capitalism is the implication behind the sales talk, that service to the public is pursued for its own sake. But the News Chronicle was no different from other dailies in that it was run with a view to profit. Advertising revenue played a major part in this and when, for various reasons, advertisers were no longer prepared to use its columns, when in fact the paper was no longer a paying proposition, then the “unsmart values” were promptly sacrificed, and Mr. Cadbury sold out. Possibly this will rank as one of the slickest deals in the history of journalism, and as usual, the people who really suffered were working men and women.

Much has been made of the apparent concern of the employers over the pensions and compensation payments to the staff. How far is this true? The Observer suggested that the sale took place to compensate the staff, yet almost in the same breath, we are told that the very profitable interest in Tyne-Tees Television had been retained. Such touching concern did not apparently induce the directors to part with this sideline. In any case, there were a number of courses open to Mr. Cadbury other than the closure of the paper, but if they were considered, they were rejected. Certainly, one of his erstwhile employees, Mr. Frank Barber, had no doubts about the parsimony of the whole affair. In a scathing television interview, he described the compensation proposals as “meagre.”

The unpalatable truth is that there are no “unsmart values” in a world of private property relationships, although the Chronicle has for years supported this illusion. Its readers were really led to believe in its integrity of purpose and even that sophisticated supporter of capitalism, The Guardian, said that “ it went down with all guns firing.” Nearer the truth was the furious assertion by one correspondent who alleged that the paper was sunk without a whimper of defiance coming from it.

Do not let us get too nostalgic about the passing of the Chronicle. It was always a supporter of British Capitalism right up until its undignified exit from the scene. Do not forget that it has after all only fallen a victim to its own practices, for during its lifetime it took over no less than four other newspapers. With its disappearance, the battle between the remaining giants will probably get that much sharper, and maybe in the not too distant future, we shall see a repetition of the same lying denials that accompanied the demise of the Chronicle, as yet another journal is made ready for the block.

Whichever goes next, it is as well to remember that they are all fervent supporters of the capitalist set-up. The whole sordid story of trickery, deceit and falsehood can come as no surprise to us—it is so typical of a world of dog-eat-dog. When interests so demanded, the reputation of the Cadburys for high principles and good labour relations was worth very little, and quickly gave way to a calculated and cynical move which threw 3,000 workers out of employment. A facade has crumbled as far as the Chronicle is concerned, but the rest of capitalism continues its wearying existence, embodying all the shabbiness and double-dealing with which we are so nauseatingly familiar.

Eddie Critchfield

Letter from Wales (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

"The fault lies in the system and it is natural that individuals should re-act as they do when such an occasion arises." I pricked my ears up. The speaker was one of a small group of men waiting in the local doctor's surgery.

It is always good to be in on any discussion about Capitalism and so it was not long before I found an opportunity to contribute. The topic that drew the above remark was actually concerned with Roy Paul, the Welsh international footballer admitting to having accepted a £500 bribe. From there on we continued to probe deeper into the “carryings on," the actions and statements of important people and organizations in the news.

For example, the Ebbw Vale Election. Though there are four contestants, two only—Labour and Plaid Cymru appear to interest the electorate. Plaid Cymru, the Welsh Nationalist Party, is being aided by its pirate radio station “The Voice of Wales." They are also introducing “ colour" in the form of music at their meetings—items on the harp. They continue—as in previous elections —to “harp on the theme" “ Ruddid i Gymru" (Freedom for Wales).

Another topic was the C.N.D. March. Cardiff was recently chosen as the venue for an attack. Much excitement prevailed, not the least being the closed doors of the Temple of Peace in the face of the marchers (which were later opened to allow them entry). A prominent Communist leader was roundly accused of attempting to make political capital out of the proceedings. This should be a warning to all that the true C.ND’er may be all for peace as long as you accept the view that the struggle against was has nothing to do with political ideology!

W. Brain

Notes on Economic History (2) (1960)

From the December 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Mercantile System

This was the beginning of the modern era. A new form of economic practice was developing, and new theories made their appearance in the form known as Mercantilism. This term (introduced by Adam Smith) is, however, a little misleading for its advocates were quite as concerned with industrial development as with the exchange of merchandise.

The term "Mercantile system" is loosely used to denote all the principles applied by the governments and traders of those days—though it is a fact that these principles have a general conformity. Mercantilism was a growth of its time. It was a system of political absolutism and centralization in favour of the burghers and mobile capital, to the detriment of the lords of the soil. To throw light on this we must glance at the economic process of this period.

The economic organisation of the Middle Ages was disrupted mainly by those political changes which led in Western Europe to the formation of the national states (France, Spain, Portugal and England); and in Germany, later in, to the formation of territorial princedoms. As a result, the Mediaeval economy, with its urban units, was replaced by larger units of different kind—the unified national economic areas. Political concentration in these areas resulted in money and wealth becoming elements of political power in a way very different from of old.

The idea of money as the nerve of the State was in many respects new. The State, which had been constituional (in the Feudalist sense) became absolute; a State army replaced the Feudal militia; and the centralisation of the administration established a paid civil service, judiciary, etc., where Feudal methods of self government had previously prevailed. The result was that military and civil concerns, taxation, and the processes of State credit, tended more and more to be carried on upon a monetary basis instead of by the payments in kind of the earlier economy. Money acquired a significance that was quite new.

These changes were accompanied by the economic upheavals that followed the discovery of America (1492) and the opening of the sea route to the East Indies (1498). New possibilities of world trade came into being, giving power to those traders situated on Western seaboards (the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English) but weakening those cut off from the new commerce. Trade, and the money standing behind trade, became important as sources of wealth and political power.

The effects of these displacements of wealth was reinforced by a new process. Soon after the discovery of the New World a vast amount of gold and silver began to move from Spain across Europe. As a result, the purchasing power of these metals fell enormously, with a consequent tremendous rise in prices. It is true that the rise in prices began about 1510, whereas the increase in gold and silver began to make itself felt about 1520. This was the result of famine, plague, and other causes, but nonetheless, the superabundance of gold was a factor, and a major one, in the rise of prices. The influx of gold played a great part in undermining the foundations of the old feudal economy, for it favoured the diffusion of the means of credit, and laid the ground for the development of the capitalist system.

All these circumstances tended to emphasize the importance of money, to stress the importance of commercial wealth as compared with the wealth that changed hands in kind during the feudal period. Thus, whereas in earlier times there had been the endeavour to check the growth of a monetary economy, the opinion now was that money, of not the only source of wealth, was certainly of decisive importance.

The primary aim of the mercantilists was to achieve a favourable balance of trade. When exports exceed imports, when the value of the goods sold to buyers abroad exceeds the value of the goods purchased from such buyers, the amount of money entering a country will exceed the amount of money leaving it. Then the balance of trade is said to be favourable to the country in which money thus accumulates. To achieve this favourable balance (which was the desire of the mercantilists) it was necessary to stimulate export trade. With that end in view, it was essential to foster industries that created commodities for export and, on the other hand, to check as far as possible the import of commodities.

But if home industry was to be fostered, special attention had to be paid to internal communications. It was necessary to abolish or reduce tolls and the like, and to break down the barriers erected by the urban economy of the Guilds. Good roads had to be built, canals dug, internal communications facilitated, home markets established. Customs policy was, therefore, of supreme importance in the mercantile system. The champions of that system wanted to abolish export duties, and if necessary stimulate exports by subsidies; at the same time they aimed at reducing imports by a high import tariff, or by actual prohibition. Instances are in France, the unified import tariff in 1664, and the development towards such a tariff in England after 1692. As corollaries to the restriction of imports, there had to be freedom for the import of raw materials needed by home industries and prohibition of the export of such materials.

Bob Ambridge