It's the Poor What Gets the Blame — Official (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

One way of assessing Sir Keith Joseph’s comments on “whole groups and classes of people” is to imagine a speech he would have made if Britain were at war. Would he then have said a large section of the working class was moronic, lecherous and irresponsible, and should be stopped from breeding the criminals and lowlifes who are its heirs? Ah, no. “Social classes 4 and 5” would be the bulwark of civilization, and their babies — however many — deserve orange-juice and vitamin pills. These kinds of bombast are exchangeable as an organ-grinder’s tunes, though the underlying contempt remains the same.

Joseph’s speech was made to Conservatives on 19th October. He suggested they put aside economic affairs —“never really the main thing”—and instead aim to “remoralize our national life”. His case was that present- day society is a decadent morass. It has been made so by “socialist intellectuals” and “permissiveness” and, in particular, letting the working class into universities. As an example of the ruin these tendencies have led to, “our human stock is threatened” by the persistent breeding now from parents unsuitable to have children:

   Many of these girls are unmarried, many are deserted or divorced or soon will be. Some are of low intelligence, most are of low educational attainment . . . They are producing problem children, the future unmarried mothers, delinquents, denizens of our borstals, subnormal educational establishments, prisons, hostels for drifters. Yet these mothers, the under-twenties in many cases, single parents, from classes 4 and 5, are now producing a third of all births.

It may be useful, before going further, to say what is meant by “classes 4 and 5”. The groupings are made by the Government on the basis of the job of the family breadwinner, and these two divisions comprise semi-skilled and unskilled workers If they are assumed to be about two-fifths of the population, Joseph’s protest because they have one-third of the births is absurd. Summaries from the 1971 Census, given in the Sunday Times on 27th October, show that family size is practically the same in all five groups—about three-and-a- quarter persons.

Capitalist Hacks Unanimous
The central point of Joseph’s attack might have been, had it come from a more thinking person, a demonstration of the uselessness of social — including “moral” — reform as tried equally by the Tory, Labour and Liberal parties.

  Real incomes per head have risen beyond what anyone dreamed of a generation back; so have education budgets and welfare budgets; so also have delinquency, truancy, vandalism, hooliganism, illiteracy, decline in educational standards.

But he was only reviving his political forefathers’ dictum that if you give the undeserving poor money they only get into trouble, and if you teach them to read they write rude words on walls. The working class is used to this sort of thing, and being told it is to blame when capitalism has problems. Indeed, Joseph was being unfair to his Labour opponents: they share that standpoint. Following the Budget on 12th November the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, announced on TV that if he failed to stop a slump or inflation it would be the fault of “the British people”:

  The choice is yours. If you really prefer mass unemployment and rising prices you can always have it.

To add more, practically no-one in the chorus of critics of Joseph denied his thesis. Other Conservatives thought it “a sad mistake . . . which would inevitably cause serious doubts about his political judgement”. Frank Field of the Child Poverty Action Group acknowledged Joseph’s “problem” of breeding by sub-standard people, and “blamed this on the failure of the family planning system and suggested that the solution was to give women more incentive to limit their family size”. (Both quotations from The Guardian, 21st October.) The Bishop of Southwark put it down to “Conservative policies of 50 years ago” (Observer, 20th October) and “human nature” (News of the World, 27th October).

Official Labour replies were on the same lines. Ian Mikardo, the party chairman

  appeared to accept the gist of what Sir Keith Joseph said in his controversial weekend speech on the nation’s morals, but he neatly turned it to Labour’s advantage . . . he blamed individualist, self-centred Conservative doctrine.

(Guardian, 25th October)

Mrs. Castle, the Secretary for Social Services, accused Joseph of wrong statistics and expressed herself as equally anxious over the problems named. And Renee Short, another Labour MP, spoke of the need for a minister to deal with population problems and said:

  It is absolutely right for Sir Keith to say we need considerable extensions of education about family planning, but it is not only needed in the fourth and fifth social groups.

All agreed that the working class must be kept decent, and sneered at one another for legislation having failed to do so.

Class and Intelligence

None of the critics appears to have noticed one extraordinary implication of Joseph’s speech. Like the Victorian moralists, over human behaviour he wants to have things both ways—people are born bad but also influenced to be bad: the teaching of Eric, or Little by Little. But, in addition, Joseph was propounding what looks like Lysenko’s theory that acquired characteristics can be transmitted. Given mothers of “low educational attainment” who have learned immoral attitudes, there will be babies destined to be illiterates and criminals. Since reform cannot change heredity, the prevention of birth is the only answer — “the lesser evil”, he said.

This kind of rubbish was exploded long ago. However, there is a more cogent answer to Joseph’s contentions. Being in classes 4 and 5 — or any of the others — has nothing to do with intelligence or probity. People are in these “classes” because of their relationship to the means of production: specifically, because they own nothing and have to work as capitalism allows them. In fact the groupings are not social classes at all, but lists made for administrative purposes. The only two classes are of owners and non-owners of the means of living. People are born not into “free choice” but into one or the other class and all the implications of its position.

If intelligence were a factor, we should like to be told the intelligence quotients of, say, shareholders in big companies; the royal family; or politicians who have their speeches written for them. Would Joseph say that breeding by any number of these who were of “low intelligence” was a threat to human stock? Of course not. There are, in any case, different answers for them. The slow-learning or recalcitrant offspring of the well-to-do are put out to private tutors in country vicarages to get them in shape for Oxbridge. The idea of intelligence is irrelevant to that sort of life. It is a yardstick-concept by which the ruling class picks over the working class for its own purposes; the working class insults itself by accepting it.

Different Meanings

Joseph spoke about “responsibility”. The fact is that the capitalist system which he represents and upholds depends on irresponsibility. To hand over control of one’s life, have its activity appropriated and accept the say-so of leaders and rulers, is irresponsible. Yet that is precisely what Joseph requires, the “choice” he wants exercised. It is not a question of Doublethink, but of class terminology. For his class, following its interests, the working class acts “responsibly” by not following its own!

If you look at the occupations which make up groups 3, 4 and 5, the matter becomes clearer still. They are nearly all useful occupations — manufacture, building, mining, transport, the essentials for social existence. Not so most of the occupations in groups 1 and 2. A few are; the majority are about as useful as a tapeworm. What do “intelligence” and “educational attainment” mean when they are put to the non-uses generated by capitalist society? A former drama student has remarked to the writer that when he sees acquaintances on TV it is always in commercials: singing the praises of canned soup, zooming through space with packets of Tasty Morsels. For this, they studied Shakespeare and toiled at voice and movement—now, humans behaving like idiots.

Let us tell Sir Keith Joseph and the co-diagnosers of his “problem” the truth. The working class is the intelligent, educated class which makes the wonders, and competently carries out the humdrum tasks, of the world we live in. Without that being so, there would be no electronic marvels or university buildings. Nor would there be the sumptuous dinners from which capitalist politicians rise to make their self-important speeches. Or dividends for the shareholders of Bovis Ltd., of which Joseph is vice-chairman.

Moral Humbug

The so-called moral questions can be put in perspective by referring to the 1949 Report of the Royal Commission on Population. This was concerned with finding ways to induce people of all groups and grades to have more children: to maintain the work force, for "military strength and security”, and for “the maintenance and extension of Western values and culture”. There was no talk then of threatening the human stock, or the immorality of girls under twenty having babies.

Of course the family as a socio-economic unit has largely broken down, but Joseph’s conception of why this happens is extremely naive. Apparently he believes a currency of “immoral” ideas is the cause of such a breakdown, whereas the opposite is true. The family’s life and functions were disrupted by the extension and intensification of the division of labour; following that, fresh ideas of morality were generated — without, however, affecting the existence of capitalism.

But what kind of society are we living in? Sex and reproduction are the strongest of human instincts and pleasures. The tragedy for the poor is being swindled out of enjoyment and fulfilment by poverty, inadequate housing, worry, and living on the edge of a high-priced culture. Many girls in that situation, said Joseph, are unmarried or deserted or divorced: how nice of him to point it out, from the comfort of Class 1. How nice of Mrs. Castle too, to deny that “socialism is synonymous with permissiveness”. Indeed, she is right. “Permission” means condescending to allow, and that has nothing to do with the free, responsible world Socialists envisage: Mrs. Castle’s “socialism” is not synonymous with Socialism.

It will not be too long before the working class demonstrates its intelligence, and its contempt for the Josephs and Castles, by getting rid of the system they stand for.

Robert Barltrop

Noise, Health and Capitalism (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Noise is the invisible pollution of our time. This article will not dwell on the degree of annoyance it causes — the reader can very well judge this for himself and, in any case, annoyance varies considerably from individual to individual. Nor will it discuss the effect of noise on working efficiency. This problem can be left to our employers. It will, as the title suggests, deal mainly with the effect of noise on health, the reasons for the increase of noise in modern society and the prospects for a reduction of noise in the future.

The Effects of Noise on Health
Noise affects health directly and indirectly. By this is meant that noise can cause direct physical damage to the mechanism of hearing — or it may harm physical and mental health by a kind of chain reaction. An obvious example of the indirect effect is loss of sleep due to noise, the loss of sleep affecting health.

How important are the direct effects of noise? In terms of numbers of people becoming completely deaf, not at present very great. But for those unfortunate enough to be continually exposed to high levels of noise the result can be serious. What is called “occupational deafness” is due to damage of the delicate nerve endings of the inner ear, caused typically by factory noise suffered over an extended period of time. The levels of noise which can cause occupational deafness are not very high. It is estimated that workers are at risk when factory noise rises above 85 decibels. [1] This corresponds to the noise emitted by an average lorry, measured at 25 feet distance.

The effect of occupational deafness is insidious. First, the nerve endings which respond to high frequencies — that is, sounds of high pitch — are affected. The worker is not aware that deterioration has started. Gradually, however, the damage is extended down the frequency scale until he becomes deaf to the important upper speech frequencies. He finds conversation difficult and, later, impossible. He can ultimately become quite deaf.

As far as certain types of factory work are concerned, this hazard has now been met by the wearing of ear-muffs. Nevertheless, it was recently discovered that a quarter of the loom workers in Fife mills were deaf to the point of requiring hearing aids. [2] There are still however many workers, such as lorry drivers, operators of road drills and “pop” groups for whom defence measures are either neglected or are impractical.

But the effect of a generally noisy environment is of concern to us all. It was recently established that the hearing acuity of the natives of an African tribe between the ages of 70 and 79 was better than American males between the ages of 30 and 39. This was attributed to the quieter environment of the African tribesmen. [3]

This view is reinforced by the fact that in urbanized societies the hearing of men deteriorates, with age, much more rapidly than for women. This was at first thought to indicate a physiological difference between the sexes. But for the natives of the African tribe there was no difference between men and women. Evidently, in Western civilisations, the difference between men and women aurally is due to the fact that, on the whole, men are exposed to more noise than women.

Urban noise in many areas has now passed the danger level of 85 decibels due to road traffic, and is much higher near airports. One wonders whether the wearing of hearing aids may not one day be as common as the wearing of spectacles.

The indirect effects of noise on health are far more widespread and may indeed be more serious. Indirect effects are difficult to evaluate. If we take the example of noise causing loss of sleep, it is evident that ill-health among people living in noisy environments can be due not only to loss of sleep but also to poverty and poor diet, insecurity and mental strain, and many other factors associated with income groups which cannot afford quieter surroundings — or double glazing.

But the fact that the indirect effects of noise cannot be isolated and measured does not mean that they are any less serious. We know that loss of sleep — or depth of sleep — affects physical and mental health. We know that the frustrations to mental work caused by noise can result in nervous and digestive disorders. We know the need for the solace of a quiet garden after a hard day’s work.

The Reasons for the Increase of Noise

Why then is noise increasing in modern society? The immediate cause is obviously the increasing use of machinery in the factory, in the home, on building sites, for road works — and for transport.

When a machine produces noise there is a small wastage of energy in the form of sonic vibrations, that is, sound. Unfortunately this wastage is extremely small compared with the kinetic, or work-energy developed by the machine. There is therefore no commercial incentive to save this energy by reducing the noise. Unless the purchasers of machinery demand noise reduction, then no manufacturer will readily add to the cost of his machine, in the face of fierce competition, by quietening it — whether it be a lathe or a lorry.

If this is the immediate cause of increasing noise then the more basic cause becomes evident: the factor of cost in the competitive world of capitalism.

There are however subsidiary causes of increased noise, also linked with the economic constraints of capitalism. If one man can drive a large lorry which carries the same bulk of goods as would be carried by two smaller lorries, there will be a saving in wages. Employers as well as Socialists are aware that profits can be increased by a reduction in the wage bill. But the larger lorries require more powerful engines and noise is increased.

In the cut-throat competition between motor-car manufacturers the need to reduce steel has resulted in light metal bodies which amplify noise. Speed is a selling point. To produce a cheap car with low petrol consumption and high speed it is necessary to install “high-revving” engines. High “revs” result in high-pitch noise. The ear is far more sensitive to high frequencies than low. The noise produced is louder.

Similarly in the case of aircraft, importance is attached to a continuing increase of speed. The reader will be familiar with some of the reasons: getting to cheaper and sunnier holiday resorts within the worker’s annual fortnight, getting business executives to their trading destinations before their rivals. It may not be so obvious that a substantial saving in high salaries can be made by reducing the time business men and crews spend in the air. Setting aside the rather immature glorification of speed, its increase can be seen to have more powerful economic motives and the result has been a corresponding increase in noise.

These then are some of the causes of increased noise in modern society. Whether capitalist groups do, in the end, save money and increase profits by the introduction of more powerful machines and faster transport is open to question. Let us consider the numerous office blocks which are being built near main roads in our towns and cities, mostly without double glazing. The loss in efficiency due to noise disturbance for hundreds of thousands of workers is of increasing concern to their employers. Yet traffic noise is allowed to increase year by year. Already, employers are having to instal double glazing and artificial ventilation, the total cost of which may be far greater than the cost of quietening the vehicles which produce the noise.

But capitalists suffer from two handicaps: a need to make immediate profits and an inability to cooperate for their mutual advantage. While car manufacturers are only concerned with the profits of their own industry, they are not likely to consider the needs of those who employ office workers.

How Much is Noise Likely to be Reduced ?

So we have to ask the question: what chance is there, in a capitalist society, of materially reducing noise pollution ? It is evident that, so far, the situation is deteriorating. The Government, three years ago, introduced legislation to reduce the permissible levels of noise emitted by existing road vehicles to a maximum of 92 decibels, for lorries — and 89 decibels for lorries in production. The writer has measured everyday noise levels on some urban main roads at around 87 decibels and the reader will know how loud this is from his own experience. The legislation is obviously ineffective. Add to this the recent decision to allow EEC lorries to exceed the above limits by 3 decibels; take into account the increasing volume of traffic and we. cannot be very optimistic about the future. [4]

The outlook for aircraft noise is no better. In recent years aircraft disturbance has steadily increased — both in noise intensity and number of flights. There is only one large aircraft, the TriStar turbofan jet, which is substantially quieter than its competitors. The Concorde is as noisy as its predecessors. Of twelve types of large aircraft recently monitored all except the TriStar produced about the same level of noise — and these aircraft will be in the air for many years to come. [5] The average life expectancy of such aircraft is said to be 15 years. The only way of materially reducing the noise of existing aircraft over the next 15 years is to fit them with modified engines. This has been estimated to cost about £400,000 per aircraft and is generally considered to be economically impractical. [6]

In a book published after the Government’s rejection of Cublington as a site for a third London airport, it was stated that “it was the considered opinion of the Roskill Commission that the continued use of present-day aircraft and the increased weight of new aircraft like the Jumbo jets would produce a net increase in noise levels up to the 1980’s. Not until 1985.” said the Commission, “could one expect the noise levels of aircraft to drop to the level they were in 1967 and one could not reasonably hope for any real alleviation of the problem before the end of the century”. [7]

The history of noise pollution, like other forms of pollution is typical of capitalist development: the creation of social problems followed by the most feeble attempts to remedy them. It is no use blaming the people caught up in the pressures of capitalist competition. We need an economic and social system from which the profit motive has been removed, in which there is no longer national or international competition, in which progress is measured in terms of human welfare.

That system is Socialism.

References :

[1] Noise, (The Wilson Report) H.M.S.O. 1963, page 125.

[2] “The Danger to Health of Excessive Noise” Adam Fergusson, Times March 17th 1970.

[3] Hearing, Journal of the Royal National Institute for Deaf.

[4] Times, August 8th. 1974.

[5] “Aircraft Noise”, Which, August 1974.

[6] Observer March 12th. 1972.

[7] Cublington, A Blueprint for Resistance, David Perman, 1973, page 28.

John Moore

Socialism Means Free Access (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The case for a classless society, in which production is geared to satisfying human needs, and in which production for sale and the market economy are abolished, is underlined by the fact that modern industry and technology have now been developed to the stage where they could provide an abundance of consumer goods and services for all the people of the world. The problem of production — of how to produce enough for everybody — has been solved. Man’s long battle to conquer scarcity has been won. Potential abundance is a reality. The task is to make abundance itself a reality.

This can never be done within a society based on the class ownership of the means of production, where wealth is produced for sale with a view to profit. The only framework within which abundance can be realized is a society where all resources, manmade as well as natural, have become the common heritage of all mankind, under their democratic control. On this basis production can be democratically planned to provide what human beings need. In such a society, the market, wages, profits, buying and selling, and money, would have no place. They would cease to exist.

A society of abundance is not an extension of today’s so-called “consumer society”, with its enormous waste of resources. It does not mean people will come to acquire more and more useless and wasteful gadgets. It simply means that people’s material needs, both as individuals and as a community, will be fully satisfied in a rational way.

Contrary to what is popularly believed (and carefully cultivated by the defenders of capitalism), man is not inherently greedy; human needs are not limitless. From a material point of view, human beings need a certain amount and variety of food, clothing and shelter; what this is in individual cases can soon be discovered by the individual himself — and would be if there were free access to consumer goods and services. But, it may be objected, with free access wouldn’t people take more than they needed? But why should they if they can be certain (as they would, be given the productive power of modern industry and the common ownership of the means of production) that there would always be enough to go round? After all, today when access to water (or at least to the amount of water consumed in any one period) is free, people only use what they need for washing, cooking etc. Similarly, when all consumer goods and services are freely available people could be expected to take only as much food, clothing etc. as they felt they needed. To take any more would be abnormal and pointless.

But could modern industry really supply enough for everybody to have free access to consumer goods and services? Certainly, the waste of capitalism wastes resources. First, there are the armed forces and armaments. Second, there are all the people, buildings and equipment involved with the market and money economy generally: banking, insurance, government pension and tax departments, salesmen, ticket collectors, accountants, cashiers etc. Indeed, it might be said that under capitalism well over half the population are engaged in such unproductive activities. Third, there is planned obsolescence, the deliberate manufacture of shoddy goods made to break down or wear out after a comparatively short period of time. In a rationally organized society, consumer goods could be made to last; this would mean an immense saving of resources. With the elimination of these three sources of waste that are inherent in capitalism, enough to adequately feed, clothe and house everybody could easily be produced.

L.B.

Letters: Parliament and Dictators (1974)

Letters to the Editors from the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Parliament and Dictators

R. Barltrop in “Parliament and Private Armies” may be right but I am not so sure. He says: “If a military-minded group seeks power it must do so as a political party.” Did Franco achieve it so? Or the Greek colonels, Chilean generals, Nasser, to mention a few?

“Political power”, he states, "cannot be transferred to bodies which do not hold it.” Perhaps not, but they could usurp it. “The Nazis were ineffectual until the majority of the German people elected them.” This is not the impression I got from William Sheridan Allen’s How the Nazis Gained Power, or from Robert Cecil’s The Myth of the Master Race: The Rosenberg Ideology. Rather the power was gained by fake, coercion, bully-boys. H. W. Schneider in Making the Fascist State tells a similar story with Mussolini.

If they need the backing of capital it will be provided should capital accept them as saviours whether with cross or truncheon.

The people here and the world over will probably have to seize power. As R. Barltrop wrote in the July ’73 Standard, “Our business is revolution”. The operative word is defined, great change; forcible substitution.

The SPGB is right in that people need no élite  to lead them. We have had far too much experience of middle-class aspirants to working-class leadership referring to them in a detached manner as though not of them. Some “intellectualize” the intellect until it bears no resemblance to the brain.

Westminster’s Hall of Clowns provides the evidence where performances equate with qualifications. It proves the truth of R. L. Stevenson’s words : “Of all professions, politics is generally regarded as the one for which no preparation is considered necessary." Generals could perform as well and if conditions demand it will undoubtedly do so.

The quality of writing in the Standard is high, contrasting sharply with meanderings elsewhere which for all the professional literacy could be adduced as emanating from the ill-educated such as myself. It is elating to realize that there are those of the common people, unsung by the minions of the media, who can confront and defeat them on most occasions.

W. Rellenck

London S.E.

Reply
The facts of the Nazis’ rise to power are as follows. In the German elections in March 1933 Hitler received 17,266,000 votes (43.9 per cent.) and his allies, the Nationalists, received 3,132,000 (8 per cent.), giving the Nazis and their supporters 51.9 per cent, of the votes and a clear majority. The Social Democrats received 7,176,000 (18.3 per cent.) and the Communists 4,845,000 (12.1 per cent.).

Six months earlier, though the Nazis were the largest party in Germany they were not in control of the political machinery. Hitler was derided by President Hindenburg and members of the government; his officers were charged and imprisoned, and their activities suppressed. But once in power, Hitler was able to turn the tables, to suppress and tyrannize his former opponents.

To say the power was gained by "fake, coercion, bully-boys” is another way of saying the Nazis gained support by crudely exploiting discontent; a familiar political course, which was attempted by the Communists and Social Democrats also. You are correct, of course, in saying the backing of capital is always provided. Hitler was supplied with funds by German industrial capitalists, armaments manufacturers in Germany and France, and American and other foreign investors who needed protection.

It is likewise a myth that Mussolini "seized power”. The Italian government (a democratic, constitutional one) and monarch wanted him in office, and arrangements to this end were made before the farcical “March on Rome”. Mussolini’s first Cabinet included a number of non-Fascists, and Parliament voted him emergency powers; while outside Parliament the Fascists exploited discontent with the so-called Socialist Party to gain support.

In the more recent examples you give, of course violent upheavals take place, but whoever is successful must (a) placate the mass of the population and (b) harness his aims to the needs of the capitalist system, if power is to be maintained by him. You assert that: “The people here and the world over will probably have to seize power.” If you mean the people, i.e. the great majority, capitalism will be impotent against their will when they become Socialist. The outcome will be not “seizing power” — which implies some kind of desperate fling — but taking control of the political machinery to abolish capitalism and establish Socalism.

Women's Lib. & "Bigots”

I was disgusted to read that at the 70th Annual Conference it was decided that being a member of Women’s Lib. is incompatible with membership of the SPGB. At the moment I have no wish to join Women’s Lib. but one of the reasons I left the Party was that I objected to having my life ordered about by a group of narrow-minded, authoritarian bigots. I thought maybe the Party would, however, gradually become more libertarian as time went on but it does not appear to be so. It is a great pity because the Socialist message is itself invincible. Soon Party members will have to get permission before they can join the local choir, I expect — a heinous crime to sing Christmas carols or vote for anything that is going to improve the lot of the workers, both men and women.

Jeanne Conn

London S.E.9.

Reply

We are sorry that you think single-minded determination to pursue an object is bigotry However, the reasons why we find membership of Women’s Lib. incompatible with membership of the Socialist Party were set out at length in our July issue and in a reply to a correspondent in October. It would be more constructive if you explained where, in your opinion, that reasoning is wrong.

Have you considered that the left-wing parties — Communists, International Socialists and so on — which support Women’s Lib. stand for the establishment of dictatorial regimes, and exclude democracy from their practice?

Your letter makes some wild assertions which are quite untrue, and you should be ashamed of them. As you know, members of the SPGB have interests and pursuits from football and painting to the cinema and genealogy (don’t know if there are choristers) and lead what lives they wish without interference by the Party. Would you have expected your letter to be published if half of what you say were true?

Appreciation

Enclosed is money order for the next 12 issues of the Socialist Standard.

I would like to compliment you on the recent Anniversary issue which I thought quite outstanding. Also I believe the SS is now much more interesting than previously due to the correspondence columns being given greater prominence.

Keep up the good work. You might be interested in the enclosed cartoon which appeared recently in the Sydney Morning Herald. As you can see we still have a long way to go.

With best wishes from "down under".

George Boldison,

New South Wales

50 Years Ago: The Douglas Scheme (1974)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

From the days of Marx and Engels, Socialists have pointed out that the improvements in the instruments of production, added to the continual increase in the applications of science and discoveries to industry, were resulting in the means of production out-running the effective demand for and consumption of markets. The periodical crises of the nineteenth century that resulted from these facts brought forward various “remedies”, many of a financial character . . . But the great favourite idea was the one of supplying “cheap” credit to the small producer or capitalist who was being beaten in competition by the large capitalist. As this "credit” could not—for obvious reasons—be obtained through the usual financial channels, the municipality or the State was called upon to supply it.

The work now under consideration is one of these attempts to save capitalism from catastrophe by means of “credit” manipulation. This statement may surprise those members of the ILP etc. who have been mystified by its confused exposition into supposing that its object was to provide a scheme to benefit or even to emancipate the workers. In fairness to the author it must be stated that he makes no such claim himself, for while he says capitalism is breaking down, he proposes the scheme to save society from crashing into chaos. The workers are to remain workers and the capitalists are to continue to be capitalists.

(From a review by J. Fitzgerald of Credit-Power and Democracy, Major C. H. Douglas, Socialist Standard, December 1924.)

The Mask of Opportunity (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

In society today: split as it is into two opposing social classes of buyers and sellers of labour-power the word “opportunity” looms large in the everyday vocabulary; implying an advantage over one’s fellows.

The national and provincial press display an endless array of advertisements hammering home the opportunity theme to a labour force who have so far, failed to see the surplus-value con trick hidden behind this mask of opportunism. Here the Armed Forces, large company or international concern encircling the globe: all compete as they fish in the vacancies columns for the human labour-power from which alone flows the coveted profit margins that make capitalism tick.

Tory, Labour and Trade Union leaders all join in a chant of “equal opportunities”, to get to the top of a pile of white- or blue-collared wage stiffs! completely ignoring the Marxian fact that all labour power is homogeneous!

But behind these alluring adverts are some “opportunities” discreetly UN-mentioned; including having one’s legs blown off in the army, being shot down in the air force or torpedoed in the navy. All in the day’s work maybe, according to the ethics of a sick society. A society which has nothing better to offer large numbers of the flower of youth than to dress them up in “smart” uniforms to bolster their morale as they are sent about their murderous tasks by a ruling class bereft of any social conscience.

A recent advertisement in The Guardian of 16th September 1974, seeks suitable sellers of labour-power to participate in the production, maintenance and flight of an Anglo-French fighter plane which boasts, in their terminology of death and destruction, that it can “Deliver 4,000Kg. of free fall, retarded or cluster bombs”: which leaves old-time merchants of death like Basil Zarahoff among the also-rans. But has the Guardian any scruples about accepting such deadly adverts? Apparently not. After all they are staunch supporters of capitalism with its wars, slums and “equal opportunities”.

Now the Socialist Party of Great Britain contends that the working class is certainly capable of a more dignified destiny than that of a hired assassin or mere commodity with a price tag on his carcase denoting the ingredient labour-power in the exploiting process of capitalist society. And although at the moment, the key note of opportunism is the ruling ethic of “every man for himself”: this alien philosophy is being slowly unmasked by Socialists the world over and all men and women who put their shoulders to the wheel of the Socialist Revolution have risen above the otherwise empty, frustrating, money-grubbing existence of mediocrity, matching in inanity that of the capitalist as a machine for accumulation!

Finally, Socialism offers no advantage, no promotion. No stripes, no medals, no gory glory, no guns, and no enemies, no pensions and no governments: but plain social ownership of the means and instruments for producing and distributing wealth by and in the interests of the genus homo. Then only will the world be our country and mankind our brethren and the cacophony of “opportunism” will be but a faint echo in the corridors of time.

G. R. Russell

The Observer Guide to Voters (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

The front of the Observer Review of Oct. 6 was headed To help readers make up their minds on how to vote on Thursday, we asked some prominent non-politicians how they will vote. The page was then devoted to the views of these famous people. As The Observer is regarded as the leading journal of the so-called quality press, and would naturally claim that its readers fail into the same top category, why on earth should they need this to help them make up their minds? Having lived in this world for some years, if they haven’t formed some view by Sunday, it would seem odd that they should be able to by the following Thursday with the help of these assorted names. In fact, the whole page should really be an insult to the intelligence of the readership. But I don’t doubt that the people who run the paper know better about that than I do.

So let’s have a look at advice from this bevy of intellectual beauties. First the only woman, the authoress Muriel Spark. (It goes without saying that in the following issue there was a whine: “Why only one woman?’’ On the face of it, I should have thought it clear that there was one woman too many.) Her advice was that as the Tories and Labour had both been useless in office (well, hear, hear ! so far anyway), she advocated voting for the Liberals to see what they would be like. This sage advice is about the level one can hear in any taproom. On this basis, if the third party was the Nazis, one must give them a chance to show what they can do too. I have never read any of her novels and on the strength of her political wisdom I shall keep it that way.

Professor Max Beloff, head of the Open University (you can’t get brainier than that), tells us to vote Conservative because he thinks the Labour Party is circumscribed by its relationship with the Unions. Well, no doubt it is, Prof. Well spotted. What about his Tories? Are their actions not circumscribed by something called capitalism? You think they have been free to organize the world so as to give us all a nice pleasant, secure and peaceful life? But why have they not given us that during all the years (well over a hundred) that they have held power since capitalism first blighted society? You yourself have lived through many periods of Tory rule and know how meaningless it has all been in relation to the little details like poverty, slums, unemployment, wars. You didn’t have to learn (or teach) about that in University. You were there. With such advisers, who needs ignoramuses?

Let us listen to an intellectual who is a nice chap and as thick as they come, Colin Cowdrey, the cricketer. Surprise surprise, he is going to vote for the Tories who will preserve “our heritage” and “produce the best sort of country for my children to grow up in”. Well played, sir. Well hit, indeed. You see Cowdrey’s kids are growing in the best sort of country for them. Because they chose a father who had one flash of inspiration better than all the brains. He married a millionaire’s daughter. Now that’s what I call sound advice — far better than voting Tory. But I fear Colin’s advice is not very practical for the millions of wage-slaves who read it (oh, yes; Observer readers might not like to be called wage-slaves. But nine out of ten of them are).

Let’s get back quick to a brainbox. John Osborne, who has done well as a playwright (for which he can largely thank the Observer, whose then Drama Critic, Ken Tynan, so boosted his “Look Back in Anger” that the thing couldn’t possibly miss). What does Osborne advise? Vote Labour. And he then goes on to castigate that party till in the end he says that it “has been largely responsible for the moral slum and squalid climate we have created since the heady days of 1945”. Vote more squalid slums! Vote for more intellectuals! They are obviously all round the twist, but if they are in the Observer . . .

Illustration by 'Tony' from the original article.

Another Laborious type is James Cameron, the famous columnist. At the end of a famous career with the quantity press, he is interviewed in the Guardian and says (in language which is de rigueur for the trendy press nowadays) he would “give his knackers” to write for the Guardian. Presumably, Mr. Hetherington happened to be in need of a spare pair at that moment, for Cameron is now aboard the great leftist paper. He will vote Labour “as ever”. And does he really think Labour is so good? No: like Osborne, he votes Labour even though the only thing he says about it is that he “waited in vain for someone (his italics) in Government to resign over this year's H-Bomb Test while a splendid Health Service withers for lack of money”. Someone should tell Cameron that it was Attlee’s government which first started this country on the H-Bomb road. Because you can be sure he knows nothing about it. Too busy pompously advising others to have time to learn a damn thing himself.

Then we get a trendy-lefty Bishop, John Robinson. (You know, Honest to God.) “The one thing that unites me is getting shot of Heath and the Unfair Society.” He doesn’t tell us why he thinks we had a “fair society” under Attlee or Wilson (or what the devil he means by the term). And although he is contributing advice on how to vote, he does not tell us how he would vote himself but actually says that if the election had been on the 3rd instead of the 10th he would have voted differently! If you think I am pulling your leg and even a South Bank fake-socialist couldn’t utter such drivel, go to the library and see.

There is no room to deal with them all so just one more; yes, another Professor, the well-known Crick. What do you think the Professor’s subject is? Politics! Now there’s an expert for you. “My prediction is that I’ll vote Labour again, out of habit.” So on Sunday your actual Professor of Politics does not know how exactly he’s going to vote on Thursday; he can only predict. (Perhaps he had a bet with Ladbrokes on which way he was going to vote.) But, as he indicates, he is really a Labourite. He speaks thus of his Fuehrer: “A leader who has narrowed politics to the business of staying in office regardless, who has betrayed the country over Europe and who, in industrial relations, has become a past master of the pre-emptive cringe”. Which is worse or more lunatic: to vote for a leader because you are a starry-eyed nit who worships him, or to do so even though you know and say in print that he is an opportunist so-and-so?

Let’s squeeze in a reference to Kingsley Amis. He clearly hasn’t a clue and admits this. What he says is that all the parties are a lot of rubbish and he refuses to vote at all. Well, in a way that’s refreshing. He doesn’t understand. No doubt doesn’t care, either. Lucky Jim is all right, Jack. Which leaves one with a thought that has occurred before. The SPGB has always warned against workers following leaders, even if and when the leaders seemed people of some quality. Workers must do their own think. But how much more sensible does our advice appear when it is obvious that the famous names who monopolize the media and make sure that a Socialist voice is almost never heard, are such obvious nincompoops as these professors and bishops and all. Wake up, ye wage-slaves. You can’t possibly be as blind as the moronic specimens who lead you.

L. E. Weidberg

In Socialism: Who Will Do What? (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

On the introduction of Socialism millions of people will be released from currently useless, harmful and degrading jobs to undertake all kinds of useful work of their own choosing. There will be no shortage of labour in the form of interested minds and willing hands liberated from such occupations as the armed and police forces, the armies of insurance and other salesmen, accountants and income-tax workers, to mention just a few, necessary under capitalism.

It is interesting to speculate how the changed circumstances might affect occupations with the advent of Socialism. There would be no leaders in a Socialist society, since leadership implies the blind following by a majority of a minority and under Socialism the majority would be politically conscious and mature. The leaders of capitalism will be replaced by the delegates of Socialism. Those with a flair for administration might well become the servants of Socialism in the work of distributing wealth and organizing services in the interests of the world society.

Erstwhile accountants would no longer have to spend most of their time balancing the books of capitalism’s looting systems. Men and women good at figures would be required to calculate the needs of society and to make sure that the outputs of the various industries were always in good supply everywhere and that all resources were most efficiently used.

The degradation of “cheap lines” would not happen in a Socialist society; only the best would be produced, and for all. When people visited for instance a clothing store, no worry about money would be involved and the tailor would be able to offer his advice upon, and make to measure, the best man could produce.

Artists and writers would no longer have to struggle along in poverty whilst being compelled by their calling to carry on at all costs. They would not only be free to express what they wished without fear of persecution, but also to spend all the time they needed to satisfy their own urge to communicate.

Currently a doctor’s calling involves him in ministering to the needs of the wealthy so that the latter might enjoy their wealth, and patching up the workers so that they can continue to supply it. Research workers seeking the cure for today’s incurable diseases have to tolerate the painfully slow progress of their efforts because of lack of funds, whilst watching enormous resources being expended in military and space research. Under Socialism all the achievements of medical science would be devoted to the enjoyment of good health by all.

Architects in Socialist society would find their scope infinitely extended. No more cheese-paring, no more graft and chicanery; a free and full horizon would be laid open to them to produce beautiful and functional buildings to meet the varying wishes and needs of people.

Workers in hotels and restaurants would choose their job because they enjoyed rendering that particular service. There would be no servility nor class distinction about this, no ingratiation, no bitterness caused by “inadequate tipping” and the worker would enjoy the same good living as the diner.

Just what would be the fate of those unfortunate individuals at present condemned to stand at the top of escalators punching holes in tickets is hard to speculate. Certainly they could do nothing so useless and degrading. Even the most simple contribution to creative work would enrich and alter the lives of so many so radically.

One could multiply indefinitely such examples of the fruitful and satisfying work open to men in a sane order of society.

Only Socialism can offer this.

R. B. Gill

1975: Here We Come (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Holiday time and new year
time of happiness and cheer
your chance to laugh is here
                       a few days off work
                       time legitimately to shirk
the rush the train the rotten boss
to you their absence is no loss
but Guv’s will in heaven dear lord be done
more profits please this year than the last one 

   I want to be happy all the while
not only when I am allowed to smile
why do they have the right to say
                       today I work tomorrow I play 

I came smiling into the world
all my friends did too
out of the womb themselves they hurled
all the wonder of so much new
I know              I saw that excitement born
                        each new person’s dawn 

Where are they now these hopeful faces
gone I know to lonely places
but night and morning one shapeless mass
     belched from their mother tube crying alas
beaten hussled deformed in pain
they never smile only complain
       must it be        deep cries of earth
                            is that all life is worth 

  World awake from paralysed slumber
why permit the capitalists plunder
     abundant world           yours for the taking
                         when you will do some waking.

Ronnie Warrington

So They Say: Crystal Ball not Needed (1974)

The So They Say column from the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

Crystal Ball not Needed

Before the war we claimed “If you read it in the Socialist Standard you know it’s true”. That is still the case, and we can give two recent examples. In August this year we gave details of the unemployment and inflation situation in Australia, where so many Britons go in hopes of things being different. On 2nd October The Times reported:

The Australian Government has temporarily suspended its immigration programme to ease the country’s unemployment problem, Mr. Clyde Cameron, the Minister for Labour and Immigration, said today.
   Sources say that the monthly figures due to be released on Sunday will show unemployment at a postwar record level.

And in May we commented on the Labour Government’s show of virtue in cancelling the plans for Maplin Airport. Our observation was that Labour had begun all that themselves by projecting a Third London Airport at Stansted. On 11th November the Guardian Air Correspondent wrote, under Labour ‘Lumbers’ Stansted:

The Town and Country Planning Association has described the Government’s decision to abandon the Maplin Airport project as, in effect, a “monstrous” decision to build London’s third airport at Stansted in Essex.

However, you don’t require a crystal ball to see such things. All that is needed is to know how capitalism and its politics work, and then watch them at it.

Ganging Agley Again

The politicians, of course, exist by saying it will all be different this time: they are going to plan.

In the first week of October the United States Administration announced its economic plan. It lasted exactly two weeks. On 25th October The Guardian published the following from its Washington correspondent:

The Administration’s economic plan, unveiled with much fanfare two weeks ago, may have to be radically revised as President Ford is slowly being forced to admit that the country is in recession, and that he must act more decisively against growing unemployment.

It reminds one of the local Angling Society setting out with rod and line to catch the Loch Ness Monster, and then explaining to the world’s press after a fortnight that its bait was wrong. Except that capitalism is a real monster which eats planners.

To Heel, Rover

The same report also tells us:

Economists are now freely predicting that unemployment will rise soon to 7½ per cent . . . there are indications that the unions are getting more concerned about job security than wage increases.

A week earlier, on 17th October, the London Evening Standard’s front page headline was Rises or Jobs! Jones Warns the Unions. This was “a powerful call” by Jack Jones, the well-known militant leader of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. The report said :

Mr. Jones argued that unions must play their part in fighting the main danger in the economic crisis — the growth of unemployment.
    “It is simply no use pressing actions which lead to the closure of firms we work for,” he said. “A wonderful wage agreement is of no value if the firm with whom we have negotiated the agreement doesn’t employ people any more.”

Concentric Straight Lines

Another aspect of capitalist planning is how the apparent solving of one problem inexorably leads to another in its place. At the end of October newspapers were reporting that cattle were being slaughtered because of an acute shortage of fodder and the prohibitive price of what is available.

Until not many years ago all farmers grew their own fodder crops. Few have dreamed of doing so in recent times, with seductive subsidies to be received for every square foot given to barley, wheat etc. The last Conservative government did all it could to encourage beef production, without correspondingly encouraging the more mundane production of hay. Mr. Philip Brown of the RSPCA was quoted in The Guardian (28th October) as saying “they [the government] did their sums wrong”.

Of course, because capitalism’s sums all require several contradictory answers at once. Socialism is simple one-answer arithmetic.

Squeak Up, Please

Something Labour governments keep promising the working class is hearing the rich squeal. The idea is that if workers can be persuaded to listen intently for this delectable sound they will not notice that while they are lying down listening Labour politicians are standing on their necks.

However, the sound has not yet been detected. What we have instead is, for instance:

A wealthy Kent businessman picked up a pools prize of £44,806 today and said: “I’m delighted, of course, but it doesn’t mean that much to me.”
   Leslie Mustill, 58, said: “The money would mean more to other people. I’ll just take life easy . . . playing golf.” (Evening Standard 23rd October)

Or a full-page advertisement for Fred Olsen cruises in The Guardian on 24th October. “Upwards of £170” is the cost for one person. There is a special inset on shopping for cruisers (“On Madeira you can pay up to £28 for a hand-embroidered lace tablecloth, but the workmanship is superb”) and advice about tipping (“If any steward has been particularly helpful, £5 is customary”).

A Peep under the Sink

When an Enquiry Agent named Quartermain was jailed for “dirty tricks” over evidence for divorce cases, the judge told him he was “a thoroughgoing disgrace” to his profession. Don’t laugh, please.

Quartermain became known in 1969 when he was employed by Redbridge Council as a strong-arm man to evict squatters. Local authorities employ creatures like him to collect arrears and debts, asking no questions about how they do it; so do “respectable” firms. Their function is to do the dirty work behind the genteel facade which property society likes to display.

We are often asked who will do the “nasty” jobs under Socialism. This is one which won’t exist.

Robert Barltrop

Whatever Happened to "Full Employment"? (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

In The "Queen's Speech” on 29th October Mr. Wilson included a pledge about unemployment. "My government”, it read, "in view of the gravity of the economic situation, will as its most urgent task seek the fulfilment of the social contract as an essential element in its strategy for curbing inflation, reducing the balance of payments deficit, encouraging industrial investment, maintaining employment, particularly in the older industrial areas, and promoting economic and social justice.”

Maybe Labour Party supporters are reassured by this mumbo-jumbo, but they ought to examine the small print very carefully. If they do they will notice how the form of the pledge about dealing with unemployment has been discreetly watered down. Now it is part of a “strategy”, along with other aims, all of them dependent on the nebulous "social contract”, and the word “full” has been dropped. And all of it stems from the grave economic situation — their euphemistic way of describing a normal crisis of capitalism, aggravated by the inflation that Tory and Labour governments alike have brought about and are still promoting.

When the first post-war Labour government came into office in 1945, buoyed up with the fatuous belief that they had mastered capitalism and abolished crises for ever, their committal to deal with unemployment was in very different words. Then it was "Jobs for All” and "Full Employment”. In the early post-war years (due among other things to making good wartime destruction) unemployment was exceptionally low. In several years average unemployment then was under 300,000, about 1.2 per cent., and of course the Labour and Tory governments claimed credit for it.

Since the mid-fifties unemployment has been moving to higher levels, but as late as 1966 in the Wilson Labour Government John Diamond MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, boasted that they had got unemployment down from 1.6 per cent, to 1.2 per cent, and “that is how we propose to continue doing it" (Hansard, 6th March 1966). Capitalism, however, was not listening to Mr. Diamond and by the time they went out of office in June 1970 unemployment had gone up by about a quarter of a million to 579,000 (2.5 per cent.). In October 1974 it was 643,000 (2.8 per cent.), and with unemployment rising in most parts of the world the Government’s advisers are fearful that next year it may pass the million mark, as it did in 1972.

But if the politicians cannot prevent capitalism from following its normal course, with periodical higher levels of unemployment, their thoughts are turning hopefully to disguising it by “keeping the unemployed on the pay-roll”, paying subsidies to firms in difficulties instead of paying the money to the unemployed. A correspondent of the Sunday Telegraph (22nd September) estimated that subsidies to such companies were running at £2 million a week and that the jobs of 100,000 workers were involved. There is nothing the Labour Party will not try to do with capitalism — except abolish it.

Edgar Hardcastle

I. S. STAND FOR - CONFUSION (1974)

From the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Socialist Worker”, the weekly paper of the International Socialists, regularly publishes a statement of their main principles called “What We Stand For”.(1) We would expect this organization to stand for Socialism. Surprisingly, Socialism is nowhere defined in the statement and it only appears as a word upon which various people and organizations have placed many different interpretations. Still it is possible to get some idea of what IS stand for by a careful reading of their statement. It is also possible to get very confused. For instance, the statement starts off:

We believe that socialism can only be achieved by the independent action of the working class.

Whereas, the last part says they are

For the building of a mass workers’ revolutionary party . . . which can lead the working class to power . . .

(our emphasis both times)

Now, unless the workers are supposed to be getting power for something other than Socialism, it is simply ridiculous to say that someone who is being led is taking independent action. Could IS tell us which statement they stand for and which is this week’s deliberate mistake? It would also be interesting to know just how large a “mass” the workers of this “revolutionary party” are to be. Presumably, if it attracted too many workers the working class would be leading themselves!

The second part of the statement reads:

We believe in overthrowing capitalism, not patching it up or gradually trying to change it. We therefore support all struggles of workers against capitalism and fight to break the hold of reformist ideas and leaders.

We would wholeheartedly agree with this although we wonder if they only mean reformist leaders in the last bit. However, IS don’t appear to agree with this part of the statement themselves. Later on they say they are:

Against unemployment, redundancies and lay-offs. Instead we demand five days’ work or five days’ pay, and the 35-hour week. For nationalization without compensation under workers’ control.

What is this if it is not an appeal to patch up capitalism? No form of nationalization ever has or could solve the problem of unemployment in capitalism. This is a strange way to fight reformist ideas. As another example, at the two general elections this year they have supported the return of a Labour government. This is despite acknowledging (although their election posters made no mention of the fact) that such a government would be anti-working class and reformist. This is another strange way of supporting all struggles of workers against capitalism and fighting reformist ideas. Again, perhaps IS could explain?

The fifth part of the IS statement at least gives us some idea of what they stand for. It contains the sentence:

The experience of Russia demonstrates that a socialist revolution cannot survive in isolation on one country.

This holds the definite implication that a Socialist revolution took place there. So, we must go back to the Russia of 1917 to find out what they mean by a Socialist revolution. There, in a backward, predominantly agrarian country which was collapsing under the strains of a modern twentieth century war, the Bolsheviks took power in a minority insurrection. They did so on the promise that they would provide “Peace, Bread and Land” and not Socialism. The Bolsheviks had also expressed the wildly optimistic hope that the workers of other countries would follow their example and take power also. When these workers, who at the time were butchering each other in defense of their masters’ interests, did not do so any hope of establishing Socialism was obviously futile. In this situation, which could have been predicted from the start, the Bolsheviks consolidated their position by establishing a dictatorship which suppressed all opposition and under Lenin’s guidance, embarked on a program me of state capitalism.

If this is the IS idea of a Socialist revolution it is easier to understand their opposition to parliamentary democracy with an almost universal franchise and their preference for soviets (or “councils of workplace delegates” as they put it) which have at best only a haphazard democracy. Their stated reasons are that

The state machine is a weapon of capitalist class rule and therefore must be smashed. The present parliament, army, police and judges cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class.

True, the state machine is a weapon of the ruling class but there is little logic in saying that because someone uses something as a weapon then nobody else can use that weapon. And of course the present parliament, army, etc. cannot simply be taken over and used by the working class. In the words of Engels:

. . . the victorious proletariat must first refashion the old bureaucratic, administratively centralized state power before it can use if for its own purpose . . .(2)

The IS preference for soviets may also be due to the fact that they are less representative and thus provide a better opportunity for a minority to come to power as the Bolsheviks did. It is to be hoped that IS have a greater love for democracy than their counterparts of 1917 who dissolved the first and last completely democratically elected Russian assembly (the Constituent Assembly of 1918) when they found they were in the minority.

To return to the point about “the independent action of the working class”. The statement also says that

To achieve socialism the most militant sections of the working class have to be organized into a revolutionary socialist party . . . 

Taken in conjunction with the apparent endorsement of the Bolsheviks’ tactics this would seem to indicate that IS hold the Leninist “vanguard” theory. This theory says that far from taking independent action for Socialism, the mass of the present working class will never understand Socialism anyway and will have to be led by professional revolutionaries who will introduce it from above. Whatever way you look at it, the IS statement is either confused or dishonest. Quite possibly it is a mixture of both as any "vanguard" can only survive on the confusion of its followers.

The Socialist Party, in contrast to IS, has a clear line on what Socialism is, and how it will be achieved. Socialism will be a society in which all the means by which wealth is produced and distributed will be under the common ownership and democratic control of the whole community. Of necessity, it will be a worldwide system because the means of production and distribution are worldwide. There will be no wage or price system as things will be produced solely for use and not for sale. People will work to the best of their ability and take according to their needs. The nature of Socialism shows that it can only be achieved by the conscious and independent action of a clear majority. It is the job of Socialists to help build that majority. We do not deprecate the struggles of workers but we insist that they must understand the class basis of those struggles. Without that consciousness all their efforts will eventually be futile.

Once Socialists are in the majority they will have to get hold of the state machinery to prevent it being used against them. Socialist delegates elected to the various assemblies of the capitalist nation-states by a Socialist working class would have this control, and would leave any recalcitrant capitalists in a virtually helpless position. The capitalist class only maintain their order with the active support or acquiescence of the workers. Once they lose this and are faced with an organized, uncompromising working class it will be plain to all what they are—a socially useless, parasitic minority living off the backs of the workers.

Con Friel

(1) The quotations in this article are taken from the statement as it appeared on 24 August, 1974.

(2) Extract of a letter from Engels to Bernstein on 1 January, 1884.

Proceeds to charity (1974)

Film Review from the December 1974 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent in South Africa has sent us this account of the screening of a film based on life there.

"Gold" has well-known actors in the leading parts, and several hundred Africans — of whom two are named in the printed programme. This film, recently screened in Johannesburg, was made in and around this city and London. It was produced with the co-operation of a major South African gold-mining corporation, so it would be safe to assume that it does not misrepresent the gold mining industry — adversely, at least. 

The plot revolves round (apart from the cuckolding of the villain by the hero) the machinations of an international syndicate of investors led by the grandson-in-law of and heir to the good-natured, scrupulously honest, uninvolved big boss of the Mining House. Their aim is to flood the mine secretly (with the loss perhaps of a hundred or so miners' lives — "but then there's a price on everything") in order to cause a sudden rise in the price of gold and a drop in the share prices for this particular mine. With their foreknowledge of the event they hope to make a "killing" on the Stock Exchanges of the world.

Near the beginning of the film a "normal" mine disaster occurs with the usual fatalities and injuries among the miners, of course, though this time the underground mine manager is also killed. At a ceremony in an open-air stadium, to signify the company's appreciation of the sacrifices of the miners, a black hero is presented with a "gold" helmet and the widow of another African miner is awarded a pension for life of R120 — about £80 — per annum. (The pension of the mine manager's widow is not mentioned.)

I noticed that the sleek preview audience made no audible response; maybe they were asleep. Later, I looked at my seat-ticket (a complimentary one, I hasten to add!) and saw that the price stamped on it was R20, about £13.50; and it was not for one of the best seats by any means. This "Gala Première" was in aid of charity — oddly, not for silicosis or other mining diseases but for teaching aids for dyslexic pupils. Either way, the need for charity from the wealthy springs from the very social system which maintains them in economic supremacy.

Scenes of magnificent homes with high living and conspicuous consumption for the mine-owning minority and their scenic playgrounds in the bush-covered mountains alternate with shots of working conditions underground — though we are not shown the barrack-life living conditions for black miners in the mine compounds.

I can recommend the film for its scenes of how some of the rich live in South Africa and for shots of (typical ?) underground working conditions here. Also, for those interested, some fine aerial views of the Highveld bush and mountain scenery in the Transvaal. Mainly, however, one sees how false issues — a "moral conflict" — are made from different evaluations of human beings in the search for gold and profits.

Alec Hart