Ireland — they died for nothing (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why should I want to go back   

To you, Ireland, my Ireland? 

The blots on the page are so black  

That they cannot be covered with shamrock. 

I hate your grandiose airs, 

Your sob-stuff, your laugh and your swagger. 

Your assumption that everyone cares,  

Who is the king of the your castle.  

Castles are out of date, 

The tide flows round the children's sandy fancy; 

Put up what flag you like, it is too late  

To save your soul with bunting.

So wrote Louis MacNeice in his finely anti-nationalist Autumn Journal. The same sentiments of contempt for the futile excitement of national folly were echoed in great plays such as Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey and The Hostage by Brendan Behan (revived recently in a superbly anarchic production by the Royal Shakespeare Company).

Now that the Ulster dust is settling and, in the words of one Irish politician, inaction is speaking louder than words, it is surely time for some reckoning to be done. Was it worth it? The bloody years of furious castle-building, which have left few castle-dwellers and no shortage of occupants for the slums and the cemeteries, were either necessary or they were in vain. Socialists say that they were pointless: that for workers to die for flags and anthems is to die for nothing.

First, the accounts — the inventory of the dead and destroyed. Before the British Left sloganise about the IRA’s heroic struggle and Bostonian bar-room rebels play remote-control murder with their pocket books, let us do a few necessary historical sums. Who has died and for what? Since the commencement of the current “troubles” in 1969 over 3,200 Northern Irish people have been killed. This is in a population of less than a million. The proportional equivalent in American terms would have been half a million political murders: ten times the number of American soldiers killed in Vietnam. 37 percent of those killed were shot directly: another 30 percent were killed in gun battles, cross-fire and ambushes; 24 percent died in bombings; just over 5 percent of the catholic dead were victims of the British army. Nearly 35,000 Northern Irish people have been victims of serious injuries, ranging from lost limbs, blindness, bullet wounds and brain damage. This amounts to almost one in fifty of the population. Since 1973 1,500 kneecappings and so-called crucifixions (being shot in the elbows as well as knees) have been carried out by the IRA and their mirror reflections in the loyalist terror gangs. Those who were so punished had no court of appeal at which to defend themselves. Many of those escaping such attacks are now in exile in Britain and elsewhere.

Barbaric inhumanity has not been the preserve of the terrorists. The British army, assisted by the RUC, and backed up by the laws designed to facilitate freedom of the state against the people, have carried out vicious beatings, strip-searches, shoot-to-kill exercises and sustained torture in their political prison camp at Long Kesh. These crimes are not inventions, but have been exposed and condemned by bodies ranging from Amnesty International to International Court of Human Rights. How many workers have been pushed into the arms of futile terror gangsterism by anger engendered by the military arrogance of the British state? It should not be forgotten that the soldiers killed while serving in Ireland, whose deaths have been counted as victories in IRA pubs from Belfast to Boston, were exclusively working-class men, usually drawn from the dole queues, often Liverpool or Glasgow catholics.

Statistics can blind their magnitude and, anyway, the prejudiced will refuse to be confused by mere facts. So let us ask some searching questions which involve times, dates and human faces, not just numbers. What liberation was served by the murder of two boys in Warrington last year when an IRA bomb ended their short lives? What defence of Irish culture was served by such reckless vandalism as the bombing of the Linen Hall Library in Belfast (a famous repository of Irish social history) or the murder some years ago of an old man whose reputation as a maker of instruments for traditional Irish musicians was destroyed when two IRA men shot him dead because he was a protestant? What freedom was being canvassed when socialists in Belfast attended a Sinn Fein meeting on the Falls Road and, after asking a question which confronted the rhetoric of nationalism with the reality of class, were threatened and forced to leave?

We socialists opposed unreservedly the broadcasting ban upon Sinn Fein and Co, but what of their ban on the right to speak out against them which has led to threats, beatings and kneecappings in the name of liberation? These are questions calling for answers; We do not expect to hear them from the Irish-American know-nothings or the slogan-chanting SWPers whose logic-defying position throughout all of this has been to give “unconditional critical support” to the IRA. But let those who have any genuine belief that blowing up workers is a means to freedom tell us how they answer these questions, or how they seek to evade the historical commitment to do so.

Message from America
During the last presidential election Clinton, in a bid to win Irish-American votes, promised to send a peace envoy to sort out the little mess in Ireland. Perhaps Ireland should have responded by offering to send Gloria Honeyford to clear up the riots in LA. The entire US involvement in Ireland has been motivated by cynical vote-seeking. When Gerry Adams was first invited to visit New York in early 1994 politicians seeking their share of the 40-million odd Irish-American votes were falling over one another to shake hands with this fascist. When Adams and Kennedy shook hands perhaps they swapped notes on their respective victims. Then Bruce Morrison, a man defeated for political office, was sent over to Belfast with Clinton’s blessing, to carve out a deal with Sinn Fein. The deal involved a promise of hundreds of millions of dollars of US capital investment in the north-east of Ireland. But what will these American capitalists be investing in? Not folk music sessions and the leprechaun-making industry, that’s for sure; they will only invest their money where there is a low-waged, disciplined workforce to be exploited.

On this recent visit to America Adams was treated as if he should be compared with Mandela. The truth is that Adams and his party, Sinn Fein, do not represent very much at all. Over 98 percent of voters in the Republic of Ireland do not vote for Sinn Fein even though they are quite free to do so, while in the north 90 percent of voters in general and 70 percent of catholics do not vote for Sinn Fein. So, the principal significance of Gerry Adams lies not in his mandate, but in his capacity to murder and mutilate.

While in the USA Adams spoke in Cleveland where one member of the audience, John O’Neil, asked him whether he regarded consent as being fundamental to any democratic political settlement and whether Sinn Fein was prepared to oppose the Irish constitutional link between church and state. Adams declined to respond to the points raised, instead offering some empty rhetoric about how the Americans were to be praised for throwing off British imperialism. (He failed to utter a word about American imperialism.) One catholic-nationalist in the audience turned to another and was heard to declare, “That fellow O’Neil must be Protestant.” “Worse than that”, was the response, “he is a Marxist!” So much for the radicalism of Sinn Fein’s US supporters.

The American government pretends to reject terrorism. Of course, they carry out legalised campaigns when they see it as being in their national interest, but they claim to oppose unofficial and unelected political killers. But with what credibility can Clinton's government rebuke armed terrorists, be they Bosnian Serbs or Libyan hijackers, when they have made it clear that the best way to obtain a hero’s welcome in the USA is to bomb your way to credibility? Who will take seriously American bleating about the nasty bombers of the World Trade Centre when Bill Clintstone's Barney Rubble, Al Gore, was televised shaking the hand of a man whose sole claim to power rests upon his association with precisely such tactics?

As ever, the myth of the New World Order rests upon the miserly economic and sordid political interests of a rich and privileged minority. The catholic and the protestant slums of Ireland north and south will never be served by such political game-playing.

The futility of Nationalism
From its inception, Irish nationalism was motivated by a kind of stupidity (“the delirium of the brave” as Yeats called it) which workers should not have touched with a barge pole, let alone a flag pole. Consider the words of nationalist nutcase and IRA hero Padraic Pearse, a leader of the Easter 1916 rebellion, who rejoiced at the sacrifice of Irish lives in the great imperialist war of 1914-18:

  Ireland has not known the exhilaration of war for over a hundred years . . . The last sixteen months have been the most glorious of Europe . . . The old heart of the earth needed to be warmed with the red wine of the battlefield. Such august homage was never before offered to God as this, the homage of millions of lives given gladly for the love of country.

What benefit has any wage slave ever gained from a war grave? Even if there is to be a united Ireland, what possible gain does any worker expect to be offered by membership of a semi-clerical state in which citizenship amounts to no more than freedom to be exploited for a wage or a salary or unemployed and paid even less welfare money than is offered by the British state? This prospect might lead some fat New York catholic lawyers to dance a jig, but where will it leave the working class?

Both the IRA and the loyalist ceasefires are to be welcomed by all workers. Socialists want a situation under capitalism where we can operate to abolish the system in circumstances where bullets and bombs do not threaten us daily. But now comes the hard part. 600,000 Northern Irish protestants still think they are British and 300,000 Northern Irish catholics (give a few here or there) still think they are Irish. As long as these identifications are considered to be worth a candle there is a prospect of renewed conflict.

So, the merely negative achievement of ending the killing, much as it is to be seen as a step forward, is not where matters must rest. It is now time for workers to reach the realisation that their class identity, as used and robbed providers of profit to a supranational capitalist elite, is what really matters. To defeat this elite globally and not just in Ireland, calls for workers to exhibit the courage to transcend the identities inherited from capitalist history (Irish/British—catholic/protestant) and recognise that as workers who constitute the overwhelming majority of the population we have a world to win. It is on that basis that Irish history can proceed from the futility of national rebellion to the exciting opportunity of the social revolution by the many.

Steve Coleman

From Capitalism to Socialism (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

What is the real possibility of a complete change from the world-wide social system we live under today, to one that is its complete opposite? From a market economy to free availability of wealth for all; from a class-bound system to one where there are no classes; from minority ownership of the means of production to common ownership. From wages and profits to a moneyless system; guns and bullets to the non-existence of armies, navies and police forces. From profound change in the habits, customs, ideas that have ruled people for a lifetime and which they have come to think of as normal, to habits and customs which will bind community interests together in a socially-cohesive and not divisive way.

Confronted with the socialist picture many reply by saying something like “well yes; 1 agree it would be marvellous, but it can never come about.” Well, socialists and sympathisers of the Socialist Party think it can be done, and not only that it can be done but is the only practical, sensible and workable solution to the otherwise insoluble problems of today. And it is not us who will do it, it is you. Our job is to point the way.

Waste of capitalism
Why do we think the way we do? The practical means of running socialism, that is production and distribution are not really problems. The working class already run the world. They produce everything, distribute everything and organise everything. The capitalist is quite superfluous to the creation of wealth, their only function is to make decisions, usually disastrous ones from the point of view of humanity, and usually acting as a brake upon the production of wealth. The capitalist system in addition requires around two-thirds of the potential workforce to be engaged in unnecessary labour. Unnecessary to a rationally-organised society that is. Activities such as the printing, counting and handling of money and all its accretions which make life complicated such as the acres of plastic in the form of cheque cards, credit cards, not to mention the coin machines and all the other garbage.

Then there is the capitalist destruction juggernaut, the army, navy, airforce and all the workers making bombs, guns, tanks, planes, worships, rockets, nuclear warheads, flame throwers, poison gas. The equipment required to feed, clothe and house an army, the barracks, airfields and harbours just for war. Let's not forget the workers required to make the bits of tin for generals to hang on their chests and we are still only halfway through the colossal waste of manpower and resources that capitalism imposes on us. There is the energy involved in making good the actual destruction that these weapons inflict, Three weeks of war in Iraq and the equivalent number of years to plug the oil wells that went up in flames. The ending of capitalism will release enormous amounts of energy and potential labour that can be put to useful purposes.

Ending class rule
What about running things? Government, organisation, accounting. None of these is a problem. Socialism will not have government, nor will there be any Socialist Party, which will go out of existence as soon as capitalism has been abolished. Government is concerned with people, with compelling the ruled to follow the dictates of the rulers. Where control cannot be achieved by persuasion, using the propaganda machinery of the media, the coercive powers of the state are there to enforce ruling-class needs by violence. Anyone who doubts that need think no further back than the last major miners’ strike. None of this will be necessary in Socialism since there will be no minority ownership class and therefore no need for class control.

It will of course be necessary' to have an administration. We arc not so daft as to think that things will run themselves: but this will be an administration of things, not government over people. Ownership of the means of production will be held in common, it follows that necessary tasks will be commonly run.

What about those countries which still lag behind the the development of the so-called “advanced” nations. Again this is no real problem. Socialism as a worldwide system will quite naturally help any areas of the world that need help in whatever way they require. Even capitalism does this in times of obvious need such as floods, earthquakes and famine. There is never any lack of volunteers to render aid, only hindrance by the restrictions imposed by governments.

Need for change
So what’s left? Where is the difficulty? Very few say “I could not live in socialism”. What they do say is “How are you going to persuade the others?” Once socialism has been explained to a non- Socialist the overwhelming majority are all for it, but hold back because they think the task of convincing the necessary majority is too difficult, or will take too long, or because they think that something or other must be done in the meantime.

We must remember that socialism is not an exclusive idea of the Socialist Party, it has formed part of the consciousness of suffering humanity for hundreds of years. Now that the practical difficulties to achieving it are no longer in existence it is only inertia of the majority that is holding socialism back. And it is only because so many see the task as being too difficult that socialist ideas are not spreading swiftly. However, when society is ready for change things can happen very quickly, as the recent events in Russia and eastern Europe have shown so dramatically. Socialism is not something that has to be imposed, foreign to people’s nature or their thinking. It is capitalism, which runs counter to the way most people would like to live, which has to be imposed. That is the real reason for schools, religion and all the other methods of propaganda which the ruling class employ to gain support for the continuance of their dominance.

The only obstacle to socialism lies in the mind. Socialism can only come about by the conscious decision of the majority who accept and want it. The need is now urgent. We cannot afford to wait while capitalism ruins the environment and plunges more and more workers into a state of misery and deprivation. Only the institution of a democratic, classless, moneyless system can solve the problems capitalism inevitably creates. Every individual who joins the struggle makes the effort easier and the outcome more certain.

Cyril Evans

LETS Abolish Money? (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

If you listen to the enthusiasts they can recreate communities, cure unemployment, undermine the multinationals and even provide an alternative to the global capitalist economy. What can? LETS or Local Exchange and Trading Schemes.

This is what the enthusiasts say. First, Harry Wears from Haverfordwest:

  “I’m really enthusiastic about LETS. I think it’s the most exciting mechanism for social change I have ever come across. In LETS, debts don’t accrue interest and there is no pressure to pay. A LETS cheque can’t bounce, nor a LETS business go bust. LETS sees money as a symbol but, unlike sterling, it can’t be manoeuvred to the detriment of people using it” (Woman & Home, October 1993).

Then Donnachadh McCarthy from Southwark:

  “It is a system to recreate a community economy which we were losing because of multinational companies and big supermarkets. Money which comes into Southwark is used once and then leaves via the banks which use it to finance projects elsewhere” (Independent, 13 December 1993).

And Ed Mayo of the New Economics Foundation:

  “With mass unemployment in Britain many people have the time but not the cash. LETS gives them access to things they would not otherwise have” (Guardian, 12 March 1994).

Finally, from the same Guardian article by John Vidal:

  “The implications, say the theorists, are enormous. In a cash-starved economy (one in five British households is severely in debt), despite the existence of wealth in the form of skills and resources, traditional exchange is hijacked by a lack of cash. With local currencies, as long as people make their goods and skills available, their exchange can go round and round. ‘The community therefore becomes richer,’ says Paul Ekins, a green economist”.

It is, of course, absurd that people who need things should go without even though the skills and resources to provide for them exist. We can go along with the LETS enthusiasts in denouncing this scandal of unmet needs alongside unused resources. The difference between Socialists and LETS enthusiasts is that, while both of us criticise money, they answer “yes” to the question “So, you want to go back to barter?” while we answer “no”. They want to retain exchange and trading with some new kind of money; we want a society based on common ownership geared to producing things directly for people to take and use in which exchange and trading, and money as the means of exchange, would be redundant.

Back to Barter
LETS schemes are essentially local barter clubs. A group of people with varying skills get together and agree to exchange the services they can provide with any other member without using money.

Records, however, have to be kept. Each member has an account and when one member’s services are used their account is credited with the exchange value of that service while that of the user is debited by the same amount. What normally happens is that each member is given a sort of cheque book which they can use to pay for other members’ services either at a published price or as agreed between the two. Clearly for all this a unit of account is needed.

Some schemes define this unit in terms of labour time. Others tie is to the pound. The accounts could in fact be done in pounds but generally the unit is given a special name. In Bath it is an “oliver”; in Brixton it is a “brick”; in Reading a “ready”, and so on.

Do LETS schemes really allow people, as is claimed, to by-pass money and so have “access to things they would not otherwise have”? Two unemployed people with different skills can always barter their services. Thus an unemployed plumber can repair an unemployed electrician’s central heating in exchange for some rewiring by the electrician. Neither needs money for this. A LETS scheme is merely an extension of this: the plumber or electrician joins a barter club and so gains access to a wider range of potential clients as well as access to a wider range of reciprocal services (too often, though, things not normally needed by the unemployed like aromatherapy, holistic massage, acupuncture, tarot reading and other such New Age fads). So, it’s an alternative to placing cards in newsagent’s windows or relying on the grapevipe to learn about work opportunities. As such, like the black economy, it’s one way of surviving in the capitalist jungle but that’s all. But don’t LETS schemes help create a “local community spirit”? Maybe, but no more than any other local club.

Small is Small
The trouble is that the idea has been hijacked by all sorts of currency cranks and funny money theorists who see it as the basis for an “alternative money” and an “alternative economy”. But they overlook two important facts.

First, the nature of the activities covered by LETS schemes. They are all activities that can be carried out by a single individual such as repairs and personal services, and which in the normal money economy could be done by self-employed people working on their own. In fact, from an economic point of view, LETS club members are acting as self-employed; a LETS scheme is a club in which self-employed individuals barter their services. It could never extend beyond this to productive activities that require expensive equipment and plant and a large workforce—such as, precisely, the manufacture of the things that LETS members and the self-employed repair.

Secondly, there are definite limits to the size a LETS scheme can attain. The biggest in Britain only has 300 members. If they got much bigger than this the administrative work of recording all the transactions would grow and could no longer be done by voluntary or part-time labour; people would have to be employed to do it, which would add to the running costs of the scheme and have to be shouldered by the members. The membership fees and transaction charges already levied by the scheme would rise. At a certain point this would cancel the advantages of being in the scheme and members would find it more convenient to re-enter the money economy and resort to newsagent’s windows and contacts.

Funny Money
What most of the currency cranks who have latched on to the LETS idea envisage is converting the units of account the schemes use — olivers, bricks, readies, etc—into a real money that would circulate.

In fact most commentators, like John Vidal in the Guardian article, refer to the LETS units of account as “currencies”, but this is misleading. They are not money; they do not circulate. They only exist on paper or computer disk as a record of transactions. LETS schemes are in fact more cumbersome than money. After all, with a real money that circulates an individual account of a person’s exchange transactions doesn’t have to be kept.

Some of the advantages claimed for LETS units also apply to cash. So when Harry Wears says “a LETS cheque can’t bounce”, this is true but neither can cash. Similarly, when it is argued that people have an incentive to use LETS credits—and that when they do accumulate them this doesn’t give them any power to manipulate other people—as they don’t pay interest, the same applies to cash as such. A hoard of cash is no more useful than a large LETS credit balance.

What is being advocated as the ideal is a money that can’t be accumulated and can’t be lent at interest, with LETS units being seen as the formula to achieve this. But such an “alternative money” is never going to come into being, because it would be worse than existing money. If you have an exchange economy (which the LETS enthusiasts accept, as is seen by the full name Local Exchange and Trading System) then conventional money is the best means of exchange. Not only does it allow many more exchanges to take place than barter or a modified form of barter like LETS schemes, but the payment and receipt of interest also facilitates more exchanges.

Banks are not, as some LETS theorists (along with the traditional currency cranks) suggest, the villains of the peace who interrupt the normal circulation of money and goods by not making money available to match needs and resources unless they are paid a tribute in the form of interest. Banks are financial intermediaries which borrow money from people who have some but don’t want to spend it immediately, and then lend it those who have something to spend money on but no money of their own. Naturally the banks take precautions to ensure that they are going to get back any money they lend, but the overall result that they help keep money circulating and exchange going.

To want to keep exchange but do away with banks and the taking of interest is unrealistic in the extreme. It is typical currency crankism.

The way to end the scandal of unmet needs alongside unused skills and resources is not to retain the exchange economy while trying to get rid of some of its effects by reforming the money system. It is to get rid of the exchange economy altogether by establishing a society based on the common ownership of productive resources where goods and services would be produced directly for people to take and use and not to be exchanged, or bought and sold, at all.

Adam Buick

50 Years Ago: The Future of China (1994)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Workers throughout the world are becoming increasingly interested in China, but their sympathies are not always identical. Some regard the Kuo Min Tang Government as "progressive", inasmuch that it professes its intention to establish democracy and raise the standard of life of the people. Others support the "communist-soviet" regime and hope that it will succeed in sovietising all China. Neither of these attitudes is in the interests of the common people of China or the rest of the world. Whichever regime emerges, the masses will be enslaved to some form of capitalism.

Therefore Socialists are hostile to all the rival contenders for power in China. Our sympathies are whole-heartedly with the common people, who for decades have endured horror upon horror. Is there a way to put an end to their suffering? There surely is. The workers of all lands—especially in Britain, U.S.A., Canada, Germany, and other advanced industrialised countries — must resolve to do away with capitalism and establish in its place international Socialism.

(From an article by H.G. Holt,
 Socialist Standard, December 1944)

Special Offer (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

NO MONEY REQUIRED

Free food ... free housing ... free healthcare ... free travel...
free clothing ... free holidays ... free entertainment

That’s right, you didn’t misread the headline. Not a bad offer is it but we’re not going to do anything for you, you’ve got to do it for yourselves"? In fact, you already do.

You are the people who run the factories and the farms, build the houses, look after the sick, teach the kids, operate the transport and communication networks, staff the offices, cook the meals and wash up afterwards. You already provide everything that is consumed in society. No, unlike the other parties we don’t offer to do anything for you or give you anything, we do however say that free access to everything mentioned above, and much more is available — as soon as society is organised in a sensible way. How could we possibly give it to you? You already run the system from top to bottom, you’ve got it all already haven’t you? Well, no, not quite, because although you spend your working life organising and producing everything, you give it all away.

"Give it away, surely not. My employer works jolly hard you know, he told me himself, he deserves every penny of profit I make for him. Anyway, he owns the whole outfit — started out from nothing getting people like me to work for him, and it’s stressful at the top constantly flying about calling up the accountant on the phone.”

Yes, it's sad, we sympathise with the bosses; there’s the constant worry of what their competitors are up to, and whether the Chancellor will bankrupt them by getting his sums wrong again, in which case we’re out of a job too, aren’t we? What they need is socialism, just think, when we have it, they can join the rest of us in doing something useful.

“But what about that chap in the smart suit I voted for in the last election? He said his party could arrange things so that the employers would make more profit, and we might even be a little better off too, and he’s going to do something about the hospital waiting lists and the environment. Oh, and single mothers and the latest crime figures too."

No, we won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that these are your views. You know as well as we do that politicians are completely helpless when it comes to making the market work in our interests. If they could they would, but over the years they've tried every trick in the book and they know they can’t. Don't be too hard on them though. Look at it from their point of view — it’s a cushy job and the money’s not bad, if people are daft enough to give them power, why not? Better than working for an employer.

It's ironic though isn’t it? If there was an election tomorrow on whether global socialism should be introduced many of these people would probably vote against it. Can you imagine after socialism has been introduced, the owning class of today and their politicians saying — ‘‘No, we want no part in your system, instead of contributing to the useful work, and taking freely what we need, we want to be employed, we want to be paid a wage which just about lasts from one pay day to the next. Instead of designing, building and living in decent housing, we want you to preserve a block of slum council flats for us to live in. Leave us out of your new healthcare schemes, we prefer the capitalist style of doing things, keep an old rundown hospital going for us, arrange for it to be kept short of beds and nursing staff and we’ll queue up for months for treatment. You can keep your socialism. We’re proud of our capitalist system."

Perhaps not, they can’t be that stupid can they?

Nick White

The Shop (1994)

A Short Story from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

John Kingstead made vague promises to unpack and set off down the street as though Venice and Rome had been illusions. He walked with brisk determination, giving the impression that he was an inspector not a shopper.

He marched into the corner shop and stood in a familiar doorway, blinking. The shop he had known all his life had been transformed. The hum of refrigerators echoed all around. Hundreds of slabs of butter were piled against one wall blurring into a sea of margarine tubs. Opposite were bottles of milk, some of them unlikely colours, and various different types of cream. The largest wall and refrigerators around the room were taken up with cheeses.

“What the . . .?” John said in astonishment. A shopkeeper sprang up from his chair. He wiped his hand on his apron ceremonially and offered it out.

“Hello, can I help you?” he asked. Kingstead spun round several times in amazement.

“What have you done?” he wailed. Kingstead’s meaning obviously wasn't apparent to the shopkeeper

“This morning? Mainly just taking orders and assisting customers.” Kingstead was nervous.

“What have you done to the shop?” he shouted. “You’ve got no bread, no fruit, no meat. You don’t even have a till.” 'Hie shopkeeper looked thoughtful for a while and then sudden recognition broke out.

“Is that some kind of Hungarian cheese?” he asked. “We don’t have any but if you like I’ll write it down and order some for you. Were you thinking of trying the job? I just wondered because you were asking a lot of questions about it earlier on and I. . .” Kingstead cut him short.

“I want to know what you’ve done to my shop and where you keep the money." There was silence as the shopkeeper thought things through. He grinned.

“I get it. It’s a joke. Bread, money!” “It’s no joke. I go on holiday for a month to try to enjoy my retirement and I return to find an imbecile giving away rare cheeses.”

The shopkeeper became suddenly thoughtful and looked Kingstead up and down. “What year is it?” he asked. Kingstead looked at him in amazement.

“Nineteen ninety-four” he answered. The shopkeeper’s eyebrows rose with the surprise of someone who expects something unlikely and is slightly fazed that it has happened at last. More than anything he looked knowing.

“I did suspect that something like this would happen eventually.”

“LIKE WHAT?”

“Why don’t you sit down and have a cup of tea,” he suggested.

Kingstead sat keeping his eyes on the grocer all the time. He still did not trust him.

He had learned to trust no-one during his own shopkeeping years. Even the smallest children with their melting smiles and their equally melting ice-lollies were only waiting for him to disappear into the backroom so they could fill their pockets with sweets. Not even his friends, relatives and even the elderly could count on his trust.

It was the economic recession that had made people desperate. He had seen so many stand across the counter from him with the fear of redundancy in their eyes and who could now only gaze at the luxuries they would have bought in the boom years.

And it was the damned Conservative Party with its open market and competition that had brought it all about. He had no doubt about that. In the post-war years when corner shops were common and the Labour Party was in power there was decency, honesty and prosperity.

The Conservatives had killed corner shops and replaced them with faceless supermarkets. And when he had retired with no son or assistant to pass it to he had sold it to one of the hated Thatcherite conglomerates. They had stolen the spirit he had cultivated. How it had changed! It was full of middle-class titbits that the working class could never afford. It made him feel like crying.

The one bitter comfort that his confused mind could throw up was that at least the conglomerate had not sold the shop to any of the Pakistanis that were infesting the trade. The Black Plague had been successfully averted. The job-stealing, dole-claiming hordes had been kept back in their own backward division of the Earth and the honest working men of the village would not have to face that extra threat to their jobs.

The shopkeeper tinkled with some crockery below the small counter then brought out two steaming cups of tea.

“Now then,” he said softly, and began to explain. “Some people think that places can have auras and that. Like if something bad happens, really bad, it stays with the place and you can sometimes feel it. They do say that’s what causes hauntings, it's the vibrations of things in the past. But it works the other way too. If two people from different times care about a place a lot, that place can sometimes bring them together.” The shopkeeper paused.

“I know I care about this store very much, and you obviously do otherwise you wouldn’t have come in here shouting like you did. It’s been arranged for us to meet.”

Kingstead stared at him. He was definitely serious.

“Yes. Whatever you say.” The shopkeeper looked around for the newspaper he had been reading and threw it at Kingstead. He read the date.

14 May 2146.

“Am I really in the future?” he asked.

“Yeah, and if I were you I’d make every possible effort to stay here."

Kingstead wrinkled his brow.

“Why?” he asked.

"Oh come on. I've done history. I know what life was like in the capitalist era.”

“What the . . . how . . . you mean?” Kingstead suddenly remembered all the doubts he had about the grocer’s behaviour. Being in the future certainly didn’t excuse that.

“Global socialism. We got rid of money.” The way he said it made it sound like such an ordinary statement. Kingstead was very nearly speechless.

“Oh,” he said, and was silent. “Do you swap things?” he asked hesitatingly. The whole idea was so primitive that it made him cringe, but what other explanation was there?

“No. That’s really the same thing. Just as bad. We give them away.”

“What?” Kingstead shouted. All those beautiful things were being given away to people with no guarantee that the recipients had ever done anything to deserve them.

Without money people would have no reason to work, would they? He thought of how glad he himself had been to retire. But that led him on to how bored he had been after a few months, all the useless hobbies he had taken up to fill his time and that trip they had taken to escape the boredom. His retirement had taught him that human beings are not naturally lazy.

He had chosen to go into business with his father because shopkeeping was a job he loved. In a world without wage-packets, more so in a world without wage-packets, people would still find careers they wanted to dedicate themselves to. In a moneyless world they would be serving the community and themselves, not some fat capitalist whip-crackers. Job satisfaction would increase overnight.

He thought of all his retired friends who wanted to work and could not. He had blamed the ageist attitudes of employers. Now he knew it was money. His heart leapt at the thought of all that could be achieved and produced if the restrictions of money died away.

He remembered products he used to enjoy that were no longer made because they weren’t profitable. In a world without profits he could have them even if he had to make them himself. He looked again at the racks of cheese and butter. There was so much variety. How many people actually wanted Tibetan yak’s butter, apart from Tibetans? But somebody wanted it, so it was there.

He turned to look at the shopkeeper, beaming.

“Impressive, isn't it?” the shopkeeper asked. Kingstead nodded. “Of course at first we were all mainly just concerned about feeding everyone in the world but once things got going people started to realise just how much the world could produce. There was a huge increase in inventions being realised when patents were no longer needed and thousands of so-called ‘unprofitable’ schemes were tried out. And these are the profits, human happiness.”

He already knew how wrong capitalism was. He had just been following Racism and the Labour Party down a blind alley of excuses for years. Now that he was forced to accept that things could, would and will change he was free to accept socialism. Political beatitude descended over him. At last he knew the answer.

The shopkeeper coughed.

“I could always explain it to you,” he said. In silence Kingstead turned and shook his head.

“Thanks,” he said, in the most genuine way he ever had. “But I think I understand.” They stood in silence again.

“I think that as soon as you leave the shop you return to your own time,” the shopkeeper told him. Kingstead sighed.

“Oh well, I have things to do there,” he said. “For instance, explaining all this to the British Legion!”

And he left the shop, whistling and carrying a pat of Tibetan yak’s butter and a head full of ideas.

Matthew Vaughan-Wilson

The Cruel Edges of Capitalism (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism, the argument goes, is not such a bad system. Since Marx’s day it has reformed itself to provide a tolerable existence for workers: Workers used to have to make provision for unemployment, sickness and old age out of their wages. Now these are provided for them by the state, largely out of taxes levied on the rich. Every time that profit-seeking by private capitalist firms has threatened to get out of hand and damage the environment or the workforce’s health the state has intervened. Over the years more and more restrictions — the prohibition of child labour, the provision of free education, and numerous Acts laying down standards for housing, sanitation and town planning — have been placed on the freedom of action of capitalist firms The bureaucracy to enforce this has again been paid for out of taxes that have reduced the wealth of the rich. All this has meant that workers are reasonably satisfied and don’t want to get rid of capitalism. In short, the argument goes, reformism has worked in the past, so why not continue with it?

This was the theme of a lecture given in the House of Commons in November last year by J. K. Galbraith, the American writer and economist, to the Institute of Public Policy. These developments, he said, have “taken the cruel edge off capitalism” and made it “an acceptable economic system”. Those he called the “social left”, he concluded, should draw the lessons from this:

  “We are no longer in search of an alternative economic system. Nor is it clear that one exists. We are concerned with making more effective and more tolerant and equitable the economic system we have. Our claim is not to violent change, certainly not to revolution. It is to a socially better performance by the existing system ” (Guardian, 25 November 1993).

Following Tony Blair’s election as leader of the labour Party in July, David Marquand echoed this view. The only realistic choice today, he said, is not between capitalism and socialism but between two kinds of capitalism which he called “free market capitalism” and “social market capitalism”. (The World Tonight, BBC Radio 4, 27 July). As a Labour defector to the now-defunct SDP, he favours the latter form of capitalism by which he means the profit system mitigated by a few social reforms and limited state intervention.

So, should we lower our sights and try to make the best of capitalism? Has capitalism become an acceptable economic system that we should try to merely humanise, not abolish?

Only a die-hard reformist could choose the present moment to argue this case. On the world scale, capitalism is still going through one of its regularly-occurring slumps (which, incidentally, reformists once claimed to be able to eliminate). The resulting increased competition on the world market is forcing all states and their governments to cut back on their social spending and to de-regulate the restraints on profit-making by capitalist firms. In other words, the measures which the reformists see as having taken the “cruel edge” off capitalism are being undermined — and undermined by the normal workings of the capitalism they see as the only possible economic system.

Capitalism has rolled back their reforms and all they can recommend is that we start again. That we begin to push the stone back up the slope, even though we know that in the by no means certain event of success it will roll back down in the next slump. In Ancient Greek mythology that was the torture imposed on an unfortunate king called Sisyphus. Galbraith, Marquand, Blair and the others may be masochists. But we Socialists, we are not. We don’t regard endlessly rolling a stone up a hill only to see it roll down again time after time as a useful or satisfying activity.

When these people say we must accept that there is no alternative to capitalism what they are saying is that we must accept that the only way in which the production and distribution of wealth can be organised today is on the basis of production being in the hands of separate firms all competing to sell their products on the market at a profit.

Their whole strategy is based on accepting that profit must be the motive for production and that profits should be made, and then taxing away some of these profits for socially-desirable purposes. But this limits their field of action considerably. It means they must refrain from doing anything that might undermine profit-making.

They must allow the profit-seeking private firms that will continue to dominate economic activity the leeway they need to pursue maximising their profits. They must discourage, and actively oppose when it occurs, workers going on strike for higher wages or better working conditions as these cost firms money and eat into their profits. But, more serious since taxes are central to their strategy, there are definite limits as to how far they can go in taxing profits. They must not kill off the geese that lay the golden eggs by increasing the tax burden unduly — and they must defer to the judgement of the geese, the capitalist firms themselves, as to what level of taxation is due and what undue.

Under these circumstances you need a microscope to tell the difference between “social market capitalism” and ordinary capitalism, which is largely only window-dressing anyway.

It is clear that, given the profit system, only a limited amount of money is ever going to be available for social measures especially those aimed at achieving a fairer, less unequal society rather than linked to increasing the productive efficiency and so profit-producing potential of the workforce.

It is also clear that when, as at present, profits are under pressure from competition from abroad then the amount of money available for state benefits is going to be squeezed. So that, far from the government being able to increase social spending, it has to reduce it. This of course is what has been happening in all countries since the early 1970s when the post-war boom came to a final end and is the practical disproof of the reformist theory that the cruel edges of capitalism can be permanently removed. 

Adam Buick

Flowers (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Don’t lay flowers for rebels who failed
as if sunburst days are spent,
or let your greying hair steal
breath from your impossible dreams,
too many wreaths have been
hung at doors
of the drab remains who’ve
ploughed barren soil,
crop after crop of young corn
shrivels and dies
trampled underfoot,
bloodstained, murdered.
You are too young to place faith
in those tumbling, tarnished statues,
reach out and disembowel the ghosts
who cast long shadows from the past,
lower the caskets of disarmed prophets
into their dark resting places,
turn out, tune — in and turn up the volume
on this low fidelity system. 

Don’t lay flowers for rebels who failed
as if sunburst days are spent.

Letter: What a Consolation! (1994)

Letter to the Editors from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

The two articles in your October issue dealing with the problems in Northern Ireland said next to nothing about the thoroughgoing reactionary nature of the Protestant working class's political consciousness. Why was that?

Surely the writers of these articles were not ignorant of the fact that the Catholic working class people in Northern Ireland have been treated something like a non-people by the Herrnevolk attitude of the Unionist parties there and also most of the Protestant working class.

So what do you expect the Catholic population to do there in Northern Ireland when they are treated like coolies? Sitting down reading Socialist Standards certainly would be no consolation to them at all. And I am sure the Protestant working class in Northern Ireland in the main would not be impressed by what your writers have to say about Northern Ireland.

So what's the point in trying to make out that your type of Socialism has the solution to the problems in Northern Ireland?

Certainly the capitalist economic system causes problems and crises, but capitalism is not completely the same in all countries. The class consciousness Marx advocated for the bringing about of Socialism is a non-starter at the present time.

The Catholics in Northern Ireland just want to move forward to have an equal say in political matters rather than be treated with contempt by Unionist Herrenvolk or, worse still, as being enemies.

You say Ian Paisley is a clown. If so, he is a clown with plenty M-O-N-E-Y. Also, a clown that stirs up plenty of trouble for the Catholic population of Ulster. How many reincarnations do you think he would need to become a class conscious Socialist?

R. Smith, 

Dundee.

Reply:

R. Smith is not correct to say that the two articles on Northern Ireland in our October issue "said next to nothing about the thoroughgoing reactionary nature of the Protestant working class". In fact the two articles in question said all that needed to be said about reactionary attitudes in general in Northern Ireland.

We pointed out that Catholic workers who give their allegiance to Irish nationalism are every bit as "reactionary" as Protestant workers who give their allegiance to British nationalism. R. Smith doesn’t like this viewpoint as it obviously contradicts the fantasy that all Protestants are materially well-off and reactionary bigots in their views while all Catholics are poor, down-trodden and progressive in their views.

As socialists, we don’t go in for moralising in this way about the "goodness" or "badness” of whole sections of the working class. We base our views on an analysis of the material conditions. In the case of Northern Ireland, such an analysis tells us that both sets of nationalists are conning themselves and other workers and are betraying their class interests.

Sitting down and reading the Socialist Standard may not be "a consolation" — it isn't meant to be; it's meant to be an education and an antidote. 

Editors

Keynes can't help (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Throughout the post-war era, Sweden has been portrayed as the archetypal model of the Welfare State having had a Social Democratic government for all but six years. The reformist parties have instanced Sweden as an example of the successful application of Keynesian theories to remedy the worst aspects of capitalism.

Unemployment pay was guaranteed at 90 percent of wages received at the last full-time job. Two-thirds of the population either worked for or received benefit from the State. Public expenditure amounted to 75 percent of GDP (Financial Times, 14 September). In order to finance this degree of spending, the Swedish government had to raise the revenue from taxation and the sale of government stocks. These in reality are lOUs guaranteed by the government to the purchaser. There are however limits to the extent to which governments can raise money by selling government stock. This was forcibly demonstrated last July when Skandia, the largest financial, institution in the Nordic region, sold all its government bond holdings and announced it would not be buying any more in order to finance public debt. Other Swedish institutions have acted likewise (Wall St Journal, 11 July). Overseas purchasers sold theirs and the price plummeted.

Sweden today is facing its worse recession since the 1930s. Gross public debt is projected to reach 92.9 percent of GDP. According to OECD estimates "Sweden has the fastest growing National Debt of any member of the OECD" (Daily Telegraph, 6 July).

Prior to his recent election defeat Bildt and his party of Moderates attempted to deal with the escalating debt problem by privatisation, raising interest rates and cutting the 90 percent dole payout to 80 percent. Unemployment rose to around 15 percent and the Swedish kroner lost one third of its value. The electorate responded by returning the Social Democrats under Carlsson in the naive belief that they can return to the conditions of the pre-slump period. The new Social Democrat government has given priority to cutting the budget deficit, which at present is 11 percent of the GDP, by increasing taxes. Since these already comprise 57 percent of GDP (Financial Times, 30 September) it is probable that other remedies such as welfare cutbacks will be applied. These problems are not unique to Sweden.

In Italy a coalition under Silvio Berlusconi is struggling to maintain what is financially a House of Cards. Italy's borrowings are projected to be nine percent of national output. Pension payments are to be cut back. At present, women retire at 55, men at 60. Early retirement is available after 15 years’ work, pensioners are entitled to 80 percent of earned payments. The Italian government have embarked on drastic cutbacks in pension payments along with an extension of the retiring age. The trade unions have responded with a one-day general strike.

Canada has similar problems. Debt to GDP ratio is at 95 percent:

   “Canada is in the vicious circle where deficits lead to higher interest rates, which in turn create further budgetary problems. Such is the compounding effect of interest on the outstanding debt that despite federal spending now being lower today as a proportion of GDP than in the mid-1970s fiscal deficits have become endemic." (Financial Times, 25 October).

Banking crisis

Along with the plethora of media claims that sustained economic recovery is now here comes the claim that the world banking crisis has gone away with the writing-off of the debts of the lesser developed countries. But has it? The Economist (21 October) in an article entitled "Hidden Horrors” suggested that "American banks were taking big new risks, but keeping the exposure to individual countries just below the reporting threshold of bank’s total assets.” The article suggested that the banks are “hiding their exposure behind the individual country reporting threshold." How does this tie in with governments’ debts? Banks hold large amounts of government stock as well as Treasury Bills as part of their day-to-day operations in the banking system. If the bond markets of the world including government bonds lose their value and gyrate wildly then the world banking system is affected. The extent of the volume of bond debt around the world has been estimated at $16.2 trillion (one trillion = 1.000 billion) as the size of the world bond market at the end of last year (Barry Riley. Financial Times, 10 September "A new phase of crisis").

At the recent G7 meetings in Madrid, the spokesman for the various capitalist countries put forward possible solutions. Kenneth Clarke suggested easier terms for borrowing by poorer countries by increasing special drawing rights at the International Monetary Fund, along with a not-so-well received suggestion that the Central Banks should sell some of their gold reserves to help moderate the growing financial crisis. The real concern of the G7 meeting is that the bond debt crisis is related to the heavy borrowings by governments, exemplified by Sweden and other countries mentioned, in order to sustain huge welfare budgets could lead to a major dislocation. The present bond debt crisis is a major contributor to the banking crisis which has not "gone away", but has reappeared in a different form and will not be resolved by all the attempted economic gravity-defying antics of the G7 participants or any other reformist solutions.

The welfare systems as we have known them are coming to an end. The assumption that a capitalist economy that can endlessly maintain welfare payments is false. The notion that “the government will have to do something" or “will find the money somehow" is being disproved by slow but steady developments within capitalism. Re-electing the Social Democrats in Sweden can be seen as an attempt to put the economic clock back to the period of several years ago. The electorate are doomed to disappointment.

In Britain the Social Justice Commission has outlined its plans for the "biggest shake up of welfare for 50 years”. The proposals range from guaranteed minimum pensions, increased child benefits, a national minimum wage along with "community responsibility” and other vote-catching ploys. Tony Blair gave the proposals a "guarded welcome", but the Labour Party can no more solve the problem of a declining welfare system than the Swedish, Italian or any other government.

We are witnessing the demise of the Welfare State as we know it along with the discredited Keynesian economic theories on which it was based. The fact that large sections of the population need welfare payments is itself an indictment of the present profit-based system. The solution is to end the system where people do need them. For this to happen, the working class will have to realise and understand the ultimate failure of these welfare reforms to eliminate poverty and raise their horizons above the derisory crumbs that they offer. 

Terry Lawlor

The Criminal Justice Bill (1994)

Editorial from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Maybe next it’ll be curfews. The owning class are winning hands down at the moment, and we the working class are not doing much to stop them. Partly it’s this long recession that has so badly affected workers’ organisations. Poverty saps the will to fight back. Poverty sows disunity as much as discontent. The owning class use poverty against us the way a terrorist uses bombs — to frighten and weaken us. The audacity of the Criminal Justice Bill is a measure of what they think of us. Fearful, impotent, we look on as our hands are tied, our feet chained, and our pockets raided. And now they are surpassing themselves, with a frontal assault on our power to organise and defend ourselves.

This is happening because the ownership of the entire world is in the hands of a tiny minority of people. They use this ownership to subjugate the rest of us in almost every conceivable way. We resist, but we never think of questioning their property rights. We never think of abolishing the law of private property which gives them their enormous power in the first place. Instead we go on marches and grumble.

If you believe in human rights and in democracy, remember this: you will never be free until the Earth is free, and the Earth will never be free while it is held in private hands. Capitalism makes us trespassers in a world that should belong to us all in common, let’s organise to take it back.

Taking up William Morris (1994)

Book Review from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Political Writings: Contributions to Justice and Commonweal 1883-1890. by William Morris (Thoemmes £16.75).

When the Socialist Party was formed, in June 1904, William Morris, arguably the greatest of British socialists, had died only eight years earlier. It is little wonder, then, that the early issues of the Socialist Standard serialised Morris’s political writings; that in the 1940s quotations from Morris appeared on the Socialist Standard covers; and that the Socialist Party decided to publish Morris's Art Under Plutocracy (under the title Art, Labour and Socialism) with an appreciative introduction. Like Marx himself. Morris is not to be taken up as a political guru, and where he was at odds with our positions we have not failed to say so.

The British Left was slow to take much from Morris, and this was hardly to be surprised at. After all. left-reformism and its statist recipe for social change was entirely at odds with Morris's revolutionary outlook. Leftists and would-be intellectuals chided Morris with being a utopian poet, an idealistic dreamer and an eccentric marginal force, at best to be remembered for his utopian-socialist novel News From Nowhere, but no more.

When Morris was taken up, largely after the publication of the book about him by the Leninist Page Arnot. followed by the first, highly Leninist edition of the biography of Morris by E. P. Thompson (later to be admirably revised and de-Leninised). there was an attempt to claim him as an embryonic statist and reformist: a misreading of the historical record easy enough for those who have never read Morris’s political writings, but surely dishonest on the part of others.

For many years it was. indeed, difficult to read Morris’s political writings, but A. L. Morton’s edited selection of Morris’s Political Writings (mainly the transcripts of speeches, in fact) was a major step forward. The present writer still regards those writings, read and re-read with enthusiasm, as amongst the simplest prose written originally in English (and not for this journal) to state the case for socialism. Now we are fortunate to have Nicholas Salmon’s paperback collection which includes all of Morris’s main articles. The book is a treat to read (including its useful introduction) and is a landmark in the record of the real revolutionary movement in Britain.

In so many ways Morris could have been writing in this journal. For example, in May 1886 he explains that "in a few words our function is to educate the people by criticising all attempts at so-called reforms". Again, in June 1888, explaining the principles of the Socialist League. Morris writes:

"The Socialist League has declared over and over again its sense of the futility of Socialists wasting their time in getting . . . palliative measures passed, which, if desirable to be passed as temporarily useful, will be passed much more readily if they do not mix themselves up in the matter, and which are at least intended by our masters to hinder Socialism and not further it. Over and over again it has deprecated Socialists mixing themselves up in political intrigues; and it believes no useful purpose can be served by their running after the votes of those who do not understand the principles of Socialism."

Morris understood the global nature of capitalism and the folly of trying to establish socialism in one country: "capitalism is international", he explained in an article against the anti-socialist Bradlaugh in August 1887, and therefore "the foe that threatens it, the system which is put forward to take its place, must be international also". Most importantly. Morris refused to confuse socialism with state-run capitalism, declaring in May 1890:

"State Socialism? I don't agree with it; in fact. I think the two words contradict one another, and that it is the business of Socialism to destroy the State and put Free Society in its place.”

Shortly after that the League was taken over by anarchists who assumed foolishly that the state could be destroyed straightaway, rather than as a necessary and immediate consequence of social revolution and the abolition of class rule. Morris then left the League, but continued his efforts (not recorded in this collection) with a good deal of clarity and occasional confusion as to the way ahead.

The purpose of this review is not to claim the bones of William Morris for the Socialist Party. Who knows where Morris might have stood had he lived another decade and been forced to choose between the apparent short-cut to socialism offered by the Labour Party and the uncompromising revolutionism of the SPGB? (After all, Marx's closest collaborator, Engels, went the way of the reformist ILP rather than the smaller Marxist movement at the end of his life.)

No, Morris’s position must stand on what he might have said and done, but we who live now promoting unadulterated socialist principles have much to learn from Morris's writings (the style as well as the content) and could obtain few better books in 1994 than this one. 

Steve Coleman

Abolition of the Wages . . . for Housework Campaign (1994)

Book Review from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Marx and Feminism. By Selma James. Centrepiece. £1.50.

Marx, according to Selma James in this reprint with an update of a talk originally given in 1983, has been useful to the Wages for Housework Campaign. It is difficult to see how though, since Marx campaigned for the abolition not the extension of the wages system.

Actually, what theWages for Housework Campaign is demanding is not that women should be paid a wage for housework, but that all women should be paid a specific Woman’s Benefit by the State. Turning into a single issue reformist group may not have been how James (who had previously been in various radical groups that regarded themselves as Marxist) saw the Campaign developing when she helped set it up in 1972. But this is what has happened, with her and the others rushing around lobbying the UN and governments to bring in this reform.

Not that it will ever be enacted. The State is not going to pay out money to people who, by its criteria, don’t need it even if it did have the enormous sum that would be involved, which it doesn’t and couldn’t get without over-taxing profits. Capitalism doesn’t work like that. It can’t be reformed so as to work in people's interests. Profits always come first and people second.

This being so, the energies of those who are, quite rightly, concerned about the economic dependence of women on men would be much better directed to campaigning for Socialism, where the principle of “from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs" will apply. This will end once and for all women’s economic dependence on men since everyone would have free access, as a matter of individual right and without needing to pay money, to what they required to satisfy their needs.

As Marx might have put it, instead of raising the conservative slogan "Wages for Housework” they should raise the revolutionary one of "Abolition of the Wages Systen".

Adam Buick

The Myth of Swedish Socialism (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

In spite of all that has happened in Europe since the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the demise of Russian-style state capitalism, there is still a tendency for leftwing parties to refer to themselves as “socialist" and to claim the mantle of representatives of the working class.

The Swedish Social Democrats are no exception. In fact, their leader, Ingvar Carlsson, having just taken power from the conservatives in September with 45 percent of the votes cast - the biggest swing to the left in sixty years - declared his party to be "classically socialist".

The foundation of this assertion appears to be the fact that the Social Democrats have for years pursued Keynesian policies and that they have a welfare system the envy of Europe.

Sweden has indeed an enviable welfare system compared with those of other European countries, with unemployment benefits, for instance, still standing even after a recent reduction at 80 percent of average take-home pay, but at the same time Sweden has 14 percent of its workforce unemployed.

The unemployment statistics were what Carlsson largely capitalised on in the run-up to the recent election, promising that future Keynesian policies would ensure that no one under the age of 25 would be out of work for more than 100 days. At the same time the Social Democrats were intent on cutting child care grants, reducing pensions and raising taxes. In short, everyone was being told they must shoulder the burden of Sweden’s current economic crisis - a crisis evident in most European countries at the moment

Sweden's welfare system, as Peter Cohen recently pointed out in an article “The Model That Never Was" in the July-August issue of Monthly Review, "can be traced to the same factors that generated the Beveridge report . . .  a higher standard of welfare for workers means less ‘absenteeism’, a lower employee turnover and higher productivity, which means greater profits”.

That the granting of benefits to the working class of Sweden had an ulterior motive - the maximisation of profits - was only to be expected from the Social Democrats. themselves never representatives of the working class. In fact, as Peter Cohen also pointed out, the history of the Swedish Social Democratic Party since the first world war shows that it "not only accepts capitalism, but defends it against any attempt at change".

On Hitler's 50th birthday it was the Social Democrats who sent their blessings along with troops to take part in the celebrations. And it was the Social Democrats to whom Hitler turned to provide the Nazi war machine with iron, raw materials and weapon technology, while the voice of Swedish protest, the "communists", were interned.

Since 1945 Social Democrat governments have seen to it that Sweden participated wholeheartedly in an assortment of imperialist ventures, including GATT, IMF, OECD and the World Bank. They permitted Sweden to be used as a US communications centre for projected nuclear strikes, backed Pinochet in the wake of his coup in Chile, refused to impose sanctions on racist South Africa at the request of Swedish workers' organisations and openly connived with the CIA, Mossad and the West German Bundesdienst.

Neither can LO, the Swedish equivalent of the TUC, be considered an ally of the working class. In 1983 it urged wage restraint on behalf of the Social Democrat government who feared Sweden losing overseas markets to foreign capitalists. The same year the West German steelworkers came out on strike, a move meant to hit the car companies at a crucial time. To avoid any havoc this would have caused, the Social Democrats and the LO ignored requests for sympathy action with the West German working class and were only too happy to send supplies of steel to the German capitalists.

In the past five years 100,000 jobs have been cut in the welfare sector and it is unlikely that these workers will be reinstated by Carlsson. Moves are already underway to dismantle the public education system and to introduce more private schools. Nor do Sweden’s unemployment statistics look like improving, with recent reports showing that the country's biggest companies see no recruitment drive in coming years, although all expect the near future to bring huge profits.

In reality the Social Democrats in Sweden, like every other party in power in Europe, have to defend the interests of Big Business and can remain in power only by kow-towing to the rules of capitalism. That they call themselves "socialists” is an insult to the millions of workers who put their misguided trust in them. That they are so guilty of class-collaboration is the reason why they are so "classically unsocialist”.

John Bissett

Sting in the Tail: Having their cake (1994)

The Sting in the Tail Column from the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Having their cake

When Scorpion was a child and cried because he had scoffed all his goodies, his mother would tell him "you can't have your cake and eat it".

This simple truth had obviously eluded those taking part in a discussion on "community values" in A Week In Politics (Channel 4, 22 October).

They were Labour MP Tony Wright, Tory MP Alan Howarth and a repentant Thatcherite, Professor John Gray. Wright pointed out that even the word "community" has been debased through its use as a cover for such unpalatable Tory policies as the poll-tax (Community charge) and the turning of mentally-ill people onto the streets (Care In The Community).

Howarth, a "One Nation" Tory, thought an excess of Thatcherite policies had brought about a decline in community values while Gray instanced how these policies had wiped out many mining communities.

So they were unanimous on the need to retain community values, but they were also unanimous in their support for capitalism's market economy, the very thing which destroys the concept of community, and you can't have your cake and eat it, can you?

God and Mammon

In feudal times the Church had immense power. It was the most wealthy institution in society. It had its hand in government, military and social affairs.

The advent of capitalism saw the gradual decline of its influence. Today other than the mock ceremonies that attend deaths, marriages and christenings it is a shadow of the giant it once was.

Ignored by most of the working class and looked upon with cynical tolerance by the capitalist class it has little part to play in society compared with its once dominant role.

This probably explains the following outburst of medieval nonsense as reported in the Guardian (9 November):

"The Church of England should invent special prayers for business people because they suffer spiritual hunger and wealth creation is part of God's plan, George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said yesterday."

Worried by falling congregations and, of course, empty collecting plates he was telling the Manchester Business School that the Church saw bankers and brokers as carrying out God's work:

"Defending the role of financial markets, he said it was a cosy myth that 'real work is making things whereas the really questionable activity is financial wheeler dealing'."

So, come on, you financial wheeler dealers, dig deep and keep the Archbishop and his cronies in the style they have been accustomed to.

News from South Africa

Remember all that left-wing rhetoric we used to hear from the ANC in the days before it got power? They play a different tune now:

"Instead of the sweeping campaign of nationalisation that the South African private sector once feared from a Mandela-led government, Mr Mbeki (Deputy President) said plans were afoot to sell off some of the family silver. State assets and enterprises such as government-owned land and South African Airways will be privatised." (Daily Telegraph, 31 October)

On top of this the government has been accused by its own supporters of "riding the gravy train". President Nelson Mandela answered these malcontents by cutting his salary from 115,000 to a mere 92,000 while Mr Mbeki's 20 percent cut means he will have to struggle along on only 80,000.

Sing a song of capitalism

In Glasgow and Edinburgh pubs on a Saturday evening you may hear some workers, under the influence of a couple of drinks, giving voice to sentimental patriotic songs. "Scotland I Adore Thee" and "Hail, Caledonia" may be aired until the bartender or some other music lover puts a stop to the proceedings.

But what is the truth behind all this patriotic drivel? According to the BBC2 programme Whose Country is it Anyway? (26 October) Scotland, like every other country, is owned by a handful of people:

"Sixty per cent of the land in Scotland, with a population of over 5 million is owned by only 1,500 people."

So next Saturday evening when you feel moved to imitate Kenneth McKellar with a version of "My Granny's Hielan' Hovel", remember who really owns Scotland - the capitalist class.

You may well "Belong to Glasgow", but Glasgow like every city in the world belongs to them.

The Ragged Trousered Reactionary (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

An East End geezer with bad attitudes - so goes the prevailing view of Alf Garnett, working class bigot. Attempting to correct this characterisation on Channel Four's Without Walls (October 25, 9pm) was Garry Bushell, bad lad from the Sun and fellow East Ender with questionable attitudes. Bushell claimed that Alf Garnett represented not a stigma on society but was instead something akin to a cultural icon, saying that it was a tragedy that Garnett had been taken off the air by the BBC.

Whether it was his intention or not, Bushell only succeeded in demonstrating that he was a far more worrying feature of society than Garnett himself, if only because he is real and Garnett was a sitcom creation. It is not that Alf Garnett has no place on our television screens -  far from it. Till Death Us Do Part, In Sickness And In Health, et all were invariably well-written vignettes of social commentary. All the characters, from Garnett himself to his "scouse git" of a son-in-law fiercely believed they were right on the issues that mattered this demonstrating that they were fully human, unlike the opinionless automatons that inhabit most other sitcoms. Furthermore, the programme was always structured in such a way that Garnett's idiocies were all too apparent to most viewers.

If Bushell was merely railing against a perverse political correctness which sweeps all unpleasant subjects under the carpet, he would have had a point. But his agenda was wider than this. Bushell's argument was that Alf Garnett, albeit in caricatured form, represented all that is Best of British. Patriotism, loyalty, sparkling wit, salt-of-the-earth characters and a knees-up down at the pub. The real world of Alf Garnett, claimed Bushell, was a world where families stayed together, where you didn't have to lock your door at night, and where you could walk the streets in safety. The verbal brawls between Alf and the "Scouse git" were indicative of a wider battle for the heart of British society, between good old traditional values and liberal permissiveness, between Land of Hope and Glory and the hippies and the dropouts. But it is a battle which now appears to be over, with Bushell wearily intoning that "the spiritual heirs of the Scouse git have won".

With this the working class has been subsumed by a "culterati" who knows everything about every culture except their own. If Bushell is to be believed, the working class is now only to be found in traditional men's clubs in pockets of the East End of London, eating their jellied eels and swigging pints of lager.

This is ironic indeed, for it is precisely the false and stereotypical view of the working class that has been so tirelessly promoted by what Bushell terms the "culterati" of metropolitan society.

Tattoos out for the lads!

In truth, this image of the working class is as much of a caricature as Alf Garnett himself was. But it is a caricature which Bushell needs. Without it, there will be no Garry Bushell with a column in the Sun. Bushell needs his good guys and his bad guys, his icons and his hate figures to survive. Bushell's good guys are working class lads with the union jack tattoos, and Alf is their patriotic guru.

Perversely, he claims that genuine patriotism "is not based on hatred but on hope and pride", but where was the hope and pride in Alf? Buried under a very large mountain of hatred. Hatred of blacks, "poofs", long-haired layabouts. Northerners, foreigners, trade unionists, republicans and communists.

In support of his argument Bushell called up fellow journalist Paul Johnson who claimed that "the working class are always patriotic and think Britain is a great country", but what irks Bushell, Johnson and used to irk Garnett is precisely that so many workers - and they are working class in the proper sense of the term even if they don't correspond to Bushell's image of it - aren't patriotic and think society in countries like Britain is going down the chute, Plenty of workers see that they have nothing in common with the ruling class and the laugh-a-minute Royals. How many would now volunteer to give their lives in defence of them as they did in 1914?

It is hard to believe, but Bushell seems unaware that patriotism, and its bedfellow nationalism, have brought hatred and violence on a horrendous scale to the world and that British patriotism has been one of the worst offenders. That hatred is often lurking behind the agenda of nationalists and patriots was demonstrated by Johnson, who stated that because of the all-pervasive hegemony of the culterati, "the whole question of race in this country is not debated . . . it is taboo". What question, we might ask, does he have in mind? We can only wonder, especially as he also commented that race-baiter-in-chief Alf was a veritable "fount of working class wisdom", and did so without a hint of irony in his voice.

To a large extent, Bushell and Johnson actually undermine their own case. With the likes of them around, on TV and in print, there is no need for a fictional Alf Garnett at all. His spirit is alive and well, and Bushell and Johnson -  both, to compound the irony, members of the despised "culterati" - are his heirs. But there is a problem with this. Black TV presenter Darcus Howe commented during the programme that Alf Garnett "made me smile on a cold and and miserable night when I had no money". Who could reasonably say the same of Bushell?

The last word though must go to Alf's creator Johnny Speight who described his creation as not the "Best of British" - whatever that may mean - but as "a loutish, ignorant, raucous peabrain". Are you listening Garry? Are you listening Paul? And have you ever felt you've been had?

DAP