Letter: What about countries without political democracy? (2026)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2026 issue of the Socialist Standard

What about countries without political democracy?

We have received the following from a reader . . .

I’ve been wrapping my head around SPGB’s democratic approach. It sounds like SPGB puts itself under the mercy of capitalist democracy. So, when capitalists feel threatened, they will curtail the democratic rights that would endanger their capitalist interests, let alone endangering their class rule. One example of this is from SPGB history itself during WW2, where the state issued the prohibition of anti-war ‘propaganda’ and the SPGB had to comply. Don’t you think that there is a contradiction in this approach and this might be the reason why the SPGB failed to become popular among the workers (thus fulfilling one of its main missions of raising class consciousness that leads to the conviction for the need for socialism among most workers) for over a 100 years?

Also, this democratic approach would also mean that workers in un-democratic countries and regions would have to fight (not in a bloody way under the banner of the capitalists of course, but through protests and strikes) for those democratic rights like free speech, freedom of assembly and universal suffrage. But you know before anyone that not all countries and regions can have such a class structure and the level of the development of the productive forces that would allow them to have a capitalist democracy without having ‘robust’ capitalists at their helm. This case can be clear here from the example of Russia after 1917 or China after 1949, where so-called ‘communists’ had to do the dirty work of capitalists (by being capitalists themselves of course). Transforming these countries from predominantly peasants backward agrarian countries with weak capitalists tied to the landed aristocracy and powerful foreign capitalists (both having interest in the status quo to remain as it is) to predominantly workers industrialized countries ripe for capitalist democracy that SPGB sees as an indispensable tool for socialism. So, wouldn’t that make SPGB’s call for fighting for democratic rights in un-democratic countries and regions ‘utopian’ if taken on a universal basis because the case doesn’t apply everywhere, where the conditions aren’t there yet? Wouldn’t the SPGB be sending a covert message for workers in these un-democratic and unripe-for-democracy countries and regions to wait for ‘the third worldists’ to prepare the ground for capitalist democracy (thus socialism) by rallying the workers behind them, to crush them later and brutally exploit them? Isn’t the crux of the problem the ‘socialism through parliament approach’? Which if it is the case, then that means that capitalism isn’t ripe to be overthrown, not because the development of the means of production didn’t reach the sufficient level for socialism (we both know that it was reached a long time ago) but because the uneven development of capitalism across the national frontiers.

A food for thought: wouldn’t that necessitate the SPGB to change its program to accommodate the fight to erase national boundaries and borders? Wouldn’t that constitute the solution for this uneven development of capitalism? (which in fact would lead to the end of imperialist wars and other calamities that affect the workers around the globe and hinder and divide their struggle for socialism through the democratic approach the SPGB advocates for).

Sem

 

Reply:

You are mistaken in assuming that we think that political democracy is ‘an indispensable tool for socialism’ in the sense that if it doesn’t exist then socialism cannot be established. What is indispensable for socialism is that a majority should be in favour of it. There can be no socialism without a socialist majority. What we say is that, where effective political democracy exists, sending delegates to parliaments and similar bodies or positions is the obvious and most straightforward way to win political control and likely the most effective too. If, or where, this does not exist then the socialist majority would have to find some other way.

We do say that, in non-democratic states, workers are right to struggle for basic democratic practices such as free speech, organisation and assembly, if only to better defend their interests under capitalism. But we don’t presume to tell them how to go about this beyond saying it should be based on a recognition of the class struggle and be organised democratically. Socialists in such states should still campaign for socialism as part of and with help from the worldwide socialist movement. The whole world is ripe for socialism, including where political democracy does not exist. It is not our position, as you seem to be implying, that workers in such places first need to struggle for political democracy and, after that, start struggling for socialism.

Your claim that a capitalist class has the power to close down political democracy at will implies that it is a conspiratorial group that somehow controls state power other than through the election of pro-capitalist politicians and parties. In fact, a capitalist class is not a monolithic group with a single interest but is made up of different groups with differing interests, especially over economic policy. In Britain parliament, elected originally on a franchise restricted to property-owners, evolved as the place where these differences were aired and where the question of which section of property-owners got to control the government was settled.

In the course of the last century the vote was extended to all the citizens of a state, often against the will of sections of the owning class, but the basic situation remains the same. It is through elections that a capitalist class controls the state. Universal suffrage has the added advantage of getting the consent of the governed, which makes a state more governable. A one-party or military dictatorship, even if it supports capitalism, puts political power in the hands of a group that could use this position to line its own pockets at the expense of capitalist profits. Elections keep those who run a state under control. In short, some form of political democracy is the ideal political form for a modern capitalist state.

You envisage a government abolishing this if a capitalist class were under an existential threat from a growing socialist movement. But by the time a majority wanted socialism — which would be reflected in elections — then it would be too late. The boot would be on the other foot. Instead of a minority of socialists having to accept that most people want capitalism (or a war), those who benefit from capitalism and want it to continue would have to accept that a majority wanted socialism and that it was ultimately pointless to try to resist this. If a coup did happen then it would not be able to last for long as a state, with a socialist majority that wouldn’t accept its will being frustrated, would be ungovernable. One way or another a socialist majority would get its way. — Editors

Letter: Put baldly (1993)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1993 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Editors,

With regard to Dave Perrin’s letter in the September Socialist Standard, at the risk of engaging in pedantry I am bothered by the use of the phrase “the Socialist Party therefore encourages workers to struggle where necessary to establish political democracy under capitalism". Even allowing for the caveats in the preceding comments which make clear our purpose in utilizing this democratic facility (severely flawed though it be from a socialist point of view), to urge workers to put an end to capitalism, it seems to me that the phrase "encourages workers" put baldly this way would indicate that the Socialist Party has this as a definite plank in its policy whereas, of course, as David Perrin himself points out, we are concerned with capitalist political democracy only as a means that can be used to end capitalist society and this must be our clear caveat always.

M. Judd,

Keston, Kent

Reply:

Our policy on this question was reaffirmed at our 1990 Annual Conference: "that the Socialist Party of Great Britain wholeheartedly supports the efforts of workers everywhere to secure democratic rights against the powers of suppression. Whilst we avoid any association with parties or political groups seeking to administer capitalism we emphasise that freedom of movement and expression, the freedom to organise in trade unions, to organise politically and to participate in elections, are of great importance to all workers and are vital to the success of the socialist movement" - Editors.

Letter: Civil Rights Movement (2010)

Letter to the Editors from the August 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Civil Rights Movement

Dear editors

In the March issue, Andrew Armitage described the Civil Rights Movement (CrM) in the US as a “good cause” (in quotation marks). In the June issue, Roy Beat called this attitude “sectarian” because the CrM was “more than just a good cause”. Andrew Armitage responded in July that “socialists recognize the serious limitations” of the CrM in “at best only aspiring to parity” with white workers.

In the decades between reconstruction and the CrM black people in the South were helpless in the face of constant humiliation and terror. Any who might have taken an interest in revolutionary ideas would have been tarred and feathered or lynched as “uppity niggers”. So the “limitations” of the CrM were real but could hardly have been avoided.

This exemplifies the point that 

the struggle for democratic rights 

is an essential precondition of the struggle for socialism. In broad historical perspective, they are two stages in a single struggle for social equality. From this point of view, 

it is indeed sectarian to belittle the progress achieved by the Civil Rights Movement.

Stephen Shenfield, USA

Outrage is Not Enough (2011)

From the September 2011 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism has shown that it cannot meet people’s needs properly, not even in the developed countries of the West, let alone in the rest of the world. In a world capable of providing enough for all, austerity is being tightened on people everywhere. Political democracy, despite its advantages, has become an empty shell, with popular participation limited to giving the thumbs up or the thumbs down every few years to rival bands of professional politicians and with fewer and fewer people bothering to do even this. Social disintegration is gradually spreading, with increasing mental ill-health, drug addiction, crime and anti-social behaviour.

Most people are aware of this, but don’t think they can do anything about it. They don’t like it, but accept it as something they have to put up with as they try to make the best of their life and that of their family. This has been called apathy, but it’s really more resignation or fatalism.

Socialists find this frustrating as we know that, if people chose to, they could get rid of capitalism and establish a different world in which not only could people’s material needs be met as a matter of course but where a genuine community would exist. This is why we can only welcome any sign of people beginning to realise that present-day society has nothing to offer them and to think about doing something about it. The latest example of this is the Real Democracy Now! movement that started in Spain in May with the slogan ‘We are not commodities in the hands of politicians and bankers’ and who call themselves the ‘Indignados’ (the outraged). See their manifesto opposite.  A similar movement has arisen in Greece.

Regular readers of this journal will be able to see the manifesto’s limitations, but what is significant is that here are some people who are beginning to see through capitalism, even if they haven’t worked out what going beyond it has to involve. A welcome feature of the movement has been the democratic, non-violent nature of the public meetings, indoor and outdoor, that they have organised, at which all points of view, including the socialist, can be expressed.

The manifesto is intended to be an appeal to ‘ordinary people’ by other ‘ordinary people’ who consider themselves (and in fact are) the victims of the present system without a say in how things are decided. Some of its points are clearly true:

‘The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.

Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.’

In view of our tradition, we prefer to talk of ‘workers’ rather than ‘citizens’ but we are not going to quibble over a word because it is true that, whether we are called or call ourselves citizens or workers, we run society from top to bottom but for the benefit of a privileged minority.

When it comes to describing the outlines of an alternative society, we wouldn’t employ the language of ‘rights’. We agree of course that everybody should be able to automatically satisfy their need for housing, education, health-care and culture (entertainment) and should also be able to have enjoyable work and a say in the way things are run.  But to describe these are ‘rights’ is to give credence to the illusion that there are ‘inalienable truths’.

In any event, there is no ‘inalienable’ right to ‘employment’ or ‘consumer protection’ as these would only be applicable in a capitalist society, where work takes the form of paid employment and where people have to buy what they need. But, given capitalist society, they are not achievable as both a reserve pool of labour and an underclass of unemployables are necessary, endemic features of capitalism. As long as there is buying and selling, some sellers will always try to swindle buyers, as the Romans understood when they coined the phrase ‘Buyer, beware’.

This brings us to our fundamental criticism of the proposed alternative. There the manifesto states ‘instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service’. In other words, it proposes to retain money and all that implies, and to try to make the system serve human needs and interests. The full implications of this become clear when the practical proposals published elsewhere on their site (www.democraciarealya.es) are examined (our translation).

• ‘Reduction of working time and a better balance between work and family life, so as to eliminate structural unemployment (i.e. until unemployment falls below 5 percent).’
• ‘Retirement at 65 and no further increase in the retirement age, so as to eliminate youth unemployment.’
• ‘Security of employment: prohibition of collective redundancies for large corporations that are making profits.’
• ‘Banks in difficulty must be allowed to fail or be nationalised to create a public bank under social control.’
• ‘Increase in the rate of tax on wealth and the banks.’

This is very disappointing as it is the sort of thing that reformist politicians have long promised. They have never delivered. Why? The suggestion of the Indignatos seems to be that it’s because these politicians seek to enrich themselves as they are not subject to democratic pressure from below. The evidence, however, points to another reason – because they could not deliver even if they were sincere or subject to outside democratic pressure as capitalism is inherently incapable of being made to serve the interests of all the people.

Capitalism is a class-based society which can only operate for the benefit of the minority who own and control productive resources, as rich individuals or through private corporations or the state. This is the reason for the failure of all reformists politicians and governments in all countries. In Spain it is the reason for the failure of the PSOE (literally the Spanish Socialist Workers Party) which started out with a much more radical programme than above.

Things would not be any different if members of parliament were elected by and were responsible to democratic assemblies, as Real Democracy Now! wants. Capitalism just cannot be reformed to work in the interests of workers and their families (or ‘citizens’ if you prefer). If Real Democracy Now! goes down this road they are doomed to failure and disillusionment. A genuine, participatory democracy is part of the solution but is not the solution on its own.

As they state in their manifesto, ‘the will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency or the welfare of society.’ Precisely. Capitalism is a system of capital accumulation out of monetary profits extracted from the labour of those who ‘move the world’. This gives rise to economic laws which impose that priority be given to profits and profit-making rather than to satisfying people’s needs. No government, no pressure from the street, no riots, can change this. Any government, however democratically elected and accountable, that takes on responsibility for governing within the framework of capitalism is obliged to respect these economic laws or make things worse by provoking an economic crisis.

What is required is a revolution but not an ‘ethical revolution’. It is a revolution in the basis of society, to be carried out, yes, by democratic means and more or less peacefully, that will make productive resources the common heritage of all under democratic control. Within this framework alone can production be re-oriented towards satisfying people’s needs while at the same time respecting their welfare at work and the welfare of the rest of nature. This involves the end not just of the accumulation of money by a minority, but the disappearance of money altogether.

Adam Buick

Democracia real YA! Manifesto

We are ordinary people. We are like you: people, who get up every morning to study, work or find a job, people who have family and friends. People, who work hard every day to provide a better future for those around us.

Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic, and social outlook which we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.

This situation has become normal, a daily suffering, without hope. But if we join forces, we can change it. It’s time to change things, time to build a better society together. Therefore, we strongly argue that:

• The priorities of any advanced society must be equality, progress, solidarity, freedom of culture, sustainability and development, welfare and people’s happiness.
• These are inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development, and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.
• The current status of our government and economic system does not take care of these rights, and in many ways is an obstacle to human progress.
• Democracy belongs to the people (demos = people, krátos = government) which means that government is made of every one of us. However, in Spain most of the political class does not even listen to us. Politicians should be bringing our voice to the institutions, facilitating the political participation of citizens through direct channels that provide the greatest benefit to the wider society, not to get rich and prosper at our expense, attending only to the dictatorship of major economic powers and holding them in power through a bipartidism headed by the immovable acronym PP & PSOE.
• Lust for power and its accumulation in only a few; create inequality, tension and injustice, which leads to violence, which we reject. The obsolete and unnatural economic model fuels the social machinery in a growing spiral that consumes itself by enriching a few and sends into poverty the rest. Until the collapse.
• The will and purpose of the current system is the accumulation of money, not regarding efficiency and the welfare of society. Wasting resources, destroying the planet, creating unemployment and unhappy consumers.
• Citizens are the gears of a machine designed to enrich a minority which does not regard our needs. We are anonymous, but without us none of this would exist, because we move the world.
• If as a society we learn to not trust our future to an abstract economy, which never returns benefits for the most, we can eliminate the abuse that we are all suffering.
• We need an ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products. I am not a product of what I buy, why I buy and who I buy from.

For all of the above, I am outraged.

I think I can change it.

I think I can help.

I know that together we can. I think I can help.

I know that together we can.

Letter: Democratic rights (1990)

Letter to the Editors from the October 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

Democratic rights

Dear Editors.

In the Socialist Standard (September 1989) you wrote that the Socialist Party of Great Britain “wholeheartedly supports the efforts of workers everywhere to secure democratic rights against the powers of suppression”.

I fail to see how democratic rights can be achieved within the framework of world capitalism. The capitalist system, state or private, East or West, is not democratic. It is a form of class dictatorship, with a minority capitalist class in power and control over the exploitable working class majority.

The capitalist class cannot be in the business of handing out democratic rights and risk losing control, but they do when necessary and under pressure make concessions and legislate reforms. Governments which are the executive committees of the capitalist class call these overtures and reforms "democratic rights". Which is a lie, because they are civil rights dressed up to make capitalism look better and they can easily be rescinded.

Socialists should not ignore civil rights. Some can be appreciated and be useful and all are part of social understanding. They do not however lead to democratic rights. Only a socialist society can produce democratic rights.

A sane system of society or real democracy. real communism or real socialism, all have the same meaning and intent which could materialise about the same time.

The only democratic right achievable under capitalism could take place when the working class through a workable majority captures the political apparatus of the capitalist class to gain political control, so that the working class is able to replace capitalism with socialism.

From this premise a democratic right can only be established by a majority, in the interests of a majority.

John F. Ahrens 

Vancouver, Canada

Reply:

Our correspondent is confusing political democracy and a democratic society.

Capitalism is not and can never be a democratic society because, as he says, it is based on class power and privilege, social inequality, and exploitation. A real democracy, where everybody would have an equal say in decision-making about all aspects of social life, including and in fact particularly the production and distribution of wealth, is only possible in a classless society of common ownership.

Capitalism can, however, accommodate a limited degree of political democracy in the sense of allowing every adult equal voting rights to decide who shall occupy various political posts at national and local level. Political democracy is by definition confined to a very limited sphere of decision-making and even here can never be complete as it is distorted by the social inequality that is at the basis of capitalism: those with money can and do pay to get more publicity for their views and views that favour them. As in Animal Farm, under capitalist political democracy "all are equal but some are more equal than others".

Despite these limitations and distortions the existence of political democracy under capitalism—and the various “democratic rights” that accompany it such as freedom of speech, publication, organisation, and assembly—is an advantage for the working class as it provides the best framework under capitalism for the socialist movement to organise and grow. This is why the Socialist Party supports the struggles of workers living under political dictatorships to obtain "democratic rights" as before the war in fascist countries and recently in East Europe.

Editors.

Letters: Christianity (1982)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Christianity

Dear Editors,

Having purchased my first ever copy of the Socialist Standard, I was dismayed to find “Socialists Against Religion” on the first inside page. What a philosophical and social disaster! As socialists we do not want to alienate the Christians; for a start, 1 aspire to be both a socialist and a Christian. I agree with socialist principles on all levels and I am not politically illiterate or 1 would not have purchased a copy of your journal.

You have probably heard the suggestion before, but I will repeat it anyway as it has a bearing upon my argument: Marx who was after all, along with the Levellers and such like, a father of socialism, gained much of his fraternal and communal theories from the influence of early Christian life. We know early Christians lived a communal life, sharing goods and work in common. My opinion remains that Christ was a socialist — the faults and greeds of men have corrupted this fraternity ever since. You confuse the ultimate equality and egalitarian message of many of the world’s religions with the rotten and corrupt uses made of less powerful peoples by the owners within society. After all, as a female, I have more to gripe about in a subservient role still imposed on me by the corrupted values of a so-called Christian society.

Furthermore, you must be aware that the Methodist movement was founded by a strong Tory and that several socialists specialising in the sociology of religion and that of work, have attempted to prove the Wesleys were involved in stopping a labourers’ revolution in the eighteenth century. Therefore, to cite Methodism (which I do know something about) as reformist is not really true. Also remember that the Quakers, during the time of the Hundred Years War refused to make gun metal, material for making military uniforms, or to sell timber. Instead they turned to food manufacture and suffered very much for it.

It is also irresponsible to deal only with a man’s physical needs. Even if you take a functionalist view of religion it has important spiritual uses. The loss of a son or daughter in an accident, a home due to an earthquake, or the gaining of a much desired child, all need spiritual or mental help and understanding. I will admit to having a vested interest as I begin university in October to sit Psychology (seen, incidentally, by HM Government as a subversive subject, as I was reliably informed), but R D Laing, “left wing” as he is, says the unconscious is very important to the whole self.

Let us have a social revolution, political revolution, by all means, but let us also have a religious revolution—use it to free us from spiritual oppression as well as physical oppression. Do not be like the capitalists and discourage free thought. Bear in mind that John Paul II, much as the writer of the article might dislike him, is the first Pope ever to have laboured by the work of his hands and to have spoken on the true dignity of the worker and his right to work as he wishes.
Your fellow in Socialism

Y. E. Garwood 

Kent

Reply:
While it is not the function of socialist propaganda to “alienate" any worker, it is essential that we expose all anti-socialist ideas, and one of the most powerful of these is religion. As we pointed out in the article “Socialists Against Religion” in the Socialist Standard (May 1982), religion attempts to divert the working class from the task of establishing socialism by the delusion that the problems of capitalism can be solved by making some moral adjustments. Socialists must oppose such an idea; only a revolution will rid us of capitalist society’s inadequacies and social ills.

Marx’s historic role was to place socialism, as far as it is possible, onto a scientific footing. He drew on the work of a mass of historians, philosophers, economists and the like, many of them religious. But this did not make him religious; indeed, it led him to formulate the Materialist Conception of History, which explains historical development in terms directly opposed to religious idealism. This conception sees capitalism as the logical development from former social systems, arising from revolutionary changes in the mode of wealth production. Ms. Garwood’s idea, that capitalism is a corruption of a long-ago purity in human affairs, is a typical religious misconception: it simply does not fit in with the facts. The article described many (not all) Methodists and Quakers as reformist, because they readily became involved in movements like CND and Anti Apartheid, which try to eliminate some problems of capitalism while leaving the system in being. Quakers are commonly pacifists; they have a moral objection to war—which is an inevitable product of capitalism—but, illogically, no objection to capitalism. Socialists argue that the nature of capitalism cannot be changed; those who object to its effects should work for its abolition.

Whatever the distinction between “conscious” and "unconscious” thought, neither can operate without material support and nutrition. Neither can they exist outside the material world; all human thought is fashioned by that world and works in material terms to change it. In human social development it is the mode of production which is the motivating force and which, by stimulating changes in ideas, drives society towards socialism.

Although Catholics may like to put emphasis on it, the Pope’s personal background is irrelevant. Whether he once laboured physically or not, he is the purveyor of a false idea which has no reasoned basis, and as such he powerfully helps to keep the world working class in their wage slavery.

It is important to the spread of socialist ideas that the working class are able freely to discuss all theories, including religious ones. We should, of course, remember how many dictatorships have been and are being aided in their repression by the Church in their country.

Editors.

Legal freedoms

Dear Editors,

The dogmatic stance of the SPGB is to some extent counter-productive in the struggle to achieve socialism. I refer essentially to the Party’s position on social reforms.

Reforms need not always be categorised as anti-revolutionary, because they do not solve problems, since some reforms are nevertheless necessary stages in the workers’ struggle. It is true that the Labour Party’s efforts throughout their history have been futile (welfare state, state owned housing schemes, nationalisation, etc.) and have merely served to create a more hard-line Tory Party and to distract the working class from activity in its real interests. However, how is the “intellectual revolution" to be achieved through the parliamentary process when most of the world does not have a parliamentary process? Surely a prerequisite to the revolution is the establishment of some significant degree of democracy and freedom of expression throughout the world.

When the majority of Poles, Turks, Chileans, Iranians, South Africans, Eastern Bloc citizens, to name but the obvious few, have little or no real education or legal rights to control their political destinies, is it not pompous for the SPGB to pledge support for "liberation movements” only when they unite for socialism? Such reforms will be beneficial to the people as being not just useful, but necessary steps towards the establishment of a world of free access.

Or does the SPGB envisage a miraculous short cut?

Andy Spencer

Berlin 39 

West Germany

Reply:
That a socialist party should not advocate reforms has always been our policy, although we do not hold that reforms of capitalism can never benefit the working class—some can and do, while many are futile and harmful. Similarly, while we do not support non-socialist organisations which claim to be fighting for or defending democracy, we certainly do not minimise the importance of certain legalised freedoms for the working class and socialist movement. This position may appear ambivalent or dogmatic; in fact, it is a consequence of the recognition that workers’ political struggles must be waged along class lines.

The political activities of non-socialists necessarily express capitalist interests, for the simple reason that they are helping—however unwittingly—to maintain the existing order of society. Andy Spencer believes that our stand is counter-productive, that by failing to support those who demand limited political freedoms in authoritarian states we are weakening our case. But how can we, on the one hand, urge British workers to pursue their class interests and, on the other, tell those abroad to ally themselves with any political Tomas, Ricardo or Henri? We call upon workers everywhere to organise to defend their interests on the industrial field, but we don’t urge British workers to support the TUC’s political and industrial policies. Likewise, while the struggle of, for example, Polish workers to achieve a degree of freedom of political expression (a "necessary stage”, if you like) is warmly to be welcomed, we cannot support Solidarity because of its manifestly pro-capitalist, nationalist outlook. Doubtless, many of its members would endorse Ronald Reagan’s view (expressed to British MPs last month) that in Eastern Europe we should “foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allow a people to decide their own way”.

Democracy is a weapon, politically valuable, it is true; but like every other weapon it can be used for self-preservation or self-destruction (in 1933, for example, a majority of the German electorate voted for its abolition). Unemployment, poverty, insecurity, militarism and the other evils of capitalism will remain, no matter whether the form of its political administration be democratic or dictatorial. This is why we stress that the limited freedoms of expression obtainable under capitalism can only be consolidated and expanded to the extent that workers also adopt a socialist standpoint.

Editors.

Letters: Is socialism against human nature? (1997)

Letters to the Editors from the May 1997 issue of the Socialist Standard

Is socialism against human nature?

Dear Editors,

I have been reading the Socialist Standard for a year now and I find myself in not inconsiderable agreement with most of the views expressed in it. I have a question regarding the relation between our ideals and some fashionable trends in science and philosophy nowadays. It's a familiar question, but for me a most important one. So far I have not found a satisfactory answer in the Socialist Standard, but this may be due to my own negligence.

As you know from many publications, neo-Darwinism holds that human beings, just like all other beings, are determined to fight for everything that enhances their own well-being, but not for things that don't. Conservatives and liberals use this idea to defend their economic principles.

On the other hand, we think that a socialist society will only come about as a result of people's determination to take as much as they need, and to contribute as much as they can. But neo-Darwinism says that, generally speaking, people will never be prepared to act in this way. Indeed, it believes that the inclinations of some people (such as the members of the Socialist Party) to act as real socialists must be explained in terms of underlying drives and goals that cohere with neo- Darwinism philosophy. Compare with the thought that altruists arc really egoists in a more sophisticated way.

So it seems that, if neo-Darwinism is right, socialism must be wrong. Or do they not contradict each other? What do you think? It will not be sufficient to answer that current attitudes will change once we will have changed our institutions and our educational system. For neo-Darwinism will counter you by saying that institutional and educational change could not possibly change our genes. If neo-Darwinism is right, do we therefore have to change our own biological constitution in the process to socialism? This is where things become really interesting. Please enlighten me.

Dirk Boecxx, 

London SE23

Reply:

If those you call "neo-Darwinians” hold that humans are prepared to struggle for everything that enhances their own well-being but not for a society where people contribute as much as they can and take according to their needs then they are being inconsistent.

This is because such a society would enhance people's individual well-being. Socialism does not require people to be altruists acting against their own self-interest. Socialism is in people’s self- interest. It is certainly not against it.

What those who claim that there is something in our genes that would prevent humans living in a socialist society are in effect saying is that humans are genetically programmed to behave against their best interest. Which is absurd.

So their argument is logically flawed but it is also factually wrong. There is no evidence that human behaviour is genetically determined. In humans genes don't govern complex social behaviour patterns like greed or, for that matter, generosity; they only govern physical characteristics like hair colour or a prospensity to develop certain diseases.

Human behaviour is distinguished from that of all other animals precisely by its high degree of flexibility and adaptability. In so far as the genetic make-up of the members of the species homo sapiens governs our behaviour it is through allowing it to be flexible.

Further, we are — again, biologically — social animals. We live in societies and could not develop on our own as lone individual or family units as some animals do. For instance, speech and all that this enables us to do that other animals can't — construct cultures and civilisations — is a social product and can only be acquired in and through society.

Both speech and the physical ability to speak could only have evolved through co-operation in an animal group that was capable of practising co-operation. Without this ability to co-operate the human species would never have evolved. Which is why some anthropologists see co-operation rather than the struggle of each against all as being the characteristic human behaviour pattern.

You ask for evidence of all this. Read The Evolution of Culture by Leslie A. White or any book by the anthropologist Ashley Montagu. Read sensible Darwinians such as Stephen J. Gould. And for a thorough refutation of the view that human behaviour patterns are governed by particular genes read the collective work Not In Our Genes (by Steven Rose. R.C. Lewonkin and Leon J. Kamin).

Finally, when Desmond Morris. Robert Ardrey. Konrad Lorenz and the others were peddling these ideas, the Socialist Standard published a number of articles refuting them. If you—or anyone else—are interested in them copies arc still available.

Editors

Reformist?

Dear Editors,

The article "The Kurdish Question" was excellent (Socialist Standard, January). But how does maximizing "trade union and democratic rights" become a "springboard" for attaining socialism?

I though that was what the World Socialism Movement was for. Otherwise it sounds like capitalist reformist politics to me.

Thomas Alpine, 

Grand Rapids, 

Michigan, USA

Reply:

We have always said that the best framework for the growth of the majority socialist understanding needed before socialism can be established is political democracy, limited and distorted though it must be under capitalism.

We have also always said, following on from this, that socialists in countries where political democracy docs not exist should campaign for this as well as for socialism. This is not reformism because such socialists would not be campaigning for capitalist political democracy as an end in itself with their own reform programme for achieving power nor would we envisage them joining with non-socialists to campaign for this in these countries. What we envisage is socialists — such as any hypothetical Kurdish-speaking socialists in Turkey, Iraq. Iran or Syria — campaigning independently for this at the same time as campaigning for socialism. Certainly they cannot campaign for setting up a Kurdish State and still be regarded as socialists. That's what we’d call capitalist reformist politics.

Editors

Reallocating resources

Dear Editors,

The Rev. John Papworth who described stealing from a supermarket as a reallocation of resources has done a great service in drawing our attention to the nature of society, and how our concepts of behaviour and morality are related to our material circumstances.

While stealing may be regarded as immoral according to Christian teaching, there is much greater immorality in our economy in that it allocates resources in accordance with profit rather than need. It is understandable that a person with little or no monetary resources is tempted to steal in order satisfy his or her needs.

In a different, alternative kind of society, where people would have the freedom of access to the wealth produced, taking what you want would not be regarded as stealing and would, therefore, not be regarded as immoral.

George Pearson, 

London SW20

Reply:

What would Michael Howard. Jack Straw and all the other defenders of capitalist morality and legality make of the following news item sent us by a reader in Canada?

"STATE OF NEED" SUCCESSFUL AS THEFT DEFENCE IN FRANCE

A court dismissed shoplifting charges against a woman who admitted stealing food to feed her children, based its ruling on a turn-of-the-century law favouring the needy. 

Supermarkets where the theft occurred said they would appeal the decision by a court in Poitiers. 320 kilometres southwest of Paris. 

Annick Grippon, 36, admitted shoplifting meat and sausages on several occasions to feed her three-year-old son and teenage daughter. 

Her lawyer, Philippe Brottier, found a nearly century-old "state of need" defence used by courts to dismiss cases against hungry citizens who stole bread.

(Times Colonist, 2 March)

Limits of Glasnost (1987)

From the July 1987 issue of the Socialist Standard

Russia is just as much a class society with a capitalist economy as America or any other country in the West, only its ruling class monopolises the means of production in a different way.

Instead of doing so through legal property titles vested in individuals and enforced by the state, the ruling class in countries like Russia does so through a direct exclusive control of the state. So in an economy where most industry is state-owned, this gives them at the same time an exclusive, monopoly control over the means of production too. They control the state through their organisation into a vanguard party, the upper echelons of which decide all appointments to posts of any importance in the various organs of the state — the government, the bureaucracy, the armed forces, and the managements of the state industries.

This means that recruitment to the Russian ruling class too is different to that in the West; it takes place not by inheriting legal property titles but by joining and rising up the Party hierarchy. Similarly, the proceeds of the exploitation of wage labour are shared out differently; not by a legal property income in the form of interest, dividends, profit and rent but through bloated 'salaries", monetary prizes and various important privileges in kind (exclusive access to high quality shops, hospitals, holidays and so on).

Who is better off? Who is in the more stable position? The Western ruling classes or the Russian-type ruling classes? From the point of view of the exploited majority in both types of capitalism this question is of little practical importance. In both cases they are excluded from the means of production and so are forced to sell their ability to work to an employer or an employing institution which pays them in wages and salaries less than the value of what they produce. The difference goes towards the accumulation of further capital to exploit wage labour and towards maintaining the ruling class — however they monopolise the means of production and however they are recruited and renewed — in the style to which they are accustomed.

This question does, however, have some relevance when it comes to understanding the political institutions of the two different forms of capitalism. In the West governments act, just as much as they do in Russia, China and other such countries, in the interest of the capitalist ruling class but they do so without the members of this class having to themselves occupy posts in the government. Because the law, and in some cases the constitution, protects their legal right to monopolise the means of production and to draw an unearned income from this, they can delegate the function of running the government to professional politicians. Since the vast majority of wage and salary workers still see no alternative to the capitalist prices-wages-profits system, the capitalist class in the West can also allow which particular clique of politicians should form the government to be decided by popular vote. In fact, this arrangement suits them very well because this game of "ins" and “outs" ensures that no one group of politicians controls the political machine long enough to allocate itself privileges at the expense of the legal property-holding capitalists.

In any event a modern capitalist economy requires a fairly educated wage and salary working class to operate it. Which demands that the capitalist ruling class employ methods other than coercion and the threat of starvation to win our cooperation. The illusion of participation arising from having a say as to which gang of politicians should form the government is precisely one such other method.

Even though this arrangement, known somewhat facetiously as "democracy", suits the private capitalist class of the West, it was nevertheless still something that had to be imposed on them by mass popular movements such as the Chartists and the Reform League in Britain. The ruling class was originally against giving the vote to the wage and salary earning majority because they were afraid that we might use it against them, though right from the start the more far-seeing among them realised that this, besides being a way of undermining the political influence of their landed rivals within the ruling class, was also a way of integrating the working class into capitalist political life.

Universal suffrage and the relative freedom of speech and organisation that goes with it has one drawback for the ruling class however: it means that they cannot always expect to get their way. at least not without a struggle. In other words — and this is the advantage of these arrangements for the wage and salary working class — it allows us some elbow-room in which to better prosecute the class struggle. It also allows socialists some room to spread socialist ideas in a less encumbered fashion than otherwise and it provides the means, when a majority of workers have become socialists, for them to impose their political will for socialism on the ruling class in an essentially peaceful way.

The Russian ruling class is in a rather different position in this respect. They do not suffer the drawback of having to allow their workers the chance of organising to better wage the class struggle against them, nor of having to allow socialists and other opponents to openly criticise them. All the same, as Khrushchev realised thirty years ago. no more than the ruling class in the West can they run their now relatively modern capitalist economy by employing brute force, as in Stalin's time. The working class in Russia too have become more skilled and educated and so require a different treatment to get them to cooperate in production. Gorbachev's reforms are designed to take account of this.

But how far will he go? How far can he go? In the late 1950s and early '60s in the Khrushchev era. observers of the Russian scene looked forward optimistically towards an eventual evolution in Russia of the same sort of trade union and political freedoms as exist in the West. But this was not what happened. Economic development and economic liberalisation were not followed by a move towards political democracy. On the contrary under Khrushchevs successor. Brezhnev — who deposed him in 1964 — there was a regression, not to the brute force tactics of the Stalin era but to a strengthening of the Party's control over political, economic and ideological life.

An analysis of the way in which the ruling class in Russia-type societies monopolises the means of production shows why this was only to be expected and why in fact it is quite unrealistic to expect a straight-line progression from the present one-party political dictatorship in such countries to Western-type political forms. For the ruling class in these countries monopolise the means of production through their monopoly control of political power; which means that to give this up would be to give up also their monopoly over the means of production. In other words, the ruling class in countries like Russia can permit, in the interests of economic efficiency, a certain degree of liberalisation but this can never go so far as to threaten what they themselves call "the leading role of the Party".

This liberalisation can go so far as to permit the official trade union movement to criticise certain governmental actions (as in Poland), to allow more than one Party or Party-endorsed candidate in political elections (as in Hungary) and to allow private enterprise and investment to flourish (as in China). Since none of these exist in Russia itself this allows Gorbachev the possibility of introducing a certain number of innovations into the Russian political system but however far in this direction he and the group he represents within the Russian ruling class decide to go, they will stop short of allowing any real challenge to the Party's political monopoly. The Party will remain in the saddle since it is the organisation by which the ruling class there actually rules.

Since the fall of Khrushchev this has been confirmed on a number of occasions. Although strategic considerations were also involved, the Russian ruling class sent its tanks into Czechoslovakia in 1968 when the Party there under Dubchek appeared to be moving away from the principle of the leading role of the vanguard Party. In Poland in 1981 the government was compelled to declare martial law in order to try to suppress the Solidarity trade union movement which had refused to accept the leading role of the Party, some of its members having clearly identified exactly who the ruling class in Poland were and precisely how they ruled and monopolised the means of production. And in China the political liberalisation process was brought to an abrupt halt earlier this year when, following student demonstrations, there seemed to be a possibility of the leading role of the Chinese Communist Party (so-called) being undermined.

This is all quite understandable when it is realised that it is through the Party that these ruling classes control the state and through the state the means of production. To expect them to give up the leading role of their Party is like expecting the ruling class in the West to give up the state's protection and enforcement of their legal property rights. Neither of them can be expected to do that except under the pressure of a political revolution.

In other words, the Russian political system could only change into something along the lines of the political system that exists in the West after a political upheaval in which the present ruling class would be deposed. This is not impossible to imagine but highly improbable since the only group (apart from the working class of course) that could do this would be a class of legally-owning private capitalists. Such a class does indeed exist in embryo form in Russia and in China and Hungary in a much more developed form but they hardly have either the economic or the political clout to overthrow the incumbent state capitalist class in any of these countries. Another possibility would be for the existing state capitalist class to convert itself into a class of legally-owning private capitalists. Some of the members of the Russian nomenklatura have accumulated considerable fortunes in their own right and as this process continues there could be pressure from these and their inheritors to move in this direction, but once again this would seem to be highly unlikely.

This means that the only class capable of challenging the ruling class in countries like Russia is the wage and salary working class. As the case of Poland shows, if they are resolute and determined enough they can win a certain room to manoeuvre within the existing political system: a limited freedom to negotiate over wages and working conditions equivalent to that won by workers in the West. This could be conceded, under pressure, by the ruling class in Russia without their political control of the state being undermined any more than its existence in the West undermines the legal private ownership of the means of production there. So there is room for progress here and in the future the working class in Russia might be able to win the same sort of elbow room within the system as workers have been able to in the West. In fact this can be regarded as being a fairly likely development.

The ruling class in Russia-type societies may offer a choice of two or more Party candidates in elections since this would not represent any threat to the leading role of the Party which is the basis of their rule and the class monopoly they exercise over the means of production. If this comes, and experiments in this direction have already been carried out in Hungary, then workers there would be offered the same false choice as in the West between candidates who stand for the same basic thing: the maintenance of the existing form of capitalism.

Real change will only come in Russia and such countries in the same way that it will come in the West: through the growth of socialist understanding and organisation. This will transform the political scene in both types of capitalist country. In the West the political representatives of capitalism will be increasingly challenged at the polls by mandated delegates from the growing socialist movement. In the East this will be a little more difficult but. under pressure from the socialist movement, the authorities would be forced to permit socialist candidates to stand against those defending the Leninist principle of "the leading role of the Party". If at first they refused, the situation would become impossible for them until they gave in — after all, if they could hardly manage the emergence of an independent trade union movement as in Poland, imagine the difficulties they would have in managing the emergence of a growing socialist movement.

Adam Buick

Capitalist Hypocrisy (1938)

From the December 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

In a letter to the Manchester Guardian Weekly (September 16th, 1938), Jawaharlal Nehru, an Indian Nationalist, asks how the British Government can claim to be interested in democracy, Czechoslovakian or any other, when it denies independence to India. He writes: —

    The people of India have no intention of submitting to any foreign decision on war. They only can decide, and certainly they will not accept the dictation of the British Government, which they distrust utterly. India would willingly throw her entire weight on the side of democracy and freedom, but we heard these words often twenty years ago and more. Only free and democratic countries can help freedom and democracy elsewhere. If Britain is on the side of democracy, then its first task is to eliminate empire from India. That is the sequence of events in Indian eyes, and to that sequence the people of India will adhere.

No, the concern of the British Government is not democracy, or the maintenance of independence of foreign states. It is the representative of the British capitalist class, and its function is to defend the interests of British capitalism at home and abroad.

British workers, beware! Appearances are often deceptive.

Democracy? Humbug!

Clifford Allen

The forgotten tradition of British anti-monarchism (2002)

From the June 2002 issue of the Socialist Standard

“The old Plantagenets brought us chains; 

the Tudors frowns and Scars, 

The Stuarts brought us lives of shame; 

the Hanoverians wars; 

But his brave man, with his strong arm, 

brought freedom to our Lives 

-The best of Princes England had, 

was the Farmer of St. Ives” 

(Lines on Oliver Cromwell in Ramsay Churchyard, Huntingdonshire,1848)

Such sentiment praising Cromwell and the Civil War dismissal of royal tyranny was commonplace amongst the political radicals of the early 19th century. In fact, the popular memory of the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 which toppled James II remained strong from the late-17th century. In large part this was due to the continued threat of royal power exercised within the lauded British “constitution”.

Unacceptable to the more progressive elements of the ruling class (still largely landed however), such remembrance of the “Interregnum” (the euphemism by which the Civil War period has become known) served as an ideological weapon in the struggle between royal and parliamentary authority. From the 1770s such anti-royal (though not literally republican) sentiment became intertwined with a political radicalism associated with John Wilkes and others who sought an extension of the suffrage to secure parliamentary dominance over royal authority. Inevitably the working class began to develop a political platform more independent of such “gentleman leaders”, especially during the period following the French Revolution. Thereafter, a popular working class platform combined the “natural rights” republicanism of Thomas Paine with “popular constitutionalism”, a crafty linguistic trick whereby radicals sought to place their demands for democratisation of the British political structure within a legal claim to their “right” to representation within the ancient constitution. Demands for such a constitution and rights, of course, were merely rhetorical flourish, using the prevalent language of the ruling class's defence of its challenge to royal authority from the 17th century.

Within this challenge to the British state by the working class in the early 19th century was a crude threat to privilege and expenditure on the throne and the vast sums spent on aristocratic pensions, palace building and the civil list. The crown, however, as an institution remained outside of this criticism.

What has been noted by many observers has been the absence of republicanism in British history. This is of course not strictly true. The regicide of the Civil War may be regarded as republicanism of sorts, despite being pursued within contemporary religious concerns. The historian Christopher Hill has established the Civil War as the British “bourgeois revolution”, a struggle from which the interests of the rising British commercial and financial interests emerged dominant, i.e. capitalist interests, although the clash of interests between land and capital is not always clear cut and mutually exclusive – a good book on this into the nineteenth century is John Saville, The Consolidation of the Capitalist State (1994).

It is true though that a republican movement did not grow up in Britain as it did in other European states in the nineteenth century but then, as seems fairly obvious, it didn't need to after the defeat of royal authority in the 17th century. Indeed, the early nature of Britain's bourgeois revolution meant that capitalist growth and secular control of its perceived interests went hand in hand with a “constitutional monarchy”, i.e. a monarchy that was increasingly impotent as political force but emerging as a convenient “impartial” figurehead.

Concocted pageantry

With this month's royal jubilee we are being subjected to no end of absurd and expensive pageantry with the usual round of royal documentaries, all giving the line that our glorious monarch is the centre of our “identity” and political stability. Such criticism as emerges will be directed at whether the Queen should step aside for Charles (a debate on the radio as I write) or some such trivia. The crucial impression that is supposed to emerge is that this pageantry has been around for centuries and is bound up with our “national identity”. However, as we have just seen, from the 17th to the mid-19th century, a critique of royalty operated in the political mainstream that attacked the morality of some members of the royal house and the expense of royalty. Although not approaching anything like an ideological commitment to republicanism, let alone a socialist analysis, its existence nonetheless challenges the myth of British politics as shrouded in a deferential and stable past. Such pageantry as we see today is no more than the creation of late 19th century efforts to establish an imperial and domestic symbolic loyalty around a “regal” figurehead external to “politics”.

David Cannadine and Eric Hobsbawm, amongst others, have described this “invention of tradition”. More recent research has gone further and suggested that a strand of “anti-monarchism” has persisted from the late-18th century through to the present day. Anthony Taylor in Down with the Crown (1999) has pointed to the presence of a minority republican radical grouping that surfaced into something like a popular movement, around the liberal Sir Charles Dilke, at the time of Victoria's retreat from public duties in the early 1870s (here it reveals its weakness, ironically being dependent on royal retreat rather than presence). He also points to a radical opposition in the jubilees of 1887 and 1897, which have been seen overwhelmingly as examples of popular frenzy for the crown and empire (seeing it as either a sign of strength or weakness of the late 19th century British empire). A 'Jubilee Version of “God Save the Queen”' from the 1880s, for example, runs:

Lord help our precious Queen, / Noble, but rather mean, / Lord help the Queen. / Keep Queen VicToryous, / From work laborious / Let snobs uproarious, / Slaver the Queen.

A critique of privilege passed from mid-19th century radicalism into the Liberal-Labour politics of the early 20th century. It is from this period that the image of the modern monarch as the impartial figurehead we know today emerged. The attack on privilege increasingly centred on the House of Lords as the practicalities of reformism and the need for patronage impacted on the nascent republican sentiment in the Labour Party. Opposition to the crown was thereafter the territory of the extreme left of capitalism, largely restricted to the “Communist” Party (see, for example, T.A. Jackson's The Jubilee –  and How from 1837 and continuing the old radical attack on expense).

Closer to 2002, the popularity of the monarchy has seriously flagged from its post-war heights in 1952 (although the response to the queen mother's death might signal something of a recovery in time for this year's potential squib of a jubilee). Press voyeurism has undermined its previously cultivated image of a wholesome family example. But such criticism rarely gets beyond the banal chat on the relevance of the crown to devolution and the European Union (Tom Nairn's project), although Tony Benn, the Christian radical capitalist of the Labour left, continues to plug a Paineite project to make us “citizens” and not “subjects”.

Socialists, of course, are unconcern as to whether we live in a republic or a constitutional monarchy – capitalism is capitalism whatever its political label. We must, however, point out the worst lies told about the history of our class. Constitutional monarchy has not always been a comfortable political framework for British capitalism and has always had its critics, including a minority of republicans. Socialists desire a good deal more than a mere capitalist republic. Unlike the left of capitalism, we openly advocate common ownership and democratic control which, for the privileged royal parasites, would mean the end of their vast ownership of resources and their place as sources of political deference and patronage. Like the lines daubed during the 1977 farce: “Stuff the Jubilee”.

Colin Skelly