The Crisis: The Planners’ Swansong (1947)

From the September 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

Capitalism we know and have long endured. Socialism we could have and will have when a majority understands the need for it. But is there a half-way house, something that has ceased to be Capitalism but is not Socialism? Socialists know that there can be no such thing, but many people both in the Labour Party and outside thought that it was possible and desirable. Not that the Labour supporters of planned capitalism called it that. Indeed they said precisely the opposite—”there is no half-way house between a society based on private ownership in the means of production, with the profit of the few as the measure of success, and a society where public ownership of those means deliberately planned for attaining the maximum of general well-being.” (For Socialism and Peace, Labour Party). Yet that is just what the Labour Party has been trying to do and in the experiment it received the support of many who knew quite well that what they were seeking was to keep capitalism but rid it of its chaotic features and subject it to planning and controls. Among the latter was the capitalist group who control the Economist. In its issue for August 2nd, 1947, the Economist admits that doubts have now arisen. In an article “The Planner’s Last Chance,” we read: “The Economist has long ago committed itself to the view that it is both desirable and possible to have not indeed a detailed control over all economic processes, but a certain measure of purposive direction of the general economic climate. It must be confessed, however, that the experience of the last two years has considerably dimmed that faith. Here was a situation that should have been easy to diagnose and a set of controls already in existence more far-reaching than any socialist planner had ever dreamed of. Yet . . . there can hardly be any room for doubt that it has been bad.”

The article concludes: “But something more than the Labour Party is at stake: the fate of an experiment to which many people who are not Socialists had attached their hopes, the effort to assert man’s control of his economic environment. For unless the planners make haste to plan for realism, the blind forces of economic nature will take over – either because something snaps and the people revolt against controls, or through the massive growth of black markets. It is the planners’ last chance.”

Of course, when the Economist refers to the blind forces of economic nature taking over, what it really should say is that the capitalist system will go its usual chaotic way in defiance of the edicts of those who think to mould it and control it from the backrooms of Whitehall.

What keeps capitalism going is the capitalists’ prospect of selling at a profit the commodities produced by the working class. British capitalism is largely dependent on selling industrial products overseas and on importing cheap foodstuffs and raw materials. The destruction and wastage resulting from the war and the loss of overseas investments severely damaged the position of British capitalism, and at the same time the destruction of agricultural and other raw material production all over Europe and the East caused a big rise of prices of the materials British capitalists have to import.

Thus British capitalism finds itself badly squeezed from both sides. A third factor arises because of the present low level of unemployment. Unemployment is the safety-valve of capitalism because without it wages rise to the point of endangering profits.

The experts in the Labour Party, busily planning for “full employment,” have never appreciated this. If forced to face up to the fact that the threat of the sack is the goad which drives the worker to toil hard making profits for the capitalists, and that it becomes ineffective if there is no unemployment, their answer has been that they would find some other incentive. Socialism will have its own incentive, the knowledge that all are working for the good of all and not for the benefit of the propertied class, but the Labour Party by some mental twist imagine that an incentive that will arise naturally under Socialism could be imposed on planned Capitalism. Mr. Bevin put this point of view in a broadcast to America on April 25th, 1941. Basing his view on a misreading of wartime experience of the Essential Work Order he declared, “a factor that is becoming apparent is you get better discipline and loyalty with fear of dismissal removed than you do by the threat of it.” (Daily Herald, 26/4/1941).

Another misjudgement of the planners arose out of their failure to understand the way capitalism fetters production. Seeing that in times of crisis of “overproduction” there are masses of unsaleable goods, that is to say goods that cannot be sold at a price sufficient to yield a profit, they jumped to the conclusion that capitalism actually produces more than enough to provide adequately for the needs of the underfed and under-clothed working class. This was never true. The Labourites sneered at Marx and failed to appreciate the charge he and other Socialists made against capitalism that because it produces only for sale at a profit and not for human need it prevents the production of sufficient food, clothing and shelter for the needs of humanity. If all the able-bodied population were working, and if all the wasteful forms of activity that are indispensable to capitalism were cut out (e.g. financial operations, armed forces, munitions, bureaucratic activities, etc.), then the production of useful articles could be increased two-fold or more. What the Labour Party did not realise is that these forms of waste really are indispensable to capitalism and cannot be eliminated under capitalism. Planning has actually made some of them bigger not smaller.

Through their error the Labour Party encouraged the workers to believe that under Labour Government it would be possible to “soak the rich” to feed the poor. They published a pamphlet, The Nation’s Wealth at the Nation’s Service (Douglas Jay, Labour Party, 1938) in which this view was put in all its crudity. Quoting figures of the vast income and fortunes owned by the capitalists Mr. Jay said: —

“Here is the available income and capital on which Labour must draw to supply the minimum human needs of the poorest, and to see that no man woman, or child lacks food, clothes, housing, education, or the necessary instruments of civilian, or military defence.”

The rich still have their property, and their gross incomes (before taxation) have increased more than wages. True they are more heavily taxed but this has largely been used to pay for the increased civil service and armed forces – what Mr. Jay calls “instruments of civilian or military defence.” How this feeds the poor it is hard to imagine, unless it is intended to fatten up the civil servants and soldiers in order to eat them later on.

The remedy for the workers’ poverty is not soaking the rich but Socialism.

It has now become a question of only academic interest because the Labour Government soon found out by experience what any socialist could have told them, that you can’t keep capitalism functioning, dependent as it is on profit-making, if your policy results in profit being eliminated. So now we have the Labour ministers telling the workers to work harder, and assuring them that nothing more is to be gained by soaking the rich.

On the Labour Party’s planning in general and on their excuses for the failure of their plans little need be said. We have had scores of plans, constantly changed in each of the several crises, and all the worker has to do is to read in the latest crisis speeches about the new austerities we are to undergo and then consult the Labour Party’s election literature. He will search in vain to find any of these austerities and pains and penalties set out there. The foretellers of our future told us everything except what has actually occurred. The stock excuse is that things have happened that were unforeseen, from the hard winter to the rise of American prices; but that is the crux of the whole matter. If planned capitalism is possible at all then the whole essence of it is that the planners must be able to foresee what is going to happen. If you can’t foresee, then you can’t plan and planning is worse than useless. Equally puerile is the excuse that the planners did not expect things here or abroad to be as bad as they are and therefore only planned for economic fair weather, not foul. In 1879 the Tay Bridge collapsed in a gale and a train plunged into the flood with a loss of 80 lives. Imagine the engineers and designers excusing themselves afterwards with the plea that they only designed the bridge to stand fair weather stresses, not winter gales!

Equally to the point is the fact that the world economic gale of which the Labour Government now complains is partly the result of its own plans. It planned to increase exports and to limit imports and forgot that the more it succeeded in doing this the more the other countries, in self defence, and under their own planning schemes, were trying to do the same, keeping out British exports and encouraging their own exports.

The Economist need not linger in doubt any longer. Capitalism cannot be planned into harmony either by the Labour Government or by themselves.

Edgar Hardcastle

Caught In The Act: Time for a change (1991)

The Caught In The Act Column from the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time for a change

Who is Margaret Thatcher? It is necessary to ask the question because it seems she has disappeared. Only a few months ago she was the indestructible Iron Lady, terrifying her foes, doing all her minister's jobs herself and ruthlessly squashing out any of them who fell from her favour. But now she is hardly mentioned.

For example the Gulf Crisis simmered and burst into war without any stimulus from her; she might have been expected at least to make a speech about the wishes of the Kuwait people being paramount (provided, of course, the dictatorship there allowed the people's wishes to be known). British capitalism is sliding into another recession but she is not expected to launch into one of her searing damnations of the Moaning Minnies who refuse to acknowledge that millions unemployed and an unprecedented bankruptcy rate are actually signs of a booming economy.

When one of Thatcher's Ministers left — or was ejected from — her government it was usual for the Downing Street media manipulators to quickly spread the word that the ex-minister was not much loss or even that the government was better off without them. The more prominent the ex-minister and therefore the more threatening their absence — the more violent was the campaign to undermine their reputations.

So it was that the likes of Howe and Lawson were on the receiving end of particularly malicious stories. Of course we couldn't expect that Thatcher would now be treated like that — John Major is supposed to be a much nicer, much less obsessive personality. In fact a rather gentler and more subtle technique has been used. Thatcher's standing now was expressed by a Tory grassroots member in the Ribble constituency: "I'm grateful for all she did for the country", said this patient, malleable blockhead, "But it was time for a change".

But whatever the style employed the fact is that Thatcher is the victim of an exceptionally efficient demolition job. The Tories have a long history of these things, often plotted in some bastion of chivalry such as the Carlton Club or the discreet offices of City merchants.

When the knife was wielded it was done with due regard for the Tory reputation as the Gentleman's Party. For they are the most single-minded bunch of political operators, who thoroughly understand that politics is about getting power to keep capitalism running in their way, at whatever cost. In the business of fighting elections and disposing of leaders who damage their chances of winning they leave their opponents standing. Ask Douglas-Home. Or Ted Heath. Or Margaret Thatcher.

Labour in change

It is ironical that Thatcher may eventually be seen to have left more of a mark on the Labour Party than on their own side. As the Tories have shown that they could win enough votes from politically deranged workers to keep them in power for a long time, the Labour Party decided that their best hope of winning a general election lay in imitating the Tories as closely as possible. The new Labour policies have provoked anger and confusion among those grassroots members who joined the party under the mistaken impression that it took a principled stand for a basically different society.

Their anger is based on the recent policy statement Meet The Challenge, Make The Change, which openly accepted market forces and private industry and was aimed solely at winning the next election. But how much of a change is this from the Labour Party of the past?

In October 1964 the Labour President of the Board, Douglas Jay, assured a dinner of the International Chamber of Trade that "the new government starts with no prejudice or bias whatever against private business and industry". In May 1965 George Brown, who was then head of the Department of Economic Affairs, told a meeting of company directors and managers that "the profit motive has an ' important role to play as an incentive and test of efficiency". In April 1966 Harold Lever, who later became a Treasury minister, wrote "Labour and business are already moving towards a mutual understanding".

And what about Labour's leader then, Harold Wilson. How does he compare to Neil Kinnock? In September 1964 — just before Wilson won the election — Anthony Howard wrote that ". . . he has already transformed the Labour Party from being primarily an ideological movement into being an election-minded organisation". Lest you misunderstand — Howard was one of Wilson's admirers.

Disappointed Leader

It could be that Kinnock has misled himself enough to be disappointed, were he to learn that he has not really changed anything about the Labour Party. It is some years now since he was a rebellious, CND-marching, fiery left winger; he dropped all that to concentrate on the serious business of exploiting working class readiness to disregard their interests and to vote parties like Labour into power.

To do this Kinnock must associate himself with, and defend, election programmes the attraction of which lies in their unrealistic claims to be able to solve capitalism’s problems and to reconcile essentially conflicting class interests.

In this Kinnock must upset his old friends, outraged by what they see as his change of course. In fact the real problem lies with them for Kinnock is following the inexorable route of a party which stands for a reformed capitalism and which must therefore compete for power over the system, cadging for votes with policies and promises which are as false and as cynical as they need be. This is as ruthless a business as the Tories getting rid of Thatcher; that is the nature of capitalist politics.

So it is not only incorrect to give Thatcher the blame — or the credit, depending on how you look at it — for Labour changing its policies and its style. It is also unfair: the Labour Party have always been as they are now only at times they are less effective in their campaign for capitalism. In any case, to be charitable to Thatcher: in the depths of anonymity of wherever she is, hasn't she got enough to answer for?

Ivan

Notes by the Way: More Russian Trials: The Seven-Year-Old Conspirator (1939)

The Notes by the Way Column from the April 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

More Russian Trials: The Seven-Year-Old Conspirator

The Moscow correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (March 2nd, 1939) reports the latest fantastic story of conspiracy in Russia. Three former officials of the political police and the State Prosecutor at a small town in Western Siberia were sentenced on March 1st to imprisonment ranging from five to ten years. Their offence was that they had concocted charges of plotting and terrorism against more than sixty children, some of whom they held in prison for eight months and forced to make confessions. The children, naturally, confessed to everything, from counter-revolutionary Fascist terrorism to having concealed weapons (penknives). The Daily Telegraph's Moscow correspondent (March 1st and 2nd, 1939) adds other staggering details. The children's ages were ten to twelve years. One of them, a small boy aged ten, had confessed that already, in 1935, he was "active in recruiting members for our counter-revolutionary group." As he was then only seven years of age, and was already an active ringleader, it appears that he must have begun his criminal career at about four or five.

The official responsible for the arrest of the children made a naive confession: —

I knew only one statute of the criminal code—58 (which defines counter-revolutionary political crimes)—and formulated all the charges to fit that statute. (Manchester Guardian, March 2nd, 1939.)

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Stalin on British Foreign Policy

In his speech to the Eighteenth Congress of the Russian Communist Party on March 10th, 1939, Stalin explained what he thinks is the guiding line in the foreign policy of Britain and France, i.e., the desire to see Germany and Russia involved in war, so that British and French capitalists could score against both later on.

Through the policy of non-intervention there runs the eagerness and desire not to prevent the aggressors from perpetrating their black deeds, not to prevent, say Japan, from becoming involved in a war with China—or still better, with the Soviet Union; not to prevent say, Germany, from becoming enmeshed in European affairs, from becoming involved in a war with the Soviet Union: to allow all belligerents to sink deep into the mire of war, stealthily to encourage them to follow this line, to allow them to weaken and exhaust one another, and then when they become sufficiently weakened, to appear on the scene with fresh forces to come out, of course, “in the interests of peace,” and to dictate their terms to weakened belligerent nations. It is cheap, and it serves its purpose! (Daily Worker, March 13th, 1939.)

But Stalin thinks the Germans have no intention of getting involved in war with Russia, but have, instead, “turned to the west, if you please, and demand colonies."

Afterwards Stalin defined the attitude of the Communist Party in the sphere of foreign policy: —

Firstly, to pursue also in future a policy of peace and of strengthening the businesslike relations with all countries;

Secondly, to be careful and not to allow our country to be involved in conflicts by instigators of war, who are used to get other people to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for them;

Thirdly, to strengthen the fighting power of our Red Army and Red Navy to the utmost;

Fourthly, to strengthen our international bonds of friendship with the working people of all countries who are interested in peace and friendship between nations.

This was supplemented a few days later by a statement made by the Russian Ambassador in London, M. Maisky, speaking at the annual dinner of the Machine Tool Trades Association. He said: —

You will find that in the last resort the fate of peace or war in our time depends on the kind of relations which exist between London and Moscow. Therefore every improvement to this end is an important contribution to the cause of general peace. (Times, March 16, 1939.)

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The Rich Minority Who Own Britain. Labour Writer Admits Failure of Labourism

Mr. Ramsay Muir stated on March 2nd, at a lunch of the Industrial Co-partnership Association, that, so long as “gross maldistribution of prorperty” continued, “we could not have a genuinely democratic society; and, indeed, it had been said that the property distribution was worse in Britain than in any other country."

To support his case, Mr. Muir gave some figures about property left at death. In a recent year, he said, 560,000 people died. Those who left less than £100 numbered 425,000. More than half of the property left by the whole 560,000 was left by three per cent. of them. (Manchester Guardian, March 3rd, 1939.)

Mr. Ramsay Muir is a Liberal, and it is for him to explain why Liberal governments never did anything about this. He is, however, fully entitled to make the charge against the Labour Party that it, too, does, not possess a solution. Mr. Muir, speaking of Labourism, but wrongly calling it Socialism, said: —

He did not think that . . . the purchase by the State of private property was any solution at all; the only effect of that would be to turn the ex-property-owners into an irresponsible rentier class and to widen the differences between them and the rest of the population.

Very true, Mr. Muir, and a few days later, Mr. Douglas Jay, City Editor of the Daily Herald, was risking his job by making a similar remark. Reviewing a book which describes the, London Passenger Transport Board (formed by the Labour Party) as “public property," Mr. Jay says that neither the Board, nor the B.B.C., nor the Central Electricity Board, should be so described, “since private persons hold stock" in them. (Daily Herald, March 13th, 1939.)

Mr. Jay also made another damaging admission about the programme of his Party, in saying in the same article that, as regards the inequality of wealth, “there has been only a very slight redistribution since before the War, despite death duties and direct taxation."

The book being reviewed by Mr. Jay is “Public and Private Property in Great Britain" (H. Campion. Pub. Oxford University Press). It shows that five per cent. of the population owned in 1936 between 75 per cent. and 80 per cent. of the total private property. Two-thirds of the population still own less than £100.

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Cripps Answers Cripps

A correspondent in the Daily Herald (March 2nd, 1939) recalls that only a few years ago Sir Stafford Cripps, in a pamphlet called “The Choice for Britain,” gave Very good answers to the Popular Front propaganda he is now carrying on. This is what he wrote: —

It will be fatal if we do as the Social Democrats did in Germany; that is, combine with any anti-Fascist forces for the sake of saving democracy. That way lies disaster.

The very compromise that is intended to bring together all the forces in favour of democracy, destroys democracy, because it renders it incapable of achieving the economic change which is essential to its survival.

Nothing, in my view, is more dangerous than the idea that some temporary alliance of pro-democratic forces should be brought about not based on the achievement of Socialism,

Such an alliance, like the Labour Government of 1929-91, would find itself incapable of doing anything except deepening the crisis of capitalism, with the inevitable conscience of the bankruptcy of democracy and its elimination in favour of some sort of dictatorship which would come from the right and not the left.

We must, then, firmly and definitely abandon any ideal of working in association with any other political group or party that defies the absolute necessity of Socialism.

The argument is sound, but it will be noticed that it helps the Labour Party no more than it helps the Popular Front.

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Shaw Has His Say

In an article on Foreign Policy published by the Daily Herald on March 3rd, Mr. G. B. Shaw laid about him in his usual agile way, distributing cuffs to all parties. He annoyed official Labour Party circles by complimenting Cripps and condemning his expulsion by the Executive Committee. He promises that Cripps, “whether right or wrong, will presently wipe the floor with it for being so silly."

Crippsites are exultant, but they do not appear to have noticed that. Shaw condemns Cripps' foreign policy just as whole-heartedly as he condemns the Labour Party's. This is what he says: —

We on the Labour side have nothing in the way of foreign policy that will wash.

We praise peace and collective security, and in the same breath revile the Conservatives because they did not make war on Japan over Manchuria, on Italy over Abyssinia, and on Germany over Austria and Czechoslovakia.

This is patent nonsense. Suppose the Labour Party had been in power with a ninety-nine per cent, majority, could they have led the Nation to war for the sake of the Chinese, the Danaikils, or the entirely imaginary race called the Czecho-Slovaks ?

Could they, when the Italians were bombing the Abyssinian tribes into submission and smithereens, have stopped our troops from doing exactly the same thing on the North-West Indian frontier ?

That the answers to these questions are in the negative is obvious to everybody who is out for facts and realities and not for virtuous indignation on party lines.

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The Old Pope and the New One

When the new Pope was elected by the Cardinals, the British Lib.-Lab. Press welcomed the choice on the ground that the new man is anti-Fascist and leans towards democracy. If that is so, it would appear that he is also a believer in continuity, for one of his first acts as Pope was to send the following message to General Franco in reply to the latter's telegram of congratulation : —

Praying for new success in conformity with your glorious Catholic traditions and blessing our cordially beloved Spain, we thank you for your devout message and invoke for your Excellency divine assistance. (Times, March 11th.)

To the ordinary looker-on, Franco's successes appear to be in the glorious propertied-class tradition of using every fiendish method of mass slaughter to prevent the workers and peasants from improving their position.

Edgar Hardcastle

Editorial: Profits and Wages (1960)

Editorial from the May 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

The British propertied class came out of the war much worse off than when they went in but in the past few years they have been moving towards their former position. The phrase used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer is that what has happened since 1952 “ has about restored the balance.”

This arose out of a question put by Mr. Douglas Jay on 22nd March, 1960, about the increase of wage rates and dividends. Mr. Heathcote Amory replied that whereas weekly wage rates have increased by about 42 per cent, between 1952 and January, 1960, and by about 3½ per cent. between 1958 and January, 1960, provisional estimates about dividend payments show that dividends paid by companies on ordinary shares in 1959 were about 78 per cent. higher than in 1952 and about 12 per cent. higher than in 1958.

The reply was followed by a further interchange. Mr. Amory admitted to Mr. Jay that these figures show that under the Conservative governments “dividends have been increasing faster than wages,” but retorted that between 1938 and 1952 "dividends increased by only 30 per cent. whereas wages increased by 100 per cent. ”

Then Mr. Amory agreed with a Tory interjection that workers’ earnings (he probably meant wage rates) were falling behind the cost of living under the Labour government and have got ahead since.

Figures given in the official Economic Survey 1960 show that company dividends on ordinary' and preference shares rose by nearly 30 per cent. between 1955 and 1959 from £655 million to £848 million.

A Labour of Sisyphus (1951)

From the April 1951 issue of the Socialist Standard

The position of the working class in capitalist society is like that of Sisyphus, the mythological king of Corinth, who was condemned to constantly roll a huge stone to the top of a hill, and when he got it there, it always rolled back down again. His task was unceasing. To-day a minority of the population, the capitalist class, own the means and instruments for producing wealth. It necessarily follows that the vast majority of the population, the working class, must sell their labour power to this minority. In return they receive barely enough to keep them at the customary standard of living. If they were to receive more than was sufficient to keep them they would attempt to free themselves from that economic enslavement. The working class then must produce wealth for the capitalist class and receive in return just sufficient to bring them back to the factory to produce more wealth for their masters—a labour of Sisyphus.

The tremendous productive capacity of man's labour power applied to modern industrial equipment together with the working class receiving only the necessities of life results in the great difference in income that exists between most members of capitalist class and most workers.

Reformers seeking to bring about a more equitable distribution of income put forward the plea for taxation. They maintain that by taxing the “rich” and establishing social services a large redistribution of income between the two classes could be effected. But Douglas Jay, now financial advisor to the Treasury, wrote in a book called “The Socialist Case,” “ some may argue that whatever the statistics of income and property show, a huge redistribution of income has been achieved in the last twenty-five years' by means of national taxation and the social services. . . . It is consequently rather startling to find, on an impartial examination of the facts, that there has been scarcely any redistribution at all.” (p. 45). A few pages later he quotes the “Economist”:—

  “The poorer classes of the community have therefore received back from the Exchequer approximately as much as their increased contribution. But there is very little sign that the system of taxation has effected any redistribution of income between rich and poor.”

(From Budget Supplement, 13th April, 1935, “The Socialist Case," p. 50.)

Then Mr. Jay sums up with, “All authorities are agreed, however, that the great bulk of the social services are paid for by the working classes themselves, and that there has been only a very slight shift in their favour even since before the war.” (Page 51.)

And the Labour Party after all this experience still cling to the view that taxation and social services will bring to the workers a bigger slice of the “national cake.” After the first five years of Labour's majority Government the responsible ministers claimed that taxation had reached its peak. The rich couldn't be taxed any heavier. All the social services and reforms that had been on the Labour Party's programme since its formation had been brought about. Yet Mr. James Griffiths, Colonial Secretary, said at the Labour Party Conference held in Margate:—

  “The ownership of wealth has by no means been adequately shared out. Far too much of the nation’s wealth is owned by too few people." (Daily Herald, 4/10/50.)

And Sydney Silverman at the same conference said, “There are hundreds of thousands of our fellow workers whose wages make a bitter mockery of our claim that we are providing fair shares ” (Daily Herald, 4/10/50).

The other side of the picture is filled in by the Tribune, a Labour weekly:—

  “Flicking over the pages of those same popular dailies . . . in this grim austerity Britain with its food shortages, housing shortages and labour shortages, the Government’s guiding philosophy of fair shares for all worked out in practice so that one could still have a house in town run by eight servants, a mansion in the country, a cottage by the sea, pocket money on a scale that comfortably covered details such as £3,000 a year on presents to a lady friend, another £1,000 a year thereabouts to the same lady and when after all you decided not to marry the woman, £20,000 to console her for the loss of a good thing." (February 9th, 1951.)

The “Economist” in an article examined the report of the EGA. Mission “Facts about the British Economy” and stated, “since it is the lower income groups which benefit mainly from social expenditure the report says, 'the social expenditures are chiefly financed by transfers of income within the lower income groups in accordance with variations in the patterns of consumption, family size, etc., rather than by transfer between different income level.' " (1/4/1950)1

Labour Party supporters and other apologists for capitalism maintain that even if the wealth the workers produce was divided equally among all members of the population, the increase in the average worker's income would be insignificant.

But this isn't the socialist's argument. He recognises the potential productive capacity of mankind with modern machinery and realises how production is misused in present society. He takes into consideration the waste that goes on under capitalism. In a system based on private ownership where goods are produced for sale a vast number of workers are engaged in all the multiple tasks which arise from the sale of commodities and the realisation of the profits contained in them. The waste of productive effort in the cheap shoddy goods the majority of the community must buy.

In a society based upon common ownership wealth would be produced solely for use. All members of society would be occupied in producing things to satisfy their needs. This is possible with the present industrial machinery. All that is required is that the workers realise this and take steps to bring it about.

Jim Thorburn

Labour's Lost Chord (1960)

From the January 1960 issue of the Socialist Standard

Against all the precedents, and to the: surprise of many Labour supporters, the Tories have won their third election in succession; and have even managed to increase their majority. The most interesting aspect of this was not Supermac's victory, but the changed attitudes and moods of the electorate, that were revealed more clearly than before. These changes affect the Labour Party far more than the Tories, and in some ways appear to be a major disaster for Labour, causing much heart-searching and what John Foster Dulles called “agonising re-appraisals.”

In spite of high polls and a fairly steady Labour vote, something has gone from British politics, and gone for ever. This “something” might loosely be called “left-wing idealism.” Where is the enthusiasm of Labour’s early years; where the desire to make the world a place of dignity, free from slavery and oppression; where the striving to make man master of the machine instead of its mere adjunct. Labour in the past expressed, however incoherently, all these aspirations of a working class just out of its infancy, crying out, not for charity and mercy, but for political power with which to change the world.

The Labour Party was formed in 1906, yet despite its recent emergence (as compared with Liberal or Tory) its appeal is already fading, its policies old-hat, its ideals threadbare and increasingly lost in vague verbiage. Fifty-three years have seen the rise and decline of that sincere idealism that sent hundreds of thousands of workers onto the streets campaigning, not for “we can make ‘You have never had it so good’ even better.” but to build a society worthy of Man’s sense of his own dignity. Left-wing idealism has died, and all the trumpeting of Bevan. Barbara Castle, Mikardo and “Tribune” cannot bring it to life again. Labour today can only mimic its former styles; and the result, with even the rebels supporting H-bombs, rearmament and the trade struggle with foreign powers, sounds as hollow as an old biscuit-tin.

Labour’s Lost Image
Images—religious, military, national or political have nothing precise or rational in their make-up. A political image is created by a thousand-and-one vague impressions gained from speeches, articles (and even catchy phrases remembered out of context), the personal appearance and integrity (real or assumed) of the politicians, and the manner and methods of presenting promises to the electorate. The practiced politician is aware of this, and seeks more to create a favourable image than to present a coherent political programme. The measures presented must likewise have quick appeal, the thoughtful must make way for the sensational. The image which Labour built was of the working-man turned politician who by a judicious use of Parliament would strike a blow for the workers against the forces of exploitation and oppression. Labour became the embodiment of “Us.” “Them” being not just the ruling class, but the whole Establishment, right down to the foreman. With this image Labour could rely on millions of votes from embittered workers who were never sufficiently politically aware to state any specific revolutionary aims.

In furtherance of this image, Labour became a political Father Christmas offering something to every shade of radical, reforming opinion. A political pap, made of Reformism, Fabianism, Pacifism, Nationalisation, Cooperation, Patriotism and Christianity, provided a diet for everybody—almost. This diet may not be very nourishing, but the promise of working-class victory was enough to blind many to Labour’s defects. Five-and-a-half years of Labour Government helped to disillusion many, but the malaise of the Labour Party goes deeper. Times have changed, and the changed attitudes of workers are posing a big problem for Labour. It seems that in an era of full employment their message has become irrelevant. Since 1950, they have had difficulty in finding a policy that marked them off from the Tories. A rather damaging thing to say about a party whose prominent members are fond of talking about “Principles of Social Democracy”; “Public Ownership”; and “Co-operative Commonwealth.” Big words, and words that are extremely obscure as used by the Labour Party. They have in any case lost a lot of their old appeal, and Labour might as well drop them.

The Rise of the “Middle Class”
It is the spread of what is called the “middle class” and its ideals that has so much changed the character of British Politics. “Middle Class” is not a valid term in the economic sense; the middle class or rising Capitalist class of Marx’s day have vanished from the scene. A rough definition of them today would be “all those members of the working class who, for reasons of tradition, snobbery and aspiration, identify themselves with Capitalism and its institutions.” They are a part of the Establishment; seeking social solidarity in the pretences that their employments are valuable and that they form the backbone of society. The correct ethics and morals must be observed, the correct sort of clothes worn, and the right sort of house occupied. Income is to some extent secondary, though the most lowly-paid workers cannot qualify. The £12 a week clerk is frequently “middle class” in outlook, while better paid workers on bench or machines are usually “working class.” “Middle class” aims and aspirations are however becoming more widespread, even among Labour’s traditional supporters.

One change is the growth of the unproductive tasks. This process is continuous, but it has received fresh impetus in the boom conditions prevailing since the War. New office-buildings thrust their outlines into every city skyline, and they are much bigger than the bombed or demolished buildings they replace. More and more office staff are required, and their activities are mechanised and organised on a large scale. Capitalism requires more and more people to calculate, organise, publicise and litigate.

As the office-workers have grown, so the industrial workers, considered as a proportion of the population, have declined. In industry, too, important changes are taking place. The technicians, designers, draughtsmen, and supervisors become increasingly important, and are becoming cut off from their proletarian roots. Many such people are “middle class” in outlook, and are usually on the side of the “Supermac” angels.

Most important of all is the growth among all sections of what D. H. Lawrence called “the new money pleasures.” The past sixty years has seen tremendous changes in consumer goods. Modern Capitalism, with its mass-production of pressed-steel and plastic gadgets, its electronic marvels and its motor-cars, has conditioned people to the continual discarding of the old and the buying of new things. No longer need the furniture last a lifetime it must be glossy, bold-as-brass. and changed every few years. Acquisition and coveting are the ruling social ideas, and there has been as a consequence a decline in social life and a decline in interest in real human questions. The furniture, radiogram and T.V. may be new, but the emotional experiences are second-hand, gained from T.V., best-selling novel or film. "You have never had it so good” is a pretty accurate, and cynical, summing-up of attitudes in the 1950's This is not a triumph of higher wages and improved social conditions, it is a triumph of things over human relationships. The Commodity reigns supreme, and Humanity is hardly anywhere. There is a constant barrage of T.V.. press and film advertising to help keep the Commodity secure.

What can the left-wing idealists of the Labour Party say against this? The Labour Party, with its catchpenny prosperity schemes, its sensational appeals, its exhortations to workers to work harder in the cause of increased prosperity, its support of the trade struggle, contributed its share towards Man's enslavement to the Commodity.

What Labour failed to see was that Capitalism could be modified again and again—and still remain Capitalism. Poverty is a permanent feature of Capitalism. However many gadgets workers acquire (and the process need not be continuous, for slumps can return again) they remain workers; and the ruling class are still there—on top.

The Squawking, Chattering Jay
Labour need not be stuck for an answer. There is the quick gloss, the clever evasion, the downright lie; all useful weapons in politics. There is the Jay approach, a truly cynical one: cast away the old ideas, keep up to date, be in with the times! It doesn't matter what you do so long as you kick wicked old Mac out of office! The argument is of course justified by the cry: “spare a tear for the poor electorate under Tory rule!” Labour members are certainly confused, but this kind of argument hasn’t gone down very well. They have, after all, an attachment to what they call their “principles.” Many would like to see more Nationalisation, but are prepared to admit it hasn’t made much difference so far. And why and how should it?

The bulk of the Party will probably come round to Gaitskell’s views on the subject which are: keep a fair smattering of high-sounding phrases for the more thoughtful (but Keep it Vague!); an abandonment or modification (or in any case soft-pedalling) of the garbled and obscure definition of Socialism in the Party’s 1919 constitution: and plenty of gloss on those policy statements. Labour’s post-election conference suggests that for the time being they will be satisfied with a patchwork job. with Uncle Nye (how genial the old firebrand is getting!) suavely proclaiming the Party’s essential unity. Labour's next programme might be envisaged as promising a thousand miles more motorway than the Tories, bigger and better Hire-Purchase and house buying facilities, and a suggestion that Labour is an up-to-date slick Party in a slick world. They might on the other hand become the victims of their own traditions and go into a gentle decline. In any event Socialism will become more and more distant, the “principles” more and more obscure and more and more a cloak for ruling class ideas.

In spite of sixty years of “inevitable gradualness": in spite of increasing Government interference in the running of almost everything: Capitalism is still carried on for the benefit of a ruling class. Its hold over people’s minds appears as strong as ever. “Appears” is used deliberately; although people still support Capitalism, it is support on a rather cynical level. Outright enthusiasm is becoming rare. Perhaps in a way this is an advance; perhaps disillusion comes all the quicker. .

Capitalism, in spite of “improved” education, better social services, motor-cars and other gadgets of all sorts, remains an unworthy system: throwing its peoples’ lives away in futile battle; damaging the very basis of Man’s biological inheritance: submitting its peoples to the rat-race scramble for jobs and favours; subordinating Man to the machine and productive method: crushing individuality; battering at peoples' consciousness with hideous advertising, and misusing language in the same process (adding “triteness” to “brightness” is one of Capitalism’s more subtle and insidious crimes): and fostering avarice, envy and hatred where there could be human cooperative happiness.

Out in the Cold
More and more motor-cars and motor-ways, and more intricate gadgets, do not suggest Wonderland to the Socialist. They suggest that Mankind is going mad over mere things, over what should be simply aids and adjuncts to living, and in the process are forgetting how to live, forgetting their own humanity.

Not being interested in cadging votes (though we would certainly like to see more workers supporting Socialism, at the Polls and elsewhere); not wasting our time in collecting the crumbs of Reform; not trying to resolve the impossible by offering a Foreign Policy that will reconcile Eisenhower, Khruschev, De Gaulle and the British Government; we are in a position radically different from any other Party, and our problems are different. We are the victims of the general hostility and apathy towards politics. People dismiss all politicians—including Socialists—as frauds, even though our views are not “politics” in the sense that other Parties use the word. We have to break through a thick armour of apathy and hostility, to show people that we are really different. Still, we find few Labour supporters left prepared to argue, and perhaps out of the apathy and cynicism will come a more positive attitude, an attitude favourable to Socialist ideas. In the meantime we remain unrepentant, and to Labour jeering we can reply “we would rather be in the Political wilderness than have supported a Government that began the biggest peace-time armaments programme in this country’s history” (where were the left-wing mixed-up kids then? Cringing under the lash of three-line whips!)

Petrol-station, sham-Tudor house and shiny gadgets provide an unworthy material setting for mankind; just as irrational politics, reformism, “publicity” sensationalism and herd-appeals provide an unworthy ideological setting. Along with all this and the other rubbish that Socialism will consign to the dustbin will go the Labour Party. For they are a symbol of working-class political immaturity, and the sooner discarded the better.

F. R. Ivimey

50 Years Ago: Bigger Armaments Under Labour Government (1999)

The 50 Years Ago column from the December 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

In the course of an explanation why taxation is much larger than before the war, Mr Douglas Jay, MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury, recently repudiated the view that it is solely due to expenditure on social services. He was speaking to the Westminster Savings Committee, and went on to tell them of another reason:-

  “Equally important is the growth in defence expenditure (£750 million to-day, compared with £200 million before the war), and also in debt interest due to the war” (Daily Express, 4.10.49).

Mr Jay was seemingly content with his explanation but he should now answer the question “What has happened to the Labour Party’s promises that when they came to power they would know how to settle international problems peacefully and drastically cut down the Armed Forces?”

Instead they have to accept responsibility for peacetime conscription—opposition to which is now left to Tories and Liberals—and for maintaining the Armed Forces at far greater strength than in 1939. The number now is 765,000, just over twice as many as before the war.

One consequence of the Labour Party being responsible for running capitalism and keeping its Armed Forces up to standard is that that Party moved far away from the vague pacifist sentiment of the nineteen twenties. When recently the Assistant General Secretary of the Transport Workers’ Union published in the Union journal an article appealing to young members to consider joining the Auxiliary Forces he made the comment below:-

“When I first became an officer of this union, an article on the Armed Forces of the Crown (unless it had been the purpose of the writer to condemn them as the tools of outworn imperialism, deplore their existence and dissuade young men from having anything to do with them) would have been unthinkable in the Record” 

(From the Notes By The Way column, Socialist Standard, September, 1949).

100 days that will not shake the world (1964)

From the December 1964 issue of the Socialist Standard

The dear old ladies of Cheltenham can come out from hiding in the cupboard and the grizzle-headed sons of toil can stop throwing their cloth caps into the air. There will be no revolution, as of yet.

The Labour Government, now about six weeks old, won the Election on a programme called The New Britain. Somewhere buried in the pages of that manifesto the word Socialist makes just two hasty, shamefaced appearances. Nowhere was the programme indiscreet enough to attempt a definition of Socialism. But in Cheltenham and Bermondsey this is a mere detail; the very mention of the word is enough to frighten some, and to enrapture others, in reality, nobody had any reason for getting excited about the new government, and Mr. Wilson's men soon got down to the job of convincing them of this.

During the Election, the Labour leader asked that his administration be granted a First Hundred Days, as new American governments are, to settle into the saddle and take up the reins of government. This idea caught on. The Guardian, which lately has leaned over backwards not to be beastly to the Labour Party, is co-operating by publishing a little diary of the period, recording events like: “To meet expected £800 million deficit Government announced 15 per cent levy on all imports except. . . . and “Letter to Prime Minister from Institution of Professional Civil Servants complaining. . . .” This was a rather cosy idea but perhaps Mr. Wilson had little time for such indulgences. He was busy.

The new Prime Minister immediately showed that he meant business. On his first Sunday in office he went along to Ten Downing Street dressed in a nondescript sports jacket and baggy trousers. The press loved this but the tailoring world took a rather different point of view. They were obviously afraid that the Wilson look might catch on, leaving a lot of suavely fashioned jackets and elegantly tapered trousers on their hands. Yet Wilson's rumpled appearance that Sunday was probably due to anything but absent mindedness. He has always promoted the image of himself as the ex-grammar schoolboy—the placid, earnest middle-class fellow made good. Just the chap, in fact, who always wears comfortable sports clothes on a Sunday. That jacket and those trousers were politically comfortable. The new Premier was dressed as carefully as if he had been turned out in Saville Row.

From the energetic man in Number Ten came the lists of Labour's Ministers. Mr. Frank Cousins could forget about the days of strife when he went on Aldermaston marches and swung his union's massive vote in favour of the Labour Party going unilateralist. His new job gave him responsibility for this country's military nuclear research. There was a Minister of Defence, Mr. Healey, to work hard to make weapons and a Minister of Disarmament, Mr. Alun Gwynne-Jones, who is supposed to get rid of them. There were all the usual appointments of men to look after the economic, commercial and financial affairs of British capitalism. The list got longer and longer—far more than Sir Alec had had—which showed that Mr. Wilson meant to play his part in producing more, even if it was only jobs for politicians.

Yet there were still doubts and fears. The Wilson Government was said, by people who pretend to understand such terms, to be too “left wing.'' There was the Prime Minister himself. There was Frank Cousins. Dick Crossman. Barbara Castle. All of them dangerous revolutionaries. Perhaps there were capitalists who were thinking it would not be long now before they returned after a hard day on the grouse moors to find that their servants had taken over the stately homes. The New Britain had promised that the Labour Government". . . will frame the broad strategy for increasing investment . . ." but what capitalist was going to want to invest when he might any day come home to find the under gardener with his feet up on the library table just finishing on the best brandy? Clearly, something had to be done to reassure them.

It was Mr. Ray Gunter, Minister of Labour, who spoke first. His subject was the dockers, and he was not diverted from saying his piece by the fact that he could easily be mistaken for a dockworker himself. Mr. Gunter is one of Labour's tough guys and likes to think himself as a blunt speaker. There was, of course, no need for him to be blunt about the dockers taking anything over; nothing was further from their intentions. They were only after another twenty-five shillings in their weekly pay packets, and some of them were sufficiently-keen on this to think the negotiators on both sides might be persuaded to hurry things along a bit if they (the dockers) went on unofficial strike.

Now to Mr. Gunter, on what he called the bed of nails at the Ministry of Labour, there is nothing worse that an unofficial strike. Such a strike might even upset the trade of British capitalism, or indirectly cut the profits of some exporting capitalists. So he spoke out. The dockers' threatened walk-out, he said, could ". . . only lead to anarchy, I strongly condemn such action.''

This was heartening stuff to the employers, who in their sillier moments might have imagined that a Labour Government stood for improved wages. The National Association of British Manufacturers promptly sent Mr. Gunter a telegram which “warmly welcomed” his intervention and offered him “any assistance'' they could give.

Mr. Douglas Jay was another member of the new government who seemed rather nervous about the effect of Labour's undeserved reputation for revolutionary hellfire. Mr. Jay is now President of the Board of Trade and he is obviously anxious to do all he can to maintain the economic interests of Britain's ruling class so that they still have some Trade for him to be President of the Board of. It did not take him long to arrange a visit to his counterparts in Red China, in the hope of drumming up some export orders. But before he went Mr. Jay made it quite clear, in case anyone should get the wrong idea while he was away, that the British capitalist class has absolutely nothing to fear from a Labour Government:

  The new Government (he said) starts with no prejudice or bias whatever against private business and industry. . . . Profits, provided they are earned by efficiency and technical progress, and not by restrictive practices or abuse of monopoly, are the sign of a healthy economy.

The response to this was immediate: “Mr. Jay cheers the stock markets” (The Guardian); “Jay's Assurances Help Equity Shares" (Daily Telegraph); “There was hardly anything Mr. Jay said . . . to which an enlightened industrialist or merchant banker would have hesitated to put his name.” (Samuel Brittan, then Economic Editor of The Observer).

Directly after this Mr. Wilson reappeared on television to tell us some more about his government's plans to boost the trade of British capitalism. Mr. Wilson was grave and purposeful, and had clearly been having some attention from the make-up men. He attacked wildcat strikes and restrictive practices. His government had that very day announced the fifteen per cent surcharge on imports, but that was a restrictive practice which escaped Mr. Wilson’s condemnation.

The effect of this surcharge is to alter the Customs regulations so that, for example, “wood sawn lengthwise, sliced or peeled . . . of a thickness exceeding five millimetres" is allowed into the country at the old rate of duty, while ". . . wood planed, tongued, grooved, rebated, chamfered, V-jointed, centre V-jointed, beaded, centre beaded . . ." must bear the new levy. In the same way, “Clothing, clothing accessories . . . showing signs of appreciable wear. . . ." escape the surcharge, while clothing which does not show signs of “ appreciable wear ” cost its importers another fifteen per cent duty.

It was apparently part of Labour's contribution to productivity to set a vast array of customs officers, shipping clerks and the like to work calculating and paying this extra duty. Perhaps somebody was grateful for this; at the same time as they imposed the new levy, the government gave a hand-out in the shape of a tax rebate to firms which are in the export trade. This rebate, also, will take a lot of working out, checking and cross-checking — work which will add precisely nothing to production. But the emergency measures were welcomed in the places where they know a bull market when they see one. Applauded The Guardian: “The response in financial markets to the Government's first economic measures was uniformly favourable." And Lord Inchcape, leading a delegation of Middle East exporters to the Board of Trade, was moved to say, “We welcome the Government’s proposed tax rebate scheme."

It was thus obvious that the Labour Government were doing all in their power to reassure the British ruling class that their interests were as secure as ever. And the ruling class showed their appreciation for this considerate attitude in the usual way. The Stock Exchange, where all men are far more equal than the others outside, and which is a sensitive (some say over-sensitive) barometer of its members’ prospects, responded. No shareholders sold out and fled to South America. No directors committed suicide. They just went on doing business in the normal manner:

October 19th.  

Gunter’s attack on the dockers. 

Stock Exchange "nervous . . . prices tumbling in most sections ” (The Guardian) Steels and insurances fell sharply. Financial Times Index (FTI) 9.5 points down at 350. 

October 20th. 

Mr. Jay’s statement on private industry and profits. 

Recovery in gilts, steels firm. FTI 1.7 points up to 351.7. 

October 21st. 

Further advance in gilts. Equities ". . . staging a strong rally ’’ (Daily Telegraph). FTI 6.6 points up to 357.8. 

October 22nd. 

Dockers decide on official strike for December 1st. 

October 26th. 

Emergency measures announced.
New account on Stock Exchange opened confidently.
Gilts, electrical and engineering shares up. FTI rose 3 points to 359.6 

October 27th. 

Gilts up again. Engineering and motor shares up. Allied Ironfounders—one of the companies which have donated to Conservative Party funds—gained 1 /10½d. on the day FTI climbed to 362.8—a rise of 3.2 points. 

October 28th. 

Recovery on Stock Exchange halted, as speculators sold to realise their profits. Good day for gilts. Bovis (with Sir Keith Joseph back on the board) gained l/6d. on the day. FTI dropped 3.5 points to 359.3  

October 29th. 

Business slacker. Channel Tunnel shares one of the few to rise. FTI fell 2.8 points to 356.5

The Stock Exchange will continue to fluctuate, under various influences, throughout the life of the Labour Government. One thing it will not do is to go out of existence. It is an important part of capitalism’s financial mechanism and the Labour Party has no intention of abolishing capitalism. Fundamental social change is not to be the ally, nor even the nodding acquaintance, of the Wilson Ministry. They have no mandate for such change and indeed have never asked for one. To have campaigned on a programme of social revolution would have been to administer the Kiss of Death to themselves, and Mr. Wilson is a man who fights hard to stay politically alive. So he stood, in the Words of The New Britain, to " .. . make government itself more efficient. . . . rekindle an authentic patriotic faith . . . " This vague nonsense won many more votes than Socialism, which after all is only a clearly defined solution to the hardships and contradictions of the modern world.

By their records shall we know them. The first Labour Government was famous for the personal vanity of its Ministers, for its reliance upon Liberal support and for its bungling of a prosecution. The second went down in history as the government which presided over the doubling of the unemployed, which split over the proposal to cut the dole and which finally, in part, sold out to the Tories.

The third lasted longer. They will forever be connected with the austerity of post-war England, with the wage-freeze, devaluation and the dollar gap. And they will be remembered as the government which eventually disintegrated, personally and politically, as so many of its members were killed or incapacitated by the strains of trying to control the waywardness of British capitalism.

What shall we remember the Wilson Government for? Will it, also, be swept from power by an economic tornado? Will it have to fight the unions, to impose a programme of rigid austerity? Such is the unpredictable anarchy of capitalism that the government, for all its erudite advisers, cannot know the answers to these questions.

Mr. Wilson is said to want to be remembered as the head of one of the great reforming Ministries of British history. We have been warned. There will be a spate of Bills dealing with all manner of minor anomalies. Sometimes they will be measures designed to undo the work of previous reforms. Some of them may be a little useful to working class. Most of them will be the usual shifts and compromises, the weary rearrangements of the pressures of poverty exploitation and the degrading of human beings. And when Mr. Wilson has finished capitalism will still be there, waiting for the next lot of manipulators to arrive.

There will be no revolution, as of yet. But how long the “of yet" lasts depends on the knowledge and the wishes of the people who send the manipulators back to Westminster. And that, Mr. and Mrs. Average Voter—in Cheltenham, in Bloomsbury—means you.

Ivan

Time's Little Joke ! (1947)

From the October 1947 issue of the Socialist Standard

  “First, the balance of payments. Here we have done very well so far, much better than most experts expected; and there is no prospect of any ‘crisis.’ As Hugh Dalton has said, controls would prevent this; and all that could happen at the worst would be a prolongation of austerity. If we do not export enough, we shall have less oranges, bananas, tobacco, sugar, limber, etc., to consume. That is all.

  “But the figures are encouraging. It was expected that in 1946 we should have a total deficit on the balance of our oversea payments (including Government expenditure abroad) of about £750,000,000. But in fact it has only turned out to be about £450,000,000.

  “Since only £300,000,000 of this was due to ordinary exporting and importing, our excess of imports over exports in 1916 (if we allow for the changed value of money) was scarcely greater than the average for the 1930’s. This is an incredible success, which has not been widely enough realized.

   “It is for this reason that the American Loan is being used up so slowly. Those who say that it is being used fast have evidently not examined the figures very carefully. Hugh Dalton told us recently in Parliament that in the last six months of 1946 some 600,000,000 dollars of the American loan had been spent. This is a rate of spending of £300,000,000 a year. Since the effective part of the loan amounts to £937,000,000, it would last at this rate for rather over three years, i.e. till the autumn of 1949.” 

 (Douglas Jay, Labour M.P., “Labour Press Service,” March 7th, 1947.)

Notes by the Way: "Capitalists" at the Rubbish Heap (1937)

The Notes by the Way column from the December 1937 issue of the Socialist Standard

“Capitalists” at the Rubbish Heap

Lord Iliffe, speaking at the Annual Conference of the British Junior Chambers of Commerce at Coventry on September 26th (Daily Telegraph, September 27th, 1937), said that “we” (presumably he meant the Government) are “curing the ills of capitalism as well as of Communism by creating capitalists as quickly as we possibly can.” A fortnight later the Daily Express (October 8th) published a striking photograph of dozens of women—some of Lord Iliffe’s "capitalists”—groping in a heap of colliery refuse at Longsight, Manchester, for bits of coal: —

   Three days a week are reserved there for women gleaners, three for men. . . . The women, here, were too busy to think of the camera. A lorry had just sent its load of refuse down the slope. Before the black dust had settled, seventy women were on their knees. For twenty minutes only the rasping of metal scrapers among the refuse was heard.

This is one of the "rights” free-born Britishers are asked to defend against foreign powers!

* * *

Beaverbrook is Candid—or Is He?

Conversation overheard in a Lyons’ tea-shop : —

   “I prefer the Daily Express, particularly now that Lord Beaverbrook says it isn’t run for profit.”
   “But isn’t it?” 
   “No. Lord Beaverbrook doesn’t get a penny out of it.”

That was the impression conveyed to one reader of the Daily Express, and, doubtless, to many others, by Lord Beaverbrook’s personal statement published on September 24th. It is one of those very candid statements which conceal more than they disclose. It starts off by saying that the profit of Express newspapers is limited to just under £150,000, “which is less than three per cent, of the gross turnover ”; but it does not tell us what is the capital and what percentage the profit represents of the capital. To relate profit to turnover in this instance means nothing at all.

Then, after telling us that “more than seventy-four per cent. of the ordinary shares are owned by me,” Lord Beaverbrook makes the statement which so impressed his admirer in the tea-shop: —

   I have never drawn a penny of salary from the newspaper. My sole and only object is to serve the public interest . . .” (italics ours).

Of course nobody supposed he did draw anything as salary, but what about his ownership of three-quarters of the ordinary shares? The accounts of London Express Newspapers, Ltd., show that the amount of profit available for dividend on ordinary shares averaged nearly £39,000 a year on the past three years. As Beaverbrook owns three-quarters of them, it appears that he is in a position to draw nearly £30,000 a year. Whether he owns any preference shares as well is not known. If he does his income will be correspondingly greater.

What about a little more candour, Lord Beaverbrook ?

* * *

The 'Daily Herald's’ Case for Capitalism 

Mr. Douglas Jay, formerly on the staff of The Times, then of the Economist, is now City Editor of the Daily Herald. He has written a book called "The Socialist Case" (Faber & Faber, 12s.6d., 362 pages). The publishers declined to send us a review copy, but it does not appear that we have missed anything. Mr. J. A. Hobson, reviewing it in the Manchester Guardian (October 15th, 1937), finds in Mr. Jay two merits, one of which is that—

   he discards from practicable Socialism the indiscriminate attack on profits, rent and interest which Marxism put into the Socialist theory.

Mr. Jay proves why it is necessary to retain rent, interest and profit. ‘The interesting point about this is that it goes even further in its acceptance of capitalism than the Labour Party itself. The policy in the past has always been to attack profits and rent, and even promise to destroy them, but to retain interest. Now along comes Mr. Jay and states the case for a monstrous edifice which is called Socialism, but which stands on all three of the capitalist pillars.

The unkindest cut of all, delivered at Mr. Jay, comes from an old colleague on the Economist, who says: —

   Purists, perhaps, may doubt Mr. Jay’s Socialism, and dub him rather an enlightened democrat . . .”— (Economist, Oct. 9th, 1937.)

Mr. Jay may be a democrat, but is it really enlightened to rehash all this old stuff about a reformed capitalism?

* * *

History Embarrasses the Communist Party 

The Evening Standard (November 12th, 1937) tells the following entertaining story about the Communist Party's embarrassment over a written record (which carried Lenin's endorsement) of Trotsky's part in the Bolshevist seizure of power. The record in question is "Ten Days that Shook the World," written by the late John Reed, which the News-Chronicle proposed to serialise: —

   This contemporary account of the Bolshevist uprising was written by John Reed, the American Communist, who was a close personal friend of Lenin. When he died in 1921 he left the British copyright in his book to the Communist Party.
    When the News-Chronicle approached the copyright owners for permission to serialise the book it was gladly given. The Communists asked no fee, and made only one stipulation—that all reference to Trotsky should be eliminated from the text.
    Confronted with this modern version of Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark, the Liberal organ abandoned the project.

The book was filmed by the Russians prior to Trotsky’s downfall, and shows him taking an active part. The Communists still show the film in this country, but their commentator now tells the audience that Trotsky was sabotaging the efforts of  the Bolshevists! What is more, one of the commentators, when questioned about this, admitted that he had not read the book and therefore did not know how his instructions falsify the written record.

* * *

He Could Not be Worse than the Others

One writer on the career of Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Frank Owen, who is well aware that MacDonald was never a Socialist at all, sums him up neatly and briefly, and his former associates as well: —

   I will say this of him, that he was perhaps not less of a Socialist at the finish than he was at any other time. And I will add for the benefit of old colleagues who have abused him so savagely in later days that he was no worse a Socialist than most of them.—(Daily Express, Nov. 10th, 1937.)

* * *

Dictator’s Diversion

Reynold's Illustrated News (October 24th, 1937) publishes the following extract from a book written by Mussolini's airman son, Vittorio, on his Abyssinian adventures. It shows the appalling gulf dictatorship creates, so that a young man can be entirely bereft of all sense of the consequences of his actions for other human beings: —

   I have never seen a fire. . . . Probably someone here was aware of my frustration and therefore some planes of the 14th squadron were ordered to effect a bombing in the zone of Adi Abo and to use incendiary bombs exclusively. I do not believe a more important reason existed. . . . It was most diverting.

* * *

Dilemma of Sir Stafford Cripps

The position of the man who says it is desirable to stay inside the Labour Party in order to convert it to Socialism is hopelessly false. In the New Leader, organ of the I.L.P. (October 29th, 1937), Mr. F. W. Jowett asks Sir Stafford Cripps how he squares his new declaration of loyalty to the Labour Party with his other statement that its policy is "Liberal Imperialism in Foreign affairs" and "Capitalist Reformism in Domestic affairs."

* * *

The Russian Wages System

The News-Chronicle recently published some articles on Russia by a special correspondent, Mr. Paul Winterton. It was noticeable that, though his avowed intention was to describe facts, there was a considerable admixture of opinion, some of it of a kind which obscured rather than explained the subject matter. In particular, Mr. Winterton went to some trouble to explain that, though there is great inequality of income in Russia, this is not a sign of a drift to capitalism. He reported, for example (News Chronicle, July 30th, 1937), that the lowest paid worker receives 125 roubles a month, the highest (with a few exceptions) 3,000 roubles a month. He expressed the opinion that “there is no such range in Russia as that between the 30s. a week of the British unemployed family and the £10,000 a year of the company director," but admitted, at the same time, that he had been told of the head of a Russian constructional enterprise reported to be in receipt of 12,000 roubles a month. It will be noticed that 12,000 roubles is 96 times as much as 125 roubles, and the range between the two figures is therefore not so very much less than the range between 30s. a week and £10,000 a year. The latter is 130 times the former. Even 3,000 roubles is 24 times as much as 125.

The point of major interest is that Mr. Winterton appears to be quite unaware that the present Russian practice in this matter is in flat contradiction with the views of Lenin and the earlier Bolshevists, who were firm advocates of equality. Not only Mr. Winterton, but most of the present-day British Communists are unaware of it, and the reason is that Communist and "Left Wing" books and papers are nowadays curiously silent about the former advocacy of equality. A good illustration is to be found in a Left Book Club publication, “A Handbook of Marxism" edited by Emile Bums. It runs to nearly 1,100 pages and contains reprints of many of the smaller works of Marx, Engels and Lenin. But when you look up the index to see what Lenin, for example, had to say about equality, you discover the regrettable omission of references to Lenin’s opposition to inequality.

In his “Soviets at Work,” Lenin regretted the necessity in 1918 of paying high salaries to specialists, and said: —

   Such a measure is not merely a halt in a certain part and to a certain degree of the offensive against capitalism . . . but also a step backward by our Socialist Soviet State, which has from the very beginning proclaimed and carried on a policy of reducing high salaries to the standard of wages of the average worker.

He went on to say that “to pay unequal salaries is really a step backward; we will not cheat the people by pretending otherwise.”

But Lenin’s “Soviets at Work” is not one of the works reprinted in the “Handbook of Marxism.”

Lenin had also emphasised this principle of equality in his “State and Revolution.” But while two chapters of this work are included in the “Handbook,” the chapter containing the references to equality of wages is one of those omitted on grounds of space.

The “Handbook” does, however, find space for Stalin’s latter-day Bolshevist doctrine ridiculing equality and actually quoting Lenin to. that end and making it appear that Lenin was opposed to equality (see pages 939 and 940). Needless to say, the quotation from Lenin does not really support Stalin’s view, but is concerned only with ridiculing the bourgeois notions that Socialism is based on the assumption that all men are equal. But even supposing that Lenin had on some occasion shared Stalin’s view, it is still most misleading to publish only a one-sided selection of his statements and omit the others, thus giving the false impression that the Bolshevists had always taken up the same attitude that Stalin and his Government take up now.

Before Mr. Winterton and others express opinions about what they find in Russia, and say there is no drift to capitalism, they could usefully acquaint themselves with what Marx, Engels and Lenin had to say on the subject of equality. But to do this they will have to go outside the publications of the Communist Party and the Left Book Club.

Edgar Hardcastle

Future of the Labour Party (1959)

From the December 1959 issue of the Socialist Standard

As outsiders we look on curiously as the factions in the Labour Party argue about why they lost the election and about whether their chances would be better next time if they got nearer to the Tories or further away, or if they dropped their programme altogether. Unlike other outsiders who are butting in with advice we have no guidance to offer to the Labour Party. Our stand is a simple one. We seek Socialism and have always been convinced that the Labour Party could never be anything but an obstacle in our path: all we wish to see is the disappearance of the Labour parties of the world and their replacement by Socialist parties. But those who have not yet come to see things us Socialists do can usefully note the difficulties in which its own policies have involved the Labour Party.

Douglas Jay, the Labour M.P., who started the row. held various posts in the Labour Government. 1945-1951, and retained his seat at Battersea North in the recent election, though with a reduced majority. Writing in Forward (October 16th, 1959) under the title “ Are We Downhearted? Yes!" he admitted that since 1945 there has been “a persistent drift away from Labour towards the Tories.” and offered as a provisional answer, the following:

1 -THE BETTER off wage earners and numerous salary earners arc tending to regard the Labour Party as associated with a class to which they themselves don't belong. Few of them—least of all the women—feel themselves to be members of a “working class." We are in danger of fighting under the label of a class which no longer exists.
   If you doubt this, ask anyone who canvassed intensively in the last four weeks, particularly in the new housing estates. We must have a wider cross sectional appeal. What the public wants is a vigorous radical reforming open-minded party.
2- THE WORD “nationalisation" has become damaging to the Labour Party. This is a fact; and it is no use denying it. even if you deplore it. We have allowed the word which properly applies only to public monopoly, to be associated with social ownership as a whole. The myth that we intended to “nationalise” anything and everything was very powerful in this Election—any canvasser will agree. We must destroy this myth decisively; otherwise we may never win again.
3—Favourable economic circumstances for the Tories meant more, in terms of votes than any moral argument or propaganda vigour could counteract. True, the old people, the unemployed and badly housed, were suffering badly.

Opponents of Jay attacked him for suggesting that the Labour Party should water down its programme on Nationalisation. So far Mr. Gaitskell has not committed himself publicly in the controversy, but there is little doubt where he stood a few years ago at the time that he wrote the Fabian Tract Socialism and Nationalisation (July. 1956).

In that pamphlet he contended that nationalisation should be regarded as a means to achieving a better social system and not as an end in itself; though he frankly admitted that in the Labour Party it had often been treated as an end in itself, and indeed as “more or less identical with Socialism” (page 5). This, he said, was because many members of the Labour Party considered that nationalisation was the only way to get what they were driving at and that it could not fail to produce the desired ends. He now thinks that nationalisation is not by any means “the only way.”

The truth is that the Labour Party, in its half-century of propaganda, has accepted or tolerated the expression of many divergent views on nationalisation. Some advocates regarded it as a good business proposition; one that would show big economies, big profits and low charges. Others thought it would lead to higher wages, and others again, including Mr. Gaitskell, thought it would lead to the transfer of wealth from the rich to the government to be used to make the poor better off. (As the £53 million a year being paid indefinitely on the Government securities given to former coal and railway shareholders is probably at least double the profits they would now be getting in their shrinking industries if nationalisation had not taken place, the argument seems to be a particularly silly one).

The Whole Hog on Nationalisation

Some of the Labour leaders who want to forget nationalisation deny that the Labour Party ever intended to go the whole hog—though why shouldn’t they if they thought it such a good thing? But in 1935 the Labour Party published a pamphlet. “The Position of the Middle Class Worker in the Transition to Socialism,” by Lawrence Benjamin. In it he stated plainly that the Labour Party intended to take over the whole productive machine, land, industrial plant, warehouses, shop, stores, and the banks and financial houses. And he wrote:-

“But,” says someone in perhaps horror-struck tones, “if all the parts of the national economic machine are not privately owned, they would be publicly owned—and this means Socialism." Certainly this is true. It does mean Socialism.” (Page 9.)

The Real Dilemma

The mess the Labour Party is in is the result of its own past muddled thinking. All its groups, however divided on other things, persuaded themselves that nationalisation would be an attractive institution and a vote-catcher. They are now having to swallow the bitter truth—that the extension of nationalisation is not wanted by most workers and has nothing to offer most capitalists. (Labour parties in Austria, Germany and elsewhere have met the same drift of opinion). So now one faction would willingly drop nationalisation in order to win the next election. but this can only look like treachery to the other faction, for whom the only purpose of winning an election is to introduce more nationalisation.

The Labour Party has many other worries when it looks to its future. It would like to see the Tories reverting to their less astute policies of earlier decades, which would help to stir up interest among the workers. But according to some accounts Mr. MacMillan, himself a one-time critic of Tory “reaction,” is deliberately setting out to pursue what “Cross-bencher” calls “a Leftward reforming course.” Sunday Express (November 8th, 1959). When the early pioneers of the Labour Party dreamed of placing themselves at the head of a grateful army of electors by first popularising and then enacting a series of social reforms, they never thought of the possibility of a Tory party that beat them at the same game.

The arguments in Labour Party ranks will go on for months and years and will never be finally settled until that Party disintegrates, to give place to the Socialist Party. In the meantime the present decline of nationalisation, which we never supported, should give an added opportunity for Socialist propaganda to make headway against all the other issues.

Edgar Hardcastle