The Passing Show: A sad, sad story (1966)

The Passing Show Column from the November 1966 issue of the Socialist Standard

A sad, sad story

A week or two ago a four-page leaflet fell out of a laundry parcel. I read it later the same day in snatches, between mouthfuls of food at lunch time. It was a lament — in black, white and brown printing—by a group of launderers and dry cleaners, over the new taxes and other hardships they are having to bear under the present government. Did you know, for example, that the Selective Employment Tax will add another £7 million a year to the launderers' labour costs?

But the amusing note is struck in a paragraph on the prices “standstill”. The launderers have found a loophole (one of many) which allows them ‘‘some latitude" because their costs are affected by government action. "So you can see," they wail, ‘‘that our dilemma lies in balancing co-operation against financial suicide." A neat turn of phrase, coined to sugar the pill, because the local laundry has now slapped on a surcharge of a penny in the shilling.

Can you imagine yourself approaching your employer right now for a wage increase, and using the same sort of talk? Try moaning to him about balancing this against that, and see how far you get. He'll probably look at you as if you’ve gone mad, murmur something about the pay freeze, and bring the interview very effectively to a close. No good telling him you’re going to make a surcharge. He just won’t pay it to you. and that’s that. Your position is radically different from that of the launderers or any other capitalists. You have only your labour power to sell, and the government is determined that you are not going to get a pay rise for at least six months, but as far as price control in general is concerned the whole thing is just a very bad joke.

We have dealt with this situation elsewhere, so perhaps just one last thought is all that is necessary here. Were you one of those simple folk who believed what this and other governments have told you about being much better off if only you’d curb your wage demands? By that logic, then, you should be a lot better off by next spring. Perhaps you don’t believe it any more? No, and neither does the government.

Korea—some of the story

General MacArthur was sacked from his command because, among other things, he was pressing for the Korean war to be carried into China and for atom bombs to be used there. There was a sigh of relief from left-wingers when he went, and perhaps a murmur or two of applause for President Truman’s action.

Not long after that, Eisenhower became U.S. President and from his recent television talk (September 18) it seems that pressures to extend the “police action” did not all originate from MacArthur. In fact Eisenhower wielded the atom bomb as a strong diplomatic weapon in his armistice talks with the North Koreans and let them and the Chinese know that America was ready to use it if negotiations were protracted much longer.

It is only now, when the truth begins to trickle out in very small quantities, that people can begin to guess how perilously close to the brink of another big shooting war the capitalist world was drifting in the early .1950s. War is not fought to Queensbury rules; practically anything goes if one side or the other thinks it can get away with it. And nuclear weapons must have been a sore temptation to the U.S. authorities, whatever President Truman may have thought. 

The television interview was in the first of a series of programmes called The Struggle For Peace—surely a gigantic misnomer. Accordingly Eisenhower, the American forces alone sustained 135,000 casualties. Some “police action”; some “peace”.

The naked truth

You can be alternately bored and amused for an hour or two if you go and see one of the rather corny nudist films on in London's West End just now. 1 saw one called World Without Shame, and its plot, if such it can be called, is heavily laden with the delightfully naive message that if only we’d all take our clothes off, spend most of the day sunning ourselves and generally “get back to nature,” the problems of the world would be solved.

The story starts with a young man winning about £26,000 on the pools. He and his wife chuck up their jobs in London and go to live with a few chosen friends on a quiet Mediterranean island. “We’ll get away for good from the rat race. We’ll be completely self-supporting,” enthuses our young man, fingering the pools cheque in his pocket. So off they go. There is even the political hint in another of his reasons when he talks of “some maniac pressing the H Bomb button and blowing us all to hell.” Someone ought to have reminded the producers that the Mediterranean would hardly go unscathed in such an event.

Never mind. They settle on the island in their birthday suits, dividing their time between sleeping, eating, some work and a great deal of sunbathing. The sun always shines—someone seems to have forgotten that the weather can often be cold and wet even in those parts—and presumably we are to believe they all live happily ever after. The scenery is .beautiful, the direction and acting embarrassingly poor (you often find yourself laughing in the wrong places), and the pathetic naivete of the whole proposition glaringly apparent.

We have never thought much of the idea that you can buy yourself out of the rat race, although a few thousand pounds can of course make things a lot easier for you. But the effects of the scramble are all around you, and the notion of an oasis of self-sufficiency in a desert of capitalism is a non-starter. Even the film has to concede this in part when one of the characters, a painter, runs out of canvas, and gets fresh supplies by sailing to the mainland and selling some of his pictures.

Gaspers

“The new strategy demands a great increase in fertilizer production, which can only be achieved if foreign capital can be induced to invest heavily and quickly." (The Times correspondent on Indian food production, 19.9.66).

Dr. Seretse Khama, who was exiled from his homeland by the last Labour government after his marriage to a white woman, was yesterday created a Knight Commander of the British Empire.” (Guardian, 21.9.66).

“This is our socialism: assertion of social responsibility for our economic welfare and for the welfare of the individual family." (Harold Wilson Purpose in Power, quoted in Nova magazine interview, Sept., 1966).

“The Prime Minister, I understand, has no intention of involving himself in doctrinal arguments about the true meaning of socialism which he believes has done enough harm to the party already. (Nora Beloff in The Observer, 2.10.66).

“Sir Isaac Wolfson reports that because of the freeze, dividends which could have been 36½ per cent will be held at 32½ per cent, the same as last year.” (Daily Express, 11.10.66).

There is nothing in Mr. Wilson’s present policy which a Tory Prime Minister, faced by a comparable crisis, would necessarily reject. (Peregrine Worsthorne—Conservatism Today).

Eddie Critchfield

The Emerging World Scene (1946)

From the November 1946 issue of the Socialist Standard

There is no doubt that things are on the move. Incessant activity on the part of politicians leads one to speculate as to what is pending. The Nuremberg Trial is now a thing of the past, the U.N. is proposing to take a breathing spell, the Conservative Party holds a conference, the U.S. takes decisive action in Europe; in short, what we see in our master’s press leads to the belief that the decks are being cleared for action : the capitalist class have, in the main, decided upon what they are going to do.

The American Presidential election takes place in two years’ time, and all those aspiring to office in the United States act, and speak, under the spell of that important fact. Eisenhower, who recently spoke at Edinburgh, Byrnes, the representative at the U.N., Wallace, the former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and many others are thinking when they speak not so much of the subject in hand as of the American election of 1948.

Eisenhower said in his speech of October 3rd : “World neighbourliness must be achieved or else, we shall, in a twinkling, travel a backward route over mankind’s long and laborious progress from his ancient caves to the present.”—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

Mr. Byrnes says that if other Powers will agree to the 40-year Treaty proposed by him, this treaty will bind “not merely the present American administration, but its successors.”

Commenting on this, the Daily Telegraph of October 4th says : —

“Of the four Powers consulted upon this proposal, Britain, France and the United States are favourable, and it, is only from Russia that a refusal has so far come. This refusal is no doubt partly based upon those divergencies of view between the wartime Allies to which Mr. Byrnes made discreet reference. The prospect of a democratic Germany as seen by the State Department and by the Kremlin is strikingly different. Yet it is difficult not to surmise that Marshal Stalin’s objection to the Four-Power Treaty is mainly based on the fear, not that the United States will disinterest herself from Europe, but on the contrary, that the Treaty would serve to maintain her influence there. Mr. Byrnes’s reference to the Yalta declaration and the continued American interest in the Balkans indicates that this influence will, none the less, persist.”

Mr. Byrnes has a good election cry for 1948 : his rival, Mr. Wallace, who recently was rapped over the knuckles by President Truman and, as a consequence, lost his job, is losing out in the race; the policy of isolationism is no longer in favour in capitalist circles. 

Mr. Baruch, United States representative on the Atomic Control Commission, has vigorously attacked Wallace, and stated that the latter was totally ignorant of the facts underlying atomic control. Wallace is now trimming his sails, and states, in excuse for his attack on Mr. Byrnes’ policy in regard to Russia, “that he had obviously not been fully posted as to the facts.” The deadlock over atomic control, according to Wallace, results from absence of mutual trust between U.S. and Russia. He faces both ways, like all politicians placed in similar circumstances, by concluding that “the United States is in a better position to assume leadership which will lead,” but he has no plan except that of stopping the manufacture of atomic bombs.

If we read between the lines the general conclusion arrived at is that a peace treaty is going to be patched up. Russia is compelled to accept the U.N. decision on Trieste, and her policy regarding the Danubian Waterway has been opposed so strenuously by Britain, France and the United States that she is compelled temporarily to give way to them.

There is little likelihood of a long or permanent peace; however, the nations will, in all probability, prepare for what, under capitalism, is inevitable with what speed they may. Britain is evidently not going to be caught napping. Look at this: —

£12,000,000 FOB ROCKET TESTS.

AUSTRALIAN PLANT.

“The British and Australian Governments may be involved in an expenditure of between £12,000,000 and £14,000,000 in the construction of rocket-bomb workshops and testing ranges in Australia. The annual maintenance cost is expected to be about £3,000,000.

It is understood the Australian Government has received advice from Britain setting out proposals for research and development and for testing grounds in the centre of Australia. These are based on the recommendations of a mission of experts and scientists which visited Australia early this year”.—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

It is against the above background we must judge the speeches of Sir Stafford Cripps at the Empire Trade Conference on October 3rd.

The Tories have recently laid stress on Imperial Preference; the following is Stafford Cripps’ reply.—

“It was an obvious and sensible course for us to pursue to endeavour to extend and consolidate our inter-Commonwealth trade.

"But that trade alone cannot fully meet any of our needs, and it would defeat our object of full employment and prosperity for our own people if we were to concentrate on Commonwealth trade alone and neglect those wider fields of world trade which we must cultivate.”

You are plainly told the Empire is not enough for British Capitalism; the Government must go hunting elsewhere for markets. The system compels expansion; the world is the limit; the clash between nations cannot be avoided. Socialism is the only means of saving mankind from destruction, and, unfortunately, Socialism is not yet fully understood by those who are called upon by history to establish it.

The Conservative Conference was held by men who observe the signs of the times, and are getting ready to deal with a situation they think will arise in the not far distant future.

The Labour Party is designated as the Socialist Party, but one statement made by Mr. Eden will be very interesting to the readers of the Socialist Standard.

“There is one principle underlying our approach to all these problems, a principle on which we stand in fundamental opposition to Socialism. The objective of Socialism is State ownership of all the means of production, distribution and exchange. Our objective is a nation-wide, property-owning democracy. (Cheers.)

These objectives are fundamentally opposed. Whereas the Socialist purpose is the concentration of ownership in the hands of the State, ours is the distribution of ownership over the widest practicable number of individuals. (Cheers.) Both parties believe in a form of capitalism, but whereas our opponents believe in State capitalism, we believe in the widest measure of individual capitalism.”—(Daily Telegraph, 4/10/46.)

Eden knows, and clearly shows, that the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party is a difference in degree and not in kind.

The propaganda of the l.L.P. and kindred organisations have confounded Socialism with State Capitalism.

Mr. Eden is slated for the Premiership and the odds are in his favour.

Division in the Labour Party is probable, and the Communists may hasten it along. “For or against the Soviet Union” may arise as an issue out of the present political situation. The Cabinet will be up against it if they are forced to decide between Russia and the United States. The “Labour Progressives”, supported by Communists, will go wholeheartedly for Russia if such an issue develops, so will many of their followers in the Unions, and the question, is what will happen to the Labour Government in these circumstances?

Anthony Eden is the most likely man for the Premiership in the Coalition Government which it is anticipated would then spring into being as a matter of course.

The above is how the prophets have worked it out; they may be right, but, as Shaw says, “You never can tell.”

Meanwhile the wage slave plods his weary way. his meagre rations barely sufficient to enable him to carry on.

So Capitalism staggers along through the stages that precede its dissolution. It must live its life, but the end is drawing nearer every day.

Wherever you go nowadays you find working men not only discussing the political situation, but analysing it ably and well.

The war has not succeeded in blowing out the light within the brains of the members of our class; it has accelerated the growth of class consciousness, and increased the knowledge of the system that is its cause.

In the chain gang of wage slavery this knowledge is being passed from man to man and from woman to woman. The substance of Socialism is being absorbed by ever-increasing numbers.

The effects of this may be clearly revealed in the intelligence displayed by the workers in the strenuous conflicts that lie ahead.

The inherent antagonism between the exploited and their exploiters cannot be suppressed; it will become world wide; wherever Capitalism goes Socialist ideas cannot be prevented from appearing and playing their historic part.

The Capitalist class are bent on rejuvenating a system that is now senile. They cannot give it a new lease of life.

The working class will soon be forced to try and discover ways and means of ending it. We are with them because we are of them. There is no doubt as to the result. Society must establish Socialism or perish. The expropriation of the expropriators is the only way out.

Charles Lestor

The Passing Show: Indo-China (1953)

The Passing Show Column from the July 1953 issue of the Socialist Standard

Indo-China

Last month this column examined recent events in Indo-China from the standpoint of the relations between France and her three Indo-Chinese colonies, which are now called “Associated States.” This month it may be of interest to investigate the manoeuvres between France and the United States which arose from the same events—the advance of the Viet-Minh into Laos and their subsequent partial retreat. As against the native ruling class in Indo-China, the French Government was able to play the part of spider: but in relation to the United States, the French rulers were forced to fill the humbler role of fly.

* * *

Keep Out: Private Property

Even before the Viet-Minh moved into Laos, the American stand was clear. Mr. Adlai Stevenson, who although he was defeated in the Presidential election spoke for the entire American ruling class in this matter, said in Saigon that the United States would continue its “indispensable aid to the Associated States so that they should be able to take their place among the independent nations of the free world" and he added that “the United States was following with attention the first steps of the Viet Nam Government towards democracy” (The Times, 8-4-53; the references that follow unless otherwise indicated, are also to The Times). In other words, Mr. Stevenson wanted the Associated States to free themselves from the suzerainty of the French—with the result that the extension of American economic and political influence in that part of South-East Asia would become much easier.

The French ruling class understands quite well the American intention; and when Laos was invaded by the Viet-Minh, and the Laos Government issued a strong appeal for help “to the United Nations, to the allied countries, and to the free peoples,” The French Government followed this up with a much more moderate statement, addressed only “to the free peoples” (16-4-53). It seemed that the Laos Government would not have objected to the landing of American armed forces; but the French statement was carefully framed to exclude the possibility of the Americans turning Indo-China into another Korea, since that would lead inevitably to the transfer of Indo- China from the French to the American sphere of influence. As The Times delicately put it, “ it would almost certainly loosen the ties binding France to the Associated States of the French Union ” (29-4-53).

* * *

I took a harp to a party

The United States was not at all reticent about offering its “help.” Mr. Dulles, the American Secretary of State, went to Paris and urged the French Ministers to bring the “aggression” in Laos before the United Nations (29-4-53). Back in Washington, he announced publicly—and, no doubt he hoped, temptingly—that the Administration was considering channelling new military assistance to the French-led forces in Laos (30-4-53). A few days later Mr. Dulles sent along two or three dozen American transport planes in Indo-China, as an earnest of the “assistance” the French would get if they only agreed to internationalise the war in Indo-China (4-5-53).

* * *

But nobody asked me to play

The days went past, and the French made no move to call in the United Nations (which, in the present state of world power, means the United States). The only overt reply to these repeated American offers and gestures was a speech in Saigon by M. Letourneau, the French Minister for the Associated States, who said that “France was determined not to abandon any of the states associated with her” (6-5-53). While these words were obviously intended first for the consideration of any of the Associated States which might feel tempted to get out of step, their significance was presumably not lost in Washington. This speech, in fact, may have shown the American Government that this particular tack was hopeless. Laos itself could not appeal to the United Nations because it was not a member; France clearly was not going to; but there was always the chance that the Americans might get a foothold yet in Indo-China by means of Siam.

Now Siam is as much within America’s sphere of influence as is Korea. It is ruled by a military junta, which has the active support of the Americans (notwithstanding their propaganda about “democracy” and “freedom”). As The Times said recently, “the obvious effect of American aid has been to strengthen the military oligarchy. It gains extra support with the arrival of every American carbine . . . The foundations of political power are the military and police barracks of Bangkok and not the village polling booths ” (30-4-53). 

* * *

So I took the darned thing away

“Faced with French hesitations” said The Times in a leading article, the United States Administration seems to hope that Siam—next door to Laos—may call attention to a slate of affairs likely to endanger the peace outside Indo-China” (11-5-53). But the same article went on to warn against such a step. “There are many member States which would make this an excuse for all the old attacks on the colonial system rather than an opportunity for dispassionate investigation And it is true that there is nothing more tiresome than bringing up your enemies’ faults for discussion, only to find that those present prefer to concentrate on your own shortcomings. However, the Americans went ahead. Ten days later the Siamese Ambassador in Washington announced that his Government intended formally to complain to the United Nations Security Council about the invasion of Laos (21-5-53).

Nevertheless, it seems that for once the American Government has missed the boat. With the delay caused by the intransigence of the French, the Viet Minh have had time to withdraw most of their forces from Laos, and it seems improbable now that the Americans will be given the opportunity to come to the “assistance” of the French in Indo-China even if the Siamese complaint is favourably received.

* * *

May Day, past and present

For years, in this country and abroad, the Social Democrats used May Day as an opportunity to advocate their remedy for the ills of society—state ownership of industry. May Day was often followed by a month of exceptional working class activity, including strikes, in which Social Democrats were prominent. Now, in a number of industries in France, the Social Democrats have had their way, and nationalisation has come. But what change has there been? The labourites in France still use May Day to proclaim the virtues of state-industry; and then, as trade union leaders, they bring the workers out on strike in those very industries which are now run on the system they advocate. In France this year there were five big strikes in May: in the merchant navy, on the railways, and in the gas, electricity and Paris transport undertakings (21-5-53). And all five of these industries are under what is called “ public ownership ” !

Since nationalised industry, with all the prestige and power of the state behind it, is stronger in disputes with the workers than private industry, all the Social Democrats have done is to change the boss’s name and give him a bigger stick.

* * *

Ninepence for Ninepence

Now that half a century of legislation has established the so-called “Welfare State,” none of the big parties would think of attacking it in word or deed. Family Allowances, for example, mean that the workers with large families, who formerly would have been the first to feel the pinch of low wages, and to agitate for strike action, are now to a certain extent pacified with a few extra shillings a week; and the money to pay these allowances (and the other benefits like free doctoring and the dole) comes from the workers themselves by way of national insurance contributions. Before this system was well established, however, there were some Tories who did not clearly understand it, and who were afraid that somehow the workers were going to get something for nothing. They believed Lloyd George’s tendencious slogan about “Ninepence for Fourpence’’ and Labour Party propaganda on the same lines. But getting something for nothing has always been the prerogative of the class which exacts surplus value; and the fear that the working class was going to usurp this age-old privilege drove the right wing of the Tory Party into panicky hostility to anything which smacked of benefits or allowances to the workers. A small section failed to recover its balance even after the Welfare State had demonstrated in practice that it certainly did not give the workers anything for nothing. The Conservative Party as a whole, while it saw how valuable the various National Insurance schemes were to the capitalist class, and while it even flooded the country with posters claiming to have thought of the whole idea first, still did not break entirely with the extremists; and the diehards could always depend on a sympathetic hearing in the Conservative papers.

* * *

Waugh on the Tories

But Mr. Evelyn Waugh’s latest book, a long short-story about “welfare-weary citizens” called "Love Among the Ruins,” and the review which it has drawn forth from the Sunday Express (31-5-53), may mark the beginning of a new development. Mr. Waugh, hitherto the arch-priest of the diehard Tories, is annoyed that the official Conservative Party has become so enamoured of the Welfare State that it is now claiming paternity; and in his novel, a forecast of the immediate future, he has Mr. Eden entering a coalition with Mr. Bevan, and he describes the “Euthanasia Department,” the scheme for which was "a Tory measure designed to attract votes from the aged and mortally sick.” From one Tory to another, this is a nasty crack. The irritation which a property-owner naturally feels when a worker, weary of his lot, absents himself from his task for a single day, is nothing compared to the fury aroused when the worker, still more weary, dares to absent himself from this world permanently by committing suicide. Anything which makes voluntary death easier, like euthanasia, is therefore anathema to a supporter of the capitalist system (though compulsory death is a different matter, as the history of the first two world wars shows us); and Mr. Waugh takes a serious step when he hints that the Tory Party would be prepared to support such a scheme in order to get votes. The Sunday Express has therefore joined the anti-Waugh camp. It accuses Mr. Waugh of being a bore, of being grotesque and tasteless, and puts his latest effort down to premature senility.

If one may take this episode as a straw in the wind, it appears that the Conservatives, and the handful of extremists who think like Mr. Waugh, have finally parted company. The Labour Party may take comfort from the fact that they and the Tories are now at one in their support of the Welfare State.

* * *

The great attack

President Eisenhower recently gave a warning of the power that is in the hands of the American ruling class if war comes. He said:

“To-day three aircraft with modern weapons can practically duplicate the destructive power of all the 2,700 planes we unleashed in the great break-out attack from the Normandy beach-head” (21-5-53).

This statement comes with special force to those who saw after the Second World War the wreck and rubble which alone marked the sites of what had been a score of flourishing Norman towns. It seems that Socialism is no longer merely to be described in the terms of our Declaration of Principles—a society we must bring about “that poverty may give place to comfort, privilege to equality, and slavery to freedom”; with the development of the atomic bomb, the progress of society has become a race between the advent of Socialism and the advent of social suicide.

* * *

Drawing one’s own conclusion

If the sun had shone on the day of the Coronation, we should not have lacked newspaper pundits and parsons to assure us that here was evidence that Heaven itself was smiling on the crowning of our glorious, slim, lovely, radiant (—plus other adjectives to taste) young Queen. As it happened, the day was cold and rainy. But so far we have neither seen nor heard any account which, from these facts, has drawn the opposite conclusion.

Alwyn Edgar

Recession in the United States and Canada (1958)

From the June 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

The United States is at present in the throes of the worst period of industrial stagnation it has experienced since the 1930s. And Canada, as number one U.S. satellite, with an economy closely interwoven with that of the U.S., fares no better. The seriousness of the situation may be indicated by the figures for unemployment, which in March reached 5,198,000 in the U.S., and 590,000 in Canada.

Political, business and other leaders in both countries respond to the condition m the same shallow manner.

When the existence of the “recession” was officially recognised some months ago, U.S. President Eisenhower proposed to deal with it by substantial tax reductions, which, he said, would increase purchasing power deplete, surpluses and start the wheels of industry turning again. Mr. Pearson, Canada’s Liberal leader, also advanced this thought in the last election campaign. The proposal has not yet been put into operation, perhaps because Mr. Eisenhower forgot about it and Mr. Pearson failed to become Prime Minister.

At present Mr. Eisenhower is lending his support to “operation optimism." Lack of confidence is now blamed for the recession and this confidence must be restored. People must in some way be encouraged to buy goods, even to the point of extravagance, they must, in Mr. Eisenhower’s words, be urged to “buy anything.”

Following this line of reasoning, U.S. capitalists are doing their best to propagandise themselves back to prosperity. The Advertising Council, a top advertising group, has started a four-month “confidence in a growing America” campaign, intended to improve the “economic attitudes” of consumers. Auto dealers in 110 cities have started sales drives featuring the slogan, “You Auto Buy Now.” It is expected that this campaign will spread to 200 more cities. Cleveland has started a “Buy Now” campaign, with a “V for Values” theme and a “Miss Prosperity.” Boston is planning a POPS (“Power of Positive Selling ”) drive to “combat loose recession talk.” In New York a “National Sales Crusade” is being launched. Some business men are wearing embroidered pocket handkerchiefs proclaiming “Business is GREAT.” An appliance concern has issued large lapel buttons saying “Business is Good.” The Public Relations Society of America has asked its members to send all optimistic news they can about their companies to a central clearing house for national distribution.

If empty prattle is an effective weapon against hard times, there is enough of it circulating at present in the U.S. to take care of all eventualities.

Canadians are not able to chase banshees with the same vigour and versatility as their American cousins, but they do have the same tendency to deliver sledgehammer blows at everything except the nail. Prime Minister Diefenbaker thought a while ago that diverting trade from the U.S. to Britain would help. Now he insists that he was misunderstood. Throughout the winter a Government-sponsored campaign to “Do It Now” was carried on. Billboards, radio, television newspapers, all were used to urge those who needed jobs done to have them done at once. More recently the trade union movement has been taking up Mr. Eisenhower's proposal of lower taxes. Claude Jodoin, Canadian Labour Congress president, at the recent CLC Convention, dealt at some length on this theme, seeing in lower taxes a billion extra dollars being put into the pockets of the consumers, “particularly the poorer consumers.”

Meanwhile the employing class, despite their playfulness, are not passing up a favourable opportunity to look after themselves. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics reports that the income of Canadian labour in the one-month period from December to January had declined 4.5 per cent., and hourly wages in manufacturing declined from $1.65 on January 1st to $1.64 on February 1st. The decline between December and January can be attributed mainly to increasing unemployment, but that cannot be said of the later decline.

Mr. Jodoin and the trade unions should take a long look at these figures and then start grooming themselves for some independent working class activity.

What they ought not to be doing is looking to their masters for sensible or helpful suggestions.

Jim Milne,

(Socialist Party of Canada).

The Passing Show: Declaration of Washington (1956)

The Passing Show Column from the March 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Declaration of Washington

The declaration issued jointly by President Eisenhower and Sir Anthony Eden after their recent talks in Washington must long stand as an object-lesson in the art of inserting the maximum amount of inaccuracy in the minimum amount of space. The declaration occasionally approaches the truth when it deals with the misdeeds of “the other side,” the Soviet bloc.; but when they dwell on their own records and aims, the president and the Premier rarely get even with hailing distance of the facts.


Theological Gambit

The Anglo-American leaders begin roundly:

“We are conscious that in this year of 1956, there still rages the age-old struggle between those who believe that man has his origin and his destiny in God and those who treat man as if he were designed merely to serve a state machine.”—(The Times, 2-2-56.)

Eden and Eisenhower thus blandly ignore both those of no religion who support the Anglo-American bloc, and all those fervent religionists—including the large Russian Orthodox Church, for example—who would die for the Stalinists. In fact the struggle between the two blocs has nothing whatever to do with religion or irreligion: each state has its tame churches to give it the divine sanction: the struggle is between the British ruling class and the American ruling class (who happen to have sufficient mutual interests to support an alliance) on the one hand, and the Russian ruling class (usually supported by their Chinese opposite numbers) on the other. But the desire for self-justification is strong: hence the habit of claiming the approval of the Almighty.

One for Ripley

But this is merely an opening canter. Warming to its theme, the second paragraph of the declaration runs (believe it or not):

“ Because of our belief that the state should exist for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for the benefit of the state, we uphold the basic right of peoples to governments of their own choice."

Or, as one might paraphrase it when one has regard to reality, “because of our belief in something we don't believe in, we uphold what we deny.” The claim of Eden and Eisenhower to believe that “the state should exist for the benefit of the individual and not the individual for the benefit of the state” surely borders on the farcical. Both the President and the Prime Minister were in the highest counsels of Great Britain and the U.S.A. during the last war, when the state in each of these countries so far denied the elementary rights of the individual that it conscripted millions of its citizens and sent them off to kill other individuals and be killed themselves. Not only do Eden and Eisenhower believe that the individual exists for the benefit of the state: they go further—they believe that when called upon he should cease to exist for the benefit of the state. But official pronouncements would not read so well if they confined themselves to the truth, nor would they make such good propaganda.

What can be said about the second part of this almost incredible paragraph, where the signatories allege that they uphold the basic right of peoples to governments of their own choice? When one thinks of the Prime Minister giving his consent to this clause, at a time when British troops are on an active footing in British Guiana, Cyprus, Kenya and Malaya expressly to prevent their people's having governments of their own choice, one can only feel grateful that the cares of high office have not deprived Sir Anthony of his sense of humour.

All my own work

Lack of space prevents the analysis of the Declaration in the detail it deserves. But one other paragraph must be quoted:

“During the past ten and more years 600 million men and women in nearly a score of lands have, with our support and assistance, attained nationhood. Many millions more are being helped surely and steadily towards self-government. Thus, the reality and effectiveness of what we have done is proof of our sincerity."

Since Britain has been in the Empire racket longer than America, the insincerity of this statement is more immediately obvious in regard to Eden than Eisenhower. Britain attempted to retain her Indian Empire (which contains the great majority of the 600 millions referred to) by every means at her disposal. A great army was maintained there; any expression of opinion in favour of independence invited ruthless official action; if the people demonstrated for independence they were forcibly scattered and the leaders (including for example Pandit Nehru) thrown into British jails. Riots and shootings and massacres marked the progress of the years. At length the British power waned, and the British State could no longer afford to maintain the repression in face of the almost unanimous opposition of the peoples of the Indian Empire. And so the Attlee Government withdrew from India, being no longer physically capable of remaining there. It is this eviction of the British by the Indians which Sir Anthony Eden now tries to describe as a British achievement. It is as if a boxer, after fighting a dozen rounds, is at length knocked out; and as he is carried from the ring opens one eye long enough to remark “I retire voluntarily from the contest and claim all the credit for my opponent’s victory.”

Who said aggression ?

No doubt if the British are thrown out of Cyprus this will also be counted as a great British contribution to the establishment of self-government, and the British ruling class will expect the Greek ruling class (which will take over from. them) to be duly grateful. But until this happens the task is to explain why Cyprus should not have self-government. In this connection a recent letter written to The Times (11-2-56) by Lord Vansittart is of considerable interest.

It appears that Britain has every right to be in Cyprus, because it “belongs to us.” Since Lord Vansittart coyly refrains from explaining how it came to “belong to us,” a word on the subject might not be out of place. Briefly, in 1877-8 Russia attacked Turkey, with the aim of seizing part of her Balkan territories; Great Britain, in the role of knight in shining armour, sprang to Turkey’s side to defend her against Russian aggression; the fleet was ordered to the Turkish coast, and alarm and counter-alarm succeeded each other. But when the smoke had cleared away, it was found that the noble British Government had taken advantage of the crisis to force Turkey to hand Cyprus over to British rule. The Cypriots, of course, had not been consulted.

It is this expert piece of sharp practice which Lord Vansittart now contends gives “us” the right to stay in Cyprus.

A little late to recant

But do not think that Lord Vansittart’s endorsement of this smooth-faced knavery means that he has no principles. He has. Or rather he used to have. He refers in his letter to “ the primary principles for which millions died in two vast wars”: and among them, it will be remembered, was the principle of self-determination. None was more vociferous than Lord Vansittart in his clamour for strict measures against German aggression before 1939, and for the merciless prosecution of total war against Germany between 1939 and 1945. But now, it appears, Lord Vansittart has had second thoughts. The principle for which millions died, to quote his own letter, no longer engages his support That “self-determination should be automatic ” Lord Vansittart now decries as a “delusion” The Germans under Hitler, of course, were in favour of self-determination in certain circumstances; it was only the application of the principle to countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland that they objected to, because there it was against the economic interest of the German ruling class. Lord Vansittart has now accepted the pre-1945 German view of the matter, which could be summarized as “self-determination unless it conflicts with one’s own interests.”

And so Lord Vansittart changes his mind. But all the British soldiers who died in the war of which Lord Vansittart was the prophet, and in which he beat the drums louder than anyone else, they stay dead. The principle they thought they were fighting for is now found by the noble lord to be a “delusion.” If only it was as easy to bring the millions of dead to life again as it is for a politician to change his principles!

Alwyn Edgar

Peaceful Co-Existence (1954)

From the October 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Our plans in Asia?” said Lenin on 18th February. 1920, to a correspondent of the New York Evening Journal, “Our plans in Asia? The same as in Europe: peaceful co-existence . . .” Thirty-four years later, after a hot war which entailed the refrigeration of the plans the Soviet leaders echo their predecessors words. On the face of it they should succeed this time, for they have powerful and influential echoes in Eisenhower and Churchill.

Churchill, speaking in the Commons about his recent visit to North America, said in reference to peaceful coexistence: “This far-reaching conception certainly had its part in some of our conversations at Washington. I was glad when I read after we had left that President Eisenhower had said that the hope of the world lies in peaceful co-existence." (Daily Telegraph, 13/7/54.) Earlier, on 29/6/54, Churchill and Eisenhower, in a signed declaration known to some as the Potomac Charter, had stated that they would "together and individually, continue to hold out the hand of friendship to any and all nations, which by solemn pledge and confirming deeds, show themselves desirous of participating in a just and fair peace.” 

It would seem that the Big Three share a basic desire, peaceful co-existence, and the time has come for detailed discussion and co-operative action. But what is the substance of their “co-existence”; what are the confirming deeds that distinguish the nations desirous of a just and fair peace; what is this peace, just and fair?

These are legitimate questions. Churchill, talking in the Commons about the Potomac Charter referred to the “necessarily general and sometimes vague character” of its declarations. “The expression of broad and simple principles likely to command assent and not excite the dissent of vast communities must necessarily be in guarded terms.” (Daily Telegraph, 13/7/54.) Those are words typical of statesmen,.men who know the world, who know “it would not be in the public interest” if a “detailed statement” about discussions and decisions affecting millions of people was made to those millions. All the more important is it then that we examine their broad and simple principles.

In the so-called Western world the idea has been fostered that there are now two kinds of human society in being, the Freedom-loving peoples and Communism. In the Russian “sphere” the same idea has been built up. but the terms are different: “Socialism or the lasting-peace-loving peoples on the one hand, and Capitalist Imperialism on the other.

The idea is fallacious. The mass of people on both sides desire peace and freedom from the tribulations which they suffer jointly and in common. Far from either side exhibiting the symptoms of Socialist or Communist society, both practise capitalism. In principle, they have the same way of life, the same ideology. Their politicians and generals speak the same language, even to the very phrase.

The signatories to the Potomac Charter “ believe that the cause of world peace would be advanced by... drastic reduction . . .  of world armaments . . .” They have resolved to “maintain the . . . military strength necessary to pursue [their] purposes effectively . . . In pursuit of this . . . we will seek every means of promoting the fuller and freer interchange among us of goods and services which will benefit all participants.” (Daily Telegraph, 30/6/54.) Can you not hear Malenkov repeating Stalin's 1939 words: “We stand for peace and the strengthening of business relations with all countries . . . as long as they make no attempt to trespass on the interests of our country.”

Bertrand Russell, whom we are told is a great thinker rather than a great statesman, has also given us his views on peace, in an article entitled “The Most Hopeful Road to Peace” (Picture Post, 24/7/54). Although he also relies on hope, as befits a thinker he goes further than Churchill, Malenkov and Co., and makes some proposals. As he sees it, there will have to be three stages to the establishment of a lasting peace. First, there must be a diminution of mutual suspicion; brought about by “eminent Indians . . . drawing up a carefully reasoned report as to the probable consequences of a World War with modern weapons”; if various governments would then signify their “acquiescence in the proposition that no Great Power can hope to achieve any of its purposes by World War” then “various governments might become persuaded that they have no reason to fear a sudden unprovoked attack.” (Our italics.)

Although there is much here to comment on, note how, in the modern fashion, he proposes that governments, all eminent men, are to be influenced by other eminent men. He ignores you and me. Quite right, too; after all we know the actual results of world war with modern weapons.

When tension has been reduced, Russell then wants conversations with a view to finding some compromise about a definite delimitation of spheres neither repugnant nor unfavourable to either side; meaning, peaceful coexistence. But as he says, “At present, each side is willing to take—but not . . . to give.”

The Russell plan concludes with a treaty, of course; and a World Authority, possessing a monopoly of all “the more important weapons of war" which would be concerned “only with what is necessary for the preservation of peace. It should not interfere with the internal affairs of nations.” With peaceful coexistence so established only “small and brief” wars will be possible and “Men (presumably including wage-earners) will enter upon a period of happiness. . . .”

If governments were to attempt to clarify their “ broad and simple principles” on peaceful co-existence they would have to follow a Russell-like plan.

The present major division in the world is a result, not of different beliefs, but of the second world war, which left Russia and America as the two biggest competitors in a world of competitors; each and all determined to hold and expand what it has. That is the background to disarmament, re-armament, and just plain armament. But the manufacture of arms is a costly, and on the whole unprofitable, business; except in wartime no government dare export such commodities on any significant scale. Further, it may be, since they have the facts, that even the rulers are a little disturbed about the hydrogen bomb; and it can be said of all governments that they do not want war, but the fruits of war.

There are good reasons then for an international search for what they call a formula and “peaceful co-existence ” is a good starting-point. The slogan embraces the dream of a world of buying and selling, of politics and' power, of competition and spheres of influence, without war and not too many armaments. It envisages the retention of capital exploiting wage-labour, of poverty and welfare, of governments and governed, of nations and signed declarations of friendship. Hence co-existence.

And if things once again go wrong, if the dream turns into a nightmare, well, as Lenin said in 1920, the obstacles to agreement are on the other side.

“Peaceful co-existence” panders to the ignorant and unthinking, but the expression by professional great men of the hopes of millions of small men will not solve problems; will not bring about a state of affairs wherein war is not merely impossible but unthought of; will not bring about conditions, to quote the Potomac Charter, “in which the prodigious nuclear forces now in human hands can be used to enrich and not to destroy mankind ”; will not bring about a community where, not Russian and American soldiers co-exist and occasionally work together to meet nature’s floods, but where men and women of all languages and colours dwell in practical cooperative harmony, every day.

Action, not hope, is required. The action of the wage-earners, the world's small men.

D. S. C.

Editorial: Mr. Crosland abolishes Capitalism — and Socialism (1955)

Editorial from the November 1955 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Observer newspaper has been running a series of articles on the future of the Labour 'Party, in which various writers have diagnosed that Party’s troubles and offered remedies. Some of the articles have gone beyond the problems of organising and of attracting voters, to deal with wider topics such as the meaning of the Labour Party’s “Socialism” and the requirements of the world today. One of these, “A Time for Hard Thinking” (Observer, 9/10/55), was contributed by Mr. Anthony Crosland, who sat in Parliament as Labour M.P. for five years for the South Gloucestershire constituency, and was defeated in the Test division of Southampton at the general election in May of this year. Mr. Crosland is described as an economist and former university lecturer. He is a member of the executive of the Fabian Society.

Let it be said at once that if Mr. Crosland’s article is not impressive it is certainly staggering. It is staggering that one who has the opportunities possessed by Mr. Crosland of studying the world he lives in should be able to see so little and deceive himself so much.

The core of his argument is that such wonderful progress has been made in this country that the old working class economic problems are with us no more and Socialism should therefore be defined afresh “in terms of a set of social and ethical aspirations.”

Mr. Crosland maintains that "the long-run problems of concern to Socialists are no longer mainly economic.” This is because:—“British Capitalism has been transformed almost out of recognition. ... I, personally, think it rather absurd to go on calling this economy 'Capitalism.’ . . ."

It was right and proper, he says, to be concerned in the past with the economic problems of unemployment, instability, and physical poverty, but not any more.

“But to-day, the economic system has been reformed, and no longer poses these traditional problems. Even with a Conservative Government we shall probably maintain full employment (if not inflation) for as far ahead as we can see, and we now have a rate of economic growth which, although not fast enough to satisfy some austere perfectionists, is certainly fast enough to eliminate poverty and sustain a rapid rise in working-class earnings. Despite the tiresome problem of the foreign balance, our present economy is capable of distributing material benefits on a scale which would have staggered Socialists only a generation ago."

As already mentioned, the really interesting thing about this sketch of a Capitalism reformed out of recognition is that it is false in almost every particular.

It reads like one of the dreams indulged in by the earliest members of the Labour Party about what they thought would take place.

Almost the only factor among these he mentions, that gives seeming support to his case, is the unusually long period of very low unemployment.

Nobody questions that the replacement of the destruction caused by the last war has played a part in this but Mr. Crosland, like many others, thinks that “full employment” can now be maintained by Government policy. As it would take us too far afield to deal here with the economic fallacies inherent in this belief in permanent full-employment it must suffice at present to remind Mr. Crosland that every boom in Capitalism’s history has produced its prophets of no more slumps; not to mention the Labour Government that went into office in 1929 convinced that it could prevent slumps but which was submerged by the most prolonged depression for 50 years.

One of Mr. Crosland’s points is that the old Capitalist “instability” has disappeared. If he means in this country alone (this is not clear) he would be making the elementary error of supposing that British exports could go on booming in face of an outside world in the throes of a crisis; but whether he does mean this or not, there is no evidence anywhere that Capitalism has got rid of instability. Has Mr. Crosland forgotten the sharp recession in U.S.A. in 1954, the quite acute textile slump in Britain and elsewhere in 1952, and the recent announcement in Australia and New Zealand that imports of British cars and other goods, are being cut? And did Mr. Crosland notice the “stable” way the Stock Exchange behaved when President Eisenhower’s illness was reported? A Daily Mail New York representative cabled:

“The biggest stock market break since the great crash of 1929 hit Wall Street to-day—a direct reaction to President Eisenhowers illness. . .

“Many shares dived by $15 The flood of selling orders raised the trading to 7,720,000 shares, the highest in 22 years. Total loss reached nearly £4,000 million.”—(Daily Mail, 27/9/55.)

The Daily Herald of the same date reported “gloom in share markets in this country partly due to the same cause. Alastair Forbes, a regular contributor of the Conservative Sunday Despatch had a pointed comment on this:— ,

". . . What can one say of capitalism as a system when the news that President Eisenhower has had a heart attack causes a panic selling wave on the stock market ? . . . Even the explanation that the selling panic would never have taken place if the intelligent members of the New York Exchange, who are all Jews, had not been away for Yom Kippur, is scarcely enough to rehabilitate the system in the eyes of the watcher through the Iron Curtain.”—(Sunday Dispatch, 2/10/55.)

But the chief interest attaches to Mr. Crosland’s belief that “physical poverty” is no more, and that “material benefits” are distributed now by Capitalism in Britain on a scale that would have staggered Socialists a generation ago. We are compelled to ask where Mr. Crosland, the economist, got this information.

There has, of course been a very great rise in the price of everything including the price the worker gets for the sale of his physical and mental energies, but we cannot suppose Mr. Crosland has not allowed for this. What, then, is there to show for the 30 years since—say 1925?

The figures published by the London and Cambridge Economic Service show a rise of average wage rates between 1925 and 1955 of 163 per cent.; that is to say wage rates now are about 2 2/3 what they were in 1925. The L.C.E.S. also show a rise of 116 per cent. in the cost of living. Coupling these two figures we can say that average wage rates are now 23 per cent, more than they were 30 years ago. Is a small increase of something averaging well under 1 per cent, a year a phenomenon to be staggered by? Is it this that, for Mr. Crosland, has revolutionised society and abolished Capitalism?

Let us remind Mr. Crosland, too, that this very modest rise has not been a “benefit” distributed by Capitalism or by Governments, but something for which the workers have had to struggle through strikes, the number of which is now steadily increasing. This we need hardly say is the old unregenerate Capitalism with its class struggle! It should not be forgotten, too, that the workers had to fight to maintain their wage rates under and against the Labour Government, and for the four years between the starting of the new wage index and cost of living index, in June, 1947, and the end of the Labour Government the workers fought a losing battle, for the cost of living rose by 29 per cent, and wage rates by only 22 per cent.

It is true that workers’ earnings have risen by a larger amount than have wage rates. This is because they are working more overtime, more piece-work and other-systems of pay related to output, more night work and shift work. Are these, too, regarded by Mr. Crosland as evidences of progress away from Capitalism?

He thinks “physical poverty” has .gone. May we ask Mr. Crosland what state of living it is that the unemployed, the sick and the aged enjoy on their small allowances, not to mention the several million men and women whose wage rates are on the £6—£7 level or less. Mr. Crosland is not the only person to cherish silly notions about how the treatment of the above groups has been revolutionised, but when allowance is made for the fact that the cost of living is now only just a little short of 2½ times what it was in 1938 the thing will appear in proper perspective. Just to take one item, the unemployment benefit of a single man was 17/- in 1938, it is now 40/-. Truly a staggering advance except for the fact that the purchasing power of 40/- now is slightly less than that of 17/- in 1938!

And what does Mr. Crosland make of the slum position? He thinks that Capitalism has gone but certainly its slums have not. Mr. F. Collin Brown, chief housing and planning inspector to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, told a conference of Sanitary Inspectors at Scarborough on 13 September last that “he estimated that about one million houses in this country were beyond repair. . . . More than three million houses in Great Britain were over 80 years old, and two million-odd over a century old.”--(Times, 14/9/55.).

Another thing, and this [is] vital to the whole question of Capitalism and Socialism, is not even mentioned by Mr. Crosland, that is, the enduring vast inequality of ownership, the 10 per cent. who own 90 per cent. of the accumulated wealth. This is the basis of Capitalism, the ownership of the means of production and distribution by the propertied class. It has not been abolished, it has not been tackled. Nothing whatever has been done about it, nor could it be, except through the abolition of Capitalism and establishment of Socialism.

Mr. Crosland does not deal with this issue and until he does so he has not even begun to present an argument to support his fantastic proposition about the disappearance of Capitalism. Something he does do makes his case even flimsier. He ascribes to Karl Marx the responsibility for having originally turned attention to the economic problems of Capitalism. This, Mr. Crosland approves of, though now he thinks it has become out-of-date with the passing of Capitalism, but he also holds Marx largely responsible that “Socialism came to be (falsely) defined in terms of nationalisation.”

That Socialism was falsely defined in terms of nationalisation we readily admit but not by Marx; this was the work of the Labour Party.

But above all it is false because it obscures the essential feature of the Marxist case, that Capitalism rests on class ownership.

The early Fabians appreciated this and the importance of dealing with it. The later ones, Mr. Crosland among them, faced with the Labour Party’s 50 years of running way from the problem, can only offer now the bland suggestion that ownership doesn't matter after all and Capitalism has disappeared anyway.

One other thing Mr. Crosland failed to notice in his fascination for his argument for forgetting economic problems. He perceived, logically, that if his premises are correct the “ economists ” can be dispensed with for their job is done; but he did not notice that if Capitalism and its evils have passed away, and full employment is safe with the Conservatives, will workers any longer trouble to vote for the Labour Party or for Mr. Crosland?

Some Comments on the American Election (1956)

From the November 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

We take our elections somewhat more seriously than they appear to do in the United States. Here the stunts are a little more subtle, less reminiscent of circuses and music-hall shows. But there is something in the American way of life after all, for if we are going to have the farce every few years of “choosing” between capitalism and capitalism, let it at least be entertaining.

And no one can deny that the American elections are that. 

The “Choice"

In America the two major parties are the Republicans and Democrats, and it has been said that the difference between the two is that one is in power and the other is out. This is true in America even as it is in this country with the Labour and Conservative Parties. Tradition plays a large part in American support for their parties. The Democratic Party is traditionally “for labour,” although in practice this means little except that they can count on some support from the Trade Unions. Traditionally the deep South, with its violent opposition to any advancement for the negroes, is Democratic, but some Democrats of the North, who consider the Party to be “progressive,” are considerably embarrassed by the reliance that the Party places on its Southern support.

Personalities

Personalities are important in any election, so we should see who are the people hoping to get the votes in the present election.

The Republican candidate for President is, of course, Eisenhower. A man by experience not a politician, but a soldier, mainly useful to his Party because of his extraordinary popularity. He appears to be something in the nature of a figurehead in that, judging by his speeches, he does not show signs of having a great grasp of the problems that his government has to attempt to tackle, and his comments are usually vague generalities mixed with good will, such as when, speaking on the problems of de-segregation of schools, he said: "Here is a problem, charged with emotionalism, where everybody has got to' work hard with all of the strength he has, and I think that the more that work is done privately and behind the scenes rather than charging up on the platform and hammering desks, the better and more effective it will be.” This statement was in answer to a question as to his policy, and it will be seen that although be says quite clearly that we must all work hard to solve the problem, he does not suggest what the solution should be.

His running mate, for Vice-President, is Richard Nixon. A young man, with a reputation for ambition, and unpopular with both Parties, he would probably not have been nominated had not Eisenhower backed him.

On the Democratic side we have the Presidential candidate in Stevenson. He is the man who didn't want to be President, and who, in 1952, took a lot of persuading to agree to stand. This time it was easier. As one columnist said (before Stevenson agreed to stand in this election), it is a little difficult to play the reluctant virgin twice.

The reluctant egg-head

Stevenson has a great disadvantage in a politician in that he has a reputation for being intelligent. This is commonly known in the United States as being an “egg head.” and although in most countries intellectuals are looked upon with some suspicion, this is particularly so in the United States. In the last election Stevenson lost many votes because of his habit of using words of more than two syllables, but this time he is determined to overcome this disadvantage. In the recent Californian Primary election campaign he met "the common man ” on street cars, shook hands, kissed babies and young ladies, and spoke in a way that the people could understand. It worked, although it is said that Stevenson looked most uncomfortable in his new role. One of the minor aspects of his background that could affect the voting is that he has been divorced. Although be has not remarried, it is thought that some Catholic voters would feel unable to vote for him for that reason.

The Common Man himself

The Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate is Estes Kefauver. He is the man who wanted to be President, but has settled, for the moment, for the chance of being Vice-President. Kefauver goes in for all the gimmicks of elections—only more so than anyone else. He has put hand-shaking on an assembly line basis, and has worn more funny hats than any other American politician— his favourite being the coon-skin hat. Kefauver is a contradiction—a man who goes in for more electioneering tricks than the others, but a man who is generally liked by the public—especially in the farming areas, and disliked by other politicians. One voter explained that he liked Kefauver because you felt that if he came by when you were raking manure in a field, you felt sure that he was the sort of man who would take off his jacket and start raking beside you. On policy Kefauver is somewhat vague. One columnist described his attitude thus: “When asked precisely what he stands for, he is likely to hesitate, ponder painfully, and finally come up with some such phrase as 'a place in the sun for the farmer,' or 'the best interests of the plain people of this nation,' or ‘an even break for the average man."’ (Time, 17/9/56).

The two most important internal issues are: (1) The Farm Crisis, and (2) De-Segregation.

The Farm crisis has arisen partly from the encouragement that was given to farm production in wartime and from the unfortunate fact that since the war the harvests have been good! This means that in order to avoid swamping the market with foodstuffs, which would decrease the prices and the profits, the Government has for some years guaranteed the farmers certain prices, and has purchased surpluses which have been stored in larger and larger quantities. This has in time produced other quite serious problems, such as where to store the surpluses when all available warehouses and the holds of the “moth-ball" fleet aw packed full? This is what each party is trying to answer. The Republican answer is quite simple. Pay the farmers, they say, to take land out of production and allow it to lie fallow for a time. Thus, less land will be “in production," and consequently less food will be produced, and the Crisis (!) will be mitigated. The Democratic answer is the continuation of the present policy, except that greater guarantees should be given to the farmers.

It will be seen that neither of these policies attempts to deal with this basically farcical, as well as tragic, problem of capitalism. What a problem it is to have so much surplus food! Simple—make sure you have less in future. These are the policies propounded by those who are fond of saying that Socialism would not work because there would not be enough to go round under Socialism. If America attempts to sell off the surpluses at cheap prices abroad, they are liable to precipitate a crisis in another country (as was threatened recently in South America).

Segregation

Recently the Supreme Court in the U.S. gave judgment that segregation of white and coloured children in American schools was contrary to the Constitution. This provoked riots in the Southern States recently when the school year commenced and some coloured children tried to take their places in white schools. The Southern States are in most cases determined to avoid compliance with the Supreme Court ruling, and are in many cases attempting to devise laws that will achieve the same end (i.e., segregation) in an apparently legal manner. On this subject both parties are most cautious in making statements. At the recent Democratic Conference the following statement was adopted; “Recent decisions of the Supreme Court relating to segregation have brought consequences of vast importance to our nation as a whole and especially to communities directly affected. We reject all proposals for the use of force to interfere with the orderly determination of these matters by the Courts . . . (the Supreme Court's decisions) are part of the law of the land." An attempted addendum that “We pledge to carry out these Supreme Court decisions,” was rejected.

Earlier in the campaign the Republican Party also was loth to commit itself on the racial issue. However, within the last few weeks they have been more outspoken. Some commentators have suggested that this is due to the fact that the Republicans have resigned themselves to the fact that the Democrats are firmly entrenched in the South, and that even if the Republicans courted the Southern votes with opposition to de-segregation, they would not have much success. It is interesting to observe, however, the reasons given for support for advancement of the negro. Nixon, speaking at Louisville on the 27th September, was reported in the New York Herald Tribune as follows: “The U.S. cannot afford the cost of discrimination. The loss of negro intellectual resources fully developed amounts to $15,000,000,000 a year in terms of the gross national product, now running at a $400,000,000,000 rate." (28/9/56). Thus, no mention is made of any ideals of freedom or justice for the negro population—merely the economic loss suffered by the country's capitalists.

Policy?

Generally, the Republican Party in this election is, as Ike says, “relying on their record," which is “prosperity." This means, of course, prosperity for big business, for, as Stevenson says, “There are ugly patches of poverty and insecurity which still deny dignity, even decency, to the lives of almost one-fifth of all American families."

Stevenson’s answer to the problem is that if his party was in power things would be different, but when we examine the proposals that he makes for changes in policy, it is clear that his programme differs in no essential manner from that of the Republicans.

Western "Democracy"

So this is the much vaunted “two Party system" that is recommended by British and American politicians to countries with more complicated party systems, such as France and Italy, and to totalitarian countries such as those behind the iron curtain! From the point of view of the ruling class, there is much to be said for it. Given two parties that oppose each other but whose policies do not differ fundamentally, the people are likely to spend their political energies arguing the toss between the two, without realising that there is a practical alternative to the system of capitalism.

Our View

What has a Socialist to say about these parties and their personalities and policies?

What is clear in America, as in Britain, is that for the worker (and this includes the many who like to consider themselves “middle class") there is little to choose between the parties, and the only arguments are as to which can run capitalism in the more efficient manner.

A Socialist examines the record of those parties which have claimed to govern in the interests of the mass of the people. Any objective analysis of the past shows that all these attempts have failed. Why have they failed? Is it for lack of good will, corruption, lack of knowledge or intelligence or honesty? These factors crop up continually in politics where there are rich plums for the successful, but the reason for consistent failure by all contenders to save Capitalism is that the nature of Capitalism itself is that it is a class society, which can only be run in the interests of the ruling class, the Capitalists.

Some Election Slogans

Do you want the threat of war to continue and possibly become a fact? Do you want the continuance of poverty while food surpluses pile up and goods accumulate which the poor cannot afford to buy? Do you want a continuance of the insecurity which means that even if you have a job now, you may be unemployed tomorrow if there is a slump? Do you want to ensure that the housing problem will remain unsolved? Do you want to make sure that your children will have a life much like yours, with all these problems that will crush the humanity out of them, make them automatons, and take the joy out of life?

In a word, do you want Capitalism?

Of course, these aren’t the words that are used to ask for your votes. But this is what, in fact, is offered you at each election, and what is being offered to the American elector now.

To the voter in America or elsewhere we say—there is a real alternative. With your help we can establish Socialism. Without it we, along with you, will continue to have all the problems of Capitalism, whichever party is in power.

Socialism will be a world-wide society in which the means of production will be held in common and used for the benefit of the whole of society. It is profit and property which cause wars and poverty. It is Socialism that can make these problems things to read about in history books.

L. B.

Notes by the Way: Mr. Bevan being Statesmanlike (1956)

The Notes by the Way Column from the September 1956 issue of the Socialist Standard

Mr. Bevan being Statesmanlike

When he is not calling other supporters of capitalism vermin the Rt. Hon. Aneurin Bevan sometimes writes sober, statesmanlike articles for the Capitalist Press as in the Sunday Express (5 August, 1956). His subject was "Why I want Ike to Lose.” Although Bevan is not a Socialist he likes to parade himself as one on the strength of his continuing support for State Capitalism (nationalisation), and one would have expected the article to be a trumpet blast for setting up an English-model “Welfare State" in U.SA and a repudiation of Eisenhower because he and his party are not likely to do it. But not at all. The article said nothing about America's need for Bevan’s State Capitalist schemes (and naturally nothing about Socialism). It said hardly anything about any policy, beyond a tepid preference for Adlai Stevenson on the ground that be would change the American attitude towards Chiang-Kai-Shek, and might finally end McCarthyism. All he could say about Stevenson was that “his views are not particularly advanced, judged by Europe's standards, and there are even some Conservatives who might not think him sufficiently progressive."

No, Mr. Bevan’s main and almost his only theme was that Eisenhower is sick and consequently liable to reactionary pressure—as if the course of American capitalism is going to be determined by Eisenhower, well or ill. But Mr. Bevan evidently thinks it is:—

“I find the project depressing in the extreme. The President is obviously a sick man and by all the evidence he is likely to become more and not less sick. We shall therefore have less than half a man failing to do what is by general consent a job more than enough for a man in full possession of robust health. The most important political office in the world will be in feeble, fumbling and wavering hands, and it is little consolation that it may be done by the democratic choice of the American people themselves."

So Mr. Bevan can pass by without comment the fact that the American people by democratic choice are about to rivet themselves to capitalism again; this be does not think worth notice; but he is very depressed because American capitalism may be in the hands of a semi-invalid. As if by comparison with the real issue it had any importance at all, except for Mr. Eisenhower.

•  •  •

Bevan Looking in the Mirror

This attitude towards politics does explain why Mr. Bevan got so angry with Attlee and now dislikes Attlee's successor, Gaitskell. When Bevan looks in the mirror be sees a whole man, in robust health; obviously better fitted to lead the Labour Party and become Prime Minister than these fumbling half men.

But how does Bevan work out, in wider spheres, his policy of supporting the robust and opposing the weak? In the same issue of the Sunday Express “Cross Bencher" reported that Mr. R. A. Butler is a robust man, too: “His cheeks glow. His step is light. And he is only 53.“

And what about Colonel Nasser, who is described as  “a tall, strongly built man, with great physical stamina? "

•  •  •

Nationalisation and the Arab Workers

The Arab workers' trade unions in Egypt and other Middle-Eastern countries, have given delighted support to the act of nationalising the Suez Canal and the threatened nationalisation of oil plants and oil pipe-lines. They think their troubles will be over when “their country owns their oil and their canal." They have a rude awakening in store when they find that the beneficiaries will be their exploiters, the local Capitalist class. But what a pity they could not learn from the experience of workers in Britain, Russia and other countries about the illusory benefits of State Capitalism. The people who ought to have told them are the British and other trade union leaders who have international contacts, but they, of course, still cherish the same illusions themselves.

Colonel Nasser has used against the Western Powers the argument that as Egyptian workers built the Canal “Egypt" should own it. But the same can be said of all the accumulated wealth of Egypt and all other countries; the workers produced it but somebody else owns it. The Colonel very well knows that nationalisation is not going to take the wealth of Egypt out of the hands of the rich who own it. If he had any such dangerous thoughts and suggested applying them he would soon be got rid of.

•  •  •

U.N.-The Dream Fades

Except as a face-saver and rubber stamp organisation for the big Powers, nobody seriously considered United Nations as a body to provide a solution for the Suez Canal dispute. A correspondent of the Manchester Guardian at Geneva comments on the parallel disillusioning with one of U.N..'s subsidiaries the United Nations Economic and Social Council. He comments on the failure of this council in the fields of world trade and economic development and goes on:—

“What is considered even more serious, however, is the growing impression among the delegates that, just as in the field of effective world security, the United Nations is becoming almost impotent in the economic and social fields as well. It seems as if there were an unspoken agreement among the industrial as well as the less developed countries that the United Nations has been reduced to a forum where lip-service has to be paid to ideals which no longer apply to the level of sophistication which has now been universally reached. Articles of the United Nations Charter seem to serve as no more than good debating points."—(Manchester Guardian, 9th August, 1956.)

•  •  • 

The Results of Keir Hardie

On the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Keir Hardie he has been acclaimed by both wings of the Labour Party and by the Communist Daily Worker. He is not acclaimed by the S.P.G.B. any more than he was when he was alive; though we must in fairness admit that when we contemplate the low level of the present Labour Party notabilities it does add a certain relative lustre to Keir Hardie. And this, of course, pin-points our "attitude towards his reformist activities and his masterpiece the formation of the Labour Party. His admirers tell us what fine and enduring work he did but they are vague about what it was and why it should be admired. Surely the test to be applied to a man who believed that the way to get Socialism was to build up a trade union-political, refformist Labour Party, is to examine his success in achieving what, he said, it would achieve.

 

Mr. Bevan, in an article “The man who still points the Way ” (Reynolds News, 12 August, 1956), has this to say:—

“We are not yet even within sight of the 'just society' that Keir Hardie dreamed about The society we belong to is not only still unjust it is also unstable. We lurch unsteadily from one crisis to another with the sole satisfaction that our feet are better shod than they were in Hardie's day."

Mr. Bevan puts it very well, but what becomes of the claim of Hardie and the other reformists about the superior wisdom of reformism? And incidentally what were Mr. Bevan and the other members of the Labour Governments doing to leave society in such a mess?

One of Keir Hardie's mistaken beliefs was that the problem of war could be dealt with under capitalism. Now, half a century later, Mr. Bevan tells us in effect, that if we disappear in an H.-Bomb war it will be nice to know that our feet are dry.

•  •  •

Zilliacus Egypt and Israel

Mr. Zilliacus, Labour M.P., for Gorton, is one of the Labour Party M.P.'s who do not approve of Eden's policy towards Egypt, or of his own leader’s policy. He wrote to the Manchester Guardian (6 August, 1956), to put his point of view. He attacked Mr. Gaitskell's statement that the Suez episode “Must be recognised as part of the struggle for the mastery of the Middle East" and declared that “to contemplate going to war is madness," this because Nasser has behind him the whole of the Arab world as well as support from outside.

But point four of his four point explanation of his position included “as an immediate emergency measure, the arming of Israel . . ."

One wonders therefore just what Mr. Zilliacus does think. Against whom is Israel to be armed if not against Egypt and the Arab countries? And since this involves the possibility of war what happens to the view that contemplating going to war is madness, especially as he also wants “the guaranteeing of peace between Israel and the Arab States?"  “Guaranteeing" frontiers means being prepared to go to war.

•  •  •

They’re Fascists !

Trying to interpret events in the international dogfight in terms of how much you like the politicians and how friendly you think they are becomes confusing because the actors keep on changing places and changing colours.

Sir Anthony Eden likens Nasser to Hitler (to which the Colonel with more politeness seems to have made no retort in kind), but similarity to the late Nazi leader and his crimes is just what the Greeks have been seeing in Eden because of Cyprus.

The Communists have had the same trouble. Some readers of the Daily Worker have objected to the Communist Party’s support for dictator Nasser’s policy on the ground that Nasser is anti-Israel, while Communists in Stepney “are pro-Israel." To which another Daily Worker reader retorts that the manner in which the rulers of Israel treat the Arab minority is “fascist-like." (Daily Worker, 8 August).

But a well-known “expert" on world affairs, Mr. Stephen King-Hall thinks that the British Government should use their trump card, the existence of Israel which he describes as “the only, democratic State in the Middle East." (Manchester Guardian, 8 August).

The odd thing is that they all now use “Fascist” and "Nazi” as terms expressing abhorrence, forgetting how all of them have been willing to do a deal with Mussolini, Hitler or anyone else when in need of allies.

Which prompts a further note on the use of language. Why has not “you're like Stalin,” come into common use as term of abuse? What did Adolf have that Josef hadn't got?

•  •  •

Profits from “Welfare” work

“Industrial Relations News” of New York announce publication of a book called “The Dollars and Sense of Human Relations in Industry.” It sets out to answer the question “Do Human relations programmes pay their own way?”

The publicity leaflet notes that “companies to-day are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on human relations courses for supervisors, house organs for employees, recreation facilities, attitude surveys, and many other types of human relations programmes”

It’s their money and they want to know what they get for it in addition to a nice warm feeling.

So the editors “investigate the many areas in which good human relations can result in definite dollars-and-cents contributions to company success.”

This sort of thing must be a bit of a problem to honest christians who have been brought up to believe that they have to choose between wealth and goodness and can't have both. Under this enlightened, modern capitalism christian Capitalists have to have both whether they like it or not. They seek goodness by providing welfare for their wage-slaves and the only result is to give them more dollars and cents than ever.

Another line on “human relations” concerns protective clothing worn in factories and warehouses, dealt with in an article “How Clothing Can Help Production" (“Furniture Record,” 13 July, 1956). The writer, Mr. F. S. Winfield, Managing Director of Raynor, Webber and Stiles Ltd., claims that much study is given to the advantages of such clothing apart from its function as protective against accidents and against damage to ordinary dress.

Putting women workers into smart uniform, working garments prevents envy from interfering with concentration oft work:—

“The modish new spring skirt of a young unmarried operative cannot, for instance, be the object of rueful contrast during working hours with, say, the sad-looking frock that middle-aged widow has had to make do for with a couple of years."

It has been found, the writer says, that “identification of rank by colour differentiation has a marked effect on discipline and bearing . . . ” 

And when one firm decided to put all its men into clean overalls, washed each week by the firm, the result, within a week, was “an appreciable improvement in the tidiness and appearance of the machine shop.”

The article ends:—

"As more and more firms undertake to issue their workers with protective clothing, it becomes increasingly clear that the American conception of the provision of these facilities as an investment certain to show profitable returns in extra smartness and extra enthusiasm is a correct one."

The personnel experts call their study of how to get profitable reactions from the workers “human relations.” It is about as human as the preparation of thousands of pay sheets by an electronic computer.

Edgar Hardcastle