What 'peace dividend'? (1991)

From the February 1991 issue of the Socialist Standard

Many workers believe—or, until the Gulf crisis, believed—that with the end of the Cold War peace has broken out and that as a consequence the demand for war weapons has gone into a permanent decline, so that the money spent on them can be directed to improving living standards and the industries producing them converted to peaceful purposes.

Talk of this so-called “peace dividend" began following Gorbachov’s speech at the United Nations at the end of 1988, since when there has allegedly been “no enemy in Europe". Tom King, the Defence Secretary said as much in a statement to Parliament on 18 June last year justifying reductions in defence spending. Then in July, as part of the defence review, he announced the cancellation of an order for 33 Tornado aircraft for the RAF. British Aerospace responded by announcing a cut of 800 in their manning on Tornado assembly. This was followed up by the announcement in November of a "restructuring” involving a cut of about 20 per cent in staff and the closure of two large sites, in Kingston and Preston. Again the recent changes in eastern Europe were cited as a factor. The future of the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA), already hazy, has become more doubtful still following German reunification and the resulting reassessment of German military requirements.

Arms still in demand

This is not a new situation. The demand for arms fell temporarily after the Boer War and after both World Wars. In 1902 and 1918 workers lost their jobs as a result. There were also campaigns for diversification and the manufacture of alternative products at armament plants such as Woolwich Arsenal, which had little success despite some support from local councils and chambers of commerce. In 1945, while there was again a temporary slump in arms production, capitalism went into a boom phase which minimised the disruption. In none of these cases, however, had peace broken out. Indeed in 1945, following the defeat of the Axis powers, two new aggressive power blocs formed immediately and the demand for military equipment duly recovered.

This conflict—the Cold War—has now come to an end, at least temporarily. The main reason for this has been the need for Russia to take time out to give urgent attention to its ailing economy. But the basic cause of war, the struggle of competing capitalist rivals for raw materials, trade routes, markets and strategic areas, remains untouched. This may cause the Cold War blocs to re-form at some future date. Or future superpower conflicts may increasingly take the form of local wars on the Korean and Vietnam lines, as this in theory reduces the chances of a nuclear holocaust which would be an overkill even from the capitalist viewpoint. The danger of such a holocaust, however, will remain as long as capitalism does. None of these scenarios, needless to say, in any way remotely resembles peace.

The truth of this is underlined by the current Gulf crisis and the Iran-Iraq war which preceded it. This conflict is so brazenly a struggle for control of the world’s oil supplies as to be reminiscent of the period prior to World War 1, before so-called "communism” and fascism arose to be used to mask the true cause of capitalism’s wars. Indeed so clearly does this current conflict illustrate the truth that further comment would appear superfluous.

Patriotic unions

The current "crisis" in the arms industry (notice how any suggestion of peace leads to talk of a crisis!) will not prove lasting. That does not mean that the working class, through the trade unions, should not do all they can to minimise the effect of the present downturn. Just as pressure to defend real wage levels can succeed, because the cost to the capitalist of a strike may he greater than that of conceding, so for a similar reason redundancies may be reduced, by determined militant action, below the original figure demanded by the employers. Socialists fully support and participate in such efforts.

However, what we have been seeing from the trade unions goes far beyond this and is not acceptable from the socialist viewpoint. Basically it amounts to an attempt to reform capitalism in order, so they hope, to keep their members in employment. MP's are lobbied, the capitalist government is approached, searches are made for other possible sources of investment and if found support for them is asked for. The unions have even been demanding that the government revoke its cancellation of the Tornado order!

That is not to say that such attempts are doomed to failure. By and large, however, they come from an attitude in which fantastic and utterly useless remedies are being put forward, something that is not confined to armaments workers of course. Sometimes sections of the capitalist class lend some support if they see a prospect of profit, but it will of course be support on capitalist conditions, which cannot be of any real benefit to the working class.

We can see in such thinking a reflection of the attitude of the Labour Party to which the unions are unfortunately still wedded. The Labour Party is mainly composed of workers who believe that Labour politicians can run capitalism better than the capitalists. The example of Solidarity in Poland, originally a trade union, but which sprouted a political wing that now forms a government which is enforcing draconian austerity measures ought to serve as a warning to the super-reformist (and often super-patriotic) British trade unionists who are so numerous in the aircraft industry.

There can be no compromise with capitalism, and no matter how desperate the short-term situation may be, workers should not entertain such ideas. What may look on the surface to be just a compromise, will always prove in the end to have been surrender.

E. C. Edge

SPGB Meetings (1984)

Party News from the November 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Blogger's Note:

The March 1985 issue of the Socialist Standard carried a report of the SPGB's debate with Tom Sackville, the Conservative MP for Bolton West. The SPGB speaker in that debate, Howard Moss, revisited that debate in his Life and Times column in the November 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard.

War fair (1982)

From the August 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

One feature of the Falklands conflict which caused the jingoists to boil over with ill-directed wrath was the fact that some of the armaments used by the Argentine forces had been made in Britain or EEC "partner" countries. Some details are given in a recent New Statesman article by Duncan Campbell, under the extremely confused title of "No Lesson Learnt" (21 June 1981). Campbell tells us how

Ferranti workers in Edinburgh and Manchester made the Isis bombing sights with which the Argentine Skyhawks were fitted . . . Their French counterparts at Bourges made the Exocets. Sterling Armaments of Dagenham sold the Argentines some 100 submachine guns seven years ago, which turned up at Goose Green.

Later in the same article, we learn that Sterling Armaments and Ferranti were among the exhibitors at last month's British Army Equipment Exhibition, a bi-annual international arms sale held at Aldershot. Campbell writes:

In 1976. just three months after we had broken off diplomatic relations .  . . two Argentine generals came to Aldershot. In 1978 ten officers came. In 1980. after the restoration of diplomatic links, five generals visited Britain. The Ministry of Defence even paid their air fares . . . Every other military dictatorship from Turkey to the Americas got the same treatment.

Unexpectedly, no reformist cries for "control" appear in the text, although the title does hint at a belief in such "solutions". On a note of unusual realism. Campbell signs off by saying: "There is no sign from Britain or anywhere else in Europe that the Falklands war will have changed the world of arms dealing”.

Those who express patriotic anger at such revelations are probably unaware that history provides many examples of arms sales to the "enemy", and of those not directly involved in a conflict selling the machines of death to both sides. Even in the Middle Ages, mercenary soldiers took whichever side could offer them employment at the time. After the Industrial Revolution, however, the arms trade gathered pace.

Alfred Nobel, like many of the early giants of this business, was a complex character. Idealist, pacifist and admirer of Shelley (in whose style he enjoyed writing poetry), he was also a ruthless financier obsessed with the science of explosives. He is. of course, best known as the originator of the Nobel Peace Prize, a fitting testament to his contradictory nature: fewer people realise that he was one of the earliest to subscribe to the deterrent theory. At the Berne Peace Congress of 1892 he explained his viewpoint to Bertha von Suttner, Austrian aristocrat, authoress and pacifist, who had earlier applied to be his private secretary: “My factories may end war sooner than your Congress. The day when two army corps can destroy each other in one second, all civilised nations will recoil in horror from war” (The Arms Bazaar, Anthony Sampson). Nobel's nightmare vision of destructive power is now all but come to pass, but with no sign of the response for which he apparently hoped. However this philosophy provided an excellent justification for a man who had made his fortune out of the arms race. Sampson believes that Nobel was Bernard Shaw's model for the character of Andrew Undershaft in his play Major Barbara. Undershaft, however, explicitly rejects the deterrent theory when his son-in-law puts his point of view to him: "I am obliged to you for making the usual excuses for my trade, but I’m ashamed of it. I am not one of those men who keep their morals and their business in watertight compartments". There have been both types in the arms trade. Whether the capitalist provides his own justification or relies on others makes very little difference.

Alfred Krupp was a less complicated person than Nobel. In 1866 he insisted, against the wishes of Bismarck, on exporting guns to Austria, which were very soon in use against Prussia in the Austro- Prussian War. Shortly afterwards, despite having just raised a loan from the King of Prussia. Krupp tried to export his guns to France and failed only because the complacency of the French generals stood in his way. At the turn of the century Sir Basil Zaharoff, in his role as master salesman for Vickers, had considerable success travelling between opposing Balkan states — Greece and Turkey — to escalate orders from both sides. In the First World War the Maxim gun, sold by Sir Hiram Maxim to Germans, Austrians and Italians, was the prototype for the guns which fired from all sides on the Western Front. In Russia, Krupp guns fired on German soldiers and the Belgian army had been stocked from the same source. At sea both sides fired shells with Krupp fuses, and after hostilities ceased Krupp’s successfully sued Vickers for payment of royalties on its shells.

All this nefarious traffic inevitably spawned pressure for control on arms sales and for nationalisation of the industry. Even staunch capitalist defenders of “free enterprise” did not wish to see organisations from within their own territory supplying arms to a potential enemy. Whatever the views of the individuals involved, the development of capitalism led inevitably to attempts by the state machine to interfere with the freedom of the private arms manufacturers to sell to whomsoever their immediate interests dictated. The League of Nations, as ineffective before World War One as the United Nations has been since 1945, passed resolutions such as that of December 1933: “That it is contrary to the public interest that the manufacture and sale of armaments should be for private profit”.

The United States Congress, following the report of the Nye Committee of investigation into the arms business, passed in August 1935 a Neutrality Bill which compelled the President, in the event of war between foreign countries, to apply an arms embargo. The hearings of the Nye Committee were freely quoted by the British Labour Party in support of its demands for nationalisation, yet the ineffectiveness of control “remedies” had already been revealed during the Manchurian crisis of 1931. In that year Japan invaded Manchuria, then part of China, in the face of condemnation from Britain and the League of Nations and a boom in British arms exports to both sides ensued. For a couple of weeks the British government imposed an arms embargo. Duff Cooper, then Financial Secretary to the War Office, described the situation thus: "In a fortnight we took off the embargo, but during those weeks we lost a great many orders. China and Japan did not get less munitions, but men in this country got less work, less food, less employment". Thus Duff Cooper, like Alfred Nobel, used an argument more common today than in his own time. The concern of the capitalist over loss of profit is. with varying degrees of hypocrisy and cynicism, masked as sympathy for the workers thrown onto the streets as a result of unemployment. More recently the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Middle East turmoil in general have provided further examples of duplicity. French pressure in 1969 forced Dassault, previously a generous supplier of Israel, to sell Mirage jets to Libya. Significantly the main reason was the need to ensure continuing supplies of oil.

Why does this destructive absurdity continue? The answer lies in the nature of the capitalist system itself. Unsold stocks of any commodity are a dangerous embarrassment to the owners of the means of wealth production. If the value embodied in these goods cannot be converted into cash, profits are lost and, in some cases, bankruptcy results. In the last resort this desperate pressure to sell in the face of cut-throat competition from rivals drives capitalist governments into war. This pressure of course applies in the final analysis as much to government controlled industries.

Under capitalism alliances between stales are often of a transitory nature. Japan was an ally of Britain and America in 1914-18, but fought against them in 1941-45. And despite the long-standing Falklands dispute, Argentina was not regarded as an enemy until the time of the invasion. Despite recent technological advances in the means of destruction, some comparatively old weapons are still effective, particularly in small scale wars. The Canberra bomber, the design of which started as early as 1945, helped India "liberate” Bangladesh in "Mrs. Gandhi’s War” in 1971. This aeroplane and the Lightning (1960) are much in evidence in South American air forces and are indeed not yet completely phased out of the RAF. The variability of capitalist alliances and the long life of some weapons obviously increase the danger of supplying a potential enemy with the means to hit you hard. Weapons bought with one purpose in mind can easily be put to another use. The guns from Sterling Armaments which turned up seven years later at Goose Green may well have been purchased for domestic rather than "anti-colonial” use. Campbell reports that "five were fitted with silencers, which reduce the performance of the bullets too much for conventional military use”. Probably they were intended for use against workers at home rather than abroad.

There is however yet another reason why, even with government control of arms production, sales opportunities abroad cannot be lightly spurned, even if embarrassment is risked in the process. The capitalist class has the problem of how to maintain in peacetime the capacity to produce armaments in an emergency. To convert too many factories to other products such as kidney machines would clearly put this capability at risk. In February 1935, Bernard Baruch, adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, spelled out his government’s policy with brutal frankness:

The only expedient yet used is for the governments of industrial countries at least not to discourage (and I fear almost universally to encourage) the manufacture of lethal weapons for exportation to belligerent countries actively preparing for war. but which have an insufficient munitions industry or none at all. Without specific evidence 1 still conjecture that the Nye investigation will disclose that our Government has not operated on a different policy. To put it bluntly, this is a method of providing a laboratory to test killing implements and a nucleus for a wartime munitions industry by maintaining an export market for instruments of death. Of course, it is absolutely indefensible and we could not be put in a position of excusing it.

This really says it all.

E. C. Edge

Running Commentary: On the gridiron (1982)

The Running Commentary Column from the December 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

When the baseball players of America went-on strike in the summer of 1981, we pointed out the similarities between their action and that of industrial workers trying to defend their standard of living. Most American workers, with a fair bit of prompting from the media, took a cynical attitude to the dispute, which was seen as a squabble between two sets of rich people. Now the players of the National Football League, who perform in steel helmets and liberal amounts of padding and look more like spacemen than footballers, have also taken “industrial action”.

Normally games are televised live on Sunday afternoons and Monday evenings but since the middle of September the networks have been showing instead Canadian Football, old “classic” games, or baseball, now in the last days of its season. None of this satisfies National Football League addicts.

Television income is one of the points at issue. The players have asked for fifty per cent to be allocated to them, to be divided on a seniority scale, and changes in the system of medical checks. They are unhappy about the way drug testing is conducted, want each player to have the right to a second medical opinion and a surgeon of his choice, and to be told all pertinent information about his injuries. The very fact that these medical demands have to be made shows how dissatisfied the players are with the present situation. At the time of writing, labour and management remain deadlocked on all these points.

The point about the players’ high wages deserves some further comment. In a number of cases high salaries can be the front behind which surplus value reaches the pockets of wealthy capitalists. However, the American brand of football is hard, bruising work and the great majority of players come from the working class, often from the desperately poor. Under capitalism wages represent the value of labour power — that is. the average cost of producing and reproducing the worker. American football is such a dangerous game that even in a deep recession — with welfare checks (dole) a probable alternative — it is only the high pay and other lucrative trappings that induce men to make a living of it.

American football is well able to pay such wages: with only a few top clubs widely scattered over a large country, even the unsuccessful play in front of near capacity crowds. On top of this is the large income from television. This contrasts sharply with the situation in Britain where a large number of clubs are in competition and many are near to bankruptcy. Recently the Rugby League players in England threatened to strike, but this dispute has been smoothed over. The threat of being driven out of business is often used by capitalist spokesmen, sometimes in defiance of the truth, in order to dissuade workers from pursuing pay claims. In the case of the Rugby League, however, a prolonged stoppage may well have closed many clubs. The Rugby League game is only part professional anyway, the players’ main income deriving from other jobs when they are lucky enough to have one. There is no suggestion however of the NFL clubs going to the wall, even though a long strike is considered possible.

To dispel any lingering doubts about whether the issues in the footballers’ strike are indeed the same as in an “ordinary” industrial dispute, we give two quotations from the International Herald Tribune of 2 and 3 October 1982. Gene Upshaw , Union President, said:

It is a tragic situation to be dealing with these people. They don’t care about you. We’re replaceable parts. We asked them what gives them the right to give 1500 players a physical examination. Then we said "what if 1500 players refuse to take them?” They said they would get 1500 other players.

Jack Donlan, director of the League’s Management Council, presented the management view:

Their proposals, we perceive, are designed to control the game. They’re always talking about their wage scales, their medical program. They’re trying to take away everything that has made this game and this League great.

There you have it; we have been wrong all the time. The crowds don't turn up to see the players play. They don’t even go to see the managers manage, which can be a spectaclc in itself in the United States. They go to see the owners own. 

E C Edge 

The dispute was settled shortly after this piece was written. None of the players’ demands was met and they returned to work.

Space in British Aerospace (1981)

From the November 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

The view is widely held that workers in the aircraft industry are somehow cosseted from the worst effects of booms and slumps in the economic cycle; the fact that, until very recently, the industry in Britain had apparently been little affected by the current recession gave some support to the idea. The truth, however, is that the fortunes of the industry fluctuate just as much as those of any other in the capitalist economy, as those aircraft workers involved in such recent traumas as the TSR2 cancellation will testify.

One of the reasons for this is the sheer size of the product, the design timescale of which has escalated tremendously in the industry’s comparatively short life. Nowadays the time from drawing board to entry into service can be twelve years or more, which means that a vast expenditure over a long period is required before there can be any hope of a profit. The necessary funding has therefore increasingly been provided by government agencies, so making the industry more and more susceptible to the political climate. Charles Gardner, in his history of the British Aircraft Corporation (Batsford, 1981), maintains that in 1970 Wedgwood Benn, Minister of Technology in the Labour Government, would have approved the loan requested by BAC for the 311 airliner, but the Tory government which was elected that year had other ideas. Similarly, a large defence contract signed with Libya in 1968, centring about Thunderbird and Rapier, was terminated after a military coup the following year. The main factors which influence these government decisions are thus not necessarily economic: the industry has suffered severe setbacks in times of general expansion and, conversely, has until recently expanded its workload in some areas in the face of recession.

Further political influences have been introduced as a result of international co-operation in the building of new aircraft. From such has come, among others, the Anglo-French Concorde, the European Airbus Industry and, in the military field, the Anglo-French Jaguar and Anglo-German-Italian Tornado. Amalgamation within the industry has also proceeded with breakneck speed. In Britain at the end of World War II there were 27 different aerospace companies; by 1960 the development of the industry, with some government pushing, had reduced these to only two — British Aircraft Corporation and Hawker Siddley, each with their aircraft and guided weapons divisions. The subsequent amalgamation into British Aerospace, involving so-called “nationalisation" followed by “denationalisation", will be considered later. The development of joint projects with European concerns is a natural continuation of the amalgamation process. If the separate governments concerned could always agree on all matters affecting the projects, perhaps no additional uncertainties would be injected. Under capitalism however such an idyllic situation cannot be expected. Differences between the partners have appeared in connection with all the projects just mentioned. Currently some French interests are pressing for the abandonment of Concorde, whereas earlier it was the French government, who had committed Air France to the plane, which resisted waverers on the British side. All these political factors increase the feeling of insecurity within the industry.

Running parallel with the amalgamation of the companies, and arising from the same economic causes, has been a change in the nature of the work itself. On the production side automation has proceeded much as in engineering in general. Big changes have taken place on the design side also, with the old type of boffin little in evidence. Computer aided design and the large structural analysis programmes now available have taken most of the glamour out of the process. Each worker can now be assigned routine, boring tasks. One effect has been to increase the militancy among designers as the apparent differences between them and workers on the factory floor are eroded. Another is that it is now possible to stress complicated structures more uniformly than before. Under the constant competitive pressure to reduce weight and cost, aircraft are being produced which have smaller safety margins, and this is reflected in an increasing number of fatigue problems.

The current recession is having its effect on the industry despite appearances to the contrary. Although Keynesian economic theories are still quite widely upheld, particularly in France and in the British Labour Party, governments have generally reacted to a slump by trying to reduce their expenditure, as was done in Britain in the 1930s. On defence, the commitment to Trident reduces the amount available for other projects. Another factor is that contractors whose markets in the civil sector have shrunk are delivering defence goods faster and presenting bills for payment more quickly than anticipated. In fact, there has been no overall reduction in defence spending and the 3 per cent increase promised to NATO may well be kept. But even with an increase in defence spending jobs can be lost, as Herman Rebhan, General Secretary of the International Metalworkers’ Federation, made clear when he addressed the United Nations.

There has been a steady increase in military spending in the United States in the past five years. In 1975 there were 97,300 members of the machinists union employed on military contracts. By 1978 there were 85,000, a drop of 12,300. It is because military production operates at the very fringe of technological development. Military industries are both capital intensive and technologically highly advanced. Both aspects mean a decline in labour. Even with a massive new twist in the arms race the military industry is the worst place in which to invest with a view to creating jobs.

(Tridents into Ploughshares by Bill Niven, New Statesman, 12.6.81)

The British Government, having earlier resisted the efforts of West Germany to cut back on Tornado production, is now having second thoughts, possibly reflecting a toughening attitude following the recent Cabinet reshuffle. At the same time British Aerospace has been forced to ask for aid on interest payments to enable it to continue as a partner in the Airbus project. These cashflow problems are threatening to strangle at birth the latest aircraft to appear on the drawing board, the P106/P110 (information on this project can be obtained from an article in The Times, 22.4.81 by the air correspondent Arthur Reed). The Lancashire Evening Post (15.9.81) reports that the Tory Conference would be lobbied in an attempt to save the enterprise.

How is the workforce in British Aerospace reacting to this escalating uncertainty? Some of the younger workers have gone on contract work, mainly in the United States. This offers high rates of pay in the short term, often enabling them to accumulate some savings. However, it does nothing to banish insecurity or lack of job satisfaction; indeed these are rather intensified — contract workers at Boeing have been on as little as one hour’s notice. It is noteworthy that the AV8B contract with McDonnell Douglas was presented on the British media (BBC1 9 o 'clock News, 24.8.81) in terms of the number of jobs it would “secure”. This would not have happened in the United States, where the effect on company profitability may have been stressed but “job security” is not considered possible. Attempts by British Aerospace workers to “do something about it” are confined to fights for a change in government policy. Despite the lip service now being paid to disarmament, this can lead to open advocacy of increased arms expenditure. The slogan “Jobs not bombs" has a hollow ring to these people because to them, bombs and bombers are jobs. The recent cancellation of Skyflash II and delays to the Sea Eagle programme in the 1981 Defence Estimates caused 600 redundancies at the Hatfield and Lostock (near Boston) missile plants. The New Statesman (12.6.81) reports that immediately shop stewards went to lobby Parliament to openly urge the continuation of these projects. The Chairman of Vickers combined shop stewards committee summed this feeling up when he said on television earlier this year: “We don’t sec anything else that could secure full employment. We would welcome five Tridents on our slipways” (New Statesman, 12.6.81). Behind all this activity is the old illusion that capitalism contrary to its nature, can somehow be run in the workers’ interests.

The forced amalgamation of BAC and Hawker Siddley in 1977, to form the “nationalised” British Aerospace, followed this year by "denationalisation” in the form of a public limited company, has introduced another red herring. Not even the most starry-eyed Leftie among the employees can argue that his position as a wage slave has been in any way altered by these changes. Indeed, management in both cases issued statements making clear that terms of employment would remain unchanged. Yet among those active in the trade unions and reformist politics there is still strong support for the nationalisation concept. These workers do not understand that nationalised industries under capitalism are intended to provide a service to the capitalist class as a whole, and are administered in this way by the state, “the executive committee of the ruling class”.

The present discussion on arms conversion and alternative products must not be confused with the position of future socialist society deciding how best to make use of available resources. In the latter case, arms production of all kinds will have ceased and things will be produced solely for use and not for sale with a view to profit. With production geared to satisfying human needs and free access to all goods and services, a decision to cut back on articles no longer required could not menace anybody’s livelihood; a complete contrast to the situation under capitalism. Most of those now discussing “alternatives” believe that disarmament is perfectly feasible under capitalism. While this is manifest nonsense, it does not follow that these ideas can be totally dismissed. We have already seen that increased arms production cannot always prevent contraction in the workforce employed. Also, both the United States and Russia have more than enough arms stockpiled to knock each other out. They could severely limit arms production and still retain this capability, although there is admittedly no sign of such a reduction right now. It is possible however to envisage the capitalists faced with the very difficult problem of unused resources formerly employed on arms production, and needing to convert these to other uses with the minimum of social unrest. The position of the Labour Party, as declared in their latest manifesto, is that

A Labour government will plan to ensure that savings in military expenditure do not lead to unemployment for those working in the defence industries. We shall give material support and encouragement to plans for industrial conversion so that the valuable resources of the defence industries can be used for the production of socially needed goods.

In the United States these ideas have been carried a stage further. A Defence Economic Adjustment Act has actually been introduced into the Senate (Congressional Record, volume 125, No. 50, 26.4.79), the principal sponsors being George McGovern and Charles Mathias. (The first Bill on these lines was put to Congress as early as 1963.) It legislates for the social problems resulting from the arms race. Professor Seymour Mellman, co-chairman of the peace organisation Sane, is quoted: “Economic conversion is the only way of reconciling fear of job loss with opposition to the arms race” (New Statesman, 12.6. 81).

Despite the optimistic phraseology in the wording of the Bill and by some of its supporters, suggesting belief that capitalism can disarm itself, such an Act never be more than a capitalist answer to one of capitalism’s problems. As for “socially needed goods”, even in the deepest recession a little cash could doubtless be found for a pilot scheme to produce a few of these. The problem, as shown by such absurdities as the butter mountain, is how to sell these goods once they are produced. It is this vital point that the Left and other well-meaning reformers seem unable to grasp.

E. C. Edge

Is anybody up there? (1982)

From the November 1982 issue of the Socialist Standard

Last year the American government published the proceedings of a conference in California in June 1979 whose ostensible purpose was to explore the prospects for research into the nature and distribution of life in the universe (Life in the Universe, NASA Conference Publication 2156. US Government Printing Office). While the case for the establishment of a sane and harmonious society here on earth is obviously not dependent on such findings, the papers do contain much of interest to socialists.

The conference considered the origin of life, life supporting environments, the evolution of complex life, the detectability of technically advanced civilisations and the problem of locating extraterrestrial intelligence. Two different though complementary approaches are encompassed here. The first seeks to develop an understanding of life and the environments necessary to support it. Such research cannot, of course, uniquely determine the existence of life outside the planet earth, but will enable attention to be focused on the more promising candidates among the heavenly bodies. The second approach has already been christened SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), and involves listening for potential radio transmissions from intelligent life, and an examination of suitable stars for target. A research programme has been established to pursue these aims.

The advance in thinking in this branch of science since Darwin wrote The Origin of Species is as immense as that made in the same period in the design of weapons of war. The two are in fact linked, as illustrated by the development of nuclear bombs and the use of space-craft for reconnaissance and, potentially at least, for other military purposes. It is a mistake to think of this advance of science in terms of increasing the number of solved problems (with a corresponding reduction of those unsolved), although there is a sense in which this is a valid viewpoint. Attempts to attack one particular problem often lead to unexpected results which themselves cause new questions to be posed and fresh problems identified as requiring solutions. An example of this was the bringing back to earth for analysis of samples from the moon. The results have been somewhat misleadingly reported as having caused confusion among scientists. In fact the longterm result is an enlargement of horizons and an enrichment of understanding.

Certainly this aspect of scientific research can be irritating. It requires the modification of theories in the face of new evidence, often the abandonment of what had appeared to be promising lines of enquiry. Thus the appearance can easily be given that no progress is being made. It is here that the sniping movement calling itself Creation Science has found its opportunity. There have surely been few organisations to which the word reactionary can be more appropriately applied. Claiming that science has failed to provide the answers, it advocates a return to the old creation theories of religion. Its adherents focus on biological evolution and Darwin's work and pose the question, “Was Darwin right?”, as though they were continuing the famous debate between Bishop Wilberforce and T.H. Huxley. Their claim that the fossil record does not support Darwin is technically correct although rather impertinent. Darwin as was understandable in his time, saw evolution as proceeding at a much more constant rate than present-day evidence will support. In fact, as presented by Valentine [1], what now appears to have happened is lengthy periods of relative stability with small changes (microevolution) interspersed with intervals where more revolutionary events happened (macroevolution). Valentine writes: "A large mutation can produce a descendant which is infertile with members of its parental species, including its parents. If it can fertilise itself, however, it may propagate and thrive”. In the human species mutations are produced which differ considerably from their parents. This occurred with much greater frequency immediately following the atomic bombardment of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Like most mutations these were tragic, one-off cases and where they survived they did so only because human society can now prevent natural selection operating. The point is, however, that it was the normal human reproductive process which brought forth these ‘children’, and to claim that a ‘creator’ is at work here is worse than ridiculous.

The concept of concurrent micro and macroevolution appears to be well supported by the fossil record. Indeed in the last 20 years one of the main arguments used by “creationists' has disappeared. As reported by Margolis and Havelock [2], it used to be thought that the Precambrian rocks of the Ediacaran period (700 million to 570 million years ago approximately) did not contain a fossil record. The pioneering work of Elso Barghoorn and Stanley Tyler of Harvard University has shown that this is not the case, the difficulty having been related to detection techniques and scientific expectation. Margolis and Havelock put it thus: “These investigators realised that the conspicuous fossil record of large organisms must have been preceded by something smaller. Such ideas led them to microscopic studies of thin sections of unaltered sedimentary rocks”. Far from supporting biblical or neo-biblical viewpoint, modern science is dealing it ever more crushing blows. This message is forcefully conveyed in nearly all the papers presented at the conference. ‘Creation science', incorporating as it does a complete misunderstanding of modern scientific method, must be largely motivated by its own deadly fear of the consequences of driving God out of the heavens. The complexity of the universe, as it is now understood, shows more clearly than ever before that the idea that we can ‘know all the answers' is a religious and not a scientific one. How could the inert matter which preceded life on earth have left sign-points to show us how it came to be where it was?

When talking about the possibility of detecting the existence of life outside our own planet, we of course mean life as we know it’; that is. life that has evolved in much the same way from much the same material conditions and resources as has life here on earth. We cannot, of course, even begin to discuss any other possible method of life evolution as it would be totally outside our experience and knowledge. All that can be said is that while this possibility cannot be entirely ruled out, the chances do seem to be extremely small. The phrase ‘conditions which will support life’ must also be taken to mean ‘conditions similar to those on earth’.

The space exploration which has already taken place certainly appears to have ruled out any chance of life at the present time anywhere else in the solar system. No attempt was made by sensate beings to intercept or communicate with the spacecraft, and nowhere was a life supporting environment detected. However Chang [3] suggests that Venus and Mars may have supported some form of life in the past. As for the chances of life further afield, this appears to boil down to which is the greater of two very large numbers. The odds against all the requirements of organic life appearing on another plant, or perhaps a satellite, in much the same proportions as on earth, are obviously very great. Equally vast however is the number of heavenly bodies in the universe. The biblical writer who compared their abundance to that of sand on the seashore was considerably more right than he knew. He probably did not believe what he wrote, but he has proved not to be far out. There has even been speculation that the planet earth may not be unique — that is to say. there may be another bloke called Edge writing at this instant about life in the universe for another journal called Socialist Standard on an identical planet many light years away! Opinion at the conference was divided on this issue. Drake [4] states: “The current consensus concerning extraterrestrial life is that it exists in abundance in the universe". However in the present state of knowledge the opinion of Lovejoy [5] seems more realistic: “I think it quite reasonable to suppose that despite the immensity of the known universe, the specificity in the physiostructure of any organism is so great and its immensely complex pathway of progression so ancient that the probability of re-expression is simply infinitesimal". This, needless to say. has nothing in common with the religious view of man as the special creation of God. Lovejoy’s comments are the product of more than a century of dedicated scientific observation.

What is the real purpose of this conference? In his introductory remarks Frosch [6] said: "The ‘golden fleece' idea that searches, gropings for knowledge whose purpose we do not understand are silly and some kind of rip off, results from sheer lack of understanding, lack of imagination and lack of perception of the meaning of the history of the human race". As far as it went, this was very well said. However, it would be naive indeed to accept that the gathering was concerned with pure research for the long-term benefit of humanity. Under the present social system funds are not provided for such studies. Certain capitalist interests, of course, stand to benefit in the short term from the construction of the high technology instruments required to scan the universe for life. Spacecraft travelling up to the speed of light have been envisaged. Generally speaking, however, such interests, despite all their lobbying, are unlikely by themselves to generate enough pressure to force governments, considering the interests of the capitalist class as a whole, to provide them with the necessary finance. Not surprisingly, “earth politics" is ignored in all of the papers. This is an indication, however, that the participants implicitly accepted not only that there is no feasible alternative to the capitalist system here on earth, but that the advanced civilisations which they hope to find elsewhere will be capitalist in character also.

In discussing how such advanced civilisations may be detected, Braccwell [7] unwittingly and grimly admits this when he says, "incidental signals offer more interesting grounds for speculation. There is of course the possibility of emission from bomb explosions. Sustained nuclear reactions for the purpose of power generation do not seem a likely source because leakage would represent waste”. Unlike CND, it would appear that this author holds justifiably pessimistic views of the possibility of removing the threat of nuclear war while retaining the system that causes it. It can reasonably be assumed that the conference would have been no more optimistic about the prospect of tackling the problems of pollution and depletion of natural resources. These are also insoluble within capitalism, and are seriously worrying the more thinking among our rulers.

There are perhaps two obvious ways in which such people may see communication with other life-supporting planets as offering a way out. First, there is the hope that some "super intelligence” may be contacted who could point to solutions which have escaped dumb earthlings. However socialists see this as another form of the "great man" idea, and thus doomed to failure. Secondly, and perhaps the speculation on long-distance space travel is indicative, there is the possibility of transplanting earth capitalism to another site (and eventually wrecking this place in the way the earth is now being wrecked). This may prove to be a more practical proposition than trying to establish life support systems on other members of the solar system which are at present inimical to life. Such a migration could involve war. not only with existing inhabitants, but fierce conflict between the rival capitalist groups on earth as they try to extend their space colonies at each other's expense, just as happened here. This scepticism over motives however does not detract from the value of this publication as an abundant source of information and valuable insight into current scientific thinking.

E. C. Edge

References

(All references are taken from NASA Conference Publication 2156)

1. Emergence and Radiation of Multicellular Organisms; James W. Valentine (University of California)

2. Atmosphere and Evolution; Lynn Margolis (Boston University) and James E. Lovelock (Reading University, UK)

3. Organic Chemical Evolution; Sherwood Chang (Ames Research Centre. NASA)

4. Comments by Frank D. Drake (Professor of Astronomy. Cornell University) as session chairman for session 5.

5. Evolution of Man and its Implications for General Principles of the Evolution of Intelligent Life; C. Owen Lovejoy (Kent State University, Ohio)

6. Introductory remarks by Robert A. Frosch (President of the American Association of Engineering Societies)

7. Manifestations of Advanced Civilisations; Ronald N. Braccwell (Stanford University, California)

BA strike at Warton (1984)

From the October 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

For three weeks during the height of summer the local communities where the employees of the Warton Division of British Aerospace live were buzzing with talk of “the strike". This is the time of year when most of the local carnivals are held, when brass bands, rosebud competitions, Morris dancing and a host of other pleasant things are supposed to put all thoughts of discord and strife into the background. This strike, however, was not the miners' strike, which is still with us, but involved so-called white-collar staff, members of AUEW-TASS. Compared to the prolonged miners' dispute the local Warton affair inevitably looks small beer. It only just managed to reach the national press, its start and finish being briefly reported in a few inside page sentences. The idea of white collar workers with degrees and smooth, uncalloused hands withdrawing their labour was almost unthinkable a generation ago. Times have indeed changed. Earlier this year a similar strike at Westlands, the helicopter firm based at Yeovil, lasted four weeks. The GCHQ situation at least shows how civil service employees have become unionised. The writer can even recall a long dispute involving the drawing office at Handley Page in the late 1950s, but that was really exceptional for those times.

Since 1970 when certain departments at Warton organised under the TASS banner there have been a series of actions such as go-slows and one-day stoppages, so that the final resort to a strike should have surprised no one. The situation which escalated quickly into a major confrontation started with a course of computer software training. Many who were put on this course came from the production side (the factory floor), reflecting the increasing importance of newer branches of technology in comparison with traditional industrial skills. As a result of the long period during which the shop floor unions have exhibited greater militancy, newly trained operators transferred from production were found in many cases to be on higher rates of pay than workers with some years experience of computer software operation. This led the union ( TASS) to demand a pay adjustment and the employers in turn to stall, saying that this could not be considered until the next round of pay negotiations at the end of the year. TASS then applied a policy of refusing to operate what was termed "new technology”. The company- responded by suspending those who refused to perform tasks within their job descriptions. The next TASS move was rather more controversial; suspended members were temporarily appointed as union officials and thus remained on site although not working, contrary to company rules on suspensions. A strike became inevitable when this breach of rules was used as an excuse to sack workers, but a stoppage would obviously have occurred anyway had the suspension policy been carried to its logical conclusion. The point here is that the company was in fact disciplining individuals for taking part in a collective industrial action.

The strike ended after a package had been agreed including unconditional reinstatement of all sacked and suspended employees but on the question of pay only offering to accelerate talks on a new structure. It still remains to be seen whether anything will be gained in the end. At the time rumours were rife that the employers planned to reduce the workforce and had engineered the strike situation to help towards this end. The projected merger with GEC was mentioned as a possible reason for a policy of contraction. However the current situation was that short term commitments had led to contract labour being employed in certain areas. Unless it was proposed to back out of these contracts the firm could scarcely consider losing the suspended workers permanently, contract labour being considerably more expensive. There is also the brain drain of young able workers to more lucrative contract work overseas. Israel. West Germany and the United States are the most popular places at present. Here the firm is probably unable and certainly unwilling to compete. Therefore it was always likely that reinstatement would be the outcome. Where however TASS do appear to have been successful is in disproving the persistent idea, widely held outside the actual membership, that despite all the evidence accumulated over the previous 14 years, the union need not be taken seriously. One head of department put it like this: "When their wives hear that there will be no pay packet next week, they will clonk them one and that will sort it all out”.

By comparison with the miners' strike certain similarities and also certain differences can be noted. The former are the more fundamental but there is value in discussing points from both categories. There have been some strikes which arose purely from sectional rivalry and which were not in the interests of the working class. The great majority, however, are directly attributable to the subject status of the workers under capitalism. There is no other means open to the workers to gain access to the means of living than to sell their labour power to the capitalists in return for a wage or salary. There is an inevitable struggle to increase the price of this labour power (and reduce the capitalist's profit margin resulting from the difference between wages and the value of the work actually performed) sometimes by striking or otherwise producing more slowly than the employers wish. Viewed like this there is no basic difference between the Warton strike and any others.

Indeed it can be argued that in one respect Warton actually puts one over the current miners’ dispute. The NUM protest centres on pit closures and impinges on reformist politics by implicitly arguing for a different energy policy (a greater use of coals from seams harder and therefore more expensive to mine) from that favoured by the government. On the other hand TASS has compromised itself in the recent past by joining hands with the employers in begging for government funding for new aircraft projects. As the Lytham St Annes Express put it (19 July 1984):

It is perhaps ironic that many of the men and women who went on strike in Warton's "Black June" were among those who fought most fiercely to aid the “Save British Aerospace" campaign launched last year.

And while no violence occurred. Warton saw both picketing and a police presence which the strikers rightly regarded as provocative. Generally speaking lorry drivers turned back of their own accord when they saw the official picket line. The refusal of drivers to deliver aircraft fuel led to a request from the firm that different drivers be sent next time! In the main the only awkward ones (who insisted on going in) were from small local firms staffed by non-union labour.

The differences arose largely from the inexperience of the strikers. Whereas miners from bitter experience have come to expect fairly frequent strikes and make communal provisions to ease the inevitable hardship, the Warton technicians had never really faced up to the possibility and had mostly made commitments to house purchase and so on which assumed continuation of current levels of finance well into the future. At Warton lack of solidarity was also apparent although in a somewhat different form to the NUM. The problem for TASS has been its inability to recruit members evenly throughout the technical area. In areas where membership was weak, those who were in the union tended to drift back after a few days and hand in their union cards. This sort of situation has obvious dangers as it opens the way for the employers to maintain a tolerable level of work overall by transferring labour from non-union departments. Contingency plans to do this were allegedly in preparation, but the virtually complete solidarity of the strike within the drawing office and among all but the newest recruits in the stress office meant a virtual halt to design work. But greater solidarity will obviously be necessary before a longer stoppage could be contemplated.

So-called junior management were put into an unusual position by the strike. These are group leaders whose job it is to decide on the share of work within their area of responsibility. Consequently their decisions could directly lead to suspensions. Yet whatever title they are given they are clearly members of the working class in no fundamentally different position to those whose efforts they supervise. Indeed many have recognised this to the extent of trying to organise themselves within TASS in what are termed Senior Staff Branches. During the Warton strike the local senior staff branch found itself unable to join and limited itself to advising members not to undertake work normally done by those on strike. This naturally caused some resentment among the strikers who expected fuller support from fellow union members, but the membership of what is known locally as Supertass is not yet widespread enough to adequately protect individuals who may have been disciplined by the employers. The main point here is that there is a growing recognition by sections of the working class who have previously adopted superior "middle class" attitudes, that they are in fact in basically the same position in society as the rest of their class. Maybe organising within different branches (effectively not greatly different from being in different unions) is not a good idea, but a further development of this encouraging trend will reduce the friction which has developed. A revealing incident occurred when the chief stressman criticised group leaders because fewer TASS members had been suspended in his department than elsewhere. "I get the feeling that you aren't going to do this, but it’s your job to do it" he said.

One of the things highlighted by the dispute was the persistence of the idea that a solution could be found that would not only end the immediate conflict but prevent any confrontations in the future. Those who talked like this, as though the strike had arisen only because of stupidity on both sides, were ignoring the class structure of capitalism where capital and labour clash as buyers and sellers of labour power and capital lives on the difference between what labour produces and receives. An illustration of this ignorance was the objections raised to making an interim payment to bring the more disadvantaged workers up to the level of those transferred from the shop floor. This, it was argued, would merely lead to other groups claiming they were hard done by, taking action themselves and the process would never stop. Internecine struggles often take place as one section of workers seek to keep another in their place. At Warton some strikers tended to sec the issue in these narrow terms rather than as part of a larger inevitable conflict. Expanding class-consciousness. backed up with the intensive efforts on the political field by the Socialist Party, will ensure that the bitterness between various sections of the working class gives way to an unshakeable realisation of the essentially common interests of all workers everywhere.

E C Edge

Tea and Sympathy (1983)

From the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

We publish below a newsletter recently circulated among employees of British Aerospace. Warton. A good time was had by all but one.

Visit to HMS Exeter

A party of 10 people from British Aerospace. Warton, travelled to Portsmouth in the early hours of Thursday 16 December 1982 in order to attend a "Day at Sea” organised by the Captain and Officers of HMS Exeter. From the welcome we received on arrival at HMS Nelson at 9.00 am on Thursday morning to the time when we sadly said "Goodbye" to our Hosts at 9.00 pm on the same day, we can say, in all sincerity, that we could have never experienced better hospitality and genuine friendship. After a very short journey to the Naval Base by Navy transport we went on board HMS Exeter and we were officially welcomed by the Officers of the Ship. Coffee was served and we were made very comfortable.

There were approximately 64 guests on board representing several aspects of the community. There were representatives from Thornton Chocolates; from Swan Hunter, where the Exeter was built; representatives from various organisations of the City of Exeter and several others. We sailed from Portsmouth Harbour at 10.30 am and we observed this from the Flight Deck. We were thrilled to see several Royal Navy Ships who also played a very important part in the recent Falklands war. Officers of HMS Exeter were accompanying each group of guests and explaining various items of interest. We were taken to the Bridge where Captain HM Balfour, MVO, and Officers were busy manoeuvring the Ship out of Harbour but not too busy to give us a very warm welcome and their thanks for our support towards them. We were shown every corner of the Ship; from Engine Room to Radar Room, from Officers Cabins to Kitchens. The whole Ship is kept in immaculate condition and the atmosphere on board is very happy, friendly and relaxed.

We sailed towards the Isle of Wight and at 11.45 am we were given a demonstration of the flying capabilities of HMS Exeter LYNX Helicopter; all the visitors enjoyed this demonstration and found it very exciting. At 12.00 noon we were shown an "Open-fire” exercise during which the newly installed guns were fired. These guns were 20 and 30mm cannons. This demonstration was also very exciting and made us all aware that Exeter was ready for any emergency. Between each demonstration drinks were served to the guests in the Officer’s Mess; no effort was spared to make our visit memorable.

At 12.30 a very' appetising lunch was served in the Officer’s Mess and after lunch, British Aerospace presented Captain HM Balfour with a cheque for £180.00, two Tornado framed pictures signed by our Chief Test Pilots and two Video Cassettes featuring the 8 episodes of the Falklands war as shown on Television in the past months. An official Wren photographer from Navy News took pictures of the presentation. Captain Balfour was very grateful for the gifts and asked us to thank everyone at British Aerospace for their part in the "Adoption of HMS Exeter".

After lunch a low flying demonstration by two Hunter aircraft was to take place but, as soon as this demonstration started, one of the Hunter’s came in very low over the Exeter Flight Deck, could not regain control and crashed into the sea killing the pilot. This tragedy caused great concern to everyone present but the Officers worked very hard once again in order to put the whole tragic incident in its true perspective. After tea and sandwiches we returned by “high speed dash" to Portsmouth at 9.00 pm when we took leave of the Captain and Crew. We spent a memorable day and we shall be forever grateful to HMS Exeter.

P. Charlesworth 

p.p. HMS Exeter Fund Committee

Nuclear fusion power (1983)

From the August 1983 issue of the Socialist Standard

The difficulties currently being encountered in the generation of electric-power by nuclear fission, highlighted by some of the evidence being presented to the current Sizewell Inquiry, makes its long term future uncertain. From the ecological point of view, fission now stands condemned and we can safely say that it will have no part in the sane socialist society of the future. This situation is leading to a renewed interest in alternative sources of energy but current progress in one of these — nuclear fusion — has been limited by a lack of financial support, as the Scientific American reported in its July 1972 issue.

The source of energy in nuclear fusion is the same as in nuclear fission; that is. by the transformation of mass into energy. Fission takes place by the splitting of heavy elements such as uranium, and is the basis of the A-bomb. This connection with the arms trade has helped to keep fission power going despite its disappointing economic performance. In contrast, fusion involves the combination of light elements such as isotopes of hydrogen, and is the basis of the H-bomb, where the reaction is triggered by the explosion of an A-bomb. This method is obviously unsuitable for industrial use. Fusion reactions take place continuously on the sun and other large stars.

On the surface, the prospects for nuclear fusion look sky high. There is virtually an unlimited supply of low cost fuel in the form of heavy water (deuterium oxide) in the ocean. The end product of the fusion reaction is radiation free (but this does not apply to all intermediate products) unlike the hellholes where fission wastes are stored. The low mass and volume of the fuel needed makes plant layout and siting relatively problem-free. Handling and storage areas can be very small and installations need not be tied to port and railway facilities.

The nuclei of the fuel atoms are positively charged and so repel each other just as the like poles of two magnets do. In order to overcome this repulsion and put the nuclei close enough together for a fusion reaction to occur, a level of kinetic energy must be imparted to them, which requires a temperature of about 90 million degrees centigrade. In the H-bomb this is the function which the A-bomb performs. At such temperatures the gaseous state is transcended and the material becomes a charge-dominated collection of ionised matter known as plasma which at high temperature cannot be confined by material walls and has instead to be held in position by strong electromagnetic forces. In the search for a controlled fusion reaction for industrial use the crux lies in the design of a magnetic field to contain the plasma in stable equilibrium. This is the main reason why fusion research is so expensive. Attention is now being given to a laser-induced fusion technique, which requires no containment of plasma although the requirement to generate enormous temperatures remains. At the present time it is not possible to say definitely that a satisfactory solution will eventually be found, even granted adequate funding.

The radioactive intermediate product of the fusion reaction is tritium, another isotope of hydrogen. Tritium is not found in nature and has a half life of 12.3 years. It permeates metal walls at high temperature and containment will require careful detailed design. The vacuum wall and blanket structure will become radioactive during operation and require long-term disposal after the end of their working life. The internal plant structure can only be handled and repaired by complex remote control facilities. There are clearly hazards associated with high pressure, high temperature materials and high magnetic fields.

Optimistic forecasts of the nuclear fusion future should be judged against this information. The prospects of this type of work being performed in the capitalist commercial environment are not very strong, to say the least.

E C Edge

Housing crisis 1984 (1984)

From the March 1984 issue of the Socialist Standard

Apart from a few exceptions such as tied accommodation and institutions, there are three types of homes open to the working class today — private rental, local authority rental and what is called owner-occupation. Since 1918 there has been a large shift in the relative shares of these types as Martin Pawley tells us in his book Home Ownership (The Architectural Press, London, 1978):

In 1918, a year within the living memory of our grandparents if not our parents, less than 10 out of every 100 homes in England and Wales were owned by the families living in them. Out of a population of 38 million less than 14,000 were council tenants. Out of 8 million dwellings more than 7 million were owned by private landlords whose tenants paid a weekly or monthly rent. The building societies, 1300 separate savings and loans establishments, boasted total assets of less than £70 million and only 600,000 shareholders and borrowers.

Today 55 out of every 100 homes in England and Wales belong to the families occupying them. Out of a population 10 millions greater there are 5 million council tenants. Out of 17 million dwellings only 2½ million still belong to private landlords. The building societies, their number reduced by more than two thirds, have nonetheless grown into mighty financial institutions whose total assets rival those of the banks and dominate any other repository of savings — their value in 1977 exceeding £30,000 million. Their total membership, shareholders and borrowers combined, now embraces nearly 20 million persons.

Since 1961 National Census returns have included information on household tenure. For earlier years figures have had to be deduced in a less direct manner and are not so reliable. The message is clear. Many maybe surprised at the dramatic slump in private landlordism, still more perhaps at the tiny number of council tenants in 1918. Much fewer will be surprised at the rise of "owner-occupation". which has been given such fanfare treatment by the news media. How ever because the lower paid workers are still mainly tenants and can be expected to show a larger than average number of persons per tenancy, the number of workers who are “buying” their homes is somewhat overestimated in the above figures. Remember that almost all the capitalists (roughly 10 per cent of the population) are also, and genuinely, owner-occupiers. Against this even the recession has not yet completely halted the upwards trend, and much pressure is still being applied to reduce council tenancies still further.

There is obvious confusion inherent in the term “owner-occupier”, although not so much in the occupier bit. Most owner-occupiers hold right of tenure only through loans — in most cases from building societies — which they have to repay with interest at regular intervals. While they are doing so, commonly over a period of 20 or 25 years, the title deeds are held by the loan making body, who are clearly the effective owners for the duration of the loan. Yet the law states that the building societies cannot become owners of real estate! The occupier thus has all the responsibilities of ownership like rates and repairs, while in reality looking after someone else's property. His/her status only differs significantly from that of a tenant if the debt has actually been redeemed, by which time the property may well have depreciated enough for maintenance costs to eat up as much money as the mortgage repayments. But in this article the term “owner occupier" will be used in its current sense, to cover mortgage repayers as well as outright owners.

It appears that 1918 represented a low point in owner-occupation. Before the 1884 Reform Act extended the franchise to all householders irrespective of mode of tenure, the qualification for the vote was ownership of freehold above a stipulated value. Consequently the Freehold Land Society Movement arose in the 17th century and became prominent in the 1840s. These societies operated on friendly society principles, but with the object of financing the purchase of plots of sufficient value to create voters and they were the forerunners of the building societies. After the passage of the Reform Acts the incentive to occupy freehold disappeared. It appears that the percentage of owner-occupiers actually dropped slightly between then and the First World War.

The Great War arrived with private landlords apparently unshakeable in their stranglehold on the supply of housing. What happened to loosen their grip? Simply that for a number of reasons, this form of investment in housing ceased to be as profitable. Those years were the high noon of the British Empire, with overseas investment attracting much capital previously employed at home. The war caused the government of the day to strike the first major blow. Military mobilisation and a massive increase in armaments production had led to large population movements. At the same time housing construction had almost ceased, leading to rapid rent increases with consequent evictions: in Glasgow there were rent strikes and then rioting. The government then passed the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (War Restriction) Act. popularly known as the Rent Control Act 1915, which held rents and mortgage interest rates to their level at 3 August 1914. The original intention had been that the Act should lapse six months after the end of the war, but by November 1918 prices had risen 225 per cent above the level of 1914, thus making rent increases of this order politically impossible. Some form of rent control had to continue and has been operative in Britain ever since. Along with restrictions on rent increases went some legal curbs on the landlords' right to evict tenants whenever it suited.

The government's imposition of these controls, and the possibility of similar action on other occasions, had alarmed many rentiers. Their answer was to sell. In some instances to their former tenants. In others they sold when the property became vacant and invested the proceeds in building for sale. This withdrawal from house ownership. incidentally, was not matched by a corresponding decline in landownership. Massey and Catalano (Capital and Law: Landownership and Capital in Great Britain, Edward Arnold. 1978) reveal that what they term "former landed property” (covering the Church, the crown estates, the landed aristocracy and the landed gentry), together own 36 per cent of the acreage in Britain. The landowning interest, of course, controls the scarcest of all resources for the supply of housing, the building land itself. However the decline of the house renting landlord left a gap. the filling of which was to cause many problems for governments and local authorities.

The 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act included a section which allowed local authorities to build, convert and manage dwellings. A requirement that such housing be sold within ten years was dropped in 1909. These powers, as we have seen, were little used up to 1918. In the aftermath of the Great War. however, a boom in council housing construction saw 174.000 built in just over a year before the Geddes axe fell in the autumn of 1920. At the same time a boom developed in the building society mortgage business. Rent controlled houses could be bought cheaply and sold expensively to "owner-occupiers". The pattern of the inter-war years had been set. The gaps in the market for working class housing created by the diminution of the private rental sector were to be filled at the lower income end by council housing and at the upper end by mortgage owner-occupation.

According to the definition we have adopted, about 26 per cent of all households could be described as owner-occupied in 1945. Then came the 1945-51 Labour government and perhaps the only sustained attempt to boost council housing. The Labour Party is in an awkward position politically on housing as it relies to a much greater extent than the Tories on the votes of those workers unable to be other than tenants. This explains such differences as arise between the housing strategy of the two major parties. In 1945 the Labour government, like the government of 1914-19. had its policy largely dictated to it by the situation it found. As Pawley (op cit) relates: "By the end of the war 200,000 houses had been wiped out, 250,000 so badly hit that they were evacuated, and over 3 millions listed with the War Commission as having sustained injury of some kind". This damage had to be repaired. In addition while the physical fitness of potential army recruits was slightly up on the desperately low levels of the Boer and 1914-18 wars, once again the concern of the ruling class about the health and housing of the workers was at an unaccustomed peak. In these circumstances any government would have had to place a high priority on the construction of working class housing.

Within the constraints imposed by capitalism the Labour government tried hard to provide cheaper rented homes for the workers. The need for more investment in export-oriented sectors following the balance of payments crisis of 1947 reduced the funding available and the number of houses built was below expectation. Aneurin Bevan in particular was contemptuous of the private sector, stating that “The speculative builder was not amenable to planning a rational allocation of resources" (J. R. Short. The Post-War Experience — Housing in Britain. University Paperbacks, 1982), and castigating the building societies as “mere moneylenders" (Pawley op cit). Except for its last few months the government stuck to the recommendations of the Dudley Report (1944) which called for larger floor space and better equipped kitchens, even if this meant fewer completions. Those on the waiting lists probably took a different view and their discontent may have contributed to the defeat of the Labour Party in 1951. Between 1939 and 1951 only about 250,000 private houses were built (Pawley op cit).

The Tories came back to power in 1951 committed to building 300,000 dwellings a year. For the first three years (1952-54) council house completions were over 200,000 each year, but this figure was never to be achieved again. The Tories made an attempt to revive the private landlord; with the 1957 Rent Act by which all dwellings with a rateable value of over £30 (£40 in London and Scotland) were decontrolled. Apart from giving a handout to the landlords it was felt that increased rents would lead to more repairs being carried out. The dire consequences predicted by the Labour Party never fully came to pass and the Act largely backfired. Houses which were decontrolled were sold for owner-occupation rather than for reletting and landlords carried out very few repairs. The decline in the private rental sector continued, although even today the idea that it can be revived is still held by some Tories. But after the failure of the 1957 Act the Tory Party committed itself to extending owner-occupation the much heralded “property-owning democracy” they were allegedly creating. Present Tory policy is to encourage as many workers as possible to join the mortgage queue and to reduce council housing to what Short (op cit) brutally describes as the “residual tenure category". There is of course a still lower category — the homeless. In 1978, 53,100 families were accepted by local authorities and 57,200 in 1979, showing a rising trend (Short op cit). Attacks are still being launched on the better off council tenants in an effort to make them move out into owner-occupation. This has led to considerable stigmatisation, with its sniping at "scroungers" who are supposed to be parking their Jaguars outside their council homes as they live off the backs of the poor ratepayers! The 1972 Housing Finance Act aimed to reduce government subsidies so that rents would have to rise. The policy of encouraging the sale of council houses to sitting tenants was then introduced. Public spending on working class housing was to be cut if at all possible.

By the time the next Labour government was formed in 1964, the tide of owner-occupation had come in so far that they had to go along with it although the need to retain their traditional support meant that they were not as enthusiastic about it as the Tories. Labour controlled councils tend not to be too keen to sell council houses as, particularly in inner city areas, they have to bear the brunt of the problem of housing the homeless, and naturally don't wish to see their stock depleted. As might be expected, it is the best council houses which are most likely to be sold.

The earliest building societies were known as temporary societies. Members saved together and when enough was raised for one “share" this was allocated to one member to buy, rent or build accommodation. This member continued to pay his subscriptions until all had received a share, whereupon the society disbanded. From the mid-1850s permanent societies were formed. Now members could withdraw money at any time and borrowers paid back over a set period. They were given corporate status by the 1874 Building Societies Act.

The early societies were small and speculative in character. Inevitably their aggregate size increased as their numbers reduced through amalgamations and collapse. Even so from the passing of the 1874 Act up to the First World War the movement went through a rough time as the house market slumped and a number of scandals shook the confidence of potential investors. On occasions the state had to intervene to regulate matters. One of the largest, the Birkbeck, was saved by a government loan in 1892, promoting another Act of Parliament which compelled societies to publish details of members in arrears on their mortgages. The Birkbeck collapsed in 1911.

A few skilled artisans, the labour aristocracy of the time, were members of the earliest societies. However, it will already be clear that these bodies were not concerned with providing working class housing, as Frederick Engels noted in The Housing Question (1887). Kirkman Gray (A History of English Philanthropy, London 1905) notes that;

. . . societies afforded no training school for democracy; on the contrary the maintenance of the poor in a subordinate position was far from being an unimportant part of the aim of those who founded them. The charitable school bank, provident club, or friendly society was for the poor, but was not started or managed by them; it was under the control of the well-to-do.

E. J. Cleary (The Building Society Movement, Elek, 1965) adds the following: "The fact that the Droylesden Society (1792) collected subscriptions quarterly suggests that its members were scarcely weekly paid workers". Even more significant is Cleary’s passage concerning the reaction of the societies to the Rent Control Act of 1915:

It is an indication of the ambiguity of the building societies with regard to rental at this time that their reaction to a piece of legislation which, more than any other, launched the owner-occupation boom which has continued till the present day, was to describe it as “The gravest act of injustice ever inflicted by the British Parliament”. The author of that statement being not merely the Manager of the Temperance Building Society, but also a director of a property company owning 7,000 rented houses. (Cleary op cit p. 173.)

This does more than show that the building societies were profiting from private landlordism. It strongly suggests that much of the capital invested in this activity was before too long to be transferred to the construction of houses for “sale" on mortgage, to the benefit of the self same building societies! That the main concern of these bodies is with the interests of investors is shown by the following table quoted by Short (op cit). showing how share accounts are increasing quite a bit faster than either mortgage accounts or advances.

Short also reveals that in 1977, although 80 per cent of the share accounts held less than £2000. the remaining 20 per cent held by much larger investors constituted nearly three-quarters of the total balance. Also the ten largest societies out of the total of 287 registered in 1979 held 69.2 per cent of the total assets.

Further inequalities arise from the way the building societies allocate mortgages. Inevitably they tend to avoid risky propositions in order not to discourage potential investors. Good risks are those borrowers in salaried positions with good prospects. The bad are those not on salaries and with fluctuating incomes. There is also discrimination against older applicants, who receive shorter terms with higher repayments. The societies are not keen to lend on converted property, older property or property in industrial areas. Short (op cit) cites his personal experience in an interview with a branch manager. “He pointed to the St. Pauls district of Bristol and said ‘There are certain areas of the city where we won't lend’". Black workers and single mothers also encounter obstacles, even when they manage to raise the necessary cash, because their presence can “lower the tone” of the neighbourhood — and the selling price of the houses in it!

It is clear from all this that there are significant differences even between one mortgage-paying worker and another. Governments have at various times tried to counteract this through measures such as 100 per cent mortgages designed to push owner-occupation further down the pyramid, and reduce “public" spending on council housing.

E. C. Edge